Eroding Our Civil and Human Rights Institutions from the Inside Out

In recent years we have witnessed the most aggressive dismissal and corrosion of some of our nations’ (and the world’s) most treasured institutions by the U.S. government. The brazen and impertinent appointment of John R. Bolton to the United Nations sent a clear message to the U.N. and to the world that the United States was not interested in bilateral discussions. Such an affront to a reputable and honored establishment did not go over quietly, with Bolton fanning the fire with ostentatious statements such as: “if the UN secretary building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference,” and publicly expressing his view that the United States is not bound, like other countries, by international laws and treaties. Not exactly a stellar candidate to represent the United States.

Fear, Loathing and Globalization: The Vilification of Brown Bodies

There are two ways to define globalization; one being from a free market perspective in which globalization would begin in roughly the 1940’s with the spread of multi-national business, or by a more socio-historical definition in which globalization is viewed as the Western expansion beginning in 1500 and defined by expansionist or colonialist ambitions. By defining globalization as a period marked by an ethnocentric urgency to “civilize” other nations and peoples, then we are able to view the Spanish and Portuguese crusades, the British colonialism, and American Imperialism as all being variant forms of the same sort of outward expansion.

Proselytizing the Justice Department

Race vs. Religion in the Struggle for Civil Rights

As of late, the U.S. Justice Department has seen a significant shift in its policies and areas of focus. Where traditionally the protection of civil rights in the United States has focused on discriminations based on race and ethnicity, the Justice Department has recently changed its focus to religious rights, arguing that because the United States is becoming more and more religiously diverse, we need to increase our emphasis on protecting religious rights of expression. With the Justice Department taking on more religious rights cases, the attention paid to racial or ethnic discrimination has decreased dramatically.