Does the US Deserve Redemption?

 

Hey, I've got a smart idea: let's make laws that require corporations to act like sociopaths, pursuing profit without any consideration for morality or human well-being, then let's allow our entire civilization to be ruled by corporations.

Oh cool, we already did that, good thinking. --Caitlin Johnstone, You Have To Be Trusted By The People That You Lie To

 

Does the US Deserve Redemption?

by C. A. Matthews

After that one millionth, “Oh, no, not again!” feeling, you begin to wonder “Why bother?” Why bother getting upset or angry or depressed or frustrated when you know that feeling will come again and again and again and again…

The United Nations Security Council on February 21 heard testimony from Professor Jeffrey Sachs and former CIA Intelligence Anaylyst Ray McGovern about the Nord Stream pipelines bombing. It’s obvious to everyone that the US (with the help of Norway) were the culprits, and it was an act of terrorism that should be punished. But nothing is going to be done about it. The UN refuses to condemn the bombers. They’ll pretend like it never happened, although it actually happened, and it destroyed several member nations’ property and caused the largest methane leak in history.

The United States is a Teflon-coated bully that can destroy the environment and drone bomb the world and nobody will ever stand up to the US because of fear of retaliation, probably. That “Oh, no, not again!” feeling never goes away when it comes to the amount bullshit the United Nations will allow the US to get away with, and all because we’re the only country to drop not one, but two atom bombs on another country.

I’ve had enough of it. I’m ready for somebody or somebodies to call us on our shit and take us out once and for all. It will come as a great surprise to some Americans that there are many countries who have been longing for the day when the United States of America is no more. It’s not like these folks necessarily nurse an irrational hatred of our people, our junk food cuisine, our insipid Hollywood movies and exported TV shows, or even our gas-guzzling, climate-changing cars. It’s that they’ve had enough of our imperialism. 

It’s our imperialism that makes the US a pariah around the world. The list of countries we’ve invaded, helped stage a coup d’etat, economically sanctioned, or simply bombed grows longer by the day. Here’s a list of the countries the US has attempted to overthrow since World War II:

(* indicates successful ouster of a government)

• China 1949 to early 1960s

• Albania 1949-53

• East Germany 1950s

• Iran 1953 *

• Guatemala 1954 *

• Costa Rica mid-1950s

• Syria 1956-7

• Egypt 1957

• Indonesia 1957-8

• British Guiana 1953-64 *

• Iraq 1963 *

• North Vietnam 1945-73

• Cambodia 1955-70 *

• Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *

• Ecuador 1960-63 *

• Congo 1960 *

• France 1965

• Brazil 1962-64 *

• Dominican Republic 1963 *

• Cuba 1959 to present

• Bolivia 1964 *

• Indonesia 1965 *

• Ghana 1966 *

• Chile 1964-73 *

• Greece 1967 *

• Costa Rica 1970-71

• Bolivia 1971 *

• Australia 1973-75 *

• Angola 1975, 1980s

• Zaire 1975

• Portugal 1974-76 *

• Jamaica 1976-80 *

• Seychelles 1979-81

• Chad 1981-82 *

• Grenada 1983 *

• South Yemen 1982-84

• Suriname 1982-84

• Fiji 1987 *

• Libya 1980s

• Nicaragua 1981-90 *

• Panama 1989 *

• Bulgaria 1990 *

• Albania 1991 *

• Iraq 1991

• Afghanistan 1980s *

• Somalia 1993

• Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *

• Ecuador 2000 *

• Afghanistan 2001 *

• Venezuela 2002 *

• Iraq 2003 *

• Haiti 2004 *

• Somalia 2007 to present

• Honduras 2009 *

• Libya 2011 *

• Syria 2012

• Ukraine 2014 *

From William Blum’s Overthrowing Other People’s Governments: The Master List

And the US continues to get away with these sordid kinds of things. We actually don’t get sanctioned, boycotted, bombed or nuked in return. We love to claim certain “baddies” are out to get us with their “spy-surveillance-lost-weather-balloons,” but no, that’s more of our own paranoia reflecting back at us. Luckily, most other nations are wise and mature enough not to fall for the US provoking hostilities and ignore Americans slurs made against them as a people. 

So, what if one day the US actually did get “caught in the act”? (We’ve been caught red-handed before and nothing happened, but what if?) What if one day the United Nations actually doled out an ample punishment for our imperialistic ways? Not a slap on the wrist, but an actual penalty to drive the point home that nobody likes a bully? What would that be like?

I, for one, would love to see the most polluting, most corrupt, and most violent American military machine put out of business. Forever. The UN could confiscate their facilities and re-tool them to do more productive and peaceful activities. At the end of the day, there would be no more military-industrial-Congressional complex. Good-bye Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing… Total death to the War Machine! It's time to end the most polluting, environmentally damaging organization in the world, the US military! 

It also would put an end to all the well paid lobbyists and the kickbacks they give to the Congressional part of that MIC complex. No more huge piles of money buying off the loyalties of American politician-puppets. The idiots in Washington DC and our state houses would have to actually work for We the People and live only on the wages they’re given as an office holder. (Watch the current crop of politicians abandon ship like rats when the corporate money dries up.)

I hope the UN will enact sanctions against our “Death Industry” as well. Sanctions would put an end to the Big Pharma/Big Health Insurance cartel that has caused more unnecessary American deaths than every war we’ve legitimately taken a part in. Imagine every American having access to health care when they need it, not when or if they can afford to purchase it. Imagine! No more tricking young men and women into joining the military simply to gain health care coverage, either. People poisoned by a chemical spill and burn caused by a private corporation will have one less worry when it comes to treating their chronic illnesses.

The UN could also hold the US accountable to follow all the treaties we’ve ever signed that recognize human rights for all people. These human rights would include not locking up persons of color for decades and slapping life sentences/death sentences on them for the same crimes a rich white person with money might commit and receive only a slap on the wrist. This would mean allowing asylum seekers into the country who are searching for safety, instead of kicking them back into the dangerous border region of northern Mexico. This would mean the US government would have to follow all the treaties they've broken with Native American tribes.

So many good things would come about if the corrupt socioeconomic system of capitalism, the thing that drives American imperialism, was wiped off the map. Completely. Forever. 

But what would replace it? And, more perplexing still, do Americans as a people, a country, a nation, even deserve redemption?

Can a country whose Constitution holds that enslaved African Americans were worth 3/5 of a person for census purposes ever be absolved of that sin? Can a nation that committed outright genocide against its indigenous population ever be forgiven for their inhumanity? What reparations have we made to persons of color? What land have we given back to Native Americans without strings attached? Have we really wiped away the taint of “otherness” from those of Japanese descent whose grandparents we locked up in concentration camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor? If so, why are hate crimes against Asian Americans on the rise? 

I could go on here about other minorities who have been treated poorly both in the past and in the present day, but you get my meaning. What is worthy of redemption in a country that treats/have treated persons of color, the migrant, the indigenous, the working poor, the sick and disabled, the differently gendered with such scorn and contempt? 

As Black History Month comes to a close, it’s time to take account of all the ways Americans have caused harm to the human beings on this planet. A massive methane leak caused by a terrorist act on a Russian/German LNG pipeline only exacerbates the climate emergency and will only hurt ourselves in the long run. Destroying our neighbors' property is not a positive action, and it doesn’t encourage mutual cooperation and peace among the nations. Why do We the People allow sociopaths to become our political leaders and make such heinous decisions for both the US and the world?

So many Americans claim they follow the “Golden Rule,” but do they? Do they love their neighbors as themselves? We seem to hold back our love and wish evil upon them, but why? Fear? Greed? Selfishness? Laziness? 

Americans need to take a good look around at all the war, violence, and chaos we've caused and are still causing. If we wish to be deemed worthy of redemption, then we need to start putting things right and fix the wrongs that we've done. Today. 

It's simple: Shut down the War Machine. Start peace talks. Stop taking advantage of the economically oppressed and lock up the sociopathic oligarchs for their crimes against humanity. We the People know, deep down, these are the right things to do. We can’t keep kidding ourselves with all this “freedom and democracy” nonsense if we don’t practice what we preach. 

Related Links:

UPDATE: Hungary Calls for a UN Investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline attack: https://popularresistance.org/hungary-demands-un-investigation-into-nord-stream-pipeline-attack/

Jeffrey Sachs and Ray McGovern at the UN on the Nordstream 2 Sabotage https://popularresistance.org/jeffery-sachs-and-ray-mcgovern-at-the-u-n-on-the-nord-stream-2-sabotage/ 

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and Ray McGovern Address the UN Security Council on the Nord Stream Investigations (video) https://youtu.be/R_EX-VwKjng 

Ray McGovern Interview - The Nord Stream Pipeline Attack (video) https://www.youtube.com/live/LsjcVv2l8wU

You Have To Be Trusted By The People That You Lie To https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/you-have-to-be-trusted-by-the-people 

 

Overthrowing Other Peoples' Governments: The Master List

https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list 

 

How Many Countries Has the US Invaded https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/how-many-countries-has-the-us-invaded

 

US Wars and Hostile Actions: A List  https://davidswanson.org/warlist/

China Report Excoriates ‘US Hegemony’, War Crimes, CIA Coups, 400 Foreign Interventions https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/22/china-report-us-hegemony-wars-coups-intervention/

Why and How to End the War in Ukraine https://popularresistance.org/why-and-how-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine/

More Evidence Emerges that US Wanted Russia to Invade https://popularresistance.org/more-evidence-emerges-that-us-wanted-russia-to-invade/

How US and Ukraine's Far-Right Made Pro-Peace Zelensky a 'No Peace' President https://mate.substack.com/p/how-us-and-ukraines-far-right-made

 

How Can the Peace Movement Be More Effective?

https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/25/how-can-the-peace-movement-be-more-effective/ 

 

There Has Never in History Been A Greater Need for a Large Anti-War Movement  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/there-has-never-in-history-been-a

 

Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil! https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/pay-for-your-own-wars-big-oil.html

 

Poisoning America For Profit: A Brief History of Norfolk Southern's Greed https://popularresistance.org/poisoning-america-for-profit-a-brief-history-of-norfolk-southerns-greed/

 

American Chernobyl  https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/american-chernobyl.html

 

Seen on Twitter:

Why hasn't ANY congressperson introduced articles of impeachment over Joe Biden’s unilateral, illegal terror attack on NATO Germany’s Nord Stream pipelines?#Ukraine #Russia #Kiev #NordstreamSabotage #WWIII #Crimea #Bakhmut #Artemovsk

— JRkiefer1 🇭🇹 🇸🇾 🇾🇪 🇻🇪 🇮🇷 🇵🇸 (@josephkiefer77) February 23, 2023

pic.twitter.com/BhUxsGP3s0

— Broken Soldier⏳🇾🇪 (@DavidJSoldier1) February 27, 2023