This is MY country, right or wrong...

[Libertas1776]

This is my country, right or wrong. This is my country when we are the humanitarians, with our forces, armed only with care packages and first aid, arriving swift in the wake of natural disasters in far off lands. This is my country when we are the incompetents, with our government turning a blind eye to the suffering of its own citizens in the wake of a natural disaster on American soil.

This is my country when we are the liberators, laying down our blood on foreign beaches to free a people from the grips of fascism. This is my country when we put torturers on trial and convict them for crimes against humanity. This is my country when we are the imperialists, occupying foreign lands and bombing villages and children from up high with the "precision" strikes of an unmanned drone. This is my country when we our indifferent to the use of state torture and let its perpetrators go free.

This is my country, this is your country, this is our country. We do not wave our flags and salute her when she does the righteous thing, but hide our heads in shame when she commits the wrong, the unjust, the atrocious, or worse, remain indifferent. Do we? All of this is done in my name, your name, our name.

I have no illusions that I by my lonesome self can walk up Capitol Hill and shout up to the rafters "Stop!" and make it so. I even have no illusions, sadly, that we, a group of hundreds, if not thousands, if not ten thousands, if not ten thousand ten thousands, can walk up to Capitol Hill and all together shout "STOP!!!" and make it so.

However, I do have the illusion that I by my lonesome, or you by your lonesome, or all of us together can, indeed, shout to the top of our lungs "NOT IN MY (OUR) NAME!" It is our duty as American citizens to protest, from the measliest letter and e-mail, to the largest march and protest.

If you, or I, or all of us are silent, then we are, in effect, in agreement with all the wrongs and injustices committed in our name.


This is our country, right or wrong. Whether we like it or not, this is so. The responsibility is in our hands to speak out and say "This is my country and I do not like what is going on. This is my country, and the blood of children will not be on my hands any longer. This is my country, and NOT IN MY NAME!!!