It is sheer hypocrisy that George W. Bush and the brain dead right-wing can suggest we can export democracy and our superior perception of human rights to countries like Iraq.
The U.S. has an ignoble history and with regard to human rights, democracy, and generally our way of life, we have failed. We have a long history of treating those in need, and women, children, immigrants, indians, our own people with a disregard that can't be compared to any "civilized" society. ? Today, the U.S. required registration, detention, and expulsion of immigrants and foreign nationals (since 9/11, especially those with Arab sounding names - even if they were born and lived elsewhere all their lives) ---- very often without due process -- no hearing and no access to legal counsel. The U.S. takes land and property from the original owners of all the land, the American Indians -- and again without due process and often without compensation. The U.S. imprisons and executes minorities at incredibly high rates of incarceration and execution -- disproportionate to the overall population. And we have more of them - and more people in prisons than any other country in the world: including Western and non-Western countries. AND, the rates of incarceration in PRIVATE prisons is going up and they are increasingly being managed for profit by private corporations. Almost 40,000,000 people in the U.S. are impoverished and the gap between rich and poor is exploding. And over 70,000,000 U.S. citizens had NO health insurance during some part of 2001 and 2002, the last dates we have those figures. In the U.S. discrimination is in every nook and cranny of this society and we look the other way. SO, what does the right-wing say about this. With their blinders on they say it is worse elsewhere and this is the "best place to live in the world" while we have made those comparisons on PNEWS-L and it simply isn't true. They say poverty is a good thing in a market economy -- and they have the gall to say even that it is desireable to have a level of poverty. Who afterall will take those menial, and poor paying jobs? Apparently not enough, which means to them we're not poor enough - so those jobs get outsourced. AND, jobs in the U.S. become underpayed and many have to work more than one job and sometimes more than two jobs just to be able to pay their bills because everything does cost too much. Profits are up for corporations because prices and labor costs are down. Human Rights is a concept that really emerged after WWII with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. The fact is, the U.S. has opposed these rights and many of the treaties which developed in the U.N. to guarantee human rights were never ratified by the United States. There is the "universal" right to be free from torture and degrading treatment, yet many prisoners (especially enemy combatants) are turned over to countries that we have relationships with regardless of their human rights conduct, who regularly torture prisoners and in fact the U.S. has come under scrutiny for torturing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Guantanamo. There is the right to be free from arbitrary arrest and from being exiled, but since the Patriot Act, many have been arbitrary held without charges being imposed against them. The ACLU is suing to get these prisoners released. That is a fight that goes on. As for the right to an adequate standard of living, that is almost a joke, if it was not funny and that issue has been covered adequately in our PNEWS forums and in the Portals -> http://pnews.org/ (for links). The right to health care has all but been ignored. All of the rights mentioned, and much more, are covered in Declarations Against..... (them). Why is there so much U.S. exceptionalism? Why is there so much Israeli exceptionalism? Israel seems try to mimic the U.S. better than the U.S. immitates itself. But the sad truth is the U.S., has failed miserably to ratify United Nations Declarations to guarantee human rights in more than half the cases. In most instances there is NO United States recognized human rights guarantees. To ratify them would criple the U.S. legal system. And the U.S. has a shameful historical record. It is almost funny to see George W. Bush defend the U.S. as the world's greatest example of freedom and democracy. It almost makes you wonder what world he lives in? Hank Roth --- / o o \ PNEWS Topic Specific Portals (Vortals) ===OO=====OO================================================= http://pnews.org/vortal/ New World disOrder and Myth Busters http://g0lem.net/vortal/ Insane Planet and Wacko World http://g0lem.net/portal/ Bad-Ass Truth and TheGolemsPortal http://pnews.org/portal/ Naked Truth and PNEWS Portal ============================================================= \_/ \_/
