Every Government is Garbage

I hate the government of every country.

I write most often about my disdain for my own government, because it is the government about which I know and understand the most, and whose actions affect me and those I care about the most, and upon which I should as a citizen be the most able to affect change. There are so many terrible things to write about our government. But if I lived and had grown up in any other country, I’d have just as much or more to say about that particular place’s government. Even from this partially educated place of removal, I can talk shit about the governments of other countries.

Governments like North Korea’s are, of course, complete garbage. So is Saudi Arabia’s. Any country’s government led by a dictator is garbage. Dictatorship, totalitarianism, monarchy, fascism, autocracy: all garbage. It hardly bears expounding when that’s your starting point. North Korea and Saudi Arabia both have horrible human rights records and, and both have oppressive and evil governments, but are different in that the latter is far wealthier and is cynically accepted by the global community because of its wealth.

China’s and Russia’s governments are awful for different but similar reasons. Both went through periods approaching communism, the former still pretending to be communist, but have never actually achieved anything but totalitarian one party rule, thus conflating totalitarianism with communism and helping to make communism a dirty word. Both are ruled by despotic parties with autocratic figureheads, despite their pretenses at democracy with sham elections.

I’ve talked enough shit about Israel’s government already, so suffice to say it’s a racist, horribly conservative, and oppressively violent one. Any government that by its nature exhibits racial or religious bias is garbage. Theocracies, like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Mauritania, Iran, Afghanistan, goddamn Vatican City, and Israel, are garbage.

England’s government is garbage. Incidentally, nothing Boris Johnson touches can escape being garbage. But lest I give that turd too much credit, it was always garbage. It was garbage under Theresa May and David Cameron, such garbage under Tony Blair, and, my god, the utter depraved garbage that it was under Margaret Thatcher. It’s impossible for any imperial power to not be garbage, and difficult to stop being garbage if it was once an empire. England may have given up being an empire, and hunting the Scots and Irish for sport, but it’s a long, self-reflective way away from not being garbage.

India’s and Brazil’s governments are both garbage. One might not think to connect those two, but they’re both run by racist, hateful assholes. Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi are astounding assholes with disgusting, destructive policies. Rodrigo Duterte and Viktor Orban are also bigoted, facsist assholes.

Germany’s government is garbage too. Angela Merkel benefits by comparison to all the other much more horrible leaders. We’ve grown so used to the extreme right-wing assholes running the US and throughout much of the world that a regular, non-batshit crazy conservative Christian actually looks good, reasonable, even sort of liberal.

I don’t have too much shit to say about the Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and the Netherlands, Finland, Greenland, and Iceland. But I could rail on some horrendous shit about their governments given several minutes.

Much of the world is dominated by garbage governments of the petty, corrupt, often militarized variety. There’s not enough time.

Any government that is not democratic is garbage. Any government that does not prioritize the well being of its people over everything,, particularly over itself, is garbage. Any government which doesn’t enforce equal rights and protections under the law to all its people is garbage. Any government which sacrifices the health of its people for the sake of the profits of corporations is garbage. Any government not taking immediate, radical, comprehensive action on the climate emergency is garbage. Any government that commits war crimes is garbage. Any government that denies asylum to refugees, particularly when they bear some blame in creating the conditions resulting in those people becoming refugees, is garbage. To some degree, it is all but certain that the government of every country in the world is garbage, and I hate them.

But does that mean that I’m completely anti-government? An anarchist? Or worse, a libertarian?

Not completely, not quite, and Jesus F Christ no.

However, all governments should serve at the pleasure of the people. Beyond merely not resigning ourselves to corruption, or oppression, or plain mediocrity, we must demand better. Governments should fear the displeasure of the constituencies they serve, not the other way around. If they are not fulfilling the needs and demands of the people, they need to go. If they cannot justify their own utility, they have to go. If they’re garbage, they go. Rather than all of us, the world over, just complaining, often in obscurity or even in secret, we should be out there in the halls of power, defenestrating all the garbage.