Wasserman writes: "Our American president's long-overdue visit to Cuba has
been a great thing for many reasons. But maybe our elected officials should
cease their hypocritical yapping about the human rights situation in Cuba
until they come clean about what's happening here in the United States."
The US right now has the world's largest prison population by far. (photo:
Realitatea.net)
America's Astounding Human Rights Hypocrisy in Cuba
By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
23 March 16
Our American president's long-overdue visit to Cuba has been a great thing
for many reasons.
But maybe our elected officials should cease their hypocritical yapping
about the human rights situation in Cuba until they come clean about what's
happening here in the United States.
To be sure, there is much to say about how this authoritarian regime has
handled dissent. The details abound in the corporate media.
But the idea of the United States lecturing Cuba or any other country on
this planet about human rights comes down somewhere between embarrassing and
nauseating. Consider:
. The US right now has the world's largest prison population by far.
There are 2.2 million citizens in prison here for offenses that include
smoking pot and failing to pay off certain debts. At its peak, there were
2.5 million in Stalin's Soviet Gulag.
. The US prison population is hugely over-filled with
African-Americans and Hispanics.
. The racial bias of the prison population is directly related to a
deliberate Jim Crow strategy of disenfranchisement aimed at keeping people
of color from voting.
. There are more citizens in US prisons than there are prisoners in
China, another authoritarian country. China's population is 4 to 5 times as
large as that of the US. They do not have an alleged Bill of Rights.
. The American prison population currently represents almost a quarter
of the entire population of Cuba.
. Rape, torture, extended solitary confinement, and other human rights
offenses are common in US prisons. In many cases, decent medical care is
notably lacking, resulting in avoidable illness and death.
. More than 500,000 Americans are in prison for victimless crimes
relating to substances they have chosen to put in their own bodies rather
than harm done anyone else.
. On the actual island of Cuba, the US holds a reserve at Guantanamo
that the Cuban people want returned to them. In the interim, prisoners are
held there in denial of all human rights, often without trial, in some cases
being subjected to what can only be termed torture. Some have been held for
years after their release has been authorized. Guantanamo is maintained on
Cuban soil precisely so those held there can be denied their human rights.
. The United States still has the death penalty, which has been
repeatedly used to execute human beings who later prove innocent. One former
president of the United States, George W. Bush, personally authorized 152
executions while governor of Texas.
. Access to due process in the United States is significantly
restricted by race and class.
. There are numerous political prisoners being held without human
rights guarantees throughout the US prison system whose "offenses" are every
bit as illusory as many of the prisoners held in violation of human rights
in Cuba.
. Among them is Leonard Peltier, a native American wrongly convicted
of murder four decades ago. Peltier has repeatedly petitioned for a new
trial and been turned down by presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush
and now Obama, even though the evidence overwhelmingly indicates he is
innocent of the two murders for which he was convicted in the mid 1970s.
Peltier is now suffering from advanced diabetes. He's being held under
extremely harsh conditions in clear violation of a wide range of laws
allegedly protecting the basic human rights guaranteed all prisoners by the
US criminal justice code and by international law. Peltier has grandchildren
and great grandchildren he has never seen. If he were being held under the
same circumstances in Cuba, the US would be screaming for his release.
. In 2001, as he was leaving office, Bill Clinton chose to pardon
multi-millionaire Marc Rich, with immense direct and indirect benefits later
coming to the Clintons and their various interests. Though Clinton was
thoroughly and repeatedly briefed about Leonard Peltier, he chose to leave
Peltier in prison, to not grant him a new trial, and to do nothing to
mitigate the illegal conditions under which he's being held.
. Since Richard Nixon's declaration of the Drug War in 1971, various
branches of the US police system have arrested more than 41 million American
citizens, almost four times as many people as now live in Cuba. The arrests
have been heavily weighted against people of color and low income. With the
$1 trillion or more spent on this mass incarceration, all those arrested
could have been sent to college.
. In recent years the incentive to incarcerate American citizens
(guilty or otherwise) has been vastly accelerated by the establishment of
private prisons, whose profits are based on the number of people they can
lock up. Americans charged with crimes are now viewed as "cash flow" by this
for-profit prison system, which has every incentive to keep them
incarcerated as long as possible, no matter how their alleged crime or
violated human rights might stack up.
. Though they recently crashed the entire US economy with a stunning
array of criminal activities, no banker or financier who helped devastate
the livelihoods of millions of families worldwide has gone to prison.
. American police forces routinely maim and kill innocent citizens
based largely on race and class, with little or no legal recourse.
. In the name of fighting terrorism and the Drug War, US police forces
now regularly confiscate cash and other property from innocent citizens
without due process or reasonable legal recourse. The funds are often used
for the personal benefit of the officers involved.
. A nationwide program of electronic spying on private citizens has
been in place in the US for many years, leaving the Fourth Amendment right
to privacy in shambles.
There is, of course, much more. But at very least we hope that President
Obama will admit to some or all of the above amidst his cringe-worthy
lectures to the Cubans on the sacred nature of human rights.
________________________________________
Harvey Wasserman's America at the Brink of Rebirth: The Organic Spiral of Us
History can be had via www.solartopia.org. The Strip & Flip Selection of
2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft, co-written with Bob
Fitrakis, is at www.freepress.org.
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The US right now has the world's largest prison population by far. (photo:
Realitatea.net)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
America's Astounding Human Rights Hypocrisy in Cuba
By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
23 March 16
ur American president's long-overdue visit to Cuba has been a great thing
for many reasons.
But maybe our elected officials should cease their hypocritical yapping
about the human rights situation in Cuba until they come clean about what's
happening here in the United States.
To be sure, there is much to say about how this authoritarian regime has
handled dissent. The details abound in the corporate media.
But the idea of the United States lecturing Cuba or any other country on
this planet about human rights comes down somewhere between embarrassing and
nauseating. Consider:
. The US right now has the world's largest prison population by far.
There are 2.2 million citizens in prison here for offenses that include
smoking pot and failing to pay off certain debts. At its peak, there were
2.5 million in Stalin's Soviet Gulag.
. The US prison population is hugely over-filled with
African-Americans and Hispanics.
. The racial bias of the prison population is directly related to a
deliberate Jim Crow strategy of disenfranchisement aimed at keeping people
of color from voting.
. There are more citizens in US prisons than there are prisoners in
China, another authoritarian country. China's population is 4 to 5 times as
large as that of the US. They do not have an alleged Bill of Rights.
. The American prison population currently represents almost a quarter
of the entire population of Cuba.
. Rape, torture, extended solitary confinement, and other human rights
offenses are common in US prisons. In many cases, decent medical care is
notably lacking, resulting in avoidable illness and death.
. More than 500,000 Americans are in prison for victimless crimes
relating to substances they have chosen to put in their own bodies rather
than harm done anyone else.
. On the actual island of Cuba, the US holds a reserve at Guantanamo
that the Cuban people want returned to them. In the interim, prisoners are
held there in denial of all human rights, often without trial, in some cases
being subjected to what can only be termed torture. Some have been held for
years after their release has been authorized. Guantanamo is maintained on
Cuban soil precisely so those held there can be denied their human rights.
. The United States still has the death penalty, which has been
repeatedly used to execute human beings who later prove innocent. One former
president of the United States, George W. Bush, personally authorized 152
executions while governor of Texas.
. Access to due process in the United States is significantly
restricted by race and class.
. There are numerous political prisoners being held without human
rights guarantees throughout the US prison system whose "offenses" are every
bit as illusory as many of the prisoners held in violation of human rights
in Cuba.
. Among them is Leonard Peltier, a native American wrongly convicted
of murder four decades ago. Peltier has repeatedly petitioned for a new
trial and been turned down by presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush
and now Obama, even though the evidence overwhelmingly indicates he is
innocent of the two murders for which he was convicted in the mid 1970s.
Peltier is now suffering from advanced diabetes. He's being held under
extremely harsh conditions in clear violation of a wide range of laws
allegedly protecting the basic human rights guaranteed all prisoners by the
US criminal justice code and by international law. Peltier has grandchildren
and great grandchildren he has never seen. If he were being held under the
same circumstances in Cuba, the US would be screaming for his release.
. In 2001, as he was leaving office, Bill Clinton chose to pardon
multi-millionaire Marc Rich, with immense direct and indirect benefits later
coming to the Clintons and their various interests. Though Clinton was
thoroughly and repeatedly briefed about Leonard Peltier, he chose to leave
Peltier in prison, to not grant him a new trial, and to do nothing to
mitigate the illegal conditions under which he's being held.
. Since Richard Nixon's declaration of the Drug War in 1971, various
branches of the US police system have arrested more than 41 million American
citizens, almost four times as many people as now live in Cuba. The arrests
have been heavily weighted against people of color and low income. With the
$1 trillion or more spent on this mass incarceration, all those arrested
could have been sent to college.
. In recent years the incentive to incarcerate American citizens
(guilty or otherwise) has been vastly accelerated by the establishment of
private prisons, whose profits are based on the number of people they can
lock up. Americans charged with crimes are now viewed as "cash flow" by this
for-profit prison system, which has every incentive to keep them
incarcerated as long as possible, no matter how their alleged crime or
violated human rights might stack up.
. Though they recently crashed the entire US economy with a stunning
array of criminal activities, no banker or financier who helped devastate
the livelihoods of millions of families worldwide has gone to prison.
. American police forces routinely maim and kill innocent citizens
based largely on race and class, with little or no legal recourse.
. In the name of fighting terrorism and the Drug War, US police forces
now regularly confiscate cash and other property from innocent citizens
without due process or reasonable legal recourse. The funds are often used
for the personal benefit of the officers involved.
. A nationwide program of electronic spying on private citizens has
been in place in the US for many years, leaving the Fourth Amendment right
to privacy in shambles.
There is, of course, much more. But at very least we hope that President
Obama will admit to some or all of the above amidst his cringe-worthy
lectures to the Cubans on the sacred nature of human rights.
Harvey Wasserman's America at the Brink of Rebirth: The Organic Spiral of Us
History can be had via www.solartopia.org. The Strip & Flip Selection of
2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft, co-written with Bob
Fitrakis, is at www.freepress.org.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
