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Imagine that somebody bombs your village.
Or rapes your sister.
Or poisons your well water.
Imagine someone kills your brother, maims your best friend, burns your house down, blows your mother's head off, etc.
Imagine that someone, say, occupies your country.
Maybe the same someone does several of these things, and more.
You'd be furious, wouldn't you?
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Clint Eastwood, and U.S. foreign policyby Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
June 26, 2003"All right now, I'm comin' out. Any man I see out there, I'm gonna shoot him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, but I'm gonna kill his wife. All his friends. Burn his damn house down." —Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
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So Belgium knuckles under to U.S. pressure, and amends its laws to make the U.S. even more impervious to charges of war crimes. It's in keeping with the U.S. government's ongoing hostility against similar human rights law in America.
Billionaires and criminals have many ways to make their voices heard. There are very few venues for victims of the billionaires and criminals, victims who want to have their complaints heard in a civilized courtroom. So why is U.S. policy hell-bent on eliminating such options?
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Seems to me, taking courts out of the equation makes people more likely to turn to violence — revolution, civil wars, assassinations, and terrorism.
But hey, what do I know? I'm a maid, not a big muckymuck policy thinker. I'm not one of the big Dicks (Perle or Cheney). All I can do is imagine myself in someone else's shoes.
So imagine this, for a moment:
Imagine that somebody bombs your village. Or rapes your sister. Or poisons your well water. Imagine someone kills your brother, maims your best friend, burns your house down, blows your mother's head off, etc. Imagine that someone, say, occupies your country. Maybe the same someone does several of these things, and more. You'd be furious, wouldn't you?
I don't mean "furious" like angry or upset, like when you read bad news in the paper. No, I mean FURIOUS — literally filled with fury — an icy, unforgiving fury that burns until there is nothing left to burn, that will never forgive and will not forget, not while the earth turns, the sun shines and the stars hang in the sky.
Furious, like Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
But — you're a civilized person, so your first response might be to call the cops. Maybe you'd write a letter to the editor, or protest at City Hall. Or maybe you'd sue the perps in whatever courtroom would take your case.
And what if the cops did nothing? What if letters to the editor just got people arrested and jailed? What if protesters were routinely maced or shot? And what if courtrooms were closed to your kind of complaint, or closed to "your kind"? What other options would remain?
What do you suppose people do, when the legal system protects killers and criminals, and blocks what we consider "civilized recourse"? When a peaceful response is prohibited or futile, what would you expect people to do?
What do you suppose Clint Eastwood would do, in those old movies?
I think he'd load his six-shooter and ride toward the people who'd done him wrong, with heavy vengeance on his mind.
And if you're an American, you are the people the world's Eastwoods are riding toward.
Some of the world's survivors, furious, have noticed that a lot of the killers' bullets, bombs, and guns are made in the USA. And a lot of the killers are made in the USA too — CIA operatives gone awry, like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein — or whole nations underwritten by U.S. grants.
What recourse do these furious survivors have? A Palestinian, Nicaraguan, or Afghan family with no father, no funds, isn't likely to write to a U.S. Congressman, and isn't likely to get a reply if they do. Furious people will not take two AlkaSeltzers, and wait patiently for the next atrocity to be inflicted upon them.
You know and I know, and Clint Eastwood knows: People with no other recourse turn to violence.
You might think America would prefer people settle their grievances through courts, judges, and lawyers. Few of the victims have access to these courtrooms, but still, it could do some good, if such court cases provide public pressure and maybe a monetary motivation to stop a few state- and corporate-sponsored atrocities.
Yet the U.S. seeks to squelch these cases. American policy, apparently, is to shut down any system that addresses these matters through peaceful means.
While the furious wait, and become more furious ...
© 2003, by the author.
Comments? newsuneed@yahoo.com
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