… and the Grinch as the shrub …

"...the Ghost of Christmas Present manages to melt his cold heart. "
I'm thinkin' Pamela Anderson as the ghost of Christmas present...Pete Seeger could do the soundtrack...Kucinich could do a cameo as Tiny Tim....

somebody run with it...

Think of it: one man could make human rights a major issue.

Imagine that Rupert Murdoch is Scrooge and that the Ghost of Christmas Present manages to melt his cold heart. On the boss's orders, the most powerful media force in the United States is suddenly radiating tolerance and brotherly love; in short, championing human rights.

And just as suddenly, Democrats feel emboldened to take stronger positions on Iraq, health care, immigration, even impeachment, confident that everything they say will no longer be slimed against them.

Naturally, CNN has to follow in line because the general public is becoming better informed and can more easily see through the crap. By June, absolutely no individual in the country, even in deepest red-state territory, believes that Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda, or that he had WMD. Or that torture is good. Or that national health care is communism. Or that there is a war on Christmas (by you know who).

I'm thinking of Anthony Hopkins as Murdoch in the film version.

short of what you explained in your 11:51 post,...were doomed.
but that's only my mood today.

Would you believe 5,999,999,999 ?

not really

Can you hear the 6,000,000,000 +_ Y E S _ answers to your inquiry?

Thousands of years have led up to this moment in human history, and the problems we experience and perceive are not just the policies of the last few decades.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of reality.
Sorry but I don't think that we are going to be able to force people to reevaluate their entire conception of the cosmos. Or even more impossible reevaluate their concept of who they/we/ I am.

As a collective species, do we deserve to continue to survive?

KEY 89 -- Very well said. Consider the moral compass of 'What is truth'?

Is it the 'false' context of our lives that we're constantly pummeled with [propagandized], lowly and scared 'one out of billions', of scarcity, separateness, competition, massive individualized consumption, and entitlement.

Consider the polar opposite.
OR is it the 'true' context of humankind's collective lives that we're possibly so much more, walking upon the sky and fearless 'billions as ONE', of abundance, connectedness, cooperation/collaboration, conserving global sharing this planet, and compassionate commitment for egalitarianism (a.k.a. democracy)

You ask a poignant inquiry, striking at the base of our tilting (Tarot's) toppling tower, shuttering struggling - Mars redoubled - lightning struck: "What will it take for us to recognize that humanity is one?"

_ R E J O I C E _ in the _ G R A C E _ of _ G O O D N E S S _ revealed, as we are at exactly the place we need to be for metamorphosing transformative synchronous harmonic convergence.

====================================
We are yet, once upon the threshold of a COMMON DREAM
====================================

Please do join with US

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »

killyt "I onced asked a woman wearing that t-shirt, if she would put on a "Stop Genocide in Iraq" or "Stop Torture in Guantanamo" t-shirt?"

Good post and very good question. I ask people all the time to take a visit and spend some time in the poorest part of town if they want to see what is really real in this country. I get the same response you do. To many Americans think they are well off, they're not really. Most people don't realize just how close we are to complete self-destruction.

One People, One Planet, One Future. The other year, disgusted with the abuses of our stars and stripes, I started flying a dark blue flag with our small, beautiful planet photographed from space. America isn't the only part of God's creation that is beautiful. The US population represents less than one-twentieth of the world's population. The sheer arrogance and total ignorance of many Americans is sick. So many don't even know what their Constitution, the foundation of their laws, says. They are blatantly ignorant of the Bill of Rights and of their history. How can this be? The Declaration of Human Rights, as with our own Bill of Rights, is the touchstone of justice and the futures of over six billion people and rising. The rights of the minority of the few or of the one is the reason, as it is perfected, for the greatness of America. With that lost, America is diminished, the refuge is gone, the hope is gone. Ideals are meant to be greater than what can be perfected. If they were not, they be inadequate. The task is to continue and renew the efforts to perfect them here and around the world.

Norman Solomon, a great American, a great peace monger and a great humanitarian.

One of the main reasons I tune into CD occasionally is to read your articles.

You are consistently an intellectual voice for peace and justice.

I especially admired your stance against Ralph Nader who you rightly saw as standing in the way of peace by self-righteously promoting his own agenda, which included making millions of dollars for himself giving speeches condemning both parties and thoughtlessly divided the progressive vote.

Consider what is in an acronym such as "US". It is a dualistic group consciousness that implies a "them". As the nation we live in disintegrates, Americans try to blame other groups. Thus, "It's the immigrants," or "It's the criminals," or "It's the (Islamic) 'terrorists', just as in Nazi Germany they said, "It's the Jews." But what we are discovering, more and more, as we try to seal our borders and lock more people up, is that there are fewer of "us" and more of "them" all the time.

What will it take for us to recognize that humanity is one? Something deep and primordial inside me and beyond my conscious awareness or control tells me that we are all about to find out. The system is too broken to fix, unless you count "fixed" elections. I suspect that Mother Earth is about to vote, and somehow I don't believe the Supreme Court will be able to negate it when she does!

www.raycarlson.com

I first heard the term human rights when I was a kid and Jimmy Carter was president. Carter has partially demonstrated his concern for them as an ex-president, but his foreign policy decisions while in office largely contradicted efforts to implement them. Maybe he was a realist. Maybe he didn't want to get assasinated or compromised in some way. I don't know.
I don't hear contemporary American political leaders speaking of human rights unless they're denouncing Chavez, Morales or Castro. You know, how these socialist "dictators" oppress entrepeneurs and the invisible hand of the benificent "free market", while they themselves only care about the right to monopolize markets.

"The white man talks a great deal about religion and law and justice. But he does not really believe in or practice these things. He keeps them just behind himself, like helpers, and brings them out whenever he needs to look and feel better...." (A Native American)

Ding Dong "The Surge" has worked, which ole´surge,
the Bush´s surge....(Sung as "Wizard of Oz" Ding Dong the witch is dead.)

Glad the last person knows about American Enterprise Institute and their role of creating "Black Propoganda" for the CIA...oh, have you ever heard of the "Club Bilderberg"? You know Henry´s networking group.

Anyway, after the British Medical Journal, Lancet published in October 2006 that 654,965 Iraqis had died since the Invasion of 2003, the media immediately doomed those stats to anonymity. Then on September 15,2007, The OPR (Opinion Research Business), a British Polling Agency, came out with their statistical anlysis: a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063 Iraqis have died since the Invasion began in 2003.

The American Media stayed away from that story too.

You don´t suppose that the American Invasion of a sovereign nation was a violation of "Human Rights"?

Have we forgotten that over 5 million Vietnamese died fighting for their independence and that over 58,000 American Soldiers died? Have we forgotten that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and American Veterans have died since that war from cancers that they had contracted through contact with "Napalm" and "Agent Orange"? All of their "Human Rights" were violated?

From the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine to the demolition of World Trade Center #7, The American "Expansionists" now known as "Neo-Conservatives" have been willing to commit treasonous acts in order to propel the American People into supporting illegal and immoral acts against humanity.

It is no surprise that the "Surge" has worked. The Saudis, the American Ally and "Protectorate" ("The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins) since 1975, are Sunnis. The Sunnis have been the most active and violent of the insurgent groups and are never mentioned as "Supported by the Saudis" by the American Media.

Oh, and don´t forget Prince Bandar is George W´s man and he was supposed to be under investigation for a Billion Dollar Bribary Scam that involved BAE Systems....that case seems to have been taken care of and so were the attacks of the Sunni Insurgents taken care of.

Human Rights have turned into the "Capitalist Creed" which is "The End Justifies The Means."

killyt: The act of condemning the human rights record of others while refusing to see violations by the United States runs deeper than the government or media. The AMERICAN PUBLIC is fully vested in this hypocrisy.

Of course, the US media has to pay attention to which elements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the US government violates, and has to carefully censor any content that might reveal the violations.

One of the roles of the empire "think tanks" like American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, etc, is to monitor the media and send out the attack signals when necessary. The end result should be that the American public remain unaware of the human rights violations by the US government and its client states, but highly aware of everyone else's.

Has anyone noticed how Norman Solomon is an expert on everything? He seems to release a press release via his group or an op ed under his name nearly every day on such a wide range of topics. It's hard not to conclude that someone who is an expert on everything is an expert on nothing.

The thing that really gets me about him is how he went to bat for the Democrats in 2004 by trashing Ralph Nader and demanding he drop out of the race. Funny, now Norman seems to be a critic of the Democrats. Hmm, maybe they stopped sending him checks after Kerry roled over? I can't help but ask who was right all along about Iraq, tax cuts for billionnaires, health care, terrorism and on and on. Was it Nader or Norman and his Democrats? Norman doesn't need to apologize to Nader for viciously attacking him. Norman should take his own advice to Nader and "drop out".

Norman has zero credibility with me and I wish Commondreams would critically re-evaluate how much space they give him almost every day.

Carter beat a drowning rabbit to death with a row boat oar.

starofthesea,

Nice to know we both agree Carter wasn't so bad, compared with Republicans. We can both agree, too, I'm sure on Dennis Kucinich. What we can't find agreement on yet is any of the candidates who actually have a shot at being elected. Perhaps we're worrying about too many. Maybe in a few months the parties will narrow it down for us to Obama vs. Huckabee. (The whole thing could get so much more simplified that way.)

The cororate US has been torturing for yrs-it just came to light-also the cold cells, freezing temperatures are used in minnesota prisons right now. It may be a viable temp for someone active n able to move around, but when You are stripped naked n left there, the cold is bad-the entire Just This system has a very well planned pysch opps-You are fodder to feed the form driven machine-paying payments, interest r paying fines n doin time-Incarceration nation-FTG

Daniel David, et al:

While Jimmy Carter gave lip service to human rights as president, his administration was a disaster for Central and South Americans who suffered under the "real politics" of Henry Kissinger. Look up the body count some time.

Also, the Carter administration initiated the creation and arming of the mujahadeen against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. We all know how that short-sighted play turned out.

Carter, always an anti-communist cold warrior was also a nuclear sub officer who promoted both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, in practice, if not words during his administration.

Additionally, he was the anti-"guvmint" outsider who laid out the cookie-cutter strategy for the DLC takeover of the party you pay obesience to in your emails.

As post-president, Carter has been very good to great. As president, he wasn't. Human rights are a matter of practice, not words.

No respect, ever, for the people who have smeared this country with faeces-- starting with their torture and continuing with roll-backs of our Civil Rights.

We missed the articles about Human Rights Day because we were so busy trying to get through all of the ones describing how good things are now in Baghdad. Also trying to figure out who ordered the destruction of the torture tapes. (hard figuring)

right on killyt.

The comments by We Are the 801 is dead on. The act of condemning the human rights record of others while refusing to see violations by the United States runs deeper than the government or media. The AMERICAN PUBLIC is fully vested in this hypocrisy. I'm not talking about American conservatives either. I live in a very liberal town where "Save Darfur" t-shirts and "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers are equally popular. But what I find interesting is how few of those who like both slogans fail to see the problem between holding this administration responsible for its crimes while at the same time calling for it to take action in the Darfur. A few months ago, I heard Samantha Power speak. As the self-appointed expert on genocide, she spends a lot of time calling for action against genocide and other human rights crimes in the latest headline grabber (Kosovo, Iraq, Darfur) but curiously has nothing much to say about US atrocities committed abroad. Her knowledge of the subject matter is pedestrian at best, but she is popular among liberals because she knows how to strike right chords with her audience. I asked her a two-part question:

"The US harbors several men from Central America and Haiti who face charges of mass-murder and torture in their home country. The US has also committed acts in Iraq and Guantanamo that the International Court of Justice would consider crimes against humanity and perhaps genocide. Given these facts, what moral currency does the US have to intervene and uphold human rights anywhere? If China, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, or anyone else wanted to invade the US, overthrow its government, and charge its leaders for these crimes would you support it?"

I wasn't surprised at all when she brushed me off and refused to answer. I've gotten the same response from pretty much everyone pushing the "Save Darfur" line. I onced asked a woman wearing that t-shirt, if she would put on a "Stop Genocide in Iraq" or "Stop Torture in Guantanamo" t-shirt? She looked perplexed. As long as Americans refuse to see their own record of human rights for what it truly is, there can be no real celebration of Human Rights Day.

Americans pay lip service to human rights once a year, just like they talk about peace on earth once a year.

But you're not supposed to take it seriously, silly.

"So the whole document is a list of things we think are good ideas but don't really want to see in universal practice."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Danial David---a point of agreement. I have always believed that Jimmy Carter was bad-mouthed because he represented a fundamental decency that just wasn't welcome in the realms of the powerful elite. But guess what? He still isn't and that includes your precious Dems for the most part. Your steady belief that they are going to restore ANYTHING except their own self serving power base, makes me want to weep for your misplaced faith. I am 61 years old and I have never in my life been so ashamed of the Party that once was my political "home." They have been hopelessly co-opted and there is no reforming them. They are now about as UNDemocratic as they can possibly be. Save your ideals and abandon them. Nevermind, I know that ain't gonna happen. You're not that fed up yet. sigh

Amnesty International has a campaign against torture:

http://www.unsubscribe-me.org/waitingfortheguards.php

Americans love to lecture the rest of the world about democracy and human rights, but then they give themselves a pass. Welcome to the United States of American Hypocrisy.

Conservatives sacrificed our human rights to Mammon.

the USA is a strong beleive in "Human Rights"...it's just that they define "human" as white, male and making more than $1 million a year.

The most memorable American president who clearly declared "Human Rights" to be the centerpiece of our foreign policy was Jimmy Carter. Don't start laughing.
The Reaganites who came after him were not an improvement. And except for the accident of Ross Perot in 1992, you would never have even seen Bill Clinton.

Since Carter, 20 years of Reagan and the Bushes, with only 8 years of even a moderate liberal. No wonder we're out of focus and falling behind. Do something in 2008 to help assure we're not looking back from 2016 at the eight intervening years that also were the deja vu of Reagan and the Bushes.

THE UNITED STATES OF AGGRESSION RESPECTS HUMAN RIGHTS: A WEALTHY AMERICAN IS THE MOST RIGHTS CONSCIOUS AND RIGHTS PROTECTED HUMAN ON EARTH.

HOWEVER IF YOU WANT YOUR COUNTRY'S RESOURCES FOR YOUR OWN WE WILL KILL YOU, DISAPPEAR YOU, DEATH SQUAD TORTURE YOU A LA THE SAVAK, PINOCHET, EL SAL, SOMOZA, BATISTA, SAUDI ARABIA, EGYPT...AMERICA HAS CAN AND WILL MURDER YOU TO PERPETUATE IT'S PLUNDER AND RAPE OF THIS PLANET.

AND AROUND THE WORLD THIS IS TAKEN FOR GRANTED. A KNOWN. A GIVEN. ONLY IN THIS COUNTRY IS THE WILL NOT TO KNOW, THE GLARING DYNAMIC IGNORANCE OF AMERICA'S ACTIONS ABROAD FOUND. BECAUSE TO SEE THE THEM WOULD BE TO SEE ONE'S OWN COMPLICITY, MAKE THE BUSH=CHENEY STICKER ON THE BACK OF THE SUV LESS LUSTROUS.

The US has always been about capitalism and making money, no matter how much lipstick US politicians and historians want to put on that pig. The Revolutionary War was, to some degree, about the disagreement between the colonists who wanted unlimited expansion into, and exploitation of, Indian lands, while the British monarchy was more patient and held a more balanced and moderate view. In the Civil War, the Northern industrialists did not support the war because they gave a fig about slavery, but because it would allow them total domination of the US, and possibly some really cheap labor to boot. And on and on through all US wars.

The "freedoms" that have been most highly valued all along were the freedoms to hold property and make money, i.e. capitalist freedoms. The US is THE capitalist state of the world, and other values in the US have only been adopted and held, tenuously, through the expenditure of great amounts of blood, sweat, and tears. If we do not continue to expend that effort, the forces of elite capitalists will roll right over us.

Actually, the UN Declaration was pie in the sky platitude when the Western-dominated UN passed it. At the time all of Africa bar Ethiopia was under the control of Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal, and the French were fighting to hang on to Indochina. The American South was still maintaining separate but not really equal accommodations for blacks while denying many of them the right to vote. The US was just revving up its next Red Scare. And then there was Stalin's Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. So the whole document is a list of things we think are good ideas but don't really want to see in universal practice.

Its not the US government. It is the American people. 80% of Americans polled on CNN think waterboarding is torture. BUT 55% of Americans think waterboarding is acceptable "in some circumstances."

Over half of 'mericans are a-OK with torture. Just think-- of every American you meet, there is over a 50-50 chance that he or she thinks torture is acceptable.

So lets not just lay the blame on the government. Americans, not just its government-- are stuck in the dark ages (literally, as waterboarding was a favourite technique of Torquemada's).

To me, we lost it when we started throwing people out of choppers in Vietnam, but I think the truth is we never had any morality at all. A good read of history shows that as a people we have pretty much always played win/lose with those without the power to resist effectively. When I look at the truth squarely, the shame that I ever believed differently is fairly overwelming. Honor, Truth and Integrity as far as I can see are not American Values. The majority of our citizens call to Jesus for help in everything from rape to murder by torture.

Veteran '66-68

Our country is going backwards. The political whores in D.C. with the help of a cheer-leading media, are taking us back even before the time of Columbus. We have changed century's of legal and political practice that has allowed us, as a people, to become better human beings. That we now approve and condone torture puts us back with the wild animals we are supposed to be better than.
I stopped living in America twenty years ago. I was ashamed when I found out that the concept of being an American was fraudulent. We weren't what we said we were. The American that I wanted to grow up to be wasn't there to greet me. He was supposed to be, because I believed that we were "better than that".
Hoa binh