Contributors

Friday, February 12, 2010

Proud to Be an American

Many of you who have been reading this blog for years probably think that I am a cranky, cynical fuck a lot of the time. If you know me in person, I'm not really that way. I use this blog to vent mostly but also to have a central hub for a lot of the issues that are going on in our country and hopefully provide a forum to discuss those topics.

One topic that has been on the minds of many lately is the closing of the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. To many people, this is a good thing. Former Secretary of State Rice and current Secretary of Defense Gates lobbied hard to have it closed during the latter years of the Bush Administration. Regardless of what went on down there, Gitmo has become a powerful rallying cry for hirabis. Strategically, it makes sense to close it. We want to take away and/or erode the one weapon they truly have which is propaganda. Your average hirabis has heard of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib but not of the dozens of prisons that currently house hundreds of convicted terrorists.

Sadly, though, we have some in this country (and we all know who I am talking about) that think that closing the prison and moving the detainees to US soil is a sign of weakness. In fact, many of these people have said that if we do that, we are inviting attack. Well, the residents of Carroll County, Illinois don't think this is true...AT ALL. Thank God.

Check out this slide show and accompanying audio over at CSM.com. First, moving the detainees there is good for jobs. Listen to the voices of the people in this presentation. They want the work. Second, security is not a concern. The prison is safe. Hear one resident chuckle at the thought of an hirabi getting lost. Third, the people there are not afraid much to the deep sadness of our own little version of Al Qaeda here in the states. Why aren't they afraid?

Y'see, folks, Carroll County was home to the Savanna Army Depot, a Defense Department facility that opened in 1917. It tested and manufactured munitions, though several wars, right up until the day it closed in 2000, putting 423 people out of work. Several generations of residents there understand what it's like to have their county be an actual target as opposed the boogieman one that is currently the product of our hyper paranoid "base." Nobody seems all that concerned about the prisoners being housed there. They have other, more pressing concerns like putting food on the table.

"Without understanding the nature of rural areas, it's harder to understand the devastating impact of losing 423 jobs," says Diane Kominskey, executive director for Savanna Depot Park, an organization that is trying to our economic development. Hmm...I guess the "base" doesn't understand rural America and their needs after all. Not surprising when their chief goal is to paint President Obama as "weak" on "terror." And to think that many of these people are probably part of the "Welfare State" now as well. Wouldn't these jobs take them off the government teat? What I am thinking? That just makes too much sense!

Anyway, this slide show honestly moved me. It goes beyond the MSNBC or Fox News version of this issue and let's the people be heard. As we say in the biz, they are primary sources. Their voices make me proud to be an American.

1 comment:

rld said...

You mean the Proposed closing of gitmo. He said he was going to but hasn't yet. Once he does close it, I bet Al Queda will fold immediately.