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Nov 06, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
As someone who read philosophy, I have long regarded Russia, China and the Arab world as permanent autocracies but also believe the existence of American democracy is inherently flawed. I was always confused and remain confused as to the things that take place in the US.
How can the richest country in the world and the country whose wealth probably is the most extensive that any one nation ever possessed throughout history (this takes in the great empires in history including the modern British empire), not have a health care system for its citizens?
How can any nation be so stupendously rich yet have such staggering numbers of poor folks? India has shocking numbers of impoverished people but the GNP and GDP of the US are billions of miles ahead of India. Nobel laureate, economist, Joseph Stiglitz, wrote last Sunday that American democracy is imperiled How can such a powerful democratic land embrace such a horrible culture of racism? After WW2 when the US was offering aid to rebuild Europe (Marshall Plan), the US practised the most sickening intolerance of non-white people. The first Black American to win the Oscar in “Gone with the Wind,” was not allowed to go on stage to collect her prize. Music geniuses who were Blacks were not allowed to enter entertainment clubs through the front door.
European empires violently fought their non-white subjects but never in any European country did the level of racism rise to the frightening levels that the world saw in the US right up to the sixties. It was inconceivable for the UK or France to have signs in front of restaurants that say; “No dogs and Blacks allowed in.”
What exactly is the US? The combined populations of Japan, China, India, Europe, Russia, Pakistan would be about four billion, yet the US with just over 300 million folks produced more homicides, serial killers, abduction of young girls, mentally deranged citizens than those nations combined.
Fifty years after President Johnson’s landmark civil rights legislation and the greatness of Martin Luther King, Black American citizens, born in the United States face daily uncertainties and the categories take in entertainment and sports superstars. It is crazy for a Black at an uncivilized hour to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The fear is not private violence but police shooting. No other country in the history of civilization has had a culture of violence so intricately woven into its natural texture. How can any rich, democratic, modern nation produce such nihilistic violence as is so characteristic of the US?
The entire world focuses on the deportment of Donald Trump. But Trump is the culmination of the deadly assault on modern civilized values by the Republican Party for over fifty years now. What we are seeing in the US in the form of Trump is the victory of the dark minds of men and women in the Republican Party whose temerity was muted because their supporters were not as vocal and numerically strong back then.
They are now. And they are sweeping the United States.
I would repeat in these columns an incident that underlies just how backward the US is becoming. In his first State of the Union address, Republican congressman, Joe Wilson, interrupted Obama by shouting, “You lied.” This was not in the parliament of an unstable, poor Third World country.
The US has some congressmen and senators whose attitude to life, the world and power rival few in most countries for their repugnancy.
I saw the video clips of the Guardian (UK) journalist soliciting Americans views for today’s midterm elections. You have to carefully look at the journalist’s face when the awfully shocking things are said to him. You can clearly detect the facial attempts to hide his disgust. These are the views of the people of a democratic superpower not a shithole country in the Third World.
Today the Americans vote for the entire House of Representative and a third of the senate. If the Republicans retain both, it would consolidate the creeping authoritarian trend that came with Trump’s victory and is expanding exponentially. There are frightening, backward slides taking place in the US that are encouraging authoritarian driven leaders around the world.
A victory for the Republican Party in today’s election will have unspeakable consequences for American democracy which was always weak but now is facing its greatest threat. Trump is going to become wilder in his foreign policy adventures if he retains the Senate and House.
He will become more vicious towards constituencies he dislikes. Perhaps the question facing the world is; can American democracy survive after today? If the Republicans win, it will not.
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