The Deplorable State of Human Rights in America

The Deplorable State of Human Rights in America

China's Annual Report, UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights

In response to annual US reports on human rights in China, Beijing issues its own on the deplorable state of human rights in America.
It’s latest report made the following introductory remarks, saying:
As in previous years, the latest US reports on human rights in world community nations “continued pointing fingers at and slandering human rights situations in over 190 countries, while blindly ignoring its own serious human rights problems.”
“If one takes a glimpse into the human rights situation of the United States in 2018, it will not be difficult to find that the United States government, a self-styled ‘human rights defender,’ has a human rights record which is (deeply) flawed…(T)he double standards of human rights it pursues are obvious.”

Screenshot from China Military website

Examples are numerous, including far greater gun violence per capita in America than other developed nation, tens of thousands instances annually, affecting men, women, and children.
“Religious intolerance remarks were on the rise,” notably affecting Muslims, falsely claiming they’re “inherently violent or pose an imminent threat” – Trump and other right-wing extremists proliferators of the Big Lie.
They’ve “called for Muslims to be denied basic rights or declared that Islam is not a religion.”
Big Brother Internet surveillance in the US is a major issue, along with “warrantless wiretapping…vacuuming up emails, Facebook messages, Google chats, Skype calls, and the like.”
Big money controls US elections. “The total cost of the 2018 mid-term elections was $5.2 billion,” 35% more than in 2014 in nominal dollars, “making them by far the most expensive mid-term elections on record. The US government is representing the super rich” exclusively at the expense of most others.
Among Western countries, the US has the greatest income inequality. Its super-rich never had things better. The vast majority in the nation struggle to get by, most earning poverty or near-poverty wages with few or no benefits.
The “land of the free and home of the brave” is pure fantasy. So is “America the beautiful” – except for its privilege few.

American Exceptionalism’s Dark Side: Poverty and Despair in America

America’s top 1% owns nearly 40% of the nation’s wealth, the disparity becoming greater annually. “Nearly half of the American households live in financial difficulties, and 18.5 million Americans live in extreme poverty.”
Hate crimes are at a record high – 7,175 reported by the FBI, 17% more than in 2017, Black Americans harmed most of all, their overall status deplorable.

“The median white family has about 10 times as much wealth as the median black family. African Americans are 2.5 times as likely to be in poverty as whites, about twice as likely to be in unemployment as whites, and more than 6 times as likely as whites to be incarcerated.”
“The infant mortality rate is 1.3 times higher for African Americans, whose average life expectancy is about 3.5 years shorter than whites.”

Countless numbers of school shootings occur annually – 94 last year, killing or wounding 163 people, the worst year on record for these incidents.

“Women are living in fear of sexual harassment and sexual assaults. A survey found that 81 percent of women interviewed had experienced some form of sexual harassment, and 27 percent said they had been sexually assaulted.”

Trump racist immigration policy separated at least 2,000 unwanted alien children from parents, traumatizing many, instances of sexually abused alien juveniles reported.
The Trump regime withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran, the INF Treaty with Russia, UN Human Rights Council, the Paris Climate Agreement and UNESCO. It illegally moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, a UN recognized international city.
It cut or eliminated aid to Palestinians, especially its millions of refugees. It maintains a global gulag of torture prisons, Guantanamo the tip of the iceberg, most in them held indefinitely for political reasons.
Numerous cases of violent crime, gun crimes, abuse of power by police, and press freedom abuses were reported.
According to the FBI, there were an “estimated 1,247,321 violent crimes, including 17,284 incidents of murder, 135,755 rapes, 810,825 aggravated assaults, as well as 319,356 robberies.”

“Among the cases, 72.6 percent of murders, 40.6 percent of robberies, and 26.3 percent of aggravated assaults were committed with firearms.”

Press freedom in America deteriorated further, including “journalists attacked, searched, arrested, intercepted at borders, and restricted from publishing public information.”
Special UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston published a report, explaining that wealthy Americans get preferential judicial treatment, ordinary Americans charged with offenses treated much differently.
Washington is corporate occupied territory, money power running the country, House and Senate members serving their interests exclusively, ordinary people exploited and otherwise abused.
Poverty is America’s leading growth industry. Around half the nation’s households are financially stressed. Low-income ones lack proper health insurance. They’re either uninsured or way underinsured, unprotected in case of serious illnesses or injuries.
Homelessness and hunger get scant attention. The world’s richest country increasingly ignores the needs of its most disadvantaged citizens and residents.

“Systematic racial discrimination has long existed in the United States. Ethnic minorities faced restrictions in exercising their voting rights. The law enforcement and judicial departments made no progress in reducing racial discrimination.”
“Racial discrimination causes health disparities. When looking at the 10 leading causes of death in the United States, including cancer, stroke and heart disease, mortality rates among black Americans were higher than among white Americans. Compelling evidence suggests both individual- and institutional-level discrimination causes this disparity.”

Women face discrimination, on average earning 80% as much as men with similar skills for similar work. Polls show nearly half of women dissatisfied with their position in US society, treated unequally compared to men.
UN special rapporteurs on human rights, international solidarity, the right of everyone to be treated equitably, the right to non-discrimination, against racism, torture, and other inhuman treatment criticized the way America treats refugees and asylum seekers.

“The United States shirked international responsibilities, carried out the unilateralist America First policies unscrupulously, repeatedly withdrew from international organizations, bullied the weak, and caused human rights disasters in its overseas military operations, and became a ‘trouble maker’ that the international community widely condemned.”

Endless US wars rage, nations attacked for refusing to subordinate their sovereignty to US interests, no end of them in prospect, new ones in the wings to be waged.
The US is the world’s leading human rights abuser on a global scale, including at home against its poor, people of color, unwanted aliens, Muslims from the wrong countries, and anyone against its rage to rule the world unchallenged.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)