The portion of this column omitted from the print edition in Big Horn County News begins, with links and sources, after the seventh paragraph below.
So far the public response to the Boston terrorist attacks is a narrow, limited focusing on our breakdown in intelligence and debating over Miranda rights. Moral dimensions are ignored. Yet in the late 1780's one nation mustered the moral courage to compose the strongest document any nation had forged up to that point in history in order to face down great evil. That's our nation, and that's our constitution. It still stands, a model for other nations, asking us as American citizens to be ever mindful of the rights of all people.
Our forefathers knew firsthand the evil inherent in a nation where the government condones extrajudicial killing. They knew the fear that stalked the citizens of such a society. Citizens of thirteen colonies came to an agreement. They successfully ended the targeting homes for break-ins after midnight, false arrest and indefinite incarceration without trial, and execution. That's why they enshrined guarantees in our constitution to "…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…" To make the dream reality they set up an unprecedented model of republican democracy for themselves and their children, including us. That's why we have the right to vote. That's how our government is beholden to us instead of to an elite few who think nothing of trampling on the rest of us. That's how extrajudicial killing of citizens by King George's government was stopped in the United States of America.
Historically, it has not been easy to ensure equal protection for all citizens under our Constitution. Our ideas about who deserves civil rights have changed over time. We have also suspended application of this great document out of fear in times of national crisis. Although our history is mixed, it seems that, overall we have made strong strides forward in realizing the provisions of our Constitution. We wouldn't have made this progress without active concern and involvement of US citizens.
This reminds me of an experience I had back in 2003. I accepted an invitation to conduct a workshop on appropriate heritage language and song for religionists at San Solano Mission in Topawa, the Tohono O'odham reservation near the Mexican border of Arizona. In a palm-shaded open courtyard I shared songs and stories of the Cheyenne and Crow. I listened to responses of the Euro-American pastors and teachers. In the back under a portico colonnade sat elders of the village, quietly listening to our songs and dialogue.
Our conversation was interrupted with a deafening blast jolting deep into our bodies. Windows and doors rattled. The blast was followed immediately with a roar that rose so loud we could not keep our hands from our ears. It quickly ceased, and the elders under the portico were hard pressed to comfort us. Surprisingly, they were accustomed to such occurrences.
At lunch I sat with my Tohono host and asked him for details about this rude jolt. He told me about children unable to sleep at night for fear of the boom, about families moving out of town, about livestock aborting and large windows broken. He told me the village of Topawa had been made a target for mock bombing runs by our military. I asked him how this happened. He said he thinks the government wants us Indians farther from the border, and would rather do this than tell us.
I was shocked that this type of intimidation of tribes can exist in our modern day. The elders discouraged their tribe from bringing this situation to public attention because they were so grateful to the government for finally giving them the right to vote in 1965. Then following my visit Arizona's "Proposition 200" came up and became law, placing an imposing barrier to the right to vote for many elderly in that community, being without birth certificates (they birthed at home), drivers licenses (like Crow country), and other paper identification.
First the Bush and now the Obama administrations have supported extrajudicial execution of citizen suspects. The Obama administration has now even executed American citizens by drone attacks, a practice previously limited to foreign suspects. Sneaky lawyers have constructed legal justification for this. The language is still secret, not available for public inspection. How can we stand for this? Our outrage should be commensurate with the conviction of those who wrote our constitution almost three centuries ago. They saw the abomination of a government reserving for itself the right to arrest and execute citizen suspects with no effort to apply appropriate judicial process.
Think about the implications. Powerful government interests in our country have taken upon themselves a power to abuse and even kill previously relegated only to the Divine. King David in the Bible had a long struggle with this. His repentance is documented in scripture. I predict that American carnage will continue to escalate as we move more into extrajudicial killing and our children follow the example of the powerful. If we want to change this, I propose we do what King David did: repent, and turn from our evil ways. This can start in Big Horn County.
The following is exclusive to this blog, not in this column as published in the Big Horn County News April 2:
That's how extrajudicial killing of citizens by government was stopped in the United States of America way back with the first 13 colonies. Things have changed, and it's troubling. We have fallen victim to emotional paranoia leading us into compromises with our constitution that have not and will not help us toward more safety for our children and our families. As extrajudicial killing increases, it will increase among our citizens and children as well.
Just last year the policy permitting extrajudicial killing of American citizens by drone attack was given approval, retroactively endorsing the assassination of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old US citizen born in Denver. In October of 2011 he was breakfasting with friends at a campfire beside a trail in Yemen on a mission to locate his father. Unbeknownst to him, his father, also an American citizen, had already been eliminated by an American drone, in a sudden blast totally destroying the automobile in which he and a friend were driving. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki.
From Salon / By Andrew O'Hehir, April 13, 2013
How Boston Exposes America's Dark Post-9/11 Bargain
Why did this story drive the whole country nuts? Because we traded rights for "security," and didn't get either.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." —Benjamin Franklin, at the time of the ratification of our constitution.
The following has some common sense approaches to breaking our cycle of mass violence worldwide.
http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/04/rinku_sen_boston_marathon_explosions.html
In the Bible, violence in any form becoming acceptable is connected with lawlessness, unrighteousness, and evil. Read in the Old Testament what was happening that God regretted creating human kind, just before Noah's flood. Then read what's happening in India and in this country regarding rape:
This blog post uses some strong language with sources cited to disparage our loss of constitutional rights for no gain in security for our children and our families. See the entire blog post on line:
Following are web sites detailing the Tohono O'odham nation's struggle with our government including voting rights, and the unfortunate drift back into vote suppression from 1965 when they won the right to vote as mentioned above.
http://www.hrusa.org/indig/reports/Tohono.shtm
http://www.nativevillage.org/Editorials/Oodham%20to%20National%20Guard.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machita_Incident
http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/ArizonaVRA.pdf
David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
graberdb@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment