Democracy 'should' be easy. Theoretically within the foundation of a democratic-social- system everyone has individual freedom to live their life as they choose. We have autonomy: to start a business or don't - seek career advancement in a business started by someone else or don't - continue with the family farm or don't - push our talents toward singing or writing or building or medicine or teaching or...don't...
Sounds simple enough - in theory...However, respect for individual freedoms via democracy or a republic government structure has had a rather shaky progression throughout recorded time.
But first, fellow-travelers while We-The-People and our print and video Press toss around words like "democracy" and "democratic" - U.S. citizens do not have a democratic-form-of-government. Like 159 other countries the United States is a Republic. In a Democracy [like Canada] the rule of a 'majority' of voters/citizens prevails. In a Republic [like Germany or France] voters/citizens elect representatives who pass laws, so the rule of 'law' prevails. Are our lawmakers in the Congress, Senate and Executive branch accountable? You bet. Another republic to which our United States has been compared is the Roman Empire.
In 753 BC the city of Rome itself according to historical-legend [via stories, myth, songs & poems] was founded by twins Remus and Romulus who were reportedly the offspring of Mars the god of war. [War huh, oh swell. Thank you 'not' dear, Mars.] Anyway, Rome began as a monarchy with Romulus the first king. During his rule the city expanded to encompass a greater region now known as Italy. After the death of Romulus, governing evolved away from a monarchy to that of a republic. Though - only - a republic for an elite class who were allowed to vote. This early republic was certainly not for servants or slaves.
In this thriving republic from 509BC to 306AD numerous ambitious Roman, upper-class proceeded to create a military machine that bullied the rest of the known world for centuries. Rome's military might prevailed until along came forward-thinking emperor Constantine who had a vision. [My theory: conquering and dominating nation after nation was costly in soldiers and finances...Hence, somewhere between the 312 AD Battle of the Milvian Bridge and 476AD Rome's military decline was an engineered metamorphosis.] Constantine [the Great] embraced Christianity! So intently that he went from emperor to pope and senators became cardinals and equestrians became bishops. Abracadabra! The Roman Empire transformed from controlling people who feared for their lives to the Roman Catholic Church, controlling people who feared for their souls... B-u-t that's just me.
Meanwhile back in North America, over several decades our Republic has been steered toward an engineered metamorphosis too by some unaccountable members of Congress and the Senate and Presidents due to conduct 'unbecoming'. [Even our revered 16th President, Abraham Lincoln at one point promised several coveted postal appointments in exchange for some needed Congressional votes...] Regardless of the governing label [republic or democracy] every link, every layer and every policy literally all of it depends on one single element...ETHICS.
Reading the Declaration of Independence and the entire U.S. Constitution, we can't help, believe the founders had the best of intentions. However, in the decades since, Main-Street-voters have trusted too many of the wrong people for too long. Our early developing republic [that elected George Washington its 1st President] with each additional state, became an encumbered system that became a compromised system. Compromised principles with patchy
accountability grew so entrenched over the centuries that even people elected to public office determined to make changes were converted or marginalized. When ethical conduct is compromised, covered up, justified, excused, ignored -and- when standards are systematically eroded - then fair and balanced governing decays. Who's to blame? Everyone. All of us.
11th President [D] POLK ADMINISTRATION 1845-1849 **The [elected] Managers for 'our' Affairs of State have too often been able to push their own agenda because influence and law-making authority rested entirely with them. Few may remember James K. Polk, but they should. Polk had an ambitious concept for American expansion westward that clashed with Mexico. What is now the states of Utah, Nevada, California, New Mexico and Arizona was, prior to 1846, northern Mexico. But a declaration of war in which we prevailed effectively reduced Mexico from an area of 1,781,069 square miles down to 761,606! How is that for being 'neighborly'...Do you think Mexico remembers that land grab? Did American voters have that same ideal? Nope...Expansion west could have been accomplished up, over and around Mexican territory and without the loss of 38,283 civilian and military lives from both countries.
**1857 saw a highly divisive decision by the Supreme Court that ruled articles of the U.S. Constitution did not extend citizenship to people of African descent and thus they could not enjoy the same rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. That decision is considered the worst in the Supreme Court's history, widely denounced as overt racism and creating the very division that led to the Civil War. Can we just thank the major contribution made by resilient African abductees for their economic impact toward America's growth since 1526! And - thank their patient descendants for waiting since 1867 for the rest of us to acknowledge their inventions, artistic gifts and scientific research..."Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!"
15th President [D] BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION 1857-1861 **Loyalty to a political party philosophy is expected and admirable but taken to extreme tends to serve the reverse. James Buchanan is to have remarked; "Slavery is an issue of little importance." Which would only make sense unless you were not an enslaved person. Far from accountability or considering any northern states' sentiment as a moral human rights matter, President Buchanan supported all slave states as important to the economy. Sadly, accountability can also depend heavily on a narrow perspective.
1896: The National Bureau of Criminal Identification was formed by George Koestle [of the Cleveland Police Department]. Koestle was an enthusiastic follower of the growing field in forensic science adopted by police departments all over the world. By 1908 President Rosevelt saw the merits of the new science and appointed Stanley Finch, Chief Examiner in the Department of Justice to oversee a Bureau of Investigation, hiring 60 investigators known as Secret Service Operatives. Working in tandem with the Treasury Department, that also had detectives - investigations in general soon were out of control. The Birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — FBI
By 1936, Congress had a better handle on several runaway investigations renaming the agency Federal Bureau of Investigation/FBI. The director appointed to run this newly chartered agency was J. Edgar Hoover who oversaw details of day-to-day operation from 1924 to 1972. So much so that ironically, Hoover compiled meticulous files of his own on thousands of prominent people in entertainment, business and politics...Hmmm, accountability ?
**By the turn of the 20thCentury, less than 400,000 indigenous people had survived genocide, stolen land, ignored treaties and broken promises. And from 1860 to 1900, about, a dozen presidents had knowingly or thoughtlessly authorized a disgraceful series of cruel and careless decisions that led to the displacement of hundreds of nations causing some to no longer exist. Accountability? Oh, m'gosh we can't say we're sorry often enough or loud enough...Forever! And besides precious lives we also lost valuable wisdom about nature-animals-plants-weather/the environment! "So Very, Very Sorry."
25th President [R] MCKINLEY ADMINISTRATION 1899-1901 **Using justification to free Cuban citizens oppressed by Spain's colonial rule, in 1898 President William McKinley went to war with Spain. McKinley's sights were set on the nearby, strategically located island. However, he had to be satisfied with acquiring Puerto Rico and the island of Guam for America's spoils of that war, because Cuba had no intention of letting America replace Spain. Loss of life for both sides was estimated at 6,838 mostly military.
33rd President [D] TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION 1945-1953 **Before the end of WWII there was the [OSS] Office of Strategic Services. It's then department head Lawrence Houston convinced President Harry Truman to eliminate the OSS and replace the department with an agency that could function on a broader more secret level thus offer greater protection for American citizens. Allowed to draft the Secret Agency Act, Lawrence Houston was not only architect and new Director of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] he designed this federal body to be exempt from 'any' oversight by Congress or the Senate or the President. Houston also created several company facades behind which CIA [clandestine] activities could be, were and still are hidden. There's a reason Syria and Iran took the United States off their Yaida-Night invitation list...Obviously Iran has a long-memory too. [See Working Without A Net: HISTORY IN AMERICA (workingwithnonet.blogspot.com) ]
34th President [R] EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION 1953-1961 **War heroes with political ambitions were almost politically unopposed. However, the respect, obedience and discipline ranking officers could count on in their military careers didn't always translate well for their civilian efforts. Subterfuge and defiance were too often the norm from career politicians and bureaucrats who understood the governmental-maze because they created it. Regardless - what the commander-in-chief authorized made him accountable. Profits for the U.S. United Fruit Company were at risk after a new government in Guatemala began a redistribution of farmland to peasants. Mysteriously that new government was replaced...Skewed intelligence or not - reports of attacks by dissident USSR planes still didn't give Dwight Eisenhower moral authority to engineer an Indonesian regime change...Back to Cuba, at first Fidel Castro was welcomed in DC, but quickly considered "too independent". There also followed a change in leadership in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then too, a visitor from outer space might be surprised [since we liberated France in WWII and they were the reason we won the War of Independence] to discover, we meddled with a paramilitary operation supporting South Vietnam against French colonialism. Imagine that...
35th President [D] KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION 1961-1963 **Historically Kennedy is 'credited' with averting WWIII. The Bay of Pigs, however, might have been a non-starter, if anyone in DC had set aside their ego long enough to work with Castro. By dismissing Fidel, Russia moved in to fill a governing void for the novice rebel. As administrative coach and advisor the U.S. could have kept the island from becoming isolated with its citizens trapped in a steady decline of national poverty. Meanwhile in South Vietnam what began a decade before as a rebellion against French colonialism under Eisenhower burst out of control with China an allied supporter of North Vietnam's claim on the entire region. Total battlefield deaths from 1955 to 1975 [not including thousands injured] was 1,353,000 civilian and military on both sides.
37th President [R] NIXON ADMINISTRATION 1969-1974 **As accountability goes, too often ego with an inflated view of authority replaces ethics. In this regard - President Richard Nixon's desperate ambition to be president from his time as Eisenhower's Vice President to his bitter loss against Kennedy - earned Nixon the greatest public fall-from-grace. Exposed for his part in authorizing the break-in at the Watergate Democratic offices was not due to the FBI, but by the Washington Post newspaper, that ultimately forced Nixon's resignation. As well, Nixon too complied files on people he considered his 'enemies' using his authority over the FBI and the IRS as weapons.
43rd President [R] BUSH W. ADMINISTRATION 2001-2009 **Initially it looked like the 9-11 terrorist attack on the New York twin towers, the Pentagon and downed United passenger Flight 93 would define President George W. Bush's presidency, but from an accountability perspective there's a great deal more. For much of President George Bush's two terms his V.P. Dick Chaney wielded a great deal of influence and was a major architect that pushed the lie "weapons of mass destruction." The bold lie told around the world in an open United Nations General Assembly to justify the invasion of Iraq. As well the location of Osama bin Laden was known only weeks after the attack on the U.S. but to justify spending millions on a dual war supporting troops and private contractors [until Barach Obama was elected President] the man behind the attack [somehow] remained illusive. But, America did get yet another policing agency; Homeland Security, that added an additional 240,000 more people to the Federal payroll, with absolutely no chance of securing the homeland. Another curious component to George Bush's Presidency was his "No Child Left Behind" education initiative, which managed to create just the opposite effect. When President Bill Clinton took office America's public school standing in the world was 6th. By the time Bush left office America's standing had dropped to 17th. Further, funds that should have gone to education and maintaining or updating aging infrastructure was siphoned off to a created war.
44th President [R] TRUMP ADMINISTRATION 2017-2021 **This brings my tyrranid to President Donald Trump. For the 2016 Election, America's choices for president were either: Hilary Clinton [former Secretary of State who dismissed any accountability for the embassy deaths under her watch in Bengahzi and how 300 confidential emails ended up on the personal laptop of Anthony Weiner a convicted sex-offender] -or- Donald J. Trump [a mouthy, untried corporate CEO]. Because - during the Democratic Primary Campaign Bernie Sanders had accumulated a following that equaled Hilary Clinton's it was a shock when [somehow] Hilary became the Democratic Nominee. My theory as to 'how' Trump was elected President #44 was due as much to thousands of Sanders' followers voting against Hilary as for Trump. The creation of Opportunity Zones was commendable, but that was overshadowed by his dismissive council of others and adolescent name-calling. Then in 2020 Trump's arrogance sabotaged his 2nd term reelection bid when he refused to debate Joe Biden. After the election poor judgement followed by even more arrogance, fueled misguided people who stormed the Capital January 6th, 2021. Though--besides no accountability on Trump's part--how was it that in DC a city packed with police, local, military and federal none were authorized by Pelosi or Schumer for crowd control as thousands assembled? Just asking...
45th President [D] BIDEN ADMINISTRATION 2021- to present **Our dysfunctional 118th [R] Congress sputtering the word impeachment wastes time digging into Biden's political and financial history that is irrelevant. This Congress doesn't need to go back any farther that Biden's collection of Executive Orders signed his first two days in office. Has President Biden disregarded his Oath of Office by not following immigration laws already in place, that allowed 10+ million illegal immigrants to invade the United States, most of whom we know nothing? And besides President Joe Biden no one else seems accountable, certainly not the Secretary of Homeland Security. Certainly not the Secretary of Transportaion ignoring aging infrastructure for roads, bridges, shipping ports/supply-chains and airports... Certainly not John Kerry still pushing for a green-environment mostly via EVs, wind and solar subsidies. Did Biden skirt the Supreme Court ruling on student loan forgiveness? Has Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary been accountable for government spending that shot inflation up causing an increase in interest rates - that also ballooned our national debt? Was the lack of ability and/or action on the part of President Biden and his Secretary of State responsible for allowing Russian aggression leading to another war?
All people seeking any public office need confidence, but when confidence is overtaken by ego that imbalance can seriously impair good judgement. Does a rematch between Trump and Biden make sense? I object to both candidates for the same reasons - they're both too advanced in age and neither one has been in the least bit accountable...
Sherrie Todd-Beshore is an award-winning mystery-suspense novelist and former journalist.
