Our seldom spoken shame

The online announcement of yesterday's Nightline on ABC included this damning fact:

"Between 1882 and 1968, at least 4,700 people were lynched in the United States. Remarkably, many of these incidents were photographed -- and these photos were reproduced in the thousands, sold door-to-door as keepsakes -- along with other horrible souvenirs of these crimes."

And now we are learning more about the USA transport of prisoners to other countries that are even more disposed to carry out torture than our own government is.

Flag waving, anybody?

A border story

In recent years my friend Jack McGarvey has taught me a lot about migrants passing through these borderlands. Here is the last part of his article in today's Arizona Daily Star. (Full article has gone out to my j&p list.)
ricardo
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Meanwhile, I keep reading that the evil fellow, Pedro of Oaxaca, is snatching jobs away from Americans. I truly doubt that, because I've never yet met a job-hungry American who'd enjoy picking up cantaloupes in the fields near Eloy during the hideously hot month of June. Even if they did, they will never work as hard and skillfully as would Pedro from Oaxaca. Nor have I ever met an American worker who'd relish picking oranges in the groves outside Phoenix - what with all those pricking thorns.
 
I've also learned that most illegal migrants who trespass to do that kind of hard work are some of Mexico's best folk.
 
That's a huge loss for Mexico, and a huge gain for the United States of America. And, of course, politically connected employers here know that, and that's why our expensive border enforcement is such a joke.
 
Finally, if I'd met Pedro and his pal on my September morning walk, I would've asked them if they needed help. I certainly would never have tattled on these two brave fellows by calling the U.S. Border Patrol.

Bush's silence

Today, one-sixth of the world’s 6 billion people exist on $1 a day -- less than a Starbucks cup of coffee; more than 800 million people in the developing world are malnourished; and more than 5 million children under the age of 5 die unnecessarily each year from hunger-related causes. It’s a daily tsunami.

In his calls to end tyranny and to promote freedom, the president makes no mention -- none -- of the world’s poor.

(from an editorial in the current issue of National Catholic Reporter)

Arab commentary on the Iraqi election

You call this democracy? said the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi. The vote was imposed by occupiers as war raged all around. Fearful candidates campaigned in secret, and voters didn't even know their names. Sunnis boycotted in droves. Would a U.S. election be praised if no one could vote in California and New York?

"Ultimately the election has solved nothing," said the Doha, Qatar, Gulf Times. The results are sure to hand absolute power to the Shiites, and leave the Sunnis "politically weaker than before." The insurgents will now have more reason than ever to fight.

--in THE WEEK, Feb. 11, 2005, page 5

I goofed...

To anyone reading this blog who has been on my j&p list:

While doing a bit of work on my lists yesterday, I accidently (stupidly) deleted the whole j&p list (mailing list, not this blog.) I rebuilt it right away, but I see that the total is smaller than before -- five or six people must be missing.
If anyone reading this note was currently on said list and is no longer getting articles, please let me know and I'll put you
right back on. (Best way to do that would be via email.)

ricardo

America's new shame in the new AG

From the NY Times on Feb. 4, 2005:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who has been one of Mr. (Alberto) Gonzales's toughest critics, said it was "a sad day for the Senate" to confirm "a person who was at the heart of the policy on torture that has so shamed America in the eyes of the whole world and has so flagrantly violated the values we preach to the world."

Bush's Train Wreck

From an article in the Boston Globe, Feb. 1, 2005, by James Carroll:

"Iraq is a train wreck. The man who caused it is not in trouble. Tomorrow night he will give his State of the Union speech, and the Washington establishment will applaud him. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead. More than 1,400 Americans are dead. An Arab nation is humiliated. Islamic hatred of the West is ignited. The American military is emasculated. Lies define the foreign policy of the United States. On all sides of Operation Iraqi Freedom, there is wreckage. In the center, there are the dead, the maimed, the displaced -- those who will be the ghosts of this war for the rest of their days. All for what?

"Tomorrow night, like a boy in a bubble, George W. Bush will tell the world it was for "freedom." He will claim the Iraqi election as a stamp of legitimacy for his policy, and many people will affirm it as such. Even critics of the war will mute their objections in response to the image of millions of Iraqis going to polling places, as if that act undoes the Bush catastrophe."