Recently reports have started resurfacing… (I’ve been following Jürgen Hubert on Google+.)
The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi
Of Course Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Is Not an Enemy Combatant
Six Claims on Detainee Torture, Skewered
Despair Drives Guantánamo Detainees to Revolt
At one point I left the following comment:
The fall of the US from a spiritual leader of freedom and democracy when I was young – in the seventies and eighties I knew nothing of Vietnam and I grew up with American pop music – to a war mongering nation, to a nation that systematically tortures prisoners, a nation that refuses due process to prisoners, to a nation that imprisons so many of their own population, to a nation that uses cruel and unusual punishment in the form of Three Strikes and its variations – there are no words for this moral catastrophe. No words.
I’m still torn: was my decision do abandon my ranting online and turn into a gamer (HomoLudens) the right thing to do? After all, if we all retreat into our little shells, if we all tend to our little gardens, then nothing ever changes, right?
#USA
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
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Sorry for being blunt, but the question is: will your ranting and agitation help much more than your shutting in your shell? For me it’s a simple question of what is the next thing I can do that will have the best impact (with additional bonus if only I can do that) – and that is usually doing something for the local community (well, “local” includes also online communities with similar interests), whether it’s gaming, organizing a meetup of some kind or open source coding. Sure, there are people who have it much worse, but I can much better improve the lives of the people around me.
– Radomir Dopieralski 2013-04-30 16:47 UTC
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No need to apologize. Sometimes a little application of *blunt* is required.
– Alex Schroeder 2013-05-01 00:54 UTC
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Yes. (I like to study about communication strategies).
– JuanmaMP 2013-05-01 12:45 UTC