Statement by Secretary Colin L. Powell Brussels, Belgium December 8, 2004
This year the government of the United States joins the global community in commemorating the 56th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wrought from the horrors of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly to enshrine the principles of equality and justice in law.
In honor of this important event President George W. Bush has officially declared the week of December 10-17, 2004, to be Human Rights Week and December 10, 2004, to be Human Rights Day. In commemorating this week, we reaffirm our commitment to the principles which have come to characterize our nation.
The United States values the sanctity of the individual and is committed to preventing human rights abuses. Our country is one in which all citizens regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religious faith or other characteristics, are entitled to enjoy equal opportunities and mutual peace.
Today, millions of people across the globe are denied basic human rights, and so on every continent we make important immediate and long-term investments in democracy and human rights. We are working with other countries to establish governments that are chosen by their own people through democratic processes. We are currently working hand-in-hand with the Afghan and Iraqi governments so that human rights and democratic freedoms will be fully restored to people who have suffered years of oppression. Additionally, I will be in Morocco for the first ever "Forum for the Future," which is an extraordinary gathering of nations offering us the opportunity to promote democracy and freedom to the Broader Middle East and North Africa.
Our fight for human rights will continue so long as tyrannical regimes infringe upon the freedom of citizens. Though this challenge remains formidable in the 21st century, we are committed to upholding the principle and practice of democracy. Meeting this challenge will require an unprecedented amount of cooperation among nations, and we stand united with those countries that respect human dignity. We hold our allies in the war on terror and ourselves to these standards. The struggle for freedom requires scrupulous adherence to human rights, not a relaxation of standards.
Please join the United States Department of State in celebrating Human Rights Week by learning more about international human rights from the website of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/. Together, we can pave the road towards equality and freedom for all persons around the world.
2004/1335
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Released on December 8, 2004
16 hours ago
2 comments:
Human rights are secondary in fascist regimes. It is important to understand some tell-tale signs of fascism. Among them, fundamentalism is a key component of Fascism (see the 14 common threads to seven fascist regimes here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm)
More at: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/authoritarianism_and_fascism_alerts/index.html
Below is a list of things some Muslim fundamentalists hate about our culture:
* They hate individual freedoms that allow people to stray from the single rigid sort of truth they want to constrain all people. They hate individual rights that let others slough off their simple certainties.
* They hate liberated women, and all that symbolizes them. They hate it when women compete with men in the workplace, when they decide when or whether they will become breeders, when they show the independence of getting abortions, and changing laws that previously gave men more power over them.
* They hate the wide range of sexual orientations and lifestyles that have always characterized human societies. They hate homosexuality, can’t confront the homosexual tendencies that exist in them, so project them outward and punish them in others.
Not much about these revelations is really new. We saw all this before, when Khomeini’s Muslim fundamentalists wreaked such havoc in Iran in the years following 1979. We have long known that Muslim fundamentalism is a mortal enemy of freedom and democracy.
But a real surprise came just a few days after September 11th, in that remarkably unguarded interview on "The 700 Club" between Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. It was remarkable partly because these men are so media-savvy it’s amazing they would say such things on the air. But it’s also remarkable because as they listed the "causes" of the September 11th attacks, we heard exactly the same hate list the Afghan Taliban had outlined:
* They hate liberated women who don’t follow orders, who get abortions when they want them, who threaten, or laugh at, their arrogant pretensions to rule them.
* They hate the wide range of sexual orientations that have always characterized human societies. They would force the country to conform to a fantasy image of two married heterosexual parents where the husband works and the wife stays home with the children - even when that describes fewer than one-sixth of current American families.
* They hate individual freedoms that let people stray from the one simple set of truths they want imposed on all in our country. Pat Robertson has been on record for a long time saying that democracy isn’t a fit form of government unless it is run by fundamentalist Christians of his kind.
WARNING - fascism is on the rise in our nation. Educate yourself to the signs.
thank you interested_party for your thoughtful and on topic post.
republicanism predates the institutions you mention, perhaps it will survive them as well.
your friend sookietex (RNCNYC2004)
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