Wake Up Call for America

According to a Pentagon report, the U.S. notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, dubbed the most expensive jail on earth, costs Americans some $903,614 annually per prisoner.

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - I'm tired of politics, of the injustices, the corruption, the assassinations, the gross illegal behaviour of the strong, the plundering of the poor and the indignities wrought on the weak.

While decent, working people lose their homes, thanks to Wall Street's Ponzi schemes, the market manipulators pay themselves outrageous million-dollar salaries and bonuses.

Millions of children go hungry as the war-mongering U.S. Senate crusaders groan and gasp that not enough is spent (wasted) on military interventions around the world.

According to a Pentagon report, the U.S. notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, dubbed the most expensive jail on earth, costs Americans some $903,614 annually per prisoner.

Meanwhile millions of children in urban America, urban South America, urban Africa and urban Asia starve while 150 million dollars annually is spent operating Guantanamo.

In a New York Times article, Scott Shane cited an independent review of interrogation and detention that says “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it."

Reported Shane "The C.I.A. not only water-boarded prisoners, but slammed them into walls, chained them in uncomfortable positions for hours, stripped them of clothing and kept them awake for days on end.”

Celebrated human rights organizations blabber their disapproval and nobody listens, nobody cares, nobody acts.

Nothing changes except the rich who get richer, and the prisoners in Guantanamo starve themselves to death and would rather die than remain innocents locked under threat of enhanced interrogation.

Politically disenfranchised children waste away without medical care or food while the U,S, government gladly pours billions of dollars into Israel’s military coffers.

America's current agreement elevated Israel’s annual grant aid from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion, and Israeli officials expect the follow-on package to provide incremental boosts to nearly $4 billion per year.

Eight thousand structurally deficient bridges in America need urgent repair and maintenance. While ignoring the dire infra-structure needs, American politicians make overtures to buy drones to spy on the public.

During the Occupy Wall Street activism in the U.S., hundreds of journalists and people with cell-phone cameras were arrested for photographing the actions of police.

I've said previously, Americans are ignorant--not stupid but ignorant. They've been dumbed down in the schools and at home by the media.

They go off to fight wars in places they've never heard of. They don't know more than one language; and some don't know that.

When they discover they're going to fight Arabs, their minds respond to the brain washing they get from Islamophobic films they watch at home. Anyone who has read Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs knows that the media has twisted many ignorant American minds.

Not long ago I wrote an article on how Americans love violence. I mentioned part of that comes from the violent films they watch, even down to Tom and Jerry cartoons.

In a letter to the editor, one American wrote "Violence is not actively taught in America nor is it the result of cartoons--the same cartoons are available worldwide."

He forgot to connect gun violence in American films with the availability and popularity of guns in America (and anywhere else America is supplying arms).

The National Rifle Association has played its prime terrorist message on two fronts: to the bought Congress who fear the loss of votes and funding, and the public frightened that the government will bring the military down on them.

Wake up America! Stop the injustices! End the corruption! Make politics a patriot’s joy for people like me.

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com