On this day, the day of civil rights pioneer Rosa Park’s funeral, we are informed by Dana Priest, writing in the Washington Post, of secret CIA prisons around the world that are beyond the reach of human rights organizations which could advocate on behalf of those who are experiencing abuse and torture that we can’t even begin to imagine if they were allowed access. They’re not – because the Bush administration prefers to hide its ugly, private sins in the name of “freedom”. Their actions are no better than the white-sheeted cowards of the KKK who tortured and lynched African-Americans in the name of power and “purity” for so many decades before public outrage finally took hold.
Those secret detainees have no Rosa Parks. None are free to take their place at the front of the bus in order to spark a rights revolution in their name. The only voice they have is ours.
Just as African-Americans fought so hard for so long in the background to become equal citizens in the face of overwhelming odds only to finally be represented so publicly by that one courageous woman in one simple but profound act, so are we all called to act on behalf of those that US laws continue to treat as non-persons: those being held in dark, horrifying dungeons in foreign countries where the crimes of the Bush administration are perpetuated without remorse or conscience.
No more. NO MORE.
Any US citizen who remains silent in the face of these crimes is complicit. Any citizen of the world who does not stand up and shout on behalf of these voiceless victims has no claim to freedom in their own life because we are all one people, joined by a responsibility to promote humanity at its best. When we fail to do so, we surrender our right to be truly free.
Mrs Rosa Parks made her mark. Will you?
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama
I am just heartbroken.
me too… everytime I feel that they’ve crossed the last line, they shatter the marker and leave me speechless.
Mind-boggling. This one should be real simple. We are Americans. We believe in freedom, fair play, and the rule of law. We just don’t do that sort of thing. We don’t. It isn’t even a question and anyone that suggests such a thing is automatically shunned. Right.
Right?
Americans don’t do that.
Americans don’t torture. Neocons do. We patriots will drive them out.
If I had the cash, I’d fly down to DC today and start my own anti-torture protest. This just can’t go on any longer.
No one has brought more disgrace upon the country and our supposed values than the Bush regime.
They are a disgrace to humanity. They’re even worse than the usual, typical sadistic tyrants because they posture themselves as champions of freedom and equality.
There’s an old saying attributed to early Hindu wisdom which says; “A guru who fucks up comes back as a rock”; meaning that anyone who assumes responsibility for the public trust and then violates that trust incurs a powerful karmic debt that requires they return to the very beginning of the entire reincarnation cycle to start all over again.
I really like the idea of this, but even it may be too kind for these disgusting monsters.
If this administration ever knew this truth, it has long since forgotten it:
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it
that in the process he does not become a monster.
And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” Friedrich Nietzche
They are doing this in our name. In a democracy, we the people are doing this. In the eyes of the world, after re-electing these monsters, our people are doing this.
I have sometimes contemplated whether this contamination of our country’s reputation was not the real goal of the transnational corporate leaders that stand in the shadows behind Bush et al.. Whether taking our moral standing away in order to weaken our voice on global issues, was for them either an intended result or just a happy byproduct.
Our people, through their democratic power and the power of their consumer spending, could exert such a positive influence on the world if only we would bend down and pick these tools from the ground.
Rosa Parks. Hail and farewell gentle soul. Watch us and guide us. Help us have your strength to say “enough”.
Post today, I am afraid I do not know what country I live in anymore. This is not to say that they don’t have some pretty terrible people interred at these “facilities”. We have had some pretty terrible people imprisoned through out the history of our country. To my knowledge, unless I am ill informed, we have not stooped to secret prisons and routine torture before.
In the past we fought wars to help the world rid itself of criminal governments that did things like this and worse to their enemies. Does this mean that our government has become criminal in the eyes of the rest of the world? BushCo keeps saying 9/11 changed everything. Apparently and sadly this is one statement of theirs that we can accept at face value.