Something's happening here...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the elected President of Iran and allegedly a "man of peace") spoke to the assembled United Nations this week.

Among other topics in his 40 minute address he accused the United States of human rights abuses!

He said: ""The rights and dignity of the American people are ... being sacrificed for the selfish desires of those holding power." He cited as examples our "setting up secret prisons, abducting persons, trials and secret punishments without any regard to due process ... (these) have become commonplace."

Six years ago, Ahmadinejad would have been laughed off the stage for such a ridiculous statement. Today he speaks a truth that our Congressional Representatives are incapable of saying. Perhaps because they are too busy passing irrelevant motions to censure MoveOn for running an ad in the New York Times.

Once upon a time we weren't afraid of petty tyrants, nor were we afraid of the truth.

In 1959 Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union, the man who assumed Josef Stalin's mantle, toured the United States of America for 13 days. Ironically, the only place he was denied entry was Disneyland.



Today, too many off us would not allow anyone we disagree with to travel freely nor speak freely in this country that was built on such freedoms.

Follow up, Sept 27
Here's a related piece posted today on Progressive Historians.
and here's Rick Perlstein's take on the same issue, entitled 'Bed-wetter Nation".