Thank you for the anniversary wishes! We got back from our trip Tuesday night, but I'm only now getting caught up on what everyone has been up to. I'll likely post a boring trip summary later on, complete with vacation snapshots. Because we all know how everyone loves being subjected to other people's vacation snapshots. Oh yes.
Although as some of you have probably noticed, human rights issues take up a good deal of my mental and emotional energy these days, I'd resolved not to post about them here anymore. There are numerous reasons for that, but perhaps the most basic of them are: I am not particularly articulate on the subject, I don't really enjoy writing about it, and I don't think that I or anyone else derives any benefit from my attempting to do so. Today, though, I'm making an exception.
These are the nine members of the US Senate who voted against the anti-torture amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill:
I do not feel in the least bit congratulatory over the passage of this amendment. I am far too disgusted by the fact that this political move was even necessary, that this was something that had to be added on in a backdoor fashion to a defense appropriations bill. There is nothing exciting or joyful about that: it is an occasion for shame.
Nonetheless, I did feel a certain need to put the names of those who objected up here, to see them written in black and white, to be able to look at the list and tell myself: "These nine men publicly support torture. Yet they will not be shunned. They will continue to break bread with people who consider themselves decent folk. They will continue to be the movers and shakers of this nation."
There's really very little point in my writing about this crap on my boring and rarely-used on-line journal. I'm not even entirely sure why I find myself doing so.
It ought to be written in blood.
Although as some of you have probably noticed, human rights issues take up a good deal of my mental and emotional energy these days, I'd resolved not to post about them here anymore. There are numerous reasons for that, but perhaps the most basic of them are: I am not particularly articulate on the subject, I don't really enjoy writing about it, and I don't think that I or anyone else derives any benefit from my attempting to do so. Today, though, I'm making an exception.
These are the nine members of the US Senate who voted against the anti-torture amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill:
- Wayne Allard, of Colorado
- Christopher Bond, of Missouri
- Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma
- Thad Cochran, of Mississippi
- John Cornyn, of Texas
- James Inhofe, of Oklahoma
- Pat Roberts, of Kansas
- Jeff Sessions, of Alabama
- Ted Stevens, of Alaska
I do not feel in the least bit congratulatory over the passage of this amendment. I am far too disgusted by the fact that this political move was even necessary, that this was something that had to be added on in a backdoor fashion to a defense appropriations bill. There is nothing exciting or joyful about that: it is an occasion for shame.
Nonetheless, I did feel a certain need to put the names of those who objected up here, to see them written in black and white, to be able to look at the list and tell myself: "These nine men publicly support torture. Yet they will not be shunned. They will continue to break bread with people who consider themselves decent folk. They will continue to be the movers and shakers of this nation."
There's really very little point in my writing about this crap on my boring and rarely-used on-line journal. I'm not even entirely sure why I find myself doing so.
It ought to be written in blood.
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