MARGARET KIMBERLEY—The perpetrators of crimes against humanity are often elevated to positions of respect and admiration. It all depends on who did the killing, and who was killed. Now the murderers are being called to account. The new movement in the United States against police and other state violence has inspired this welcome change taking place all over the world. The criminals are being exposed decades and even centuries after their atrocities took place. There is no statute of limitations for murder nor should there be for calling out people who have the blood of millions on their hands.
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Opponents of transformational change are seeking to “domesticate” the protest movement with bland calls for “justice” for George Floyd, who is dead and beyond justice, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace. “What we can do is put a critical view on the system that created the conditions that resulted in Floyd’s life being taken.” Activists also have an opportunity to build solidarity with global victims of U.S imperialism. “We have a responsibility as citizens of Empire to put a brake on the U.S. state,” said Baraka.
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In his regular morning press conference, Lopez Obrador stressed that this would be a humanitarian gesture, as the South American nation has been severely affected by the unilateral and illegal United States blockade. “If they requested it and it was a humanitarian necessity, we would do it (…) No one has the right to oppress others,” he expressed. Venezuela’s government has repeatedly denounced the consequences of the illegal coercive measures imposed by the U.S. against the Venezuelan people. These unilateral actions have threatened fuel supply in this South American country.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—This all comes out as we learn that Facebook is attaching warning labels to posts from outlets sponsored by governments which have not been absorbed into the US-centralized empire like RT and CGTN, but attaching no such label to outlets funded by imperial governments like BBC and Radio Free Europe. There is not any discernible difference in the degree of bias shown in state media from unabsorbed nations like Russia and China than there is in state media from the US and UK (or oligarchic media from the US and UK for that matter), but Facebook causes its 2.6 billion active users to look at one with suspicion but not the other.
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PATRICK LAWRENCE—Here comes the price of all this. Here comes the front edge of a new era, one in which America finally falls off its horse, its global standing properly diminished. Let it be, let it be, given how consistently Washington has abused the privilege that fell to it after the 1945 victories.
Europeans have for years nursed their resentment of America’s overweening assertions of power even as they have managed to contain it. Now Jack springs out of his box.
When Angela Merkel announced last week that she won’t attend this year’s Group of 7 summit in the U.S., the German chancellor’s now-overt contempt for the Trump administration can be taken to reflect the Continent’s. Even French President Emmanuel Macron, who has made a determined effort to accommodate President Donald Trump since taking office three years ago, seems to have given up.
