DISSENT IN AMERICA
Exerpt from:
"Dissent In America...if you don't love this country, then get the f... out!"
Shortly after the invasion began, a grieving Iraqi father asked, “Why didn’t the British and American people stop their leaders from doing this?” He had a right to be asking this question that goes beyond the obvious one. Those that live under repression in military or police dictatorships, or under totalitarian regimes, have scant chance to stop their leaders from doing anything. He is well aware of the glorified traditions of law in Great Britain and the United States, and the legendary freedoms enjoyed in these countries. Certainly he would have been in no position to stop his own leader from doing anything. But the people of Great Britain and the United States? Surely they could have done something, he thinks. If only for this father, at this time, in this country, dissent is the only real badge of honor one can wear...
...So look what we have here. On one side there is the federal government – Bush and all his “earned political capital” from the statistical tie, Senators Schumer and Clinton who didn’t oppose the war when it might have done some good, and still can’t seem to oppose it, Congressman Sweeney, touchingly sensitive to the plight of horses yet mute on the life and death of Iraqis (and to think, we’re this close to Congressman Hinchey) – this imbalance of power that justifies the unjustifiable, so that the war will seem worth it, the fight a good one, the lives lost not in vain.
On the other side, there are a few people standing on corners and in parks, doing what you would be doing if you believed that any life lost in service to an unprovoked act of aggression, a grab, an investment, is a life lost in vain. They’re protesting.
James Rothenberg.Copyright: James Rothenberg
"Dissent In America...if you don't love this country, then get the f... out!"
Shortly after the invasion began, a grieving Iraqi father asked, “Why didn’t the British and American people stop their leaders from doing this?” He had a right to be asking this question that goes beyond the obvious one. Those that live under repression in military or police dictatorships, or under totalitarian regimes, have scant chance to stop their leaders from doing anything. He is well aware of the glorified traditions of law in Great Britain and the United States, and the legendary freedoms enjoyed in these countries. Certainly he would have been in no position to stop his own leader from doing anything. But the people of Great Britain and the United States? Surely they could have done something, he thinks. If only for this father, at this time, in this country, dissent is the only real badge of honor one can wear...
...So look what we have here. On one side there is the federal government – Bush and all his “earned political capital” from the statistical tie, Senators Schumer and Clinton who didn’t oppose the war when it might have done some good, and still can’t seem to oppose it, Congressman Sweeney, touchingly sensitive to the plight of horses yet mute on the life and death of Iraqis (and to think, we’re this close to Congressman Hinchey) – this imbalance of power that justifies the unjustifiable, so that the war will seem worth it, the fight a good one, the lives lost not in vain.
On the other side, there are a few people standing on corners and in parks, doing what you would be doing if you believed that any life lost in service to an unprovoked act of aggression, a grab, an investment, is a life lost in vain. They’re protesting.
James Rothenberg.
posted by hugh lipsius at 11:46 PM
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