The Fiery Cage and the Lynching Tree, Brutality’s Never Far Away
by Bill Moyers – February 6, 2015
A Palestinian holds a poster with a picture of slain Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh during a protest in front of the Jordanian embassy, in the West Bank City of Ramallah, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
They burned him alive in an iron cage, and as he screamed and writhed in the agony of hell they made a sport of his death.
After listening to one newscast after another rightly condemn the barbaric killing of that Jordanian air force pilot at the bloody hands of ISIS, I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept roaming the past trying to retrieve a vaguely remembered photograph that I had seen long ago in the archives of a college library in Texas.
Suddenly, around two in the morning, the image materialized in my head. I made my way down the hall to my computer and typed in: “Waco, Texas. Lynching.”
Sure enough, there it was: the charred corpse of a young black man, tied to a blistered tree in the heart of the Texas Bible Belt. Next to the burned body, young white men can be seen smiling and grinning, seemingly jubilant at their front-row seats in a carnival of death. One of them sent a picture postcard home: “This is the barbeque we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe.” [Read more]
Comments
President Obama, one of the best writers and orators of any U.S. President in my lifetime, tactfully highlighted this matter at a breakfast meeting the other day, then all hell broke loose from the Republican-Tea Party extremist elements with some severe criticism of the man. But, Bill Moyers put pen to paper and, essentially, spells the same macabre argument out in graphic detail … Bill Moyers is right!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/us/politics/obama-national-prayer-breakfast-terrorism-islam.html?_r=0
Moyers is right but the Obama speech is inadequate in two ways. He should have made it clear that it is the Humanism initiated by Enlightenment Thinkers and the progresss of Science that checked the dogmatism of Christianity. We see these realities even today. Even the Pope has to take baby steps into the realm of Reality. Secondly, Islam too has to confront Science and Reality and will become increasingly irrelevant among people who receive a proper science education if the Quran and especially the Hadiths are considered as literally true. Some things in all religions have to be taken with many grains of salt. But of course Obama couldn’t say this since he too is under the God Delusion.
Thinker, I appreciate your contributions to our forum. You never fail to open new ways of looking at a given situation or event.
Cyril, thanks for sharing Bill Moyers’ article.
It’s so easy for Americans to accuse other nations of barbarism and forget America’s barbaric past in its treatment of the Native Indians and African slaves. Given the right circumstances, we human beings are capable of the same brutality.
What is war if not an act of barbarism?
And the beat goes on … FOX: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/09/1363247/-FOX-NEWS-Only-Muslims-have-ever-killed-anybody-in-the-name-of-religion?detail=email#
Clyde, there’s no hope when we lie to ourselves.
I can’t help myself …. more FOX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alikj9WcMrU
More about FOX and Sean Hannity – Constantly repeating a lie, does not make it true: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/12/1344354/-Sean-Hannity-unhinged-over-Jon-Stewart-comments?detail=email
A White Lie is still a lie – Here is an interesting op-ed about Scott Walker: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/16/1364829/-Four-things-you-MUST-KNOW-about-Scott-Walker-before-it-s-too-late?detail=email