The US government loves to pontificate to other countries about human rights and how they should improve their human rights record and increase democracy. As Ivan Eland writes:

Don’t get me wrong: the proliferation of democracy and human rights in the world is a great thing, but the arrogant belief that America should be the aggressive, high-profile guardian of the spread of such laudable beliefs is not. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the attack on Libya, all done at least ostensibly to usher in democracy and human rights, have further sullied the already shaky reputation of America’s forceful push for such causes around the world. In practice, the divergence of U.S. foreign policy from rhetoric promoting democracy and human rights makes other nations and peoples suspicious of American intentions.
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Even in the cases in which the U.S. was genuinely interested in promoting democracy and human rights, foreign countries that meddle constantly in other nations’ business usually don’t get the benefit of the doubt among the locals. And who can blame them? America has restrictions against foreign involvement in U.S. elections, but that doesn’t stop the United States from funding political groups in Russia and other countries. Such hypocrisy doesn’t do America, the local political groups, or the promotion of democracy and human rights any favors.

But it looks like what other countries are doing is [Read more…]

The purpose of the military of any nation is purportedly to defend the nation from external attacks. But an important other function is to protect the oligarchy from its own people and time after time this has been the experience of many countries, with the military being used to crush its own people’s legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy.

Sometime ago, I wrote about the dangerous trend of the paramilitarization of the police in the US so that they have begun to look more like the military and use military tactics against civilians. Via BoingBoing, I tried my hand at this quiz created by Radley Balko showing 21 photographs and asking the viewer to identify whether the people shown were police or the military. I got just 11 correct, which was what one would expect by random chance, which is not surprising since I was forced to guess on almost all of them, they look so alike.

In the US, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was enacted to prevent the government from using the military for civilian police work. The barriers in that act have been steadily eroded over the last three decades and the recently enacted National Defense Authorization Act that was rushed through Congress with no hearings and little debate and signed by president Obama on New Year’s eve pretty much gutted it.

Why do this now? I have my suspicions that the oligarchy has a real fear of mass unrest if the economic conditions for most Americans worsen and sees the Tea Party and Occupy movements as precursors to a major challenge to its rule. They want to have all the tools at their disposal if there is a danger of things spinning out of control.

Some time ago I saw a comedy sketch by Richard Pryor in which he held a press conference to announce to the police and residents of Beverly Hills that early the next morning he would be going jogging along the streets. Like much of Pryor’s humor, it had a sharp edge, highlighting the fact that a black man running in a predominantly white neighborhood tends to alarm people.

Is such a reaction racist? The Crommunist Manifesto reflects on this question using his own personal experiences as a black man who also has to take precautions so that people are not alarmed by his presence. Most people do not realize that black men routinely make an extra effort to make those around them feel comfortable in their presence. You can imagine how unpleasant it must be for people to feel that they have to constantly prove to others that their presence is benign.

It reminded me of an experience that I had written about a couple of years ago about the role of race and class in society, and how people like me benefit from it. Here is a pertinent excerpt from that post.

I recall once a conference presentation in a hotel meeting room that I made together with my African-American female colleague. After our session, we cleared up and took our stuff out to make room for the next presenters. I picked up what I thought was my colleague’s expensive-looking coat (she is always well dressed) but it was only later after relaxing in the lobby and getting ready to go home that she said that the coat did not belong to her and I realized that it must belong to the people who had been setting up after us. Her boyfriend was also present and he started to take the coat back to the room to return it, but then stopped and asked if I could do it because he said that it would be awkward for him to do so as people ‘might not understand’. The problem was as clear as it was unspoken. It did not matter that he is a very distinguished-looking and impeccably dressed man who could easily be mistaken for an ambassador or college president, while I was my usual nondescript self. The basic fact was that he is black and I am not, and that made all the difference in whether we would be presumed guilty or innocent of theft.

Crommunist’s post is very thoughtful and well worth reading.

In response to my earlier post condemning the murder of the Iranian scientist as an act of terrorism, one commenter posed a serious objection that calls for a detailed response that I thought merited a new post in its own right.

To equate the Iranian weapons scientists assassinations with the equivalent against the US or Israel is silly. Neither the US nor Israel has threatened to destroy Iran simply because it exists. In addition, most of the world feels that Iran getting a nuclear weapon is A Really Bad Thing.

In short: If you were Israel (or the US, for that matter), what’s the alternative, assuming sanctions won’t work? This Administration has narrowed its demands on Iran to a much greater degree than the previous, drawing the line at a nuclear weapon (rather than previously with enrichment et al). Which is one of the reasons most of the rest is going along with the sanctions to one degree or another.

I assume that you would not have been opposed to assassinations against WWII Germany or Japan (and we conducted them, to be sure; the most noteworthy being Yamamoto). Yet when we’re talking nukes, you can’t wait until the war has started. So, again…..what’s your alternative?

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To commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I am linking to a post I wrote on this occasion in 2008 that tried to expose readers to the fact that towards the end of his life, King was actively campaigning against a wide range of injustices, not just racial ones.

People sometimes forget that he was widely read in politics, economics, history, and philosophy and used all of them in his writings, especially the later ones, to forcefully make the case for justice.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has been on a tear recently. His recent op-ed in the Washington Post lists ten reasons why the US should no longer consider itself the land of the free.

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

Just go down the list to see how the bogus ‘war on terror’ waged by both Bush/Cheney and Obama has been used to steadily strip away all the protections that used to be considered sacrosanct. It is both shocking and depressing.