There are days when you can observe the world through the prism of the media and remain relatively untroubled by what you read. Then there are other days when things seem to come together in a way that can make you feel despair. Yesterday was one of the latter days for me.
A trio of articles seen on the pages of the online Guardian and on the website Truthout led to a little further research and a cache of some serious unpleasantness.
Republicans attack Obama’s environmental protection from all sides
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/republicans-attack-obamas-environmental-protection
I suppose that nothing should surprise me about “right” vs “left” politics anymore whether in the UK, Europe, or the US, but “…the greatest assault on environmental protection that America has ever seen” is clearly an event that is difficult to move past without developing a sense of the world spiralling backwards into a very dark age.
Daniel Ellsberg: “Bradley Manning Is Acting in the Interest of the United States”
http://www.truth-out.org/bradley-manning-faces-new-charges68226
Bradley Manning, the US soldier being held on suspicion of passing classified documents to Wikileaks has been handed a further 22 charges, one of which could lead to the death penalty if he is found guilty. Bradley Manning has been kept in solitary confinement for the last seven months, held in a small cell for 23 hours of each day. Visitors have been refused permission to see him; he is not allowed to exercise, and has been forced to strip and remain naked in his cell for no apparent reason.
Soldier in Leaks Case Was Jailed Naked, Lawyer Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04manning.html?_r=1
Let’s not mince words here – this is psychological torture designed to dehumanise and bring about physical and mental collapse even before a trial takes place. It’s difficult, if not impossible to read about the case without thinking about the depths of legalised depravity effected in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
You can read of more developments in this story here:
http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2011/03/truth-behind-quantico-brigs-decision-to.html
African lions under threat from a growing predator: the American hunter
If the first two articles left me feeling angry and sad the third made me feel physically sick with outrage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/01/african-lions-american-hunter-trophies
People with more money than humanity travel to foreign countries where they use state of the art weaponry to hunt down and kill some the most beautiful creatures on Earth. Many of the animals are on the list of endangered species. The brave hunters and their kills are then proudly displayed on the websites of the businesses that organise these safaris.
Reading the article and looking through the gallery associated with the report it’s difficult to shake off the idea that something truly evil is abroad in the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/aug/11/trophy-hunting-big-game?intcmp=239
You’ll notice that the Guardian gallery has the faces of the “hunters” pixelated, but by going to the websites of the various safari companies it’s possible to see the actual faces of those who have bagged a trophy. Some of them look like regular, average people. Some of them are women. The pictures could make a sane person weep with grief.
On a day like this it’s hard not to feel as though something has gone seriously wrong in the “Land of the Free”. Currently it appears that Americans are free to wage war anywhere they see fit; free to cripple global attempts at rescuing the environment; free to treat fellow human beings who violate their rules in a manner that would have seemed harsh in the middle ages; free to gun down the last of the beautiful creatures that make this world a place worth living in.
I wonder: where are the American voices in opposition to this tide? Correct me if I’m mistaken but from where I’m standing they seem to be few and far between.
Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t an anti-American posting, and this is certainly not an anti-American blog. I’m of a generation that grew up believing that the world was changing for the better and that America was leading the way. America to me was the Promised Land, and in a hopeless kind of way it still is. But its ugly side is what we in Europe are seeing most of in these times, and it’s so desperately disappointing.
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those who it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
Martin Luther King
The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.
Mahatma Gandhi
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