Joe Biden's Stand-Up Routine at the UN General Assembly

Much like so many US presidents before him, Joe Biden has an uncanny ability to say something with a straight face – that the rest of the world finds tragically laughable. And just like his predecessors, the punchline – once again – is how the United States is “leading the global fight for human rights”...while stripping it from as much of the world (and his own people) as possible.

The United States invades, interferes, oppresses, kills, retreats. It's the imperialist version of "lather, rinse, repeat". But even if the US doesn't militarily invade, the killing, interfering, and oppressing goes on, and it never ends.

As his own opening act the week before his UNGA address, Biden pledged to “take on the Taliban” while US troops were, literally, in full retreat. It's like someone challenging you to a fight, and as you're backing up, you yell "okay, let's go!". Apparently, Biden is the second coming of “Baghdad Bob”– the former Iraqi Information Minister who, during the second Gulf War, laughably declared that no US troops were on Iraqi soil, while US tanks closed in on him.

So, let's come up with a nickname for Joe Biden. This one's easy– how about Bullshit Biden.

In the main act of his routine, Biden said"The democratic world is everywhere. It lives in the anti-corruption activists, the human rights defenders, the journalists, the peace protestors on the frontlines of this struggle in Belarus, Burma, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and everywhere in between.”

He condemns the crackdown on peaceful protesters, the lack of free and fair elections, and the state-ordered attacks, imprisonment and intimidation of civilians in dictatorships throughout the world – but only if the United States is not leading them. When he's called out for it, he denies blatant US involvement. He might as well do a rendition (someone please teach him how to use TikTok) of Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me".

But Biden took his reaction to criticism of American anti-Macedonian policy to another level. When condemned for the brutal US-led forced renaming of Macedonia and stripping away of Macedonians' identity, culture and history, he issued an executive order banning critics from entering, and owning property in, the United States. Well, you can cross the US off my list of potential vacation destinations as this executive order puts me on the US blacklist – for having the “audacity” to stand up for the human rights that they claim to defend. Biden has now joined the US's anti-Macedonian “strategic partner” Greece, which blacklisted me two decades earlier. Originality is not his strong suit.

I'm the president of Macedonian Human Rights Movement International. We stand up to oppressive regimes and demand human rights for oppressed Macedonians and other minorities. If it gets us blacklisted from these countries and prevents us, for example, from seeing Joe Biden preach/lie to the world in person, it's a blessing. But the question remains, will others – who claim to defend democracy, human rights and the rule of law – keep letting the United States, literally, get away with murder? Unlike Biden, that is no joke.

Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/BillNicholov