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host · 03-27-2007, 11:01 AM

The_Jazz, thank you for your response...and I was especially surprised to be "painted" as a "black or white", reactionary....but the shoe does seem to fit, at least in this instance....

BOR....I am not saying that I think that you support Bush or his policies. The article that I linked to that described the 74 year old woman, arrested 41 times in 4 years of protesting, was really about the rally that Sean Penn spoke at.
Mr. Penn has a celebrity status that gives him a "bully pulpit", and he has a talent and a series of artistic accomplishments that permits him the "license" to say what he says, and to travel to Iraq and Iran, without hurting his "bankability" in his business ventures. He has more impact than the 74 year old, and he has not been arrested 41 times.....

My point is....you don't have to be a supporter of what our elected leaders have been doing, to be complicit in "putting the cuffs" on that 74 year old, and you don't have to be a supporter to be complicit in the 5 year detainment of a young Australian, without trail, much of the time in solitary confinement, and finally denied counsel of his choice, when he is afforded a hearing to find out what some of the accusations against him are....and this, the treatment, at the behest of our POTUS, of a citizen of an allied nation, allowed to occur because the elected leader of the young Australian's nation, is ideologically aligned with US leaders.

All you have to have done, IMO, to be complicit in these injustices, is to do nothing....to let that 74 year old face arresting authorities without a sense that you, and your spirit, are behind her commitment. That young Australian waited five years, in a cell, only to have his legal representatives ordered aside by a military authority, because not enough of us let it be known that we would not tolerate these injustices. Forceful shouts of protest, and reams of pages filled with words expressing outrage, let the authorities know that we are watching what they do, that we are angry, and that they have already pushed us past the point of silent observation that they may have mistaken as indifference, inattention, or worse....approval of what they do that is illegal and unjust.

Isn't it better to be intolerant of lesser provocations to our constitution, our international agreements, and our penchant for honest, fair, and open government, than to reserve our condemnation or aggressive questioning, until it has reached the points that it has, now? Any one of us could be seized and treated like Jose Padilla, now. Are any of us as sure, in the course of our international travels, that the authority in some other nation will not use what our government has done to foreigners at Guantanamo, as a pretext to treat one of us in a similar manner.

When they do this to one of us, they do it to all of us. It cannot happen unless we let it....and if we let it, we have permitted it.

03-27-2007, 11:01 AM	#19 (permalink)
host Banned	The_Jazz, thank you for your response...and I was especially surprised to be "painted" as a "black or white", reactionary....but the shoe does seem to fit, at least in this instance.... BOR....I am not saying that I think that you support Bush or his policies. The article that I linked to that described the 74 year old woman, arrested 41 times in 4 years of protesting, was really about the rally that Sean Penn spoke at. Mr. Penn has a celebrity status that gives him a "bully pulpit", and he has a talent and a series of artistic accomplishments that permits him the "license" to say what he says, and to travel to Iraq and Iran, without hurting his "bankability" in his business ventures. He has more impact than the 74 year old, and he has not been arrested 41 times..... My point is....you don't have to be a supporter of what our elected leaders have been doing, to be complicit in "putting the cuffs" on that 74 year old, and you don't have to be a supporter to be complicit in the 5 year detainment of a young Australian, without trail, much of the time in solitary confinement, and finally denied counsel of his choice, when he is afforded a hearing to find out what some of the accusations against him are....and this, the treatment, at the behest of our POTUS, of a citizen of an allied nation, allowed to occur because the elected leader of the young Australian's nation, is ideologically aligned with US leaders. All you have to have done, IMO, to be complicit in these injustices, is to do nothing....to let that 74 year old face arresting authorities without a sense that you, and your spirit, are behind her commitment. That young Australian waited five years, in a cell, only to have his legal representatives ordered aside by a military authority, because not enough of us let it be known that we would not tolerate these injustices. Forceful shouts of protest, and reams of pages filled with words expressing outrage, let the authorities know that we are watching what they do, that we are angry, and that they have already pushed us past the point of silent observation that they may have mistaken as indifference, inattention, or worse....approval of what they do that is illegal and unjust. Isn't it better to be intolerant of lesser provocations to our constitution, our international agreements, and our penchant for honest, fair, and open government, than to reserve our condemnation or aggressive questioning, until it has reached the points that it has, now? Any one of us could be seized and treated like Jose Padilla, now. Are any of us as sure, in the course of our international travels, that the authority in some other nation will not use what our government has done to foreigners at Guantanamo, as a pretext to treat one of us in a similar manner. When they do this to one of us, they do it to all of us. It cannot happen unless we let it....and if we let it, we have permitted it.