Klarinet Archive - Posting 000733.txt from 2004/11

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Happy Thanksgiving-Bah Humbug!
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:38:40 -0500

Warren Rosenberg wrote:

> If you know a better country, the door is open! I'm sure other
> countries will be happy to take you.

A better country *for whom*, Warren?

America has been a great country for many living there. But it has been
a terrible country, and people acting in its name have done terrible,
horrible, evil things, to a great many people in the world. Bombs
dropped, death squads and torturers trained and equipped, terrorist
organizations created and funded, all through the legal---I don't wish
to say "legitimate"---channels of business of the American government.
These things happened and, as indicated by the present human rights
reports on the US holding "ghost" prisoners kept secret from the Red
Cross and employing the services of torturers in third countries, they
are continuing to happen. The world, unlike you, cannot ignore these
things.

America has also done great things. But that doesn't excuse the rest.
And to shout down people for seeing the beam in their own (country's)
eye, so to speak, seems to me to be the worst sort of parochial,
head-in-the sand idiocy.

You see, I come from a country where people once thought they were good
people doing good things to the rest of the world, and when I read about
that period in history I feel sick to my stomach because I see, I hear,
I read about all the horrible, unbelievable, terrible things my country
did and there is *nothing* I can do about it. I don't want your
grandchildren to feel the same way as I do, but I'm very much afraid
it's all far too late.

-- Joe

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