she uses an analogy that i thought i had heard too much. but i like it. see if you recognize the analogy..."we should always, especially when it is difficult, exercise our freedom of speech and assembly, and i mean the word exercise. Rights are like muscles: they atrophy and aren't there when you need them if you don't use them. The First Amendment is in trouble not just because of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the USA Patriot Act, but because of a pall of self-censorship--some have spoken up with great courage, but many have been silenced not only by the acts of the authorities but by the prison of their own fear. Still, if people could stand up to Pinochet, if the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo could march in Buenos Aires during the time of the generals, if people could speak up in Prague in the 1980s, we can here, far more than we do. An atmosphere of repression exists speicifically because people don't speak up against it. When you speak up, you are not repressed--you might be supressed or punished, but you have freed yourself. Too, a tyranny can rise more easily by shutting up a thousand people than a million, and that's a reason to speak out." -rebecca solnit
rights are like exercise? sound familiar? it should. i hope we all resolve to use our rights daily.
photo by karin nussbaumer
1 comments:
SO true!
We are loosing our civil rights like crazy these days. And I feel like everyone just keeps say things like: "Its ok is for our security." or "Don't worry, stop being such a trouble-maker" or voicing some trust for the government as if the government has an interest in your rights--they don't.
Our rights are a threat to the government.
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