CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

From Omnipotence to Democracy

Ceremonies during the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii, 1898. Raising American Flag at United States Annexation Ceremony at ʻIolani Palace, Honolulu, Hawaii. The American marines performing the ceremony are from the USS Philadelphia. Collection: Ray Jerome Baker Collection. Public Domain.

I have been in the United States for most of my life. I witnessed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I could never understand why that young, handsome, intelligent and nearly great statesman was cut down. Kennedy was the son of petroleum wealth. However, he and the Soviet leader Nikita Chruschev saved the world from nuclear war annihilation. That experience convinced Kennedy that nuclear weapons and states don’t mix. He intended to abolish nuclear weapons before those genocidal bombs abolished humanity. His murder was fact number one that America was already in deep decline – in 1963. Gangsterism is the antithesis and enemy of democracy and civilization.

In 1963, I was a student at the University of Illinois. With rudimentary knowledge of English, I went through course in zoology. I really did not have a clear idea of what my “major” should be. I loved learning about the Greeks and other people, so I moved to historical studies: ancient, medieval, modern Greek and European diplomatic history, Roman, British, Russian, Soviet and Southeastern European history. Then, as a postdoctoral fellow, I turned to the insights and wisdom of the history of science at Harvard.

The next step in understanding my new home, the United States, was my work on Capitol Hill and the US Environmental Protection Agency. That 27 year experience was fact number two, that the United States was in deep decline. A “democratic republic” allowed a few corporations, domestic and foreign, to legally lace most of the food Americans eat with neurotoxic and carcinogenic chemicals – for the convenience of large farmers. No civilized society would have tolerated such a crime.

The state of America in 2026

America in 2026 is a pilotless supertanker floating in the oceans of planet Earth. In February 2026, Trump and Netanyahu of Israel attacked Iran. This unprovoked war unsettled and angered Pope Leo XIV. He said, a “delusion of omnipotence” is fueling the [US-Israel] war that has left thousands dead.” Indeed, the delusion of omnipotence powers became the hubris that led Trump to start the illegal war against Iran. Trump did not like Leo’s criticism. He accused the Pope of being weak on crime.

President Trump is ruling by edict, thus bypassing and almost shutting down the Constitutional responsibilities of US Congress.

One of the worst decisions of Trump was his undermining of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the country’s sole institutional “protector” of public and environmental health. But Trump undid EPA. An EPA scientist was just fired because he requested the monitoring of microplastics in a fish farm. In my lengthy experience at the US EPA, only the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s nearly matched the........

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