The pic shows, what's been evident for the last 30-40 years. Now it seems merely, what Americans keep dreaming of, despite the utter reality, but yet inspired by the capital (in a sense of Marx) and the media.
1. The 1990s was overall a terrific decade for the USA. It was by far the favourite destination for academics and high-power technical folk. The torture and terrorism-filled Revenge Crusade following the Sept. 11th attacks took away some of the appeal.
2. Despite all the fumbles, US freemarket capitalism works well. From a strategic and military perspective, Russia and China will never catch up unless they adopt more western-like institutions.
3. The USA remains one of the world's most popular destinations for refugees, economic and political.
4. All the ridiculous silly contradictions that one can (easily) find in the USA can be found in much greater quantities in most EME and poor developing economies. For perspective.
US hegemony is in full decline and current US policy choices appear to be accelerating that rate of decline but the USA will remain a relatively powerful country with a robust economy for a very long time. Yes, social mobility is not that great but most Americans, immigrants and refugees will continue to behave like anything is still possible.
The pic shows, what's been evident for the last 30-40 years. Now it seems merely, what Americans keep dreaming of, despite the utter reality, but yet inspired by the capital (in a sense of Marx) and the media.
I always figured that Russian/English Google Translate would produce gibberish.
The pic shows, what's been evident for the last 30-40 years. Now it seems merely, what Americans keep dreaming of, despite the utter reality, but yet inspired by the capital (in a sense of Marx) and the media.
The United States may regard itself as a âleader of the free world,â but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list.
In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to 41st worldwide, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology â an expansive model of 17 categories, or âgoals,â many of them focused on the environment and equity â the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.
As a political historian who studies U.S. institutional development, I recognize these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to âAmerican exceptionalismâ keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections. (....)
We are aware of the the June 14 incident and video. After the incident, we immediately launched an investigation pursuant to our personnel policies into the response of our officer.
Yeah, I'm all for a very wide, very public name and shame campaign so that his department feels he needs several months of inside desk duty (fire? yeah, they don't fire cops when they shoot people).
We are aware of the the June 14 incident and video. After the incident, we immediately launched an investigation pursuant to our personnel policies into the response of our officer.
The cop that was there the whole time should be fired asap.
Yeah, I'm all for a very wide, very public name and shame campaign so that his department feels he needs several months of inside desk duty (fire? yeah, they don't fire cops when they shoot people).
A United Nations panel called out the United States' litany of human rights failures as the U.S. sought to defend its reputation by saying that an international treaty outlying human rights doesn't apply to its military operations abroad.
The grilling happened Thursday in Geneva during the first of a two-day session held by the 18-member UN Human Rights Committee that looked at the United States' implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) — a U.S.-ratified treaty that bans torture, arbitrary killings and detention, and ensures the right to habeas corpus.
he US came under sustained criticism for its global counter-terrorism tactics, including the use of unmanned drones to kill al-Qaida suspects, and its transfer of detainees to third countries that might practice torture, such as Algeria. Committee members also highlighted the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute any of the officials responsible for permitting waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques under the previous administration.
(c)ommittee chair Nigel Rodley, a British law professor and former U.N. investigator on torture, suggested lawyers in the Bush administration who drew up memorandums justifying the use of harsh interrogation techniques could also be liable.
"When evidently seriously flawed legal opinions are issued which then are used as a cover for the committing of serious crimes, one wonders at what point the authors of such opinions may themselves have to be considered part of the criminal plan in the first place?" Rodley said.
"Of course we know that so far there has been impunity."
Yet the U.S. sought to shield itself from criticism, the New York Timesreported, by saying that the rights treaty
imposes no human rights obligations on American military and intelligence forces when they operate abroad, rejecting an interpretation by the United Nations and the top State Department lawyer during President Obama’s first term.
"The United States continues to believe that its interpretation — that the covenant applies only to individuals both within its territory and within its jurisdiction — is the most consistent with the covenant’s language and negotiating history," the Times reports Mary McLeod, the State Department’s acting legal adviser, as saying during the session.
"This world is an unsafe place," countered Walter Kalin, a Swiss professor of constitutional and international law who sits on the panel. "Will it not become even more dangerous if any state would be willing to claim that international law does not prevent them from committing human rights violations abroad?"
The U.S. delegation told the panel that its drone strikes were “in compliance with international law.”
The U.S. is constantly talking about "human rights," Kimber Heinz, Organizing Coordinator with War Resisters League, told Common Dreams. But, as in the case of Venezuela, that language is manipulated to serve what could be disruptive for the current government. When the U.S. uses a human rights framework, "it's speaking out of both sides of its mouth," she added, and pointed to the example of the U.S. continuing to pour military aid into Egypt.
"All we can do," Heinz continued, "is to try to pressure Congress members to implement something like the Leahy Law that implements human rights" because right now "there is no political will." Change, she said, is going to come via the grassroots.
"We are the people, as a movement, as organizations, as people who care — we are the human rights movement. We have to put pressure on and create new parameters of the conversation about what constitutes human rights," she said.
The UN panel also urged the U.S. to disclose the Senate report on the CIA torture and rendition program.
"The U.S. shortcomings are highlighted by the committee's sharp questions on everything from drone killings and NSA surveillance to the humane treatment of immigrants and prisoners, especially discrimination against minorities," stated ACLU Human Rights Program Director Jamil Dakwar, who was in Geneva for the session.
"The U.S. government now has an opportunity to reverse course, remedy rights violations, and take concrete actions like declassifying the Senate report on CIA torture," Dakwar stated.
.. who from?
