At that 2007 Kuala Lumpur peace conference, I met victims of war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity, all made possible because of U.S. policy and U.S. taxpayers. It was an emotional Conference for me, because I came face to face with the scars borne by victims of war.
The next year, I spent International Human Rights Day 2008 in Havana, Cuba with family members of victims of U.S. aggression against that fiercely independent island country. And while I was there, over and over and over again I heard the word “dignity.” And how there is dignity in resistance.
I can’t help but remember that it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who, forty years ago, said that the United States was the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Sadly, violence sponsored by the U.S. directly or indirectly has only intensified.
The world is rising up against the lies that we’ve been told. People are reclaiming their dignity. Against the greed, corruption, and theft that have been committed in our name, with our tax dollars. In the streets, you will hear the word dignity.
That’s what the U.S. civil rights movement was all about. And its spirit of resistance to injustice shaped my childhood experiences. I saw what is possible when people stand up.
On the night before his murder, Dr. King said that he was proud to be alive at the end of the 20th Century when people were rising up saying, “We want to be free.”
Today, we are rising up and saying that we want to be free from hatred, division, oppression, and war.
I admire those stood up on the national stage, and I’ve tried to do my part to take a stand, too.
Thus, in 1991, as a Member of the Georgia Legislature, when President George Herbert Walker Bush bombed Baghdad, I asked the Speaker of the House if I could speak on a point of Personal Privilege to explain my opposition to Operation Desert Storm. My colleagues stood up and walked out on me during my remarks.
And then, when I decided to run for the United States Congress, I knew that the foundation of all U.S. policy—whether domestic or foreign--had to be: respect for human rights.
So, when the marginalized and dispossessed of the world came to me, I did my best to help them.
There was no room in my view for policies promoting nuclear weapons, NATO expansion, or discrimination against any person, group, or country. I voted against every Pentagon budget that came before Congress.
I introduced legislation to stop the transfer of U.S. weapons to regimes that did not respect human rights and to eliminate the use of depleted uranium.
I spoke out against President Clinton’s sanctions against Iraq, and President George W. Bush’s war against and occupation of Iraq.
I represented the Congressional Black Caucus at the Durban World Conference Against Racism, despite intense pressure to not attend in order to avoid a discussion of Sionism.
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