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There's a Time for Everything

Mark A. Goldman                                                                    Dated: 4/18/2012

 

We are beginning to talk about the election.   I can't help wondering why citizens would vote for any incumbent, local or national.  Every elected official takes an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution.  Virtually all have totally failed to keep that oath.  

Consider this:  1)  A bowling ball dropped from the height of the Twin Towers in free fall, in a vacuum, would theoretically hit the ground in 9.22 seconds. On 9/11, each of the Twin Towers totally disappeared in 10 seconds or less. The official story is a fraud.  The government's explanation as to what happened on that fateful day is physically impossible given those two facts alone.  2) The wars that we have pursued in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are illegal and criminal.  A long list of war crimes have been committed and continue on a daily basis with no American official being held accountable.  3) the President failed to prosecute Bush’s war crimes.  Instead, he commits his own, including… renditions, drone strikes, torture, and claiming and acting as if he has the right to indefinitely detain and/or kill anyone he chooses without any legitimate due process or authority.   4) people are now being tried and convicted in courts of law in the US who are not even allowed to see the evidence against them.  Other recognized principles of jurisprudence are being totally ignored in courts all across the country.  5)  The Supreme Court recently affirmed, on the current administration’s insistence, that any person who is arrested for any reason may be strip searched before being incarcerated on the say so of local enforcement officials. A nun who is arrested at a political rally can be strip searched and so can a bicyclist who is arrested for failing to have a proper bell on his bike.  The apparent intent is to humiliate and therefore dissuade citizens from publicly protesting against the crimes and injustices now being committed by our government.  The Bill of Rights is, for all intents and purposes, being shredded in front of our eyes.  The Constitution and general principles of jurisprudence developed over hundreds of years, both national and international, are being systematically ignored or extinguished.  6) When the rule of law is corrupted, economic justice also unravels, and we see this happening all around us.

The greatest challenge of our time is whether or not we and our fellow citizens will be able to preserve our natural ability to feel empathy and compassion for other human beings who face grave economic, political, and social injustice at the hands of those we elect to represent us or those who run the institutions and corporations that dot the skylines of our cities.  The press has been silent, our local elected officials have been silent, most lawyers, police officers, other officers of the courts have been silent, and an apparent majority of ordinary citizens now give the impression of being undisturbed or totally unaware of this evolving tragedy.  

When raising such issues in the past I was told that these are not local issues and therefore this is not the time or place to talk about them.  I say, the heritage we pass on to our children is a local issue.  Our freedoms and our dignity are as close to home as you can get.  Now is the time to talk these issues and educate ourselves about the unspoken realities of our failing institutions.

There is a time and place for everything, and now is the time to acknowledge every person's right to live in a society that treats all people with dignity and justice.  Before we try to figure out what we should do about all this, we first need to discover what's been happening to our republic and be willing to know, confront in consciousness, and feel with compassion and empathy how it challenges our humanity.  The information we need is available to anyone who is willing to look for it.  If you don't know where to start looking, you can spend some more time right here on this web site.

 



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