International Justice Mission

"Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence."

-Henry David Thoreau

As I was sitting in class on Thursday, I could see the passion that our guest speaker had for her mission. She has devoted her whole life to promote peace by doing acts of civil disobedience. She does not only claim that war is wrong, but spends her whole life trying to stop the violence. She is using her "whole influence" to try to stop the ongoing wars. There are many people who are using their "whole influence" to not only end wars, but injustice.

In church today, a speaker named Gary Haugen talked about how he has devoted his whole life to fighting injustice. In 1997, Haugen chose to start a "human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression" called International Justice Mission. This agency is made up of lawyers who "work with local officials to ensure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to promote functioning public justice systems." When he was talking about the injustice in the world, I could see the passion he had for rescuing the abused just like our guest speaker in class had passion for peace. These two people have devoted their whole lives to their cause and take action in trying to solve the problems they see in our world. I believe that Thoreau would have commended both of these people because they have used their "whole influence" to solve the issues they are passionate about. Haugen is making a large impact in the world because he is trying to establish justice in our world and free abused men and women. The question I ask myself is: What am I doing to use my "whole influence?" And now I ask you: What are you doing to use your "Whole influence?"

Wyoming Land Rush

While gazing over the new York Times website, I was intrigued by the article "A Land Rush in Wyoming Spurred by Wind Power." The previous day we had watched an epic film of Tom Cruise racing to snatch his piece of land in the Oklahoma land rush. I visualized a whole swarm of cars racing out to Wyoming to stake out their piece of land and set up wind turbines that would produce electricity for their home and town. In actuality, the Wyoming land rush was a little more subtle than that. There are companies searching for "wind-rich land" who spotted a few counties in Wyoming where the land could be made into "wind farms." Since there are people who own these windy lands, the wind companies are not going to snatch there piece of land for free like those in the 1889 land rush. But, hold on. I thought in the 1889 land rush the Indians owned that land. That was until the federal government said it was open to the public. Why is it that the Indians are always being pushed out of where they have settled from?

I was so upset to hear the tragedies the Indians went through during the Westward Expansion, the mass killings, and the treaties that were broken. Even though I am only one-sixteenth Creek Indian, I felt the pain that some of my ancestors went through. I had an opportunity while reading Zinn to see the asterisk of the Indians. I got a glimpse of how the Indians felt when they were being betrayed by the "white society." While watching the epic land rush of 1889, I noticed the Indians on the side, watching their land being taken from them, only to be moved into an unknown new land.