Silence is Consent

If you don't speak up you accept what is happening. This site was born out of the mainstream media's inability to cover the news. I am just an American cititzen trying to spread the word in the era of FCC consolidation, post 9/11 Patriot Act hysteria, hackable voting machines and war without end. I rant and post news items I perceive to be relevant to our current situation.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

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So Called Social Security Crisis (SCSSC)

Comments, questions, corrections, rebuttals are always welcome.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004
 
I came across this commencement speech by Theodore Sorensen. If you are not familiar with him he was an advisor to President Kennedy. The speech is entitled, A Time To Weep. He explains the title in this paragraph:
For me the final blow was American guards laughing over the naked, helpless bodies of abused prisoners in Iraq. "There is a time to laugh," the Bible tells us, "and a time to weep." Today I weep for the country I love, the country I proudly served, the country to which my four grandparents sailed over a century ago with hopes for a new land of peace and freedom. I cannot remain silent when that country is in the deepest trouble of my lifetime.
In the speech he is lamenting Americas lost respect and legitimacy throughout the world, which is a common theme these days. He explains it here:
The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us.
He goes on to speak of all the good this country did after WWII and leading up to the Vietnam war:
helping found the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and programs like Food for Peace, international human rights and international environmental standards. The world admired not only the bravery of our Marine Corps but also the idealism of our Peace Corps.
Not to mention how De Gaulle didn't even want to see the evidence during the Cuban Missle Crisis. The President is not trusted like that anymore. He references Kennedy's speech at American University in the Summer of '63 -- which probably sealed his fate, but that' another post altogether -- where Kennedy says:
"The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate...we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just."
If that's not a comment that would make the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) shiver in its boots, I'm not sure what would. Sorensen goes on to talk about the founding of our nation and how we were the destination of so many seeking an education and freedom. And then he asks a question:
What has happened to our country? We have been in wars before, without resorting to sexual humiliation as torture, without blocking the Red Cross, without insulting and deceiving our allies and the U.N., without betraying our traditional values, without imitating our adversaries, without blackening our name around the world.
He then talks of how Europeans wanted him to tell them about the good in America and how he has to defend his country as peace loving, generous, fair and open minded. That is how low we have sunk because of our current situation:
No military victory can endure unless the victor occupies the high moral ground. Surely America, the land of the free, could not lose the high moral ground invading Iraq, a country ruled by terror, torture and tyranny - but we did.
Again he tells us we are where we are because of the loss of our moral authority. This means that most people around the world don't buy the story that we attacked and occupied an isolated and defenseless, at least against us, country in order to bring them democracy. They believe we did this to spread our empire into the Middle East. He then goes to show how our loss of liberties at home are exactly the same as what the "terrorists" would impose on us if they were running our country:
No American wants us to lose a war. Among our enemies are those who, if they could, would fundamentally change our way of life, restricting our freedom of religion by exalting one faith over others, ignoring international law and the opinions of mankind; and trampling on the rights of those who are different, deprived or disliked. To the extent that our nation voluntarily trods those same paths in the name of security, the terrorists win and we are the losers.
He speaks of how we are no longer the world leader in international law and peace. How we are now viewed as an aggressor by the world and how we are unable to recognize how the world now sees us. But he leaves us with a hopeful thought:
The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.
It is truly sad what this administration has done to our country's reputation. Just like Al Gore and George Soros this man is telling us what has gone wrong and what we can do to fix it. Every fix for what is wrong with our country starts with removal of this administration.

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