I heard this on Democracy Now this morning. Check this link for the details.
Did you hear his comments this week (perhaps it was today?) about the plight of the Uyghur detainees who have been released after 7 years of detention (without any charges, and now without any apology), can't return to China for fear of persecution, yet are not being allowed to settle in the U.S., but are being pushed to Palau?
President Obama: “Nick at Nite has a new take on an old classic: Leave It to Uyghurs. I thought that was pretty good.”
Yeah - pretty good if you're not one of the Uyghur detainees, whose lives have been destroyed by racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic American policy that crosses a lot of different disciplines from Homeland Security, the "War on Terror", immigration and asylum policy, and the list goes on.
Dear Prez: I was kind of coming around a bit too, but this is really awful. Joking about the plight of people who have been completely fucked by the U.S. is really uncouth, uncool, and unlikely to win my confidence that you are different from McCain's "bomb bomb bomb Iran" comments.
Jun 22, 2009
A Reason to Question Prez Obama's Departure from Bush
Jun 11, 2009
API* Heritage Post #Fin
I didn't give up on the posts: I just felt like the navel-gazing wasn't getting me anywhere, particularly without much dialogue on the site. Life has gotten incredibly busy through work (again) and just life. I think I have yet to find that balance folks talk about, but it's a healthy thing to always wonder if you've found it, I guess.
It was a crazy Heritage month this year: Al Robles and Ron Takaki left us last month. While they weren't perfect, they gave us different views, different benchmarks by which to measure our own lives in this work. I think the personal stories that people have started to share about their lives and what they did to touch people has been the most striking. And with more personal loss that we've just found out about, I realize that much more how even little things can really connect you to someone, and make losing them, in whatever way, that much more of a shock.
I'm kind of at a standstill again regarding my energy for this space. But it's hard to let go.