PHILOSOPHY: Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco
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- Written by Hank Berger
A few years ago, Valtin (a Californian psychologist who has been involved in treating torture victims and who writes under a pseudonym) offered a commentary of one of Rousseau's favorites lines from Virgil's Aeneid.[1] ...
POEM: Labor Day poem
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- Written by Fran Lucientes
DOCUMENT: Manning's eloquent words
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- Written by Hank Berger
After being sentenced on Aug. 21, 2013, to 35 years in prison, Bradley Manning had his lawyer read to the press from a letter to President Obama requesting a pardon. -- In it, Manning explained that his work in the military had made him realize that "in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity."[1] -- "We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan." -- He learned firsthand that the U.S. had embraced policies that necessarily resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, then "elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability." -- It committed and condoned torture and endorsed injustice at Guantánamo. -- He predicted that "many of our actions since 9/11" will in the future be viewed like other "dark moments" in American history. -- Manning said he had acted out of "a love for my country and a sense of duty to others" and concluded by alluding to the Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (Nov. 19, 1863), saying that while he was asking for a pardon, he would gladly pay the price of serving his sentence "if it means we could have country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal." -- COMMENT: Manning's eloquent statement should be read by every American and deserves a place in anthologies of American history....