“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” -- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967.

 

Almost half a century has passed since Dr. King uttered those dire but eloquent words of warning when the United States of America was engaged in a barbaric aggression against the Vietnamese people.  Since then, corporate greed, technology and consumerism have come to reign supreme in the U.S., and the inherent evils of racism, materialism and militarism as we were forewarned by Dr. King appear now to be invincible. 

 

In its rhetoric, the United States zealously touts itself as the world’s foremost champion of democracy and human rights, but let us briefly examine this self-proclaimed guardian of western civilization. While there are many factors to judge the degree of democracy in government, among the most important are freedom of the press, independence of the judiciary, limits on executive power, vibrancy of political opposition and transparency of elections.  

 

Unfortunately for today’s Americans, their press is anything but free since the vast majority of communications media in the U.S. is owned by six corporations: General Electric, Walt Disney, News Corp., TimeWarner, Viacom and CBS.  Down from 50 corporations in 1983, a dozen in 1992 to six today, these megamedia monoliths own perhaps 90% of all mass media in America: newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, internet and cellular.  Since the corporate media moguls have interests intertwined with the military-industrial complex, news reporting is severely slanted and any views contrary to the welfare of the war establishment are sanitized, marginalized or censored.

 

While America may have an independent judiciary, which some consider to have been a model for the rest of the world, access is restricted to those who can afford it, and incidences of racial and ethnic discrimination occur with alarming frequency. A 2011 report by the World Justice Program asserts, “The [U.S.] civil justice system is independent and free of undue influence, but it remains inaccessible to disadvantaged groups. Legal assistance is expensive or unavailable, and the gap between rich and poor individuals in terms of both actual use of and satisfaction with the civil courts system remains significant. In addition, there is a general perception that ethnic minorities and foreigners receive unequal treatment from the police and the courts.”

 

Despite relatively high marks, the independence of the American judiciary must be questioned over election campaign funding practices for judges, since large donations by wealthy benefactors obviously have the potential to influence decisions made by the elected jurists.  In the U.S., bribery and corruption appear to take the more subtle form of campaign contributions.

 

Not so subtle is the blatant racism within the U.S. judicial system, which imprisons a disproportionate number of blacks and ethnic minorities as documented in a report by Human Rights Watch.  Black non-Hispanic males are incarcerated at a rate over six times that of white non-Hispanic males and almost three times that of Hispanic males.  Also disturbing is the trend toward privatization of incarceration leading to what some refer to as the prison-industrial complex.  Prisons are a growth industry in the U.S., which also leads the world in incarceration with 25% of the world’s prisoners.   

 

Additionally, there are concerns over concentration of executive power and circumvention of the judiciary as is exemplified in the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.  It makes little sense to laud the virtues of an independent judiciary, when the U.S. president can bypass it at will to incarcerate or assassinate anyone, including American citizens, anywhere in the world who may be on “The List”.

 

While seeds of dissent are sprouting in America in the form of the occupy movements, the lack of vibrant political opposition remains truly striking.  One blogger even asks, “Why aren't Americans, like the Armenians, or the Greeks, or the French, protesting/rioting in various hard hit areas of the United States and demanding real change?” Unlike other western democracies, there is no true opposition party in the U.S., as acclaimed linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky points out, “In the U.S. there is basically one party -- The Business Party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations of the same policies.”

 

Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution observes, “People in many countries have experienced decades or even centuries of oppression, whether of domestic or foreign origin. Frequently, unquestioning submission to authority figures and rulers has been long inculcated.”  The scholar concludes, “The result is predictable: the population becomes weak, lacks self-confidence, and is incapable of resistance.”  This certainly appears to be true for older Americans who grew up in the 1950s and 60s in a fearful world seemingly on the brink of nuclear war, with duck-and-cover drills in school and Conelrad Civil Defense radio broadcasts at home. Perhaps the youth will cause an American awakening to blossom this spring.

 

Concerning elections in the U.S., it is the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors chosen from among the party elites, that actually elects the president and not the citizens. At least four times, the candidate with a minority of the popular vote has been elected in the Electoral College, essentially reducing the popular vote to a charade; the most recent example was the Bush coup in 2000.  Incredibly, electors from 24 states holding 257 electoral votes -- and only 270 are required to win -- are not legally bound to vote for the candidate winning the popular vote in their respective states. In other states, electors are “bound” by a pledge or by law with punishments ranging from cancellation of vote and replacement to a $1000 fine. Any other country implementing a similar voting system would be accused by the U.S. of election fraud.

 

No longer a democracy where “elected” leaders represent the interests of their constituents, America has become what some scholars term a “democratic dictatorship”, which means that despite the pretense of elections, the president wields such concentrated power as to be indistinguishable from a dictator.  Scholar Michel Chossudovsky summarizes U.S. politics stating, “While the facade of democracy prevails, supported by media propaganda, the American republic is fractured. The tendency is towards the establishment of a totalitarian State, a military government dressed in civilian clothes.” 

 

Vietnam was on the right side of the world revolution as Dr. King noted, “The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China.” Sadly, he also pointed out, “Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.”  The U.S. dropped 88,500 tons of bombs and 19 million gallons of Agent Orange defoliants on Vietnam in an effort to impose a dictatorial regime in place of the legitimate government, whose leader Ho Chi Minh originally had admired the U.S.  And to compound the offense, the U.S. dropped over 260 million cluster bombs on Laos, of which 75 million did not detonate, killing over 200,000 people to date. Are these the acts of a civilized western democracy or of a bellicose, imperialistic fascist power?  

 

No, America is and has been on the wrong side of the world revolution, but Iran and Islam are on the right side. Iran, accused by the West of being a “threat”, has not acted aggressively against other countries since Nader Shah invaded India in 1738. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei states, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has presented a model to the world of Islam: a model for religious democracy, a model for independence and national glory.” It is precisely this Islamic model of religious democracy of which the U.S. and the West is most apprehensive.

 

India, where one of the world’s largest strikes by 100 million workers recently occurred, is on the right side of the world revolution.  Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Indian political leader who played a pivotal role in freeing India from Britain’s iron-fisted colonial grip through non-violent resistance, recognized the peaceful power of Islam while in prison.  He writes, “I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life.  It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet (S), the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and his own mission.”

 

Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and most of the Middle East are on the right side of the world revolution. While much of the world favors Islamic concepts of democratic government, America remains obstinately on the wrong side of the world revolution, imposing its supremacy, as it has since the worldwide Islamic awakening began in Iran 33 years ago. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei writes, “Our enemies are alarmed and do not want our nation -- which is located in a strategic part of the world -- to achieve these accomplishments. They do not want the Iranian nation to be known as the standard-bearer of Islam.”

 

The Holy Quran has a message for the United States and all the hegemonic powers that seek to impose their supremacy over other nations.  It would benefit them to study it diligently.

 

“As for that abode of the Hereafter, We assign it to those who do not want to impose their supremacy over others in the land, nor spread corruption.”  (Surat al-Qasas 28:83)

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