THE CRUMBLING OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

            For decades, Americans have arrogantly mocked our neighbors to the south, Mexico, as the corrupt Mexican culture, the huge “spoil system”, the land of the “mordida”(bribe/payoff). For the most part, Americans’ perception has been correct, as especially indicated by the recent news coverage of businessmen in Mexico City who openly boasted stealing American corporate copyrights because they were able to get away with it which they regarded as shrewd. The vast corruption in Mexico and fall of morality and ethics among the populous, both private and governmental, has crippled that nation from evolving into a true democracy.  A government of the people with equal rights for all with a large middle class. Instead, opportunistic politicians and aristocrats in Mexico have cemented in a dreadful, strong, and uncompromising economic caste system of the super rich and the super poor, absent a middle class. A peonage system wherein the large majority of its citizens exist in such abject poverty that their economic resources are a hair above slavery. Such a strong peonage system is the result of moral decay and the shameless exploitation of the masses.

            Righteous Americans have decried the deplorable condition of Mexico’s peons and the national collapse of morality and virtues which have led the rich and powerful to capitalize on the impotency of Mexico’s ocean of poor people. Forever poor and exploited appears to be their inescapable fate. Mexico’s peons will probably never acquire the resources to reach economic justice, short of a full-scale and bloody civil war to remove its aristocrats and widespread spoil system, because their condition is intentionally maintained by their exploiters, Mexico’s upper class rich who are making money off their plight. These righteous American observers appear to have become so single focused that they would be truly shocked if Mexico, in turn, held up a mirror to Americans regarding what has and is happening to America.

            America and Americans of late have been referred to as the American Empire, and accurately so when considering American’s vast influence on the world community, the spread of its economic power in which trade with the American market constitutes the anchor of multiple countries’ economies, and America’s colossus military power dwarfing most major powers. There was another empire just as powerful if not more powerful than the American Empire. The Roman Empire. Ironically, the Roman Empire, during its dominant years, was never defeated. However, the Roman Empire collapsed from within. What happened?

            Like Mexico, the Roman Empire started, morally decaying from within, also with a huge spoil system, with rampant intra-empire corruption. A freeze frame glance of America today reveals that its moral decay is starting to parallel that of the Roman Empire. If moral decay took down the Roman Empire, it can take down the United States and reduce America to a crumbling empire.

            Examples of the American spoil system are defense contractors inventing hoax wars, such as the Viet Nam, Afghan, and Iraq wars, with their attendant genocides where millions of human beings died, merely to lift one trillion dollars per war from the United States Treasury. Other examples of progressing moral decay in America are multi-nationals (non-patriotic) outsourcing millions of American jobs just to pay a few dollars less per hour to Asian workers with no regard to the American family on welfare, physicians, through false representations, performing unnecessary lucrative surgeries by the tens of millions such as tonsillectomies, appendectomies, hysterectomies, back operations, and now complete hip joint replacements with steal rods and balls that do not work, to become very rich with early retirement. (A good argument for national health care.) These few examples represent a shocking mirror reflection “free fall” of American ethics  and morality. Such corruption can be vividly observed in the massive number of internet advertisements that have invaded everyone’s email addresses. Blatant criminal activity abounds therein in the form of fraudulent misrepresentations as agents of major U. S. industries such as Wal-Mart, Dell, and Google, with alleged free give away lies to snare a sleeping and naïve American public into providing personal information to these bandits such as email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and credit card numbers. Such information then allows these thieves to tap into peoples’ bank accounts on a monthly basis, and the free gifts never arrive. These defrauders sell this personal information to thousands of advertisers who then plague these sucked-in victims on all communication levels, blasting them with their ads to where all personal information has to be changed.

            Other examples of corruption within the American business community and its flight from ethics are corporate executives and CEOs who vote themselves huge bonuses  with some in the half billion dollars such as the CEO from Exxon who recently retired, and the falsifying of asset worth through inflated accounting such as Enron did to attract investors. The European business community now refers to American financiers and financial institutions as a pack of pirates no longer qualified to lead the world economy. Another example of sinkhole corruption and the absence of ethics in America is the life insurance industry which only pays off on 12% of its policies by hiking up the premiums when elders retire, after paying 30 years on the policy, to a level where the elder is forced to drop the policy because he or she can no longer afford it.  Also, sell-outU. S. Representatives , basically transferring the American democracy to a corporate multi-national oligarchy by selling all their votes for the right amount of money in lobbyist attaché cases, is another example of sinking American ethics and morality. “Oh, where is Sir Oliver Cromwell when you need him.” The most blatant example of business corruption is American banks, which used to charge 25 cents for a NSF overdraft check. Through the transfer of the right amount of lobbyist cash, banks have gotten U. S. Representatives  and state representatives  to permit them to charge $32.50 for an overdraft plus $25.00 collection charges from collection companies owned by the banks, driving the poor into dust as the rich do not overdraw. The most unethical banking gimmick to secure this $57.50 overdraft fee for a possible one dollar check is to not record the last credit/debit card charge for 48 hours which then shows a positive balance when the banking customer checks his balance at the ATM before his next  purchase, causing him to blindly overdraw. If the NSF check was denied credit at the cash register, there would be no overdraft/collection fees disemboweling the poor. Another example of the fleeting of ethics in America is a cell phone company which charges $6.00 if a payment is one day late and then keeps moving up the payment date by one day each month, unbeknownst to the cell phone customer.

            It appears, lately, that the only difference between the United States and Mexico, regarding the absence of ethics and morality, and a spoil system, is Mexico is the land of the small “mordida”. The United States is the land of the big mordida. Just as corruption and the fall of ethics and morality took down the mighty Roman Empire from a decay from within and not an enemy force, that same inner decay regarding Americans’ abandonment of business and personal ethics is presently taking place in America . An inner malignancy which, if it spreads far enough, could kill the American Empire. An irresponsible U. S. Government, recently under the control of a sell-out Republican Party for the last eight years ,is responsible for  the widespread piracy in America and level of uncontrolled corruption between the U. S. Government and multi-nationals. Such represents the corrupt legacy of Corporate America’s poster child, former President George W. Bush.

            For America to survive, ethics, morality, and integrity must be restored to the national government, state governments, and government at all levels as well as within the business community, and on a personal level. We can no longer be a big Mexico with a mammoth spoil system. A vast reform movement must be started in America to install new codes of ethics and morality for corporations and businesses, and for all office holders whether at the local, state, or national level, enforced by serious penal code sanctions and prison terms for all offenders.

            For America to regain its health and strength, which is always based on the eradication of business and political corruption, all these “rat nests” over running the nation must be burnt out. It is time for a reform movement, championed by the populous of America, to launch a major drive to clean up America, and vote out of office every politician who resists same or doesn’t contribute to the movement. In the final analysis, it is the people, as always, who are able to bring about major change, such as the suffragettes, and put an end to the tsunami of  corruption presently drowning the United States of America. The Roman Empire fell. Maybe the United States doesn’t have to fall. We used to be a truly great nation and beacon of light for the world. We can be again. It is up to a non-apathetic American people who cares enough to recreate this great nation. We did it before. We can do it again. With a pro-active moral American populous, the American Empire can continue just a little bit longer.

            Apathetic Americans must never forget that the United States is and continues to be a “work in progress.” However, it must be good work.