Speaking of Freedom
By Tom Feeley
First Posted 12/24/03
I
care not if you are an American, Iraqi, Israeli, Palestinian or whose
flag you live under. I care not that you worship a God, or what his name
may be. I care not that you like or dislike me. I care not whose head
adorns the money that buys your comfort.
I care that you should be treated with the same dignity and respect I demand for myself and for my family. In fact I demand it!
I
demand that the rights of each person regardless of place of birth is
respected, not because of their wealth or achievements but for the
dignity that is the birthright of all who are born to this earth.
Life
demands not that we prosper at the expense of another but that we share
our humanity and call a crime a crime, regardless of who the victim is,
or who the villain.
Let us not walk in arrogance across the globe speaking of freedom while our hands are stained in centuries of blood.
Let
us not preach to the world as victims and use the crushed bodies of the
two thousand seven hundred and fifty nine people who perished on 9/11
as a weapon to plunder a world that has long experienced the same
devastation at our hands.
Our tears and screams for justice are
bitter taunts to a world that has been bombed and bullied by a nation
too sure of it’s own goodness.
A
man that has lived his life without looking at his past and identifying
those sections of his character that have brought pain to others is a
tyrant. A nation and its people who refuse to acknowledge its crimes and
the suffering of its victims is an evil to the world and should expect
only evil as its reward.
How poor we are when we consider our own pain more worthy than the suffering of others.
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.” -John Adams