US GOVERNMENT CRIMES

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—That is what we are witnessing here. We are witnessing the head-on collision between the story America’s political, media and educational institutions tell Americans about what their country is, and the reality of what their country actually is. The disparity between the bedtime story and the waking up story has finally been stretched to a breaking point, and now the mask of free liberal democracy is coming off in front of everyone.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—The endemic, institutionalized brutality at home eventually spilled over to all parts of the planet. Now, for many decades, the United Stated has treated the entire world as full of its personal multitude of slaves. What does it offer to all of us: constant wars, occupations, punitive expeditions, coups, regular assassinations of progressive leaders, as well as thorough corporate plunder. Hundreds of millions of people have been sacrificed on the grotesque U.S. altar of “freedom” and “democracy”.

JOE GIAMBRONE—Unfortunately for us, his predecessors had already empowered the state with police militarization and the 2012 repeal of Posse Comitatus, by none other than Barack Obama. The US empire has long considered the USA a potential “battle space” to be controlled by the military, should the servant class attempt to disrupt the status quo. This past weekend it finally happened.

MAX PARRY—Israel has made a habit of shielding itself behind America’s adversaries when entangled in political scandal, notably in the case of the recently exonerated former National Security Advisor in the Trump transition team, Michael Flynn, who pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding meetings with a Russian ambassador. Flynn had actually been acting at the behest of Israel trying to persuade member states of the UN Security Council, including Russia, to block a draft resolution on illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory — but that ‘collusion’ was never spoken of by the media for obvious reasons. Now that charges have been dropped against General Flynn, it’s fair to say that Russiagate has been a cover for Israel-gate since the beginning, where the influence of Likudniks over the Trump administration has been downplayed and supplanted with the Kremlin.

Jimmy Dore and Chris Hedges try to sort out the many reasons why America is in revolt, drowning in social injustice and inequality, institutionalised violence and corruption, and a glaring lack of even essential services like universal healthcare. American cities and entire regions and states, and hunreds of millions of Americans have been hurt and damaged by capitalism, their social fabric rent and central institutions hollowed by capitalism. So now the people are in the streets, but this is not a revolution. This is only leaderless spontaneism. The system can easily overcome that. A different kind of social and political organising are needed to effect serious changes, and America is still a far cry from that desperately needed point.