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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Joy, tempered with shame

I felt great joy when I saw that President Obama has formally denounced torture and announced the closing of secret prisons and the detainee center at Guantanimo Bay. I also felt great joy when he announced an immediate halt to the military tribunals at the same. These are long-overdue changes to policies by the previous administration that critically damaged our standing domestically and abroad.

Still, that joy, that elation, was overshadowed by the very fact such Executive Orders were necessary in the first place. Earl Warren once said, "It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of those liberties which make the defense of the nation worthwhile." President Obama's recent Executive Orders was merely an official correction of the sad realization of Justice Warren's nightmare, expressed above. It is that collective shame some of President Obama's first acts have striven to expiate.

In closing, I would like to share a quote by President Herbert Hoover: "Thus the scene of the tragedy of Liberty world over must be suffering and discontent among the people. The drama moves swiftly in a torrent of words in which real purposes are disguised in portrayals of Utopia; idealism without realism; slogans, phrases and statements destructive to confidence in existing institutions; demands for violent action against slowly curable ills; unfair representation that sporadic wickedness is the system itself; searing prejudice against the former order; dismay and panic in the economic organization which feeds on its own despair. Emotions rise above reason. The man on horseback, ascending triumphantly to office on the steps of constitutional process, demands and threatens the parliament into the delegation of its sacred power. Then follows consolidation of authority through powerful propaganda in the pay of the state to transform the mentality of the people. Resentment of criticism, denunciation of all opposition, moral terrorization, all follow in sequence. The last scene is the suppression of freedom. Liberty dies of the water from her own well- free speech- poisoned by untruth. "In the Epilogue the dreams of those who saw Utopia are shattered and the people find they are marching backward toward the Middle Ages- as regimented men." It is this warning that our nation heard when we elected President Barack Obama, and it is this warning to which we have finally taken heed and awakened from our national insanity. May we never forget these sage words from our 31st President.

Enjoy this music. The title is, fittingly, "Duality" by Slipknot.

2 comments:

1138 said...

Your Hoover quote was the evens I saw happening current day in his words, that led to the naming of my blog.

Mandelbrot's Chaos said...

In a sense, I think he's gotten a bit of a bad reputation, some of it, admittedly, deserved. Still, they were sage words. Thanks for posting. :)