What's Wrong With America?

In light of the disturbing and horrifying behaviour of the american Government lately, here's my revised rant on america.
Citizens of america shouldn't take this personally, after all it's not like you actually voted for your government. (kudos to 22 minutes and it was colin, not rick mercer who said that!)

Rather than just going off randomly, i'm posting references to other reputable sources who back my position that america is a fucked up country.


Amnesty's report on human rights violations by the u.s.a.
Which states that:

• The US government has a selective approach to human rights -- using international human rights standards as a yardstick by which to judge other countries, but consistently failing to apply those same standards at home,
  
  
• By providing weapons, security equipment and training to other countries, the USA is responsible for the same abuses it denounces in its State Department report
  
  
• According to Amnesty International, when it comes to human rights, the USA discriminates against countries and victims
  
  
• In US prisons and jails, physical and sexual abuse are endemic, and repressive control methods -- like electro-shock weapons or prolonged use of restraint chairs -- are increasingly being used.
  
  
• early this month, the execution of Sean Sellers for crimes committed when he was a 16-year-old boy confirmed the USA as the world's leading executioner of child offenders.
  
  
• Use of the death penalty in the USA has consistently shown to be racist...the risk of killing the innocent is constantly increasing
  
  
• people seeking refuge in the USA from persecution in their own countries are increasingly locked up in detention and effectively treated like criminals

Another planned killing by the US Government

• Louis Jones, a veteran of the 1990/91 Gulf War, was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of Tracie Joy McBride, a private in the US army.
• Jones's unsuccessful clemency petition to President Bush included evidence that this decorated soldier suffered from personality-altering brain damage related to "Gulf War Syndrome" as a result of his exposure to toxins during that conflict.
• Louis Jones always expressed his remorse for the murder and his responsibility for it. His clemency petition had asked for his death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of release.
• Louis Jones was sentenced to death by a jury of 11 whites and one black in a federal court in Texas. He was African American and Tracy McBride was white.

Guantánamo detainees

• More than 600 detainees of more than 40 nationalities are being held without charge or trial in the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba
• Some have been held there for more than a year, with no access to lawyers, relatives, or the courts. This situation of indefinite detention is inflicting cruelty on the detainees and their families
• "There can be little doubt that the US Government would not countenance such treatment of its own citizens by another country", Amnesty International added.
• "We recall the US Government's repeated assertions since 11 September 2001 that it will not relax its commitment to international human rights standards and the rule of law", Amnesty International said. "Those words ring more and more hollow each day that the Guantánamo detainees are denied their fundamental rights".
  
  

Interlude: Portrait of young America.
(This actually only refers to -certain- young americans, i know there are still lots of totally rational people as well)

I'll continue to add to this as i get the chance.