Cuba USA

American rarity: Between nightmares and dreams

by David Brooks

source La Jornada

translation Cuba-Network in Defense of Humanity

Sometimes the flood of news and events in the United States has the effect of causing a type of somnambulism that prevents sleep but also waking up. If we suddenly try to wake to see what is happening we will find things like these:

The United States is only an oligarchy with a political unlimited bribery as the essence to obtain nominations for president or to elect a president and other electoral positions. Therefore, we have seen a complete subversion of our political system, declared none other than former president Jimmy Carter last week.

A small group of millionaires exerts ever more power over the elections: less that 400 families are responsible for almost half the funds collected for the presidential campaign of 2016; an unprecedented concentration of political donors of modern times, reported the New York Times.

Donald Trump explained simply how it functions: when politicians talk to him he gives them money, and “you know what” when I need something from them two, three years later I talked to them and they are there for me…(a) Hillary Clinton, I asked her to be at my wedding and she came. She had no choice because I donated to a foundation (of the Clintons)”.

Eric Holder, recently retired attorney general of Barack Obama who never prosecuted bank executives for the massive fraud that sparked the financial crisis of 2007 returned to his comfortable seat in a powerful lawyers office of Covington & Burling specialized in defending Wall Street. AH.

Mean time more children live in more poverty than in the great recession: a total of 22 percent (more than one out of every five) and almost the double are Afro-American and native Indian minors in the richest country in the world.

Speaking of children: lawyers of the Obama government are appealing a sentence of a judge to free the thousands of minors with their mothers who have been jailed in centers of detention, some for more than a year under conditions qualified as deplorable by the judge.

Referring to law and order July was the month of more homicides by police in the United States in this part of 2015; the total reached 118 according to reports of The Guardian. At the same time cases of whit police killing Afro-American civilians, unarmed (six more than in the past weeks).

Speaking of psychotic behavior: the US Association of Psychology – including its director of ethics – collaborated with the Pentagon and the CIA to justify extreme techniques of interrogation – torture – used by the government of George W. Bush according to an internal investigation. They promise not to it any more.

There are many more: Obama who doesn’t stop speaking of peace continues to order bombing missions in at least seven countries; he intensified the war of the conservative politicians against women (specifically their right to an abortion0 and against minorities (not only how they are treated by the legal system for the dramatic erosion of the basic right to vote); the unceasing offensive against the union, primarily those of the teachers; the politicians continue fueling the anti migrant climate, and many others.

In face of this scenario every seems to be the same than the last time when there was an attempt to abandon the zombie state; in other words the nightmares that continue battering those awake and those who suffer insomnia, (Why is that?).

But there are things that invite dreaming:

In Portland Oregon a group of environmentalist prevented the exit to the Arctic of an icebreaker of the very powerful Shell oil company with a fleet of Kayaks and great acrobatic talent suspending from the bridge in protest for the beginning of oil perforations of one of the most vulnerable ecological regions of the planet.

The legendary rock star Neil Young presented his last record, The Monsanto Years, that condemns the business world that includes the famous agro industrial transnational for its destruction of the environment and agriculture.

Workers of the fast food sector achieved a triumph by forcing the state of New York to approve a 70 percent increase of the minimum salary they received in that sector; part of the movement that has won in several cities and states.

From Selma where the famous marches for civil rights began in the 60s headed by Martin Luther King launched a 40 day march to Washington to demand the recovery of basic rights – human – of the Afro Americans. Also there were demonstrations of the movement Black Lives Matter throughout the country.

The large majority – almost 60 percent of those interviewed in a survey by CBS News – the US people want the government to do much more to reduce the growing breach between rich and poor, a central policy subject in the election cycle; something that, in part, is a legacy of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders, independent senator for Vermont who does not fear identifying herself as a socialist democrat has surprised the political cupola with her campaign actions and whose assistance is larger than any other candidate to date.

Apache Indians set up tents in the center of Times Square in New York as part of a crusade across the country to protest a federal law project that intends to give sacred lands in Oak Flat Arizona to the mining transnational Resolution Copper whose owners are Río Tinto and BHP Billiton.

In the meantime, the United States became the second country of Spanish speakers in the world, surpassing Spain and only behind Mexico; this surely augurs larger changes in the future of this country and scares the ultra conservative forces.

All this offers promises of a possible dawn. Among these nightmares and dreams one can continue to sleep but it is clear that the time has come to wake up.

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