From Jill McLaughlin
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Greetings from inside the United States. As we approach another year I feel compelled to share with you something I think you should know, though I’m uncertain how much comfort it will bring.
After all how does one even begin to take responsibility for the untold suffering one’s own government has caused you and continues to cause you?
Sorry does not suffice when drones are dropped on your villages almost daily, when terrifying night raids are conducted on your homes, when you have not seen your father, your brother, or son because they have been disappeared into a black prison and know they are suffering untold physical and mental torture, when you still grieve the son, the daughter, the mother, the father, the sister, the brother, whose life was so brutally and callously taken from you in front of your eyes, and even as I write someone’s life is being taken in this way. No, sorry will not suffice.
Maybe knowing that some of us here in this country know that apologizing or feeling sorry for the criminal actions of our government against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen is not enough we have, for almost the last five years, been working to build and mobilize a mass movement of resistance to stop the crimes of our government will bring a little comfort to you.
We have been out in the streets of our towns and cities demanding that these wars/occupations end, that the torture and indefinite detention of your friends and family end, that those who are responsible for the torture be held accountable. We have been in the classrooms telling young people the truth about these wars/occupations – that they are not about bringing democracy to you or liberating women, but they are about expanding U.S. empire. We tell these young people they should not kill or die for empire but that instead resist and oppose the wars/occupations. We have held panels and forums exposing the truth of our government’s crimes.
We tell people that if they want to stop these crimes that we have to have a mass and visible movement of resistance and opposition to the crimes of our government that is independent of politics as usual or the politics of the possible. We tell them that the crimes will not stop just because the face of the president has changed. And we tell them it hasn’t changed and in some cases it is worse. Some people tell us we can’t say that.
But we boldly and righteously look them in the eye and tell them that when the reality is that the war in Afghanistan has been expanded, when more than 50,000 troops remain in Iraq, when it becomes more and more clear that these wars are widening to include Pakistan and Yemen, when Guantanamo still remains open, when Bagram detention center has been expanded and people are being detained indefinitely and tortured there, when war criminals from the last administration remain free while brave people like Julian Assange of Wikileaks sit in a jail for exposing the most heinous of crimes committed in this so-called war on terror, when activists trying to stop these wars/occupations are being harassed and threatened by our government, that we can indeed say that and it needs to be said. Most importantly, I think, is that we remind them that American lives are not more important than the lives of others.
As of yet we do not have this mass movement of resistance that the people of the world so urgently need. I assure you that we stick to and stand on our principles to continue the work in building this movement to stop the crimes of our government because of the reality before us and what is morally right. And will continue to work to build this movement because we know you can not wait… the World Can’t Wait.
Sincerely,
Jill McLaughlin
World Can’t Wait Steering Committee Member
Wakil:
I appreciate your wanting to separate yourself and the rest of the “people” from the atrocious crimes and oppression being perpetuated by the US government. The problem with this thinking is that it is extremely devisive. We “the people” have allowed this to happen. I do not blame the people. I am of the belief that the dumbing down of the masses may have a method. The point I would like to make is that the government has everything to do with us and “the people” when united will make our possion known and demand that it change.
This government is not our government. America is a corporate-occupied country and this government is the enforcer of that occupation. This government has got nothing to do with us. This government is the government of the riches for the riches by the riches. Please stop referring to it as “our government”