Easy to Be Hard

Lyrics by James Rado & Gerome Ragni; 
music by Galt MacDermot from the musical "Hair."

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend

How can people be so heartless
You know I'm hung up on you
Easy to give in
Easy to help out

And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who say they care about social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

To: BRENNE
From: Poster No. 3 

My portion of our "collective" sense of humor sees nothing humorous about Manson, Guantanamo, or this "humorous and innocuous wisecrack."

Do you really see no connection? Do you, really? Manson used his influence to cause a number of bloody, heinous murders; he was arrested and tried. During this trial his culpability was proven beyond reasonable doubt in open court, and he received a sentence generally perceived as reasonable and customary. This is what President Bush refers to as "tha rule a' law." The Guantanamo prisoners (I will not call them "detainees") may or may not have committed crimes--we do not know. If they are ever given hearings, it does not appear that this will be in open court; nor does it appear that these "courts" will afford trial and evidentiary rules commonly held to be reasonable and customary. In other words, they are subject to the will of their captors--and the will of those captors include denial of legal rights and basic human rights: confinement in isolation, repeated and systematic insult to Islam, repeated interrogation that even the most reasonable person would call cruel and unusual, torture. Is this the new “rule a’law”? You really do not see this connection?

Perhaps another example would help. From 1932 to 1942 Albert Speer worked as a architect and enjoyed a close personal relationship with Adolph Hitler. In 1942 he became Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich; in this position, he used forced labor to return the Nazi war industry to productivity. After the war, he was “detained,” but not indefinitely and not without human or legal rights—he was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. He served these twenty years in a prison—allowed communication with family and lawyers (and publishers), not subjected to insult or interrogation, not tortured—and was released at the end of that sentence. Certainly, Speer was subject to the will of his captors. And just as certainly, that was a civilized will which recognized that accused persons (and guilty persons) can and should be afforded basic human rights—even when, I dare say, especially when, the acts of which they are accused served to deny those right to others. Do you see that connection?

Rez was in the right to call to account the person who made the insensitive “humorous” remark. I applaud that action and the response of the one other person who spoke out. It seems to me that this is not a matter of humor, misplaced or otherwise. Nor is it a matter of who likes whom (good god! Are we in the third grade, here?). If we learn nothing else as graduate students, ought we not to learn at least that events in our history are connected, that they do have meaning, and that we need to pay attention to the nuisances of those meanings? And, ought we not also to learn to think before we speak and to expect to be called to account for the implications of what we say?

 

To: BRENNE 
From: Poster No. 2

I hope I am not alone in thinking a student of Holocaust Studies should know better than anyone else why it is wrong to 'poke fun' at people who are being (for the most part) wrongfully imprisoned and subjected to torture. Obviously, you can say genocide is worse. But, you cannot say that the Holocaust did not begin with wrongful internment.  What exactly is "humorous" and more importantly, "innocuous" about being indifferent (at best) to the suffering of others, based on their religion? Does being a former member of the military mean you are more accepting of dehumanizing entire groups of people? People need to think before they speak, or send emails.

BRENNE: Reply to post No. 1(June 27)
 

Just to make sure that I wasn't a RACIST, I checked a list of the nationalities of those detainees in Guantanamo Navel Base, provided in a Washington Post article updated on March 15, 2006, and found that if the accusation by a fellow student of mine is true, I must hate a lot of people, although I still do not know the race of any of the detainees.  On the other hand, I might be harboring a deep down hatred of men, since all of the names listed appeared to be associated with the male sex.  Still, male is not a race, although us females sometimes are convinced that it is, e.g. “Men Are from Mars.” But, now I am totally confused. Hmmm. Should you have any suggestions or words of advice, please post your comment. Thank you in advance for your help.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/nationalsecurity/guantanamo_detainees.html

Guantanamo Bay Detainees by Nationality

Afghanistan | Algeria | Australia | Bahrain | Belgium | Canada | China | Denmark | Egypt | Ethiopia | France | Iraq | Iran | Jordan | Kuwait | Libya | Maldives | Mauritania | Morocco | Pakistan | Russia | Saudi Arabia | Spain | Sudan | Syria | Sweden | Tajikistan | Tunisia | Turkey | Uganda | United Kingdom | Uzbekistan | Yemen | Unknown

Clue No. 1

Source: http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/images/usa_guantanamo_4years.jpg


Clue No. 2 - "All Creatures Great and Small"



Clue No. 3 - "All in the Family"

Source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/meet-s23.jpg

University of Texas at Dallas, June 27, 2007.

Part One: They Love Me:

It has always been pretty easy for me to make friends. I usually have a smile on my face, a good word of cheer, always there to offer a helping hand or a word of encouragement. Sometimes, I even have something interesting to say. People often come up to me on campus and compliment me on my “cheery disposition” and 'interesting' opinions. You might say I am sort of a ‘well-known’ personality on campus, inasmuch as many more students know me than I know them – either by name, face, or both.

Part Two: They Love Me Not:

But there are also those times when my fond young fiends (sic) have awarded me with the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award.” Here are a few examples:

THEM: (Graduate student discussion board) 

Sent: Wed 6/20/2007 2:37 PM

Subject: Re: [gsaUTDallas] Time change plus reminder, summer poetry reading

Speaking of poetry - this fall an anthology of poetry written by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will be released. It seems a number of lawyers have received poetry from their clients and one of them, a law professor at Northern Illinois, decided to put together a book.

Harpers writes about it: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/01/sb-the-waste-land-1169582427

PS what really struck me was that some of the poems initially intended for publications have been classified by Homeland Security ... I don't know how I feel about that, but it says something profound I think.

BRENNE:

You forgot to add that Charles Manson also has a Christmas Album coming out soon.

THEM: (Graduate student discussion board) 

Dear Brenne,

[Maybe I'm not reading all this right, but if I am, then. . . ] Although I chuckled at the humor in your witty comment, honestly, I think there is little analogous between the (perhaps hypothetical) release of Mason's Xmas album and poetry that no doubt sheds light on the plight of a bunch of so called Terrorists; People, human beings, locked up for over 4 years (or is it 6 now?) without being charged, without seeing the evidence against them and without light at the end of the tunnel. Mason (sic), as everyone knows, was the master-mind behind the vicious multiple killings of a party of folks in the 60s; killings the likes of which were unprecedented. There was evidence and a trial, then swift justice. Those in Gitmo that the government has actual evidence against have been brought to trial while the rest languish in a remote place far away from the "law,' far away from "justice,' held by a government so embarrassed (or in denial) that they wait until all memory fades of these prisoners' plight (or at least until Bush is out of office) before they can let them go. Pia is on the right track as far as I can tell. But like I said, maybe I am reading this all wrong.

THEM: (Graduate student discussion board)

Jun 25, 2007

Comparing people who (for the most part) are wrongfully imprisoned and who are all being tortured and denied their basic human rights to Charles Manson is insensitive, RACIST and quite simply wrong.

I know you and I like you, Brenne. But, this begs for an apology.