America, Expanding

"I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever" Thomas Jefferson supposedly said. Actually, unlike some famous quotes falsely attributed to people like Jefferson and Mark Twain. Jefferson does seem to have actually said this, in reference to the insittution of slavery, in whcih Jefferson freely engaged, but had serious misgivings about. But, like so many gerat and famous quotes from great and famous people, this one has meaning on a seemingly unlimited number of levels, is applicable to a wide ranging number of situations. Jeffrson was literally born and raised into a culture of slavery. He said that his first memory was of being carried as an infant in the arms a slave woman, and on his death bed he allegedly remarked that his fianl moments seemed destined to place his care in the hands of another slave woman. With regard to the hundreds of slaves Jefferson inherited from his father, he had a tiger by the tail, in that, he was thereby trapped himself within this "peculiar" economic institution which so clearly, then and now, defies and defiles fundamental concept of human decency and dignity. Jefferson's attitude towrds the intitution of slavery seemed to be that it would eventually have to be phased out of American life. Presumably, by implication, he meant that the institution of slavery, hundreds of years old in the United States and deeply embedded into the culture and economy, could not simply be ripped out by the roots and burned in a pile of rubbish, but rather, would have to be gradually eased out of existence to make the transition as painless as possible for the entrenched, monied interests who profited from it and who had no real desire or intentions of ending it. George Washington and some other slave owning founders freed their slaves, Jefferson, who kept talking about it, never did, other than his slave girlfriend Sally Hemmings and some of her family members. People, especially religious people, like to talk about receiving the just rewards in heaven or hell for our lives we chhose to live on Earth. It may be that, more often than not, whatever we deserve, we get sooner that than, right here on Earth, in the present life. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner, in his famous "Turner Thesis" explained American history as a process of expansion. Westwerd expansion across the continent, and expanion into overseas markets. It is an historic fact that when the United States finally reached the west coast in the late 19th century, it didn't stop there, but continued to probe and expand, out into and across the Pacific Ocean, and southward, extending its influence into our current global empire. Within more than eight hundred military bases on foreign soil, indeed, the term "global empire" applies to the United States, and has for a long time. The United States has craved ownership of Cuba from the beginning. The Spanish empire was willing to sell Florida to the United States, but not Cuba. Perhaps history would have been kinder to the island in American hands, but, as they say, we'll never know. A quick glance at a map makes it tempting to believe that the large array of islands in the Caribbean is naturally, by virtue of geography, destined to come under American control. The only "fly in the ointment" so to speak, is that the idea fo becoming part of these United States is evidently no more appealing generally to our southern neighbors than it is to our neighbors to the north. Go figure.