What Have We Become?

By Michael True

(675 words)

This commentary is unpublished.

The U.S. Constitution is a promise to the American people that we will enjoy freedom of speech and other basic human rights. For over two centuries, that promise has generally been kept, though threatened by forces within and without.

Under the Bush administration, that promise has been broken, in a manner that undermines the welfare of the American as well as the world’s people. “Shock and awe,” torture, and the Patriot Act have been approved and funded by congress and upheld by the courts. Although Americans worry about threats from abroad, we seem less concerned about threats to the Constitution and “the $3 trillion war” on Iraq, originating with neo-conservatives and their think-tanks....

....Americans reveal who we are not by our intentions, but by our relationships and our performance. Rightfully concerned about threats to our country from without, we often forget that how we treat others eventually affects how we define ourselves. To prevent our drifting toward cruelty, we must refuse to tolerate the slighting of any human being....

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Michael True, author of People Power: Fifty Peacemakers and Their Communities, lives in Worcester, Massachusetts.