Sunday, March 18, 2012

George Clooney, Reps. Moran and McGovern, Martin Luther King III, and NAACP President Arrested Outside Sudanese Embassy

First, let me say that I am no fan of George Clooney's politics.  Second, I try to avoid watching his movies at least in part because of his politics.  But in this case he was standing up for innocent men, women and children who have been the target of various crimes in Sudan so I support his efforts to stop these heinous crimes.  Omar al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court but little to none has been done by the International community to stop him.  First, we turn a blind eye to the genocide in Rwanda and now the United States government is following that same modus operandi with regards to Sudan.  All this due to the region being poor and not beneficial to America's business interests.  These are innocents who don't have the means or capability to stand up for themselves.  We need to stop another Holocaust from continuing or occurring.  After WWII and we stopped the Holocaust under Hitler the International community said never again. What happened to Never Again?  Has the world forgotten?  They were taking part in some non-violent civil disobedience. I have no problem with that. Those arrested on Friday along with Clooney were: His father Nick, Rep. Jim Moran(D-VA), Rep. Jim McGovern(D-Mass), former Rep. Tom Andrews(D-Mass), Martin Luther King III, NAACP president Ben Jealous, as well as others.

From Forbes:



"Anytime you're making the names of people who are charged for war crimes famous, I think that's good."
He was released hours later on a $100 bond, wisecracking with reporters, “It is on my permanent record.” But on a more serious note, he continued: “Listen, what we’ve been trying to achieve today is we’re trying to bring attention to an ongoing emergency. Our job right now is to try to bring attention to it, and one of those ways was, apparently, get arrested.”

What was he thinking? The actor and humanitarian’s own words tell the story:The actor jokingly called his first time spent behind bars, “nice” but concluded: “let’s hope it’s my last.”

[We want] the (Sudanese) government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children. Stop raping them, and stop starving them.
I want to separate what is fact and what is fiction. The government of Sudan, led by Omar al-Bashir, Ahmed Haroun and defense minister Hussein, the same three men who orchestrated the atrocities in Darfur, have turned their bombs on the Nubian people. Now, these are not military targets. These are innocent men, women and children. That is a fact.
All I can really do is amplify the situation and hope to bring a spotlight to it so that we’re talking about it for at least a brief period of time.”
Here is footage from George Clooney's recent trip to Sudan.

 

6 comments:

Quite Rightly said...

I have heard, but cannot confirm, that a popular term for black people in the Arabic language, "abeed," translates to "slaves."

Quite Rightly said...

Hey! Love your new site design. Honored to be considered one of Teresa's favorites! Thanks!

Opus #6 said...

Nice look, T. Beautiful.

Clooney did this one right. Good for him standing up for the Sudanese citizens.

Teresa said...

Thank you for the compliments Quite Rightly and Opus.

Ron Russell said...

Occasionally even a blind hog finds an acorn---I agree with Clooney in this case.

Always On Watch said...

Jim Moran happens to be my Representative in Congress.

Let me tell you this: all that man cares about is garnering some publicity. He doesn't give a single hoot about what's going on in the Sudan!

Moran is a horse's you-know-what.