The U.S. is the superpower in the world. She has only a short history of 246 years since her independence breaking away from Great Britain her master colonizer. The U.S. rose rapidly as a modern country with territorial expansion, industrialization and trade. The forefathers of the U.S. wisely adopted the three principles, capitalism, freedom and democracy as the foundations for nation building even though the principles were new ideas subject to development and refinement as her government system was being constructed. The U.S. is a great nation blessed with huge land and natural resources, protected by the Pacific Ocean on her west and Atlantic Ocean on her east. Luckily, the U.S. experienced WW I and WW II without any battle on her home turf and emerged as a victor. After WW I, the U.S. had become a significant world power among the European states. After WW II, the U.S. became a superpower after the European nations, including UK and Russia were all devastated by the war and Germany and Japan were crushed and defeated by the Allies. The U.S. rightfully emerged as the world’s superpower after WW II and took on the leadership role on world stage with her Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and took advantage of her occupation of Japan to lead Asia to recovery from ruins caused by the Japanese Imperial army.
There was another political philosophy, communism, rooted in Ancient Greek and Rome philosophers and later elucidated by Thomas More’s book, Utopia, and echoed by Christian Universalist teaching that humankind is one and God does not discriminate among people. Thus, communism thought can be traced back to 16-18th century, such as the idea of abolition of private ownership of land which was evidenced in Edward Bernstein’s book (1895), Cromwell and Communism. In the early 19th century, various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. Unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the religious emphasis with a rational and philanthropic basis. During the industrial revolution, many social problems occurred, such as workers' working conditions etc. Karl Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels, in 1848, offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. Communism started its revolution in Russia, In 1917, the October Revolution in Russia brought Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks (communist party with the Bolsheviks having the majority) to state power. The event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx’s socialism and communism to be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development was not workable in poor Russia with an enormous illiterate peasantry and just a minority of industrial workers. The peasants demanded for land reform and popular support for the Soviets. Hence, the development of Soviet Union dictated the evolution of communism and triggered the U.S. anti-communism and anti-Russia ideologies.
Now that the Soviet Union had collapsed after the end of Cold War, the U.S. should be the only superpower commanding the world leadership. But the rise of China has challenged the U.S. position not because of communism but her diligence in finding a workable system for nation development. China’s success may be correlated with Marx’s vision that communism works better with capitalism foundation, but that would be an oversimplification of China’s success. This author believes that it is the political system not ideology that has made China efficient and focused in delivering benefits to her people. In contrast, the U.S. has been on a decline with her own deeds. The author believes that there are two monsters in American Democracy which are crippling her political system and society. These two monsters are, one, discrimination (obvious but denied), which is dealt with by laws on the surface but in reality, systemically persistent in the American society. The second monster is money, the U.S. dollars protected under the American capitalism (not obvious but admitted), which means the U.S. dollars, backed by military power, has a monstrous strength to do business in the world. The U.S. dollars can never fail regardless of American productivity and have unlimited supply by printing spoiling the American governments in their monetary policies and behaviors. If there is no other nation rising in economy and military strength to challenge her, the U.S. would only have one monster and not two to worry about. With China’s rise, the U.S. must face the two monsters in order to save her from decline.
Let’s first examine how discrimination is a monster destroying the future of the U.S. First, we have to admit that discrimination exists in American democracy. The U.S. is an immigrant nation with white immigrants dominating the country since her colonial days. The history showed us native American were discriminated (literally eliminated in the U.S.), then the Blacks were discriminated and still persistent today. The Asian Americans were discriminated throughout the past two centuries since they arrived. Today, the discrimination monster raised its head again against Asians, Chinese especially. The Mexicans are discriminated despite of the laws making Spanish language printed on all documents. These discrimination have monstrous effects while the white population is shrinking relative to the other races. The U.S. advocate, defend and export democracy but the on-going discrimination domestically is the monster revealing hypocrisy and double standards in American democracy. If Martin Luther King was not assassinated and got elected as a U.S. President that would be evidence for democracy. Obama, son of a Kenyan, educated through a discriminating system by privileges and got elected as the President is hardly democracy at work but a discriminatory and controlled system at work. Discrimination was so entrenched that it became open practice when China was perceived as a threat; the American government openly discriminate against Chinese Americans (treating every Chinese Americans as a spy) never mind Chinese people (stopping them coming to our universities). The value and contributions of immigrants to the U.S. do not need citation; the Chinese Americans shine in all disciplines. These monstrous discrimination actions will produce monstrous effects accelerating the U.S. decline.
The second monster is hard to describe its cause and effect. We practice capitalism and so are many other countries including China who is gingerly embracing capitalism. It is not capitalism being the monster in American democracy. It is the enormous amount of U.S. dollars controlled by a few that is the evil. First, our elections are controlled by money, the U.S. dollars. A presidential election requires a billion dollars or more. Whoever has the money will control the election. Whoever has the money can lobby the Congress to pass their preferred laws. Just look at the anti-China bills, the sponsors and supporters get money from anti-China organizations even foreign entities while the U.S. recognizes only one China and try to resolve differences with China. Why do we allow money monsters rather than our citizens to guide our policies? Many of our foreign wars can be traced to interests of the money monster rather than our citizens' wishes. Must we let the military-industry complex or giant oil companies decide our national policies such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya wars or Iran relation? Is China’s rise as a manufacturing giant supplying goods to American citizens at lower prices a threat to our citizens’ lives or money men's wealth? Or can waging a war benefit our citizens or our military weapon manufacturers? We have to recognize and reveal the hidden money monsters who are controlling our democracy and leading us to decline. Our scholars have long recognized that waging war is not a solution. We must deal with the root of our problems, that is the two monsters in American Democracy!
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