{"id":162335,"date":"2020-06-08T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=162335"},"modified":"2020-06-06T05:44:54","modified_gmt":"2020-06-06T04:44:54","slug":"trump-and-the-usa-can-escape-but-the-empire-cannot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/06\/trump-and-the-usa-can-escape-but-the-empire-cannot\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and the USA Can Escape, but the Empire Cannot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

5 Jun 2020 – <\/em>Trump is now trapped. His Republican presidential predecessor, George W. Bush, has called for the unification of America and that means that Trump has to go. The defense secretary that he named two years ago has denounced his call to militarize the response to American protests, and that means that Trump cannot call on the military to save him.<\/p>\n

\n

Yes, Trump can escape from his disastrous presidency. He can make the announcement that he will not seek a second term and the Republican Party should nominate someone else who promises the unify the country.<\/p>\n

The United States of America is trapped. It is ravaged by the coronavirus with inadequate medical preparedness. It is torn apart by racist violence. And it now has an unemployment rate that rivals that of the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

But yes, the USA can escape from its disastrous medical, social and economic situation. It can convert the military budget to a vast program of rebuilding America\u2019s failing infrastructure, starting with its medical infrastructure and extending, like Roosevelt\u2019s WPA, to all sectors of the domestic economy, thus putting everyone back to work, above all those who have been excluded by racism.<\/p>\n

But no, the American empire cannot escape. The military budget must be totally converted in order to save the country. Its military bases around the world must be dismantled and the soldiers brought home and put to useful work.<\/p>\n

Will this be done? And will it be done soon enough to save America if not the empire? We have entered one of those periods of history where change is accelerating (as described by dialectics<\/a>). Ideas and solutions that seemed completely impossible and utopian yesterday suddenly become the orders of today.<\/p>\n

The so-called \u201cdemocratic process\u201d of the United States is not equipped for such a change. It rests firmly in the hands of \u201cbig money\u201d interests who pay the millions of dollars in television fees for election campaigns. Not surprisingly, these wealthy interests are almost exclusively in the hands of elderly white men, those who are least open to change. It is the youth, women and people of color who can change and who can save America.<\/p>\n

If the American \u201cdemocratic process\u201d is not equipped, what, then is the way that America can change. Dust off the old word \u201crevolution\u201d. And take off the connotation of violence. Yes, nonviolent revolution is possible.<\/p>\n

Once more we must return to the key distinction between culture of war and culture of peace. The violent revolutions of the past have been informed by and led to the culture of war. The revolutions of the future should be informed by and lead to the culture of peace. See the following website for details: SFR-21.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr. David Adams is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a> and coordinator of the <\/em>Culture of Peace News Network<\/a>. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the UN International Year for the Culture of Peace.\u00a0 Previously, at Yale and Wesleyan Universities, he was a specialist on the brain mechanisms of aggressive behavior, the history of the culture of war, and the psychology of peace activists, and he helped to develop and publicize the Seville Statement on Violence. Send him an email<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 decade-culture-of-peace.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Jun 2020 \u2013 The USA is trapped. It is ravaged by the coronavirus with inadequate medical preparedness. It is torn apart by racist violence. And it now has an unemployment rate that rivals that of the Great Depression. The military budget must be totally converted in order to save the country. Its military bases around the world must be dismantled and the soldiers brought home and put to useful work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":101475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[867,101,725,1982,1126,1050,1978,1281,103,1639,1334,99,95,70,92,1594],"class_list":["post-162335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-anglo-america","tag-cultural-violence","tag-culture-of-violence","tag-economic-crisis","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-militarized-police","tag-police-brutality","tag-racism","tag-right-politics","tag-social-conflict","tag-structural-violence","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-violent-conflict","tag-war-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}