To understand how human rights keep declining in these United States–declining as a lived and shared proposition. Our jails are filled with people who are poor, black, disabled, mentally ill, whose crimes are insufficiently dire to warrant such hopelessness–we no longer believe in rehabilitation in our criminal justice system. Just so, the death of Troy Davis signifies the intentionality of our penal system, for even a man whose crime is in doubt will be put to death without care for human rights and due process. We are not, as GOP types endlessly propose, a nation in spiritual decline, we are worse–we are a country in moral decline. I walk around. Like Pablo Neruda I hope to not become dried up, like a swan made out of felt. These are perilous times. If a writer's blog has any value it's this–to send up a cris de couer. My nation is very ill indeed.
Planet of the Blind 