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It is about our obligatory duties, as a partner in the U.S. Government, to the weak and vulnerable, to all those illegally imprisoned and at the mercy of forces ostensibly under our civilian control-- it is about our duties and obligations to others. It is about our responsibility for the torture conducted in our names, with our tax dollars, with our at least partial knowledge.... and, as the diarist points out above-- surely uncomfortably-- with our at least partial consent.
Only we can stop it. Our acceptance of it, passive or otherwise, is our participation in it.
This is an entirely appropriate topic to bring up at this site, and just after an election is the very least damaging time in which to do so.
I am not willing to trade our moral core for short term political viability "at any cost." We've had too much of that already, seems to me.... and American had ended up very very far to the right for it.
"the people have the power to redeem the work of fools" --Patti Smith
by Immigrant Punk on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 12:08:45 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
what i question is the effectiveness. I've already given up on democratic politics as being an exercise in anything approaching idealism. It's an ugly mud wrestling contest and you try to throw the beast in a way that kind of matches your personal values. When you only get 80%, you just keep on going.
I think we might right ourselves, eventually, but making lists like this seems very foolish right now.
All extremists are irrational and should be exposed
by SeanF on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 12:16:26 AM PDT
If not us, who?
by Immigrant Punk on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 12:19:17 AM PDT
until the current season changes. think in those terms, and use all of that time to its best effect. Let's peak at month 22, not now.
by SeanF on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 12:25:30 AM PDT
What about the (apparently) thousands of others in his predicament, or worse-- because they're not citizens and so therefore don't have any standing in the courts?
Mr. Padilla is one of the few we really know anything about at all. Aside from the corpses that occasionally show up on Iraqi roadsides, their kneecaps Black&Deckered...
Justice delayed is justice most tragically denied.
by Immigrant Punk on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 01:53:50 AM PDT
And what about the estimated 3000 others that have apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth? This is nothing more than a bunch of mental sadists enabling a bigger bunch of physical sadists.
The Prince of Peace has been usurped by the God of War.
by Spoc42 on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 07:53:54 AM PDT
Well said.
My thoughts here.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. S. Holmes
by Carnacki on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 04:01:20 PM PDT
wide narrow
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