*(Top image: During the Memorial March for George Floyd, everyone took a knee and hundreds raised a fist in solidarity. Credit: Jules Antonio/ Flickr)
As of this writing, National Guard troops are deployed within at least twenty-nine states, in order to maintain white supremacy and defeat the efforts of Black, brown and white citizens to achieve racial equality for all. Additionally, the erratic and unhinged President Donald Trump is threatening to deploy the U.S. military against U.S. citizens.
We could discuss the government’s lack of attention to the issues that have caused this unrest; this writer has done so here and here. But what commands his attention now is how the hypocrisy of the United States is finally being exposed in a manner that will be difficult to ignore.
The U.S. condemns the use of nuclear weapons, despite being the only country to have ever used them. Its spokespeople proclaim the need for peace as the wreak violence around the world by bombing one nation after another, and supporting Israeli violence against the Palestinians and Saudi violence against the Yemenis. They proclaim support for the self-determination of people everywhere, except where the governments are too left-leaning (see Venezuela) or are not pleasing to Israel (see Palestine and Iran).
But now, with the president of the United States threatening to send U.S. soldiers to oppress U.S. citizens, the nation has clearly shown that it is run by a repressive, authoritarian government.
On June 1, National Guard members used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters near Washington D.C.’s famous St. John’s Episcopal Church. Then, when the citizens were denied their right to peaceful assembly, the way was cleared for a major photo op: Trump, standing in front of the church holding a bible. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who oversees the church, said she was outraged, pointing out that Trump did not pray at the church, or in any way acknowledge the suffering of so many people at this time. She also pointed out the hypocrisy of using violence in order to appear in front of a Christian church, since Christianity is antithetical to violence.
Looking ahead, the country is in for a very rough road. Covid-19 continues to grow in some areas, and a new wave is anticipated in the autumn. Unemployment is reaching Depression-era levels. Civil unrest due to inherent racism within the U.S. government shows little sign of abating. Major cities are under curfew, with National Guard soldiers patrolling the streets.
Why is not every U.S. citizen alarmed? Why do they not all recognize that their ‘glorious’ nation is similar to the emperor’s new clothes? The reader will recall that crafty tailors told this particular emperor that they would weave clothes for him that only intelligent people could see. It wasn’t until he paraded naked down the street that this lie was, if you will excuse the pun, exposed.
Have the people of the United States all been convinced that only stupid people don’t realize the nation’s alleged greatness? What will it take for them to realize that, like the emperor in the fairy tale, they have been had? If a grossly mishandled response to a pandemic with a heart-breaking death rate, extremely high unemployment, a crashing economy, coast-to-coast civil unrest and a narcissistic, incompetent, unstable president doesn’t open their eyes, what will?
One might also question why the government chooses to give local police departments surplus military equipment. Is it necessary, let alone good, for municipalities across the nation to have assault rifles, night-vision goggles, armored vehicles, bayonets and grenade launchers? Unfortunately, many cities have these and other hardware made specifically for war. U.S. criminal justice reform expert Jeremiah Mosteller has said that some law enforcement officers become more aggressive as the weapons at their disposal become more powerful. Said he: “The increased use of military equipment has coincided with an increased use of military tactics, such as SWAT teams and no-knock raids.” When Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, Missouri, law enforcement personnel, dressed in military camouflage, arrived at the scene in an armored vehicle, carrying assault weapons. This certainly did nothing to reassure the population and calm the tense situation.
Additionally, the police in many states receive training from Israel, one of the most brutal nations on the planet. Topics of training include border policing and community and urban policing. Activists opposing this training “…point to Israel’s clear record of human rights abuses and state violence toward Palestinians, Jews of color, and African refugees.” With systemic racism a serious problem in the United States, police training by a known racist regime hardly seem conducive to helping resolve the problem.
Let us summarize:
- The U.S. government is led by an unstable president.
- Over 100,000 people in the United States are dead due to a pandemic that was grossly mishandled by the U.S. government.
- Over 40 million people in the U.S. have applied for unemployment benefits since the pandemic began.
- Coast-to-coast demonstrations continue a week after yet another defenseless, unarmed Black man was murdered by a white police officer.
- The government’s response to the demonstrations has been violent, in some cases proving the policy brutality that the crowds are demonstrating against.
- The police use equipment against U.S. citizens that was designed for war.
- Many police departments receive training from a regime that publicly, and even proudly, discriminates against minorities.
Despite all this, the eyes of many citizens become misty when the national anthem plays, or they see the U.S. flag waving in the breeze. They talk about ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ as if that was something not on par with Santa Clause and the tooth fairy. They rejoice when the U.S. invades some Third World country, and honor paid U.S. assassins simply because they wear a uniform.
This is white privilege. This is living in an ivory tower. This is ignoring the suffering of large swaths of the population simply because powerful whites never have to confront that suffering. And unless and until it ends, innocent people will continue to experience the oppression that is so much a part of U.S. society.
WRITER
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