1. 1776 to 2000

The United State of America was formed by white males to secure for themselves and their families the benefits of nation-statehood. They fought 2 wars to convince England that further direct meddling was too painful for the benefit.

After experimentation with confederacy, the founders established a constitutional representative democracy, which assured that the "right" sort of people would remain in control.

To gain adequate acceptance, they inserted a Bill of Rights denying the state the typical mechanisms for suppressing revolt. The constitution nominally accepts its own demise.

Within a few years, the ballot process allowed in a "wrong" sort (Andrew Jackson), due in large part to his success in exterminating Indians living on land desired by whites.

By 1860 the initial freedom-to-revolt was forgotten. The rulers decided to forbid dissolution of the nation-state, and fought a war to force everyone to agree to this.

After the Civil war, the way was clear to exterminate more Indians and take more of their land. The process was facilitated by limited-liability corporations which lived beyond a specific project. This new form of gang was so powerful that by 1886 it had the supreme court confer on it the Bill of Rights, as if it were a human. Corporations could then use the rights originally intended to allow humans to stand up to the state, to take control of the state.

A corporation is of course a fiction which hides the actual human power brokers from view. Thus the 1886 announcement formed two classes of citizens: The wealthy few who run major corporations, and everyone else.

There have been sporadic efforts to rein in corporate power (and thus restore democracy), but since corporations own the media, the schools, the congress, the courts, and the military, these are short-lived efforts at best.

The efforts are driven by people who quixotically believe in the ideals enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States. Some know the treachery of the inner circle firsthand (Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt and Eisenhower). Some start from pure idealism (scholars and students). Some come from hard-fought battles with corporations (unions). Some are keen observers (reporters such as Mark Twain). Some come from a deep insight into the fragility of civilization, knowing that only a fair and shared destiny in statehood prevents the chaos of warring gangs (typically the elderly and veterans)

As corporations gained international experience, they found they had little in common with geographically-oriented nation-states. They became multi-nationals, who considered nation-states a bothersome complexity on the world market. Through informal and formal channels, they formed their own state mechanisms (e.g., IMF, World Bank, WTO), and made the nation-states subservient to those mechanisms (e.g., via NAFTA).

2. 2000-present: The Gulf Wars

A gang of oil-industry corporate elites took control of the USA in 2000. They ran a slate of candidates chosen from "in the family". They poured vast sums into the effort. They destroyed competitors (from any party) with media blitzes. They won. They installed their own lobbiests in every corner of the USA federal mechanism.

To win the election, they needed voters. It was cheap to declare solidarity with evangelical "Christians", and promise any anti-abortion or school oriented position they demanded. After all, the wealthy of the world go to hospitals and schools where they wish, and are not constrained to make do with US resources.

It was fairly cheap to wrap themselves in the flag (you have to own the media outlets to pull this off, when your competitors are war heroes and you are a draft dodger and AWOL).

Once in power they could set about solving two major problems:

Last time they were in power, they gave Iraq's Saddam Hussein lots of weapons. They wanted those weapons back or destroyed.
The world was running out of oil. The remaining reserves were in the Middle East. The Middle East is home of Muslims. The oil-gang had bribed a few at the top for generations, but there were second tier players who wanted to kick the US out. Saudi Arabia needed the US out of Saudi Arabia per se. Iraq was a handy place to establish land-bases and carry on the overt and covert control of the Middle East oil reserves.

Unfortunately, unlike the 1800's, you can no longer invade someone to get their oil or to establish land bases. You need an excuse that sounds like they are intending to invade you.

This has been discussed for many years, with the agreement that the oil-gang needed a "new Pearl Harbor". Better yet, it needed the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Lo and behold, someone conveniently demolished the World Trade Center (WTC) and attacked the Pentagon. Precisely why our normal (and well-tested) responses didn't prevent these events remains a mystery to this day. Nor shall we ever know what happened, because (contrary to all std procedures for building fires, collapses and airplane crashes) the forensic evidence was immediately destroyed. Nevertheless, it provided the needed excuse to go grab oil resources.