Where is the outrage?

[naj]

(The below is an angry rant I made a few days ago. I still have a lot of that anger in me, but I feel that I aimed it far too much at my fellow LJ users than I should have. What actually has me incensed is not them, but the state of affairs in the world, in general. After conversing with many of the people who responded to my original post, I

Comments

[bigbigtruck]

Personally, I leave politics out of my journal, since I prefer not to upset people, just give them music and drawings.

I also feel hopeless and unable to do anything anyway :P

[debu_chan]

Don't be so considerate! lol... You're one of the few who prefers not to upset people. Even I, who really doesn't like to stir shit up, will speak my mind and those offended be damned.

As for feeling helpless, there is much you can do. You may not be able to accomplish anything IMMEDIATELY by yourself, but you can spread your opinion and empower others. If enough people pull together, they can accomplish many things.

--
Crunchie

[naj]

Couldn't agree more, Crunchie. Our country was founded on ideas like that, and, worse come to worst, it'll be ideas like that which save it.

And hell, even if it is a doomed cause, I'd rather go down fighting. Better to fail trying your best than to fail not trying at all, eh? :}

[debu_chan]

I never watch T.V., so I had no clue... Well, I FIGURED something like this would happen, so I am not surprised.

You should check ljdrama.org and see what one soldier was saying to his civilian friend, as well as see the pics, and bragging of killing for fun. Mmm, and the proud racism!

--
Crunchie

[naj]

To paraphrase Morpheus, I wonder how far down this rabbit hole goes? It seems like everytime I wake up in the morning, I never know what insane, awful thing to expect next. Will there be new terrorist attacks around the world? New attrocities in Iraq? More massive casualties, on both the US and Iraqi sides? Will Bush and company come up with some new, bizzare policy that has nothing to do with fixing ANYTHING, *again*? Gods, it's like the world has gone mad. I just had to post the above or I'd go crazy. Even if it doesn't change the world, it's better to speak out against such things, if just to let anyone who happens to be listening know it is wrong. Thank you for putting up with my rant, I appreciate it :)

[actionjbone]

Because I have better things to worry about, such as paying my rent and feeding my cat.

There is no way to truly know what's going on. All the "outrage" may be spurred on by false information, photoshopped images, and lies by foreign media. How do we know what's truly going on? We don't. So I don't worry about it.

Getting outraged won't fix anything. Voting Bush out of office will fox things. Catching terrorists will fix things.
Getting pissed off won't fix things.

[naj]

That's my point. There are a lot of people who *aren't* pissed off at the current administration, who don't think there's anything wrong with what's going on currently. And if enough of them vote to just "stay the course", Bush won't get voted out of office, and things won't get better.

[actionjbone]

"Not being outraged" does not equate to "liking the Bush administration." I don't like Bush as President, and I would vote against him. But actively becoming angry and actively worrying about things is often not constructive, and action can be taken without expressing outrage.

[naj]

I realized I was out of line, and edited my post accordingly. Please read it when you have the time. I think it explains things much better than before. Thank you for posting.

someone fill me in...

[xqjonah]

I don't know enough about the specific human rights violations... what was done to them, specifically?

If all it was is being locked up naked in the dark, well hell, I'd like to see that imposed on our own prisoners here stateside :D

So yeah, are the things that were done to these guys?

Re: someone fill me in...

[naj]

Well, there was the one guy who was hooded, stripped naked, and had wires strapped to him while standing on a box, and then was told that if he moved, the wires would electrocute him. Then there was the pilling of about five or six prisoners together in a naked pyramid, still hooded, I believe. Then they had pairs of them simulate oral sex on each other, while the MP guards looked on like it was a freaking ball. Then, there was the guy whose arms were tied to a bed, so far back that his back was arched, and someone had put a pari of panties on his face. Oh, and then there was that photo of that POW who died during interrogation, his body wrapped in ice and plastic wrap. Really, the whole thing is insane. It's like a huge college hazing on crystal meth or something. Just do a Google search for it. I'm sure you'll find some site showing the pictures. Bizzare, awful stuff.

[anonymous]

The rest of us are angry too- maybe not run-into-the-streets furious about it, but then I'm not that angry about a lot of things- I just don't have time to be angry about all the things that I'm supposed to be angry about.

I will say, however, that it's too bad that no pictures exist of the hundreds of thousands of tortures and executions in the 30+ years of Saddam rule. Maybe then people would remember one of the reasons why we went there in the first place.

[naj]

Saddam was a bastard, and it's good that he's been ousted from power. That is obvious. To me, though, what *isn't* obvious is that Saddam was a bigger priority than capturing Bin Laden and clamping down on international terrorism. I feel that the latter issues should have received greater priority than the former. Doesn't mean I like Saddam, it just means I feel we had bigger fish to fry a year ago than Saddam.

But, since the US is now occupying Iraq and probably won't be leaving there anytime soon, it saddens me greatly that such a thing could happen there. And it saddens me more that other, decent soldiers, who had nothing to do with Abu Gharib, will probably pay with their lives for the actions of a few foolish soldiers and negligent commanders.

Things just get worse and worse, it seems. Hell...