(@ 6 – promoted by NLinStPaul)
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Why should they get a fair trial? Why should there be a special prosecutor who investigates thoroughly the torture of human beings that has been going on in our name?
One reason is because so many have not gotten a fair trial, both here in the USA and abroad.
The prisoners at Gitmo did not get a fair trial and it has taken enormous struggle to even have gotten where we are now, with some (but too few) of BushCheney’s decisions by fiat being overturned in the courts.
The prisoners in Iraq have been tortured and often killed, none of them got a fair trial.
Here in the US, we see migrant workers hustled off into Halliburton built prisons, lives and entire communities being destroyed, and all without a fair trial.
We have certainly seen our good Senator Joe Lieberman do nothing when it came to the crimes of our government during Hurricane Katrina.
And now we try to have some dialogue, to speak of abuses of human rights in the Gaza. With what moral authority can we help deal with this problem if we continue to abuse human rights both here and around the world?
We hear that investigating the war crimes of our government would be divisive, would distract us from cleaning up our economy, deal with global warming, all those things.
So perhaps we should just abandon our judicial system, no more money for police in our communities, let’s instead put them to work as bean counters and bankers. Why bother catching criminals, after all, is that not just a distraction to our big problems?
I guess the DOJ will be more involved in …. in …. what, exactly? Shutting down drug rings? I guess those dealers deserve a fair trial. For now, we should just pick and choose what are and are not crimes and “prioritize” the DOJ’s work that way?
Is there anyone who is not wealthy and powerful who is getting a fair trial nowadays? And in that instance, are those trials “fair”? Or is justice now merely a commodity to be bought and sold?
If we do not hold those in power accountable for their crimes, then who will ever believe the average American has any chance of a fair trial? Why should our faith in our justice system continue?
Yet if we do investigate, if we do hold all citizens to the same standards, whether rich or poor, powerful or not, we will restore far more than simply our faith in our system of government and justice. We will be able to use this fair trial as a standard of what can and cannot be done to other human beings in the name of justice, whether here in the USA or abroad. Otherwise it’s just words to say “We do not torture.” It’s just words.
Please sign the petition. We need to speak out as citizens, because no one else will do this. No one. It’s up to us.
18 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
… I’ll be cross posting this — could you please add the html-link info. that we’re putting at the top of these essays? I don’t know how to do that.
Author
… orange.
Author
As I say over at the orange, I could add endless instances of injustice that have taken place in this country over the past decades, from Proposition 8 to the wreck that is our prison system and drug war.
Please feel free to add to the list.
As a result of all this activity over at orange lately, I think I’ve finally gotten TU status over there for the first time (is that what it means when you get a “hide” button?)
Look out!!! I’m on the hunt for a marauding band of nerdowells (this is going to be tough since I can’t even spell it LOL) to wreck all forms of havoc in the kingdom now that I have this power!!!!!!!!!
OK, its a boring Sunday afternoon…this is the best I could come up with.
🙂
the promotion. If I fixed it, should be coming up again in about 10 minutes.
;-(
Not a hell of a lot to add! Very good!