I Object to Torturing Children: It’s a Crime Against Humanity

So, I’m reading Vaclav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless” (again) as antidote to the hopelessness of post-American Democracy, to whose practice I object because guilty of Crimes Against Humanity. Havel, the poet, playwright, dissident and political prisoner, who became President of the Czech Republic, says “speaking truth to power” will effect change when enough people catch the virus. We are both victims and supporters of the corrupt system.

Further Havel advises creating a “parallel polis” in the community culture, based on standards of reason, individual responsibility, the moral imagination and ethical action. His old-fashioned notions felled a totalitarian regime. In part, the circulation of the subversive “samizdat” or underground literature destroyed the iron curtain the same way word of mouth praises and condemns local business and local pols, especially those who claim to help but, in reality, commit crimes against Taosenos. Their numbers are legend.

Do something subversive today: Object.

I Object: For the last week I have been reading William Vollman’s piece in the July issue of Harper’s about the conspiratorial culture on both sides of the border and the horrid treatment of refugees in American concentration camps. Meanwhile NPR and MSNBC report child abuse and negligence, describing the torture of children, including infants and toddlers, on the southern border by CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) agents of the state. 

I Object: Former attorney general Jeff Sessions, a Christian heretic from Alabama, designed the program for “aversive propaganda,” a program embraced by Trump and the god-fearing Mike Pence. The pundits scream and the politicians wring their hands, but feckless committee chairs can’t even serve effective subpoenas on lawbreakers. Similarly record numbers of refugees from the south are challenging Trump and Sessions’ policies each day.

I Object: American democracy has been transformed into a “House of Royals.” The people’s representatives aren’t  allowed to vote unless “King” Mitch McConnell, “Queen” Nancy Pelosi, and the Crown Prince, Donald Trump say “yea.” But the “nays” have won. Politicians wander about the halls of the Capitol in search of capital for their next campaign while malnourished children die of criminal neglect. The “Right to Lifers” who demand the death penalty for poor people and children are winning the war against humanity. 

I Object: Here at home Congressman Ben-Ray Lujan sends out thousands of emails, asking for donations but neglecting to mention the issues, while sustaining his renewable energy program aimed at maintaining his political career. He’s much like Senators Udall and Heinrich, whose pursuit of “renewables” can best be seen in their fixation on renewing the Nuclear energy programs at LANL (which further endangers the people, place, and things not only of northern New Mexico but the world itself).