Many s***hole countries currently exist on this old planet, but they are not the ones which have been spelled out by our potty-mouthed President.
The true s***hole countries have nothing to do with the ordinary people who live in them. The ordinary people who live in them simply want to get on with their lives. They want to live comfortably, to be free of starvation, sickness, and homelessness, to raise a family, to earn a decent living, and to die knowing that they have done the best that they could. They are, dear reader, just like you and me, yes?
What really makes certain countries s***holes are the rulers of those countries. Those rulers wear fine clothes, live in big, fancy houses, eat sumptuous meals, are chauffeured in big, shiny cars, own lots of property, employ an army of servants, and surround themselves by bodyguards to protect them from assassination. Those rulers make laws beneficial to themselves and their friends and sycophants, rig elections to maintain themselves in power, “disappear” potential rivals, and send out their secret police to suppress dissenters. Ordinary people do not like to live in these s***hole countries; and, if they can, they emigrate to countries where they can breathe free.
Following is a partial list of current s***hole countries. You may be surprised by some of the listings, and you may disagree with some of them. But they do match the above criteria.
Russia: Vladimir Putin, a.k.a. Vladimir I (“the Great”). Murdering journalists and potential rivals. Rigging elections. Rattling sabers. Meddling in other countries’ affairs. Cobbling together the second Russian Empire.
Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro. Creating a “constituent assembly” to supplant the duly-elected parliament. Running the economy into the ground. Suppressing dissidents. Bribing the military in order to gain its support.
Turkey: Recep Erdogan. Re-writing the country’s constitution to give him more powers. Persecuting ethnic/religious minorities. Purging the government of anyone who has a higher IQ than he does. Jailing dissidents.
Syria: Bashar al-Assad. Fomenting a civil war in reaction to a legitimate protest. Destroying whole cities in order to “save” them from “rebels.” Persecuting religious minorities. Making friends with Vladimir Putin.
North Korea: Kim Un-jong. Assassinating relatives to prevent “palace coups.” Starving his subjects in order to build bombs and missiles. Rattling sabers. Taunting Donald J. Trump.
Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi. Perpetuating the military junta. Installing a figurehead as “head of state” in order to mollify the western powers. Persecuting ethnic/religious minorities. Perverting Buddhist doctrine.
Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu. Treating Palestinians like pariahs. Stealing their land. Subjecting them to constant security checks. Building a wall. Making friends with Donald J. Trump.
China: Xi Jinping. Dumping cheap, often shoddy and dangerous goods on foreign markets. Manipulating the country’s currency to gain a trade advantage. Buying “friends” in undeveloped countries to create a new “economic co-prosperity sphere.” Balking on North Korea. Claiming the South China Sea as its private lake.
Saudi Arabia: King Salman ibn Saud. Perpetuating the last absolute monarchy in the world. Restricting suffrage to local elections. Executing dissidents. Keeping women in thrall to obsolete mores. Funding religious schools which preach extremist social views. Bombing Yemen back to the Stone Age. Making friends with Donald J. Trump.
So, what do we do with s***hole countries? Why, we knock the s*** out of them, of course! And how do we do that? I’m glad you asked, dear reader.
The Coddington Agenda calls for the following remedies:
Withdrawal of all economic and military assistance (humanitarian aid excepted).
Cancellation of all trade agreements.
Closing of all consulates and reducing embassy staff to a bare minimum.
Restriction of the movements of embassy staff to travel to and from an international airport and the United Nations Secretariat.
Maintain this stance until there is no more s*** from these countries.
Just a thought.
