Robert L. Terrell

Having shared some personal thoughts about why I am thinking about leaving the United States, it makes sense to provide similar commentary regarding the reasons why I will almost certainly remain here. But first I need note the fact that no matter how much I have ever enjoyed living abroad, being here at home provides soul satisfaction that can’t be replicated or equaled at any other location on the planet earth. It is that real, and it is for me as natural, wonderful and deeply satisfying as breathing. I am an American citizen, and I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is the U.S. government policies and practices that threaten and undermine the extraordinary principles on which the most wonderful portions of our contested national heritage rest. In other words, I wrestle with the moral dilemmas associated with life inside a dominant global empire at war. It is as simple as that, and I am very much aware that the problems associated most directly with my concerns are as old as civilization. But knowing this does not absolve me of responsibility for making morally sound decisions.

My best grand perspective of the situation is that empires of the sort exemplified by the United States generally fail for two or three reasons. First, they go bankrupt due to their inability to pay the wildly expanding costs associated with maintaining the empire. Second, they run out of blood, and thereby lose the ability to mount armies large enough to maintain their geographic perimeters. Third, the weight of the edifice of empire inevitably engenders a general decline in sobriety, civility, legality, fairness and social commitment to the common good.

It is easy to see that the U.S. is currently suffering mightily due to the escalating, deleterious impact of these three maladies. Moreover, the current administration’s crude assertion that international laws that obstruct its imperial objectives will be blithely ignored is an extremely bad sign. No matter how things work out, I fear that deeply troubling times lie ahead. If we get through the current presidential election cycle without anything out of the ordinary happening, I will be significantly reassured. I will also be deeply pleased if I have to proclaim in the aftermath of a totally normal election that I was unduly alarmed during this period. But I don’t expect to be surprised in that manner. This is due to several factors, not the least of them being the current state of the presidential campaign.

Where the most important geopolitical issues are concerned, each of the remaining presidential candidates remain wedded to the symbols and substance of empire. The Republicans vow to win the so-called “War on Terror” (against real and imagined enemies) with more troops, tighter surveillance, more military equipment and gobs of additional money. The Democrats claim that they can attain the same imperial objectives embraced by Republicans for less money via smarter, low profile, less irritating tactics.

None of the primary candidates to replace the hapless, don’t have much of a clue crew currently occupying the White House seems to be seriously considering the possibility that the U.S. government is actually at war with inevitable problems engendered by imperial hubris. For example, much of what the government and mainstream news media have taken to calling “terrorism” is little more than push-back responses by those in other sections of the world whom we presume to tutor and rule. My thoughts about leaving the U.S. notwithstanding, my basic commitment is to remain here, hunker down, and do whatever I possibly can to help make the case for dismantling the global U.S. empire.