EYE, Y'EYE, Y'EYE!

Last night I sent in a contribution to the EYE Want My Country Back project that A Moveable Beast is doing. I felt a little weird about it, but I think I'm glad I did it. It's a real experience I had in a social work class called Oppression a couple of years ago. We often had guests from other cultures come in and I will never forget the Guatemalan man who came and spoke to us. He talked about how thousands of his fellow Guatemalans had been slaughtered by his country's terrorist regime. The atrocities he spoke of were so horrible that it made me sick to my stomach. I had never heard of such evil before and tears rolled down my face. Then I learned that many of these terrorist leaders were trained at School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia.

The speaker was a boy when his community was attacked and he had barely escaped with his life. He described running away from the scene with his friend but his friend fell behind. He no longer has family. That was the first time I really felt compelled to learn anything about foreign policy. I have always hated politics and I still do, but it was obvious to me that I needed to know and understand more. I really wish I had either taken copious notes or had recorded the presentation he made because there are more important details I can't remember. It left me heartsick for weeks. We are so spoiled here, intoxicating ourselves with media candy, play and luxuries. It's so easy to not pay attention. EYE need to pay more attention.