USA

See also: Republic | American-Centric

America is the largest military, economic and political power on the planet. For almost a century this country has been at the forefront of technological advances, in many fields of research. A large innovative information technology industry has grown, following on from the growth in services and a decline in manufacturing. Many of the Big Boys such as the RIAA, MPAA, FCC and the BSA are american government agencies, companies or organisations.

Contents

USA Compared

The USA is trending towards the opting out of previous international treaty commitments. On a number of fronts the nation stands apart, isolated from the majority in the international community. The USA uses it security council veto power in the United Nations in a threatening abusive manner. Positioned first amongst those casting a blocking vote for resolutions, the USA is followed by the United Kingdom in this ranking.

The currency of this nation has remained the defacto international standard, through the cold war period and into the 21st century. At the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, the World Bank, GATT and the IMF organisations were setup and henceforth involved in the creation of the post World War II monetary arrangement. This agreement insured the US dollar took the place of gold as the medium of international exchange. The global monetary system has therefore granted the american government a free license to print as much money as they want or don’t want.

This country is spending substantial quantities of funds on new weapons, military defense and homeland security. A measure of the ratio between the % of Gross National Income spent on military, versus foreign aid between other developed nations, shows that the USA spends comparitively much less, than other nations.

According to the US Department of Energy, the states use 40% of the annual world output of oil, 23% of the natural gas, and almost 23% of the coal. Since the oil shocks of 1973, all other developed countries have drastically improved their energy efficiencies in manufacturing and construction.

On a per capita basis they also have one of the highest rates of obesity. Americans have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, rising by 2% in 2003. Americans kills themselves with guns at rates far higher than other countries, even those with high gun ownership. There is also a high rate of litigious activity, considering there are more than 100 million lawsuits filed there each year.

Americans are typically very insular and know little about geography and the outside world. This lack of knowledge allows for a greater exploitation of resources and was probably designed that way with education policy. A similar practise probably occurs by avoiding the adoption of the metric system for measurements. For Americans still using the backwards imperial system, it becomes much harder to make a fair comparision with the rest of the worlds usage because the measuring systems have different bases. Future unknown inequality and exploitation then face less social opposition from within the country and the economy then can expand further with globalization.

Anti-Americanism

In the post-cold war period the USA has been described as a sole hyper-power. Today we see that the countries reputation has forever been tarnished. public opinion of american culture and its people remains mixed around the globe, although attitudes are eroding. The last few years have seen a considerable drop in favourable attitudes from outsiders, towards the country as a whole. In parts of Asia, such as South Korea, swaths of Europe and even in the already dissatisfied Latin America and Middle East, opinions have tended downwards. Countries with distinctly anti-american leaders include Cuba, Venezuala, Iran, North Korea amongst others.

Many people around the world are anti–capitalism and see the unrestrained USA as a bad thing. They see that the American experiment has failed. They see a dangerous set of circumstances, based on the systematic mythology, fallacy, ignorance and greed.

There are some liberals, even the odd anarchist, however they are constantly marginalised by aggressive ideological activism, a playful platform pioneered by the likes of Faux News and their mass media-ilk using a carefully woven conservative plot playing on religious and terrorism fears.

The tilt to the extreme right wing of foreign policy, particularly with the pre-emption of so called evil-doers in foreign nations, soaked in broadcast propaganda and the use of centralized buzzword rhetoric is clearly based on stuanch nationalism and militarism.

It should be obvious that the USA is a political institution setup to benefit only rich Americans. For those interested in a boycott of the USA it is important to help develop a strategic and economic alliance between Europe, Russia, China, and OPEC. It also important to make Hollywood burn by promoting movie piracy and to change how money works at the local level.

Democracy and Elections

The USA fails to have free and fair elections. Ballots methods are not consistent across the country and they do not have adequate checks and balances. They use secret machines (black boxes) to vote, touchscreen computers, optical scanners and vote tabulators, connected with modems, that do not produce a voter-verified printed ballot. Those machines aren’t registering every vote and a poll of the nation is not taken. Considering this and the radical direction the US government is administering the land it is difficult to describe this federation as a democracy.

War Crimes

Bush and Blair, Powell and Straw, Cheney, Rice and Wolfowitz were all completely wrong about the destructive capabilities of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi military and therefore completely wrong about the ‘casus belli’ for staging the war against Iraq. Engaging in war crimes tribunals is important for the restoration of accountability and integrity, so that things don’t get worse and the guilty are punished.

Many people want to stop this country from continuing to do whatever its government decides it wants to do. By mid 2004 war-crimes tribunals against 43rd president of the United States were underway. George W. Bush is a war criminal because as commander in chief he ordered the invasion of soveign countries on the flimsiest of pretexts. The invasion of Iraq was not a war of collective self-defense because there was not imminent threat from Hussein.

He has committed crimes against humanity, ordering aggresive deployments of troops without clear United Nations stipulations. It should be noted that leaders and government of other alliance nations are equal accomplices and accessories to the unlawful invasion and occupation. More information on the tribunal movement can be found at the International Action Center.

According to Carla Binion, fascism is characterised by: strong nationalism, expansionism, belligerent militarism, meshing of big business and government with a corporate/government oligarchy, subversion of democracy and human rights, disinformation spread by constant propaganda and tight corporate/government control of the press.

Related Links

Related Topics

TakeDown.NET -> “USA”