I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’ that ain’t American.

“There were many ways of not burdening one’s conscience, of shunning responsibility, looking away, keeping mum. When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust then became known at the end of the war, all too many of us claimed that they had not known anything about it or even suspected anything.”

An earmark of the 21st century, the “Final Solution” executed by Adolf Hitler — the Holocaust —  is one of the most horrific events to ever occupy a slot of time throughout history.  A slot the worlds populace regrettably recalls.  A slot the worlds populace wishes could have been prevented.  Perhaps a slot that became part of our world’s history because certain sections of the populace looked on with blissful, oblivious eyes.

I think sometimes people forget the power of one; or more so, they forget how an individual’s strength can affect another individual, and in turn another, and another, and so on.  Okay, so perhaps I am playing the card of the idealist.  But at least, amidst my cynicism of humanity I do propose a remedy that despite lacking absolute solvency to the plague of our world’s problems, can offer some hope, and quite possibly help humanity gain some integrity.

Conflicts abroad seem incredibly distant to the average suburban soccer mom, businessman and father, or college attendee.  Is it a myth to say that we, Americans, have a shallow feed of information regarding foreign issues, and this is why we cannot connect with them in a way that we should?  Is the problem ignorant Americans? Or, maybe our inherent ignorance to obtain international news?  Enough questions, though.  I do not want my rapid fire of inquiries to take away from the real point.

Let us take a moment to consider this: if a mass genocide perpetuated by the American government, and executed by a party (say, our version, of the Sudanese Janjaweed), occurred, what hope would we have of ever being free people again?  First of all, this could never happen to us, right?  Never say never.  Second, we would certainly expect our fellow world citizens to rush to our immediate aid.  Maybe small, less influential countries, such as Sudan, don’t have hope quite as high as ours.  Maybe because they have no reason to.  It has taken the U.S. nearly half a decade to address the atrocities in Sudan.  We keep reviewing our policies towards them, flirting with trade embargoes, composing make-shift aid packages, and turning our eyes to the peacekeeping forces of the U.N. . . an arguably ineffective instrument in itself . . . but that is an entirely different subject.  It is argued, former President G.W. Bush addressed the issue; yes, I guess acknowledging that the conflict exists is technically addressing it, but that was quickly discarded and Washington moved on to more pertinent things.

In this blog I will attempt to address a number of world issues, most specifically centered around human rights abuses and violations, as well international issues that go overlooked by the majority.  Over the past few years, in debate forums, through studying International Relations, and by becoming quite a fan of Reuters, Crisis Watch, and Amnesty International, I have developed an affinity for anything human liberties based.  I find these issues relevant because a good majority of them come from countries where a general unrest, peaceless state exists; a perfect ground to harbor violations of the worst kind.  I chose to follow the three above sourced feeds (Reuters, CW, and AI) because they are of great interest to me, and quite relevant to the concept of human rights.  I also am following  the major news source, Christian Science Monitor; fore this has always been a standout information feed, in my opinion.  Additionally, I am frequently planning on tuning into podcasts through NPR, covering a vast area, but mostly focusing on foreign/international news.  To keep up to date on an issue of human rights violations that is domestically based, I have chosen to subscribe to the search query: “U.S.A Patriot Act.”  I plan on finding appropriate military blogs of soldiers based within countries of the target topics I cover in the weeks to come.  As of late, I have subscribed to various military blogs of men and women based in the Middle East, and if that isn’t an area where human liberty violations have taken place, then I do not know what is.  I will draw from the material presented and covered in class by drawing connections between the historical texts and the dynamics of current issues.

Finally, let’s focus our attention on the quote by Richard von Weizsaecker (from above).  I deeply hope we, as a generation, as world citizens, never utter words to reflect the same concept as this.  Before we must proclaim such regrets, maybe we should lace the pages of history with the power of a generation.  Let us not crutch any longer on the idea that we cannot make stark changes.  A good start could be surfing around the ‘net, from the comfort of our own homes, of course, obtaining some awareness of international conflicts. Follow this link. It’s relatively painless, I promise.