Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

I’ve been mulling over this month’s historic US presidential election for the past few days since its stunning result, and no matter how positive I try to be, I can only conclude that the United States and, by extension, the world are at the starting point of what can only be described as a “worst case scenario” for world peace, cooperation and understanding. To start with, President-elect Donald Trump is, arguably, the least prepared US president in history. His net training has been focused entirely on business—with only the slightest of pure economic studies—nor is he, like most politicians who eventually hold that country’s highest political posts, an attorney. That in itself wouldn’t necessarily be a fatally limiting factor. Former US President Jimmy Carter, for instance, was a proud honors graduate of the Annapolis Naval Academy and a farmer-businessman before launching his political career. But he was, arguably, one of the most committed of US presidents to human and civil ...

To read Parts I, II and III, please visit the following links: http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-nationalist-populism.html http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-populist-nationalism-part.html http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/09/the-rise-of-populist-nationalism-part.html Although an undercurrent of populist nationalism has been surging toward the surface since the turn of the millennium, it is no coincidence that it has become a fully-fledged international trend in the years since the 2008 world financial crisis, the catalyst for which was the US mortgage debacle and the ensuing stock market crash that it triggered. Nor is right-wing populist nationalism the only manifestation of rage and frustration on the part of common citizens at what they perceive as a broken system and as a worldwide “game”—led by the West—in which the deck is definitively stacked against them. Trumpism in the US, Nigel...

“What is Aleppo?” asked third party libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on nationwide US television. And everyone who is aware of the horrendous human drama unfolding in Syria gasped and wrote him off as too ignorant to run for dogcatcher let alone president of the most powerful nation on earth and leader of the Western world. US Presidential candidate Gary Johnson Devastated by the Syrian War over the course of the past five years, Aleppo will very likely be, for all intents and purposes, leveled within the next two months, under constant air attacks by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and those of his Russian ally and overlord Vladimir Putin. While many may know where Aleppo lies in the bitter war between Assad and nationalist rebels and in the proxy wars of regional and worldwide rivals, fewer know what Aleppo means in terms of world history and culture. Possibly in existence since as far back as the 6 th millennium before the Christian era, it has been i...

To read Parts I and II, please visit the following links: http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-nationalist-populism.html http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-populist-nationalism-part.html In a recently released documentary video written and directed by Kelly Nyks, Peter D. Hutchinson and Jared P. Scott for PF Films ( http://requiemfortheamericandream.com/ ) , the internationally esteemed dean of US intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, provides, like no one else to date, a clear, concise analysis of how the much-touted American dream has become an American nightmare for all but a privileged elite. And as goes the United States, so too goes the world, often with devastatingly multiplied effect. The failure of the majority of the public to understand the causes behind this dream’s demise and, worse still, their lack of tools for dealing with it, are at the root of the fears and frustrations currently fueling populist nationa...

To read Part I, please visit the following link: http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2016/08/the-rise-of-nationalist-populism.html Despite the general proliferation of far-right nationalist groups across Western Europe, certainly the most alarming example of the swift emergence of populist nationalism to date—not only because of the potential consequences for the country involved, but also because of those for the world at large, given that nation’s superpower status—has come in the United States, with the meteoric launching on the political horizon of billionaire real estate czar and reality show host Donald Trump. The flamboyant tycoon has skyrocketed from political obscurity to the position of presidential candidate for one of the country’s two major parties in just a few short months, solely on the strength of his populist nationalist rhetoric and its effect on the angriest segments of the population. Trump was not the pick of the Republican Party itself, ho...