Maybe we should develop an empire composed of a vast Humanitarian Environmental Cultural Complex.

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If you asked the "average" American if the USA is an "empire" you might get many answers, but there is no question that our Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex utilizes a disproportionate amount of the national treasury and creates far fewer jobs than most industries per billion dollars spent. Also the United States government plays favorites by allocating trillions of dollars through spending and tax law. The Congress enacts favorable legislation for specific industries and institutions that often do not benefit the American people.

The examples are endless: passing favorable tax legislation allowing private companies to seek manufacturing abroad, permitting pharmaceutical companies to advertise prescription drugs on television to the general public whose medical training is limited, subsidies to favorite industries that do not benefit the public, such as during the 1980s the Congress allocated millions of dollars to cigarette manufacturers to advertise their products overseas.

How much legislation benefiting organizations and corporations actually is harmful to most Americans and the overall economy? Favoritism in legislation has in many instances become legalized corruption which is advantageous for a few at the expense of the majority. Favoritism in legislation often means using the canopy of public service for advancing private gain.

The infrastructure of the United States is in disrepair, such as bridges and roads. High speed rail across the country has been ignored and if high speed rail existed the country would have reduced its dependence on oil and the internal combustion engine long ago. Countries in Europe and Asia have had successful high speed rail transport for decades.

There are now many impending crises caused by Democrats and Republicans: lack of sufficient government regulation in the financial industry, lack of sufficient government regulation in the oil drilling industry, lack of sufficient government regulation in food and drug inspection and lack of national fiscal restraint incurring huge budget deficits and an immense national debt growing by the day and two open-ended optional wars. The lack of adequate enforcement and laws has fostered massive illegal immigration. How can one blame the immigrants when they can find jobs here as well as citizenship for their children who are born here?

The costs of two wars are now in the trillions of dollars. The purpose of all this war making and spending is to make the country safe and secure. It is clear that these wars are not making the country safer and more secure. Yet, the elites managing the country claim that all this immense war spending is necessary, but offer no proof, only speculation. On the other side there is ample proof that these wars are making us and the world less safe. Iraq and Afghanistan after a decade the violence continues unabated. Attempted attacks within the United States also continue.

The antagonisms against us overseas are multiplying and the solution for our leaders is to station our army all over the globe to make us secure as well as using mercenaries. Yet domestically the citizenry are more insecure economically. Are any of us safer from crime today than a generation ago? Is identity theft a crime made easier and more damaging by linking all credit cards and credit to each person's individual social security number? Is it more about government control than individual safety from crime?

Is invading two countries and engaging in war spending trillions of dollars maiming and killing up to one million people as well as sacrificing thousands of American lives to thwart a small terrorist organization the best strategy? The only purpose to use military force was to apprehend or kill the leaders of the terrorist organization that caused 9/11 because law enforcement was unable to accomplish this particular operation or mission.

Hubris is arrogant pride and presumption which is now mentioned in books and articles concerning the national overreach in two wars. Was the Vietnam War another example of hubris? Where are our leaders coming from and what lessons from history have they learned? Have our leaders learned nothing from history? Is the pool from which our leaders are drawn too small, too limited and noxious?

Our national leaders panicked after 9/11 by invading two countries claiming Iraq, a lesser developing country had bad intentions towards the United States, and Afghanistan was responsible for planning 9/11. The analogy is invading the state where the Oklahoma bombing was planned in order to stop the next Oklahoma bombing. The fact is that most of the planning for 9/11 was done here in the United States with the perpetrators learning how to fly commercial jets. The federal government was warned several times about these perpetrators learning how to fly without wanting to learn how to land planes. Even after 9/11 the deceased plotters received visa extensions in the mail. The incompetence by our government was so gross that the president and vice president should have been removed from office. Instead they were re-elected primarily or in part because the mainstream press ignored their immense failures believing in the primacy of the status quo. Both political parties-Republicans and Democrats- believed that they would be damaged in the political rancor of impeachment and removal from office of the president and vice-president. It is more about party than country. It is more about money and favoritism than country and the American people.

The two party system is failing the country. Maybe other voices need to lead the country. Maybe other political parties need to join and participate in the fray of governing the country. It appears there has to be a complete collapse of the system for substantial change to occur and by then the American people will bear the brunt of an economic meltdown. Where in the Constitution does it limit governance of the country to two parties? Or is it only these two parties that can be trusted? A democracy does not run on automatic pilot. Now, we have a runaway plane with Democrats and Republicans alternating as pilot and co-pilot.

Whether one wants to label the people managing the government and those receiving enormous financial benefits elites or not, the fact is the majority of the American people have diminished economic opportunities and the natural environment, including the land, rivers and oceans are being degraded more with each passing day. Are government efforts to make a cleaner environment sufficient? How long before debris and garbage of humanity choke the earth? Do you know that there are great swaths of ocean covered in debris and garbage over thousands of miles in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans? Now the Gulf of Mexico is being polluted with crude oil. Is it preposterous that humanity can pollute the entire planet making life unlivable or so precarious? Will economic necessity ruin the planet before we are able to reconcile economic needs with environmental necessity?

Americans have relied on brute force since the country was founded to subdue Native Americans. The two World Wars in the Twentieth Century reinforced the notion of a strong military and the advent of the Cold War cemented the belief that a vast Military Industrial Complex was necessary. Now, the country has to consider whether so much funding will be devoted to military spending or will another course be chartered using our skills, technology and know-how to propel ourselves into a more secure world. It is a slow process, but it cannot be accomplished with rifles and bombs. Maybe we should develop an empire composed of a vast Humanitarian-Environmental-Cultural Complex. Courage does not come out of a barrel of a gun. Courage is overcoming near insurmountable obstacles trying to accomplishing positive things for ourselves and humanity while preserving the Earth.

Who is benefiting from the creation of an Empire? Has pride in Empire become a rotten plank in the Constitutional timber? These questions ought to be answered before we continue two wars and start a third war.

The words of Henry David Thoreau echo even louder today:

What is the use of a house if you don't have a tolerable planet to put it on?

In Wildness is preservation of the world.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are lovers of law and order, who observe the law when the government breaks it.

Why Thoreau Is Still Relevant

Authors Website: http://www.amazon.com/Henry-Pelifian/e/B007IUGMY8

Authors Bio:

Henry Pelifian has written many columns and articles on government and current events. He has published a play THOREAU based on the life, works and words of Henry David Thoreau, a war novella and short stories based on his years overseas called Stellar Energies To America and Land of the Tuk-Tuk set in Thailand and Iran.

He served two years (66-68) in the U.S. Army and deployed to South Vietnam for one year from 67-68 and he served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand (75-77). He has an B.A. in English/Drama/Education and an MBA in International Management. He has worked in Thailand, Malaysia and Iran during the Shah's era and he has experience in both public and private sectors.