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Washington’s Deplorable Handiwork


By Stephen Lendman
stephenlendman.org
7-22-17

 
Rogue states govern ruthlessly. They abhor democratic values, defy international law, spurn human and civil rights, sponsor state terrorism, and threaten the security of other nations.

America’s rogue credentials are longstanding - raping, destroying and exploiting other countries, imposing its will on them forcefully.

It bullies and threatens non-compliers, wages endless wars of aggression, stages color revolutions, meddles in foreign elections, and assassinates foreign leaders to get its way.

It seeks control over world oil supplies and other valued resources. It glorifies wars in the name of peace, calling regime change liberation.

Plunder is considered economic development, raping and destroying countries called democracy building. Terrorism is what they do, not us.

The human toll of wars is for our own good. Sacrificing human lives and freedoms is considered a small price to pay. Humanity is at risk but who cares.

Rules are for others to obey, not us. Washington makes its own. Media scoundrels support what demands condemnation.

Where does it all end, who knows? The horror of possible nuclear annihilation is excluded from official discourse and media reports.

Unacceptable demands are made on US citizens and others abroad. Disobeying risks imprisonment or more sinister punishments.

Might unjustifiably makes right. Governance of, by and for everyone equitably is considered anathema, social justice a nonstarter.

Neoliberal harshness is official policy. Force-fed austerity reflects it. Bipartisan complicity enforces it. Enriching bankers, war-profiteers, and other corporate favorites comes first.

Class warfare rages. A race to the bottom reflects it. Inequality is appalling. An unprecedented wealth disparity exists. Police state harshness enforces it.

Prosperity is for the privileged few exclusively. Most others struggle to get by. Millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs and other valued ones in many fields were offshored to low-wage countries. Rotten ones largely remain for most working-aged Americans.

Upside down reality threatens everyone everywhere. Criminality in high places is rewarded, not punished. Warmakers win peace prizes, peacemakers vilified, social democrats called traitors.

Freedoms are disappearing in plain sight. America’s leading growth industry is poverty. Depression-level unemployment, underemployment, hunger and homelessness are national scandals.

So is America’s global gulag prison system, the world’s largest by far. Its inequality is unprecedented among developed nations. The world’s richest one doesn’t give a damn about its poor and most vulnerable.

Privileged Americans never had things better, ordinary ones a missed pay check from homelessness, hunger and despair.

Open-checkbook funding is available for imperial wars, crumbs for healthcare and other vital social services.

Millions struggle daily to pay rent. service mortgages, handle medical bills, heat homes, cover transportation costs, and manage increasing daily expenses.

America has a higher percentage of working poor than any other industrialized country. It’s the only developed one without some form of universal healthcare.

It’s the world’s leading bully, the only nation waging endless imperial wars, responsible for millions of casualties and appalling human suffering.

It embargoes sovereign states unwilling to be bullied into compliance, refusing to surrender to US dominance - Cuba the most notable example, North Korea the latest one.

As of next month, it’s illegal for a US citizen to enter the country, violators subject to fines or imprisonment.

According to Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“(A) citizen of a state in which that citizen is present has the liberty to travel, reside in, and/or work in any part of the state where one pleases within the limits of respect for the liberty and rights of others, and…has the right to leave any country, including his or her own, and return to his or her country at any time.”

What applies to other nations worldwide isn’t observed by  America - operating by its own rules, no others, the way all rogue states do things.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
 
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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