from yesterdays post about Bush and his freedoms that he would like for the rest of the world - well the world where he can make a few bucks after his presidency.
He advocates freedoms in the Islamic world, for women to be treated better and those who don’t have should be given the opportunity to have - classical American dream stuff. Exporting a dream is a little harder when you read stories like this one.
This is what the world sees, an America that is hypocritical. You have many people who are American who are not - they want to live in absolute peace with everyone else, they want nothing to do with illegalities of war and corruption of big business. They want to be seen as Americans who just want to live the same as everyone else.
But how can the ordinary American live that way? Their fellow citizens imprisoned for nought - yes nothing and because of the last 7 years at least, these stories and the people in them are ignored. Not only that they are positively vilified until DNA can prove their innocence. What happened to the state having to prove that you committed a crime?
Wiley Fountain is homeless just five years after he walked out of prison an innocent man. He is one of the 17 men wrongfully convicted in Dallas County, Texas, then cleared by DNA evidence.
He was one of the lucky few to receive financial compensation from the state, but the $190,000 or so that made it into his pocket is long gone.
For awhile, Fountain wandered the streets of Dallas, looking for aluminum cans to trade in for cash. He earned the occasional meal by cleaning the parking lot of a restaurant. At night he had nowhere to go.
Now he’s nowhere to be found. Just as the headlines of his release vanished from the front pages of the newspaper, Fountain, 51, has disappeared. And so have his hopes for a fresh start after spending 15 years in prison for an aggravated sexual assault he did not commit.
American and her citizens need to live without the indoctrinated fear they have grown up with. They need to realise that the world doesn’t hate them for something they feel they have - the world dislikes a foreign policy that subjugates and oppresses indigenous people. It is those who run the nation that is the USA, not the people, who are disliked.
Maybe Obama can bring about a change.
The Lord Himself knows that America needs it.
All Images designed by Alison Rhodes (LastingExpressions)
1 response so far ↓
borealdreams // May 20, 2008 at 3:48 am
They need to realise that the world doesn’t hate them for something they feel they have - the world dislikes a foreign policy that subjugates and oppresses indigenous people. It is those who run the nation that is the USA, not the people, who are disliked.
well put. I think anyone that has traveled overseas without a rifle slung over their backs or a carrying a briefcase in which to exploit a country’s resources, knows this to be the case. Then again it helps if the traveler, because he’s carrying greenbacks (which ironically are becoming less significant) hanging out his pockets doesn’t expect that the people in the country he’s visiting should speak his language. Even on that note, foreigners in their own country seem to be very humble & forgiving, and also very eager to learn about life in the US, is it as they’ve “heard” it really is?
Since 9-11 we’ve had going on 3 election cycles where the candidates propose “Youth Volunteering for their Country.” What should really happen, is every citizen upon leaving high school should combine half a year of living (potentially volunteering) abroad, followed by 6 months of community service domestically. The world’s general opinion of us would change markedly in a positive way, as well as young American’s would begin to understand how good they do have it here, even at the lowest levels of economic status, when compared to people living in other parts of the world.
Opening communication between relatively ignorant of the world Americans and those that live in the “unknown” world is a great thing, which thankfully the internet does to a certain degree. Doing it more so, as a National Service Program could, would only help ease ignorance derived tensions such as in Iran.
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