Fear-Mongering by Anti-Trump Academics and Scholars

by Stephen Lendman

Perhaps never before in modern history was an elected head of state assailed so one-sidedly before entering office - in Trump's case despite no public record on which to judge him.

He may turn out as rotten as the rest, maybe worse. Who knows? He's yet to begin governing. He hasn't done anything yet except announce cabinet and other appointments, so who can know for sure what'll he do in office.

I'm largely waiting to find out before judging him - though throughout the campaign and after his election, I expressed some honest criticism, including on his announced intention to move America's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem - breaching international law if he follows through. All other nations recognizing Israel locate theirs in Tel Aviv. Jerusalem is an international city, not an exclusive Israeli one.

On December 13, a letter signed by 1,200 academics and scholars expressed alarm "by threats to civil liberties" - looking ahead, speculating on future events without credible evidence to go on, instead of focusing on America's deplorable state, sinking to new lows under the Clinton co-presidency, GW Bush and Obama, the nation transformed into a police state on their watch, waging wars on humanity at home and abroad.

Since the republic's inception, many Americans were ruthlessly treated, Native Americans almost entirely annihilated, the most appalling genocide in world history, still ongoing against their cultural heritage. 

War on Black Americans is longstanding - from chattel to wage slavery, Jim Crow to its modern-day version, freedom to mass incarceration. 

People of color today are viciously persecuted. So are most ordinary people overall under protracted Main Street Depression conditions, including mass unemployment affecting nearly 100 million working-age Americans and poverty turned into a growth industry - while the nation's privileged class never had things better.

McCarthyism under Obama is back on steroids. So is his exclusive support for Wall Street, war-profiteers and other corporate favorites, while most Americans endure hard times getting harder, their misery ignored, their rights trampled on, fundamental freedoms disappearing in plain sight.

The academics and scholars claiming "we are at the cusp of what may be a massive rollback of civil rights and liberties" ignore current deplorable conditions - America a plutocracy, not democracy, growing tyranny near full-blown, a bipartisan war on freedom threatening its elimination altogether, while endless US wars of aggression rage in multiple theaters.

Academics and other scholars expressing alarm "by (possible new) threats (ahead) to civil liberties" failed to examine America's deplorable state, and direct their concerns at Obama, congress and the courts, not a president-elect weeks from taking office, responsible for no public wrongdoing so far.

Once in office as the nation's 45th president, there's plenty of time for criticism as warranted. Until then, America's bipartisan criminal class in power should be targeted, responsible for waging war on humanity at home and abroad.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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