When I'd not yet reached the pitfall strewn age of my middle years, responsible for and to children who did not ask my permission to make them and who therefore do not need my permission to live whatever lives suit them best, I'd mumbled up a vague, ill defined concept of "the Public Witness."
A person who actively counters the injustice of the day, and the age, with the unwavering witness of mind, wit and flesh.
Think Maulana Azad and the other satyagrahi facing abuse outside the salt mines, public witnesses to injustice. Think Mary Harris Jones, and Red Emma against Carnegie and Stalin.
Think, also, Chris Floyd:
"Let us hear no more excuses for Barack Obama. Let us hear no more defenses, no more special pleading, no more extenuations. Let us have no more reciting of the 'pressures' he is under, of the 'many obstacles' that balk him in his quest to do us good, of the 'bad advisors' who are swaying him to unworthy acts against his will. Let us be done at last with all these wretched lies, these complicitous self-deceptions that are facilitating atrocity and tyranny on a monstrous scale.
Barack Obama has ordered the murder of an American citizen, without trial, without due process, without the production of any evidence. All it takes to kill any American citizen in this way is Barack Obama's signature on a piece of paper, his arbitrary designation of the target as a 'suspected terrorist.' In precisely the same way -- precisely the same way -- Josef Stalin would place a mark by a name in a list of 'suspected terrorists' or 'counterrevolutionaries,' and the bearer of that name would die. This is the system we have now, the same as the Soviets had then: a leader with the unchallengeable power to kill citizens without due process.
That this power has not been used on the same scale in the American system as in the Stalinist state -- yet -- does not alter the equivalence of this governing principle. In both cases, the leader signs arbitrary death warrants; the security services carry out the task; and the 'great and good' of society accept this draconian power as necessary and right..."
Original source.
Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
1 comment:
This is an atrocious act. There is no excuse, no reason that can be given to justify this action. None.
It disturbs me that this is policy is now being carried out in public, whereas these types of activities used to be kept secret. The most disturbing aspect of this is that the very reason why this policy is out there for everyone to see is because very few will care---or even notice.
I wonder if, during the Obama presidency, we will see the any of the "seditious" American citizens in this country, whose heinous crimes amount to simply questioning the American government, labeled as "suspected terrorists" and subject to death by the a flick of Obama's pen?
If he can kill one American citizen this way, why not two? Hell, why not get rid of all the "seditious" citizens?
I wish I could say that last idea was far-fetched, but honest to God, I just don't know anymore.
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