Offending Humanity

They have much to discuss between them the despots 

of the world who plot how they can manage to desecrate 

the quaint concept of human rights though they are 

members of the world community that pledges to uphold

human rights of all equally and to do all in their collective 

power to avoid bringing the world to another brink 

of global calamity. It is their goal to deflect attention 

though their destructive actions can hardly evade notice. 

They agree not to intrude on one another's territorial 

claims and to be of use one to the other refusing 

in the great hall of the UN General Assembly to 

condemn any among them who succeed in drawing

the alarmed condemnation of peaceful states using 

sanctions as a cudgel to effect economic pain on the 

offender as a means of persuasion in the path toward 

observing international rules of accepted conduct which 

in short refers to avoidance of persecuting minorities

threatening opposition, egregious corruption, imprisonment 

of critics, liberal use of the death penalty, oppressing 

their citizens, violating neighbours' sovereign borders 

to dismantle their governments while destroying civil

infrastructure, bombing schools and hospitals, engaging

in mass murder and generally offending humanity.