responding to a comment

meangreen said...

Hey Laura!

I think it's a great idea that you started this blog. Blogging can be a great way to manage your thoughts and actions! We need more bloggers!

I wanted to comment about your concerns over the plight of russian civil liberties. Have you forgotten what's going on within the United States? OUR civil liberties are being attacked. I feel that we need to look at our own situation before we bother to chastise someone else about a similiar concern. Being a country that promotes itself as moraly superior over all other nations states, the United States must expect other nations to try and mimick its system..be it curbing civil rights...Also, lets not forget who created this 'new' russia during the crisis of the soviet colapse. The same people who have successfully performed coup d'états throughout the 90's of several easter european nations, most recently Georgia and Ukraine. What better way to rally a former super power into nationalistic furor, just surround it with pro-west cronies who see the russian frontier as the next economic grab. Aren't we easing our own rights to protect us from so called terrorists? Money and power are an evil manifesto which have blossomed into a new world order. Anyway, the point im trying to make is it upsets me that so many people from the United States and Wester Europe forget to look at themselves, yet find it easy to comment on someone else's situation.
your work looks great!

January 28, 2008 6:33 PM

hello there meangreen,
I'm actually not sure if i know you, feel free to let me know who you are.
this is quite the response to my passing comment about Russia. If, in fact, we do know each other, you will be aware that, to me, Russia, is not just a place on the map outside of myself, where I like to carry on a tradition of fear-mongering cold-war mentality. Having lived there for six years of my life, it is a place very near and dear to my heart, and its problems are not trivial to me.
You said that it upset you that people find it easy to comment on another's situation but forget to look at themselves. My post quite clearly addresses a problem stemming largely from the USA (see Story of Stuff, if you haven't). I am quite clear on the fact that the USA has a great deal of problems (among them our civil liberties that are in jeopardy), it just so happens that I am also aware that there is a world of problems outside of my country of citizenship.
I would also like to point out that I didn't say whether I believed the state of current affairs in Russia is a cause of internal policy or external pressure, what-have-you, nor did I chastise Russia, your assumption is that I am finding fault there. As I'm not much of a political writer, and I don't intend that to be the main focus of this blog (though of course none of us are exempt from politics), I'm not going to delve into my thoughts about "what's wrong with the USA/Russia/etc"; there are many people out there who do it more thoroughly and much better. And I do take an interest in what they have to say, and I do try to stay abreast of current events. I vote for those I think can affect the most change and I take steps in my daily life to address the problems I can, and am looking to do more.
My last comment, advice, whatever you want to call it, is this: To focus only on the problems within the USA, while living in a global community, is not only naive but isolationist. It is precisely that kind of attitude which contributes to the "morally superior attitude" you mentioned.

For those of you who are still with me at the end of this post and do have an interest in Russia, I would like to recommend a book. Putin's Russia, by Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was murdered in recent history. It's a tough read, but important.

Comments

[emily r]

Laura, I agree with your comment. While I agree with meangreen that to criticize the violations of others without consideration of our own is morally empty, I know of almost no one who honestly is involved in the state of civil liberties in other states who is not also concerned with that of the US. And to care only about our own liberties is also morally irresponsible. There is no reason we deserve protection and others do not.

So....yes. Thanks Laura.

[scarahs]

Laura wrote: "To focus only on the problems within the USA, while living in a global community, is not only naive but isolationist. It is precisely that kind of attitude which contributes to the 'morally superior attitude' you mentioned."

emily r wrote: "to care only about our own liberties is also morally irresponsible. There is no reason we deserve protection and others do not."

I agree strongly with both of you. The state of civil liberties and human rights in the US is cause for concern, especially as it seems that many of our leaders are inclined to constrain rights in the name of security. It's a tough balancing act, and we need to keep having conversations about it. Also, what happens here in the US sets a very strong precendent for other countries, who are also curtailing basic civil liberties in the name of security, or the fight against terrorism. In Russia and Kenya (to cite a few examples) journalists are jailed, human rights NGOs are shut down, all with the Global war on terror as justification.

All this is to say that we cannot separate our human rights in the US from the human rights in other countries around the world. We are far too interconnected. We cannot ignore this. We must hold each other accountable. This accountability is not, nor should it be, unilateral.