Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Amnesty's Strange Approach to Human Rights Violations

(Posted by TALLRITE BLOG)


So why does Amnesty Ireland, in celebrating the UN Declaration of Human Rights, choose to remain silent when there is such a fecund reservoir of the world's monstrous human rights violators from whom to choose? Why pick on little Guantanamo where there may be or may not be some violations, but in any case not even a thousand inmates have ever enjoyed its hospitality, of whom none have been killed? In fact, as this photomontage shows, this is part of global Amnesty campaign.

We all know the answer, of course. The monstrous violators are given a free pass because they are anti-democratic, not white and - especially - not Americans. Like any spoiled teenager, Amnesty loves to be seen as brave by rebelling against a strong and (mostly though not always) righteous adult, safe in the knowledge that this will have no adverse consequences. But its juvenile antics do nothing to better the lives of the many millions who truly suffer from egregious human rights abuses.

This is somewhat related to a conversation at Bob's blog, kicked off by an article about anti-Gypsyism in Italy.

2 Comments:

At 12:48 AM EDT, Blogger Istvan said...

TO DREAM OF SKATING ON ICE

“To dream of skating on ice means
satisfaction with a current project.”
--Dictionary of Dreams

Amidst white groves
Inside a lilac tree
I gaze at airy flows across a frozen lake.

Like soaring birds
We are all of us, skating on ice.
Spanning dense curdling circuits
Ring-shaped,
Effortless,
Dazzling as a diamond dream
Before the break.

Beneath the brightness, I see a shadow
And the semblance watches me.
A shrill remembrance,
The impervious stare of quartz:
A trade-off between tomorrow and the past.

The break below shatters a ruptured skyline.
Its path
Squalls out for meaning.
The meaning is the sea.
I seize the mirror and the likeness looks at me.

Beneath the brightness, I see a shadow
Afloat beneath a pond of ice.
Freezing up in time and space
I drift inside the memory of a winter’s whorl,
Headed to where I came from.

 
At 9:44 AM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As soon as AI claimed Guantanamo was the "new Gulag," they lost all credibility for me.

 

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