Short Speech on Social Justice

Here is my speech that I gave at the Adrian Maxson Scholarship for Social Justice Benefit Concert. It was meant to be spoken, not read, but thanks for reading!

Social Justice is...

You heard some rocking music, some sweet grooves, and now…a boring speaker! Woo! Haha My name is Cameron Morgan, and unlike a far more talented speaker and man than myself- Barack Obama, I was not born in Hawaii or raised in Indonesia, but born and bred in the heartland itself-Kaysville, Utah. I am going to tell you a little about who I am and why you should support this wonderful cause.

My life was more or less a blur until I discovered the joy of service toward the end of high school and-that joy culminated in my founding of Weber State STAND, a student anti-genocide organization that raised thousands for victims of genocide and gave voice to the struggles of the Sudanese and Congolese. It was an absolute pleasure to hear that I had received the Adrian Maxon Scholarship for Social Justice 2 long years ago-ah to be young again! I am now very old-and perhaps wiser-and an alumnus of this fine University. I will soon be starting a position as a job developer for the refugee population of Utah at a local non-profit organization. I digress, it was an honor to receive this scholarship because I felt like I was some small part of the great human struggle of social justice.

What is Social Justice? Social Justice is the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice is the march on Selma’s bridge. The little old lady who refused to move to the back of the bus. The courageous African Americans and whites who risked-and-gave their lives to make America whole-proclaiming loudly that separate is not equal. The LGBT and their allies that refuse to deny anyone their equal rights because of who that person wants to take to the prom. Social Justice is the election of the first black President of the United States-Barack Hussein Obama-YES WE CAN.

Social Justice is a woman having the right to vote-is fighting against the evils of racism, bigotry, and intolerance in any form-in embracing Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and all believers and non-believers alike. Social Justice is expressed in the fact that children can go to school instead of the factory , is heard in the mass that won’t stay quiet in the midst of immoral wars or in the face of bold and ugly- hatred. Social Justice is the love of true Democracy, of tolerance, of critical thinking, of consistent-founding-father-approved civil disobedience. Social Justice is embraced by every major religion and creed-love thy neighbor as thy self, “Do not forget to do good to one another” (Quran), ahimsa (Buddhism); social justice is a trait expressed by a dedicated, but fierce minority of all colors, stripes, and beliefs. Social Justice is the very epitome of Patriotism.

Working on behalf of social justice through STAND and Amnesty international has been the highlight of my life. This is why I was thankful and humbled to receive this scholarship and this is why I urge you to generously support the Scholarship fund and social justice as a whole. Thank you so much for being here and please stop by the STAND and Amnesty International tables outside. Thanks!

-Cameron

My blog is re-opening!

Friends/Family/readers

I am reviving my blog for the sheer fun of it. I have graduated from WSU and am beginning a whole new life-exciting, frightening.

I spent the summer in DC working on two separate internships. I will be posting 'letter to the editors' on here, along with my poetry and other relevant thoughts.

Here are my letter to the editors from the summer!

Published August 4, 2010 in the Standard Examiner:http://www.standard.net/topics/opinion/2010/08/04/hatch-bennett-should-vote-arms-reduction

Hatch, Bennett should vote for arms reduction

Last updated Wednesday, August 4, 2010

(UNEDITED)"I have a dream of a world without nuclear weapons." Ronald Reagan reportedly told this to his aides while advocating for a drastic reduction of those devastating arms in the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union fell, Europe was freed from the shackles of Communism and Democracy immerged in Siberia.

In the words of President Obama, "Today the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not." According to the Pentagon, the U.S. has 5,113 nuclear warheads at its disposal, more than enough to destroy the world many times over.
The United States enjoys the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world to have ever used nuclear weapons in war-in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have learned of the horrors of nuclear attack and can vividly picture the likely consequences of nuclear war. No nation in the world (no matter how eccentric its leaders) wants nuclear war. Russia poses no major threat militarily, economically, or ideologically to us any longer. The

true threat to our survival is a terrorist attack on the poorly-defended Russian nuclear silos-and, as a consequence, a terrorist group with such a weapon. It is in our best interest for Russia to disarm, and thus for us to begin disarming.

Senators Hatch and Bennett should vote yes to the arms reduction treaty that President Obama negotiated with Russia. The Cold War has indeed ended-it is time to move on. It is time for a new, nuclear free age to begin.

Cameron Morgan

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Published in the Standard Examiner: July 14, 2010


Every citizen of Davis County has been killed by their own government. Over 2.5 million residents of Utah have been forcibly displaced from their homes by government-sponsored militias. Tens of thousands of Utah women have been raped by gun-touting thugs.

Food, health care, and employment have been consistently denied to tribal minorities in Utah as a form of punishment for being born. A veritable genocide has occurred.

As you might have guessed, I am not talking about Utah at all. I’m not even talking about World War II-era Germany, or Rwanda or the Balkans in the 90s. I am talking about the arid western region of the largest country in Africa: Darfur, Sudan.

The dictator-in-chief of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has recently been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with three counts of genocide for the systematic murder, rape and displacement of more than 300,000 of the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Sudan since 2003. The Holocaust is still occurring and the crimes of today’s Hitler, i.e. Mr. Bashir, are being recognized by the international community, albeit after seven long years

The issuance of the arrest warrant for Bashir should motivate every Utahn to demand that the U.S. government cooperate with the ICC in ensuring that Bashir is captured and thus that this modern Holocaust ends. We have said ‘never again’ time and time again only to watch as the world burns.

This time we can not capitulate, we can not cower. Bashir must be arrested for his genocide.


Cameron Morgan

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Here is my letter to the editor, published June 11 in the Standard Examiner:

(UNEDITED) A new report by the non-profit group, Physicians for Human Rights (PHP), documents evidence that strongly suggests that the Bush administration authorized illegal medical experimentation on individuals who were accused of having terrorist sympathies.
The experimentation was established to justify and improve the use of techniques, such as water boarding, severe sleep deprivation, and stress positions. These so called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' have been widely accused of constituting torture.

PHP notes that the experimentations could be violations of the Nuremberg Code (established after the Holocaust), the Common Law (established after the Tuskegee experiment) and numerous federal and international laws.

Additionally, the 'research' may well constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The illegal and unethical nature of the research stemmed primarily from the fact that the 'patients' did not provide their un-coerced consent to be experimented upon and the experiments were not designed to reduce pain and maximize the patient's well-being.

If this evidence is collaborated and found to be true, the United States will indeed have lost its moral authority on the world stage. The Obama administration should immediately issue an executive order banning the use of unlawful and unconscionable coerced human experimentation.

Cameron Morgan

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War in Afghanistan has now claimed 1,000 Americans [Published in the Standard Examiner]


Last Edit: May 18 2010 - 1:48pm


(UNEDITED) As voters rush to the mid-term polls to decide the direction of their parties, whether Democratic or Republican, the War in Afghanistan will likely not be on the top of their minds. The Afghanistan War, in its 8th year, has reached a terrible

milestone of 1,000 American soldiers who have been killed in combat. The war has lasted longer than American involvement in World War I, II, or Korea and we don't seem to have a viable definition of 'victory' to strive to. The renowned Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, said that the best option for the U.S. now is to, "acknowledge defeat and pullout completely." It is clear that the U.S., via the War in Afghanistan, can't defeat the amorphous al-Qaeda force or the deeply-entrenched Taliban insurgency. There will always be

somewhere for terrorists to hide and the war will not end the threat the US faces from these groups. Furthermore, the war is unpopular domestically, with a CNN poll demonstrating that only 30% of Americans now support the war effort in Afghanistan.

President Obama should honor his commitment to withdrawal from Afghanistan next year and increasingly rely on smart power techniques that address the root causes of terrorism while using predator drone attacks to prevent imminent threats.

Cameron Morgan

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More letters to come soon! Thanks for Reading!

With hope,

Cameron Morgan

My published article on Kenya

Hey,

This is the column I published in the Signpost: Please read it!

A tale of two cities
By Cameron Morgan

Published: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, January 13, 2010

**Signpost columnist, Gina Barker, worked with Cameron Morgan in Kenya.

Nairobi, Kenya, is a tale of two cities. Walk its crowded streets and you might be surprised to hear the tormented teen vampire Edward courting clumsy Bella at a high-tech movie theater, the nostalgic smell of popcorn and chocolate more reminiscent of Ogden than the third world. Take a left or two and everything changes — you are in the Kibera slums. The smell of popcorn fades to the stink of sewage and garbage and you realize you are not in Kansas, or Utah, anymore.
Kenya is a hot spot for tourism. Its Great Rift Valley — specifically its lions, flamingos and zebras, attract westerners: Muzungus, from Europe and the United States. Tourists typically congregate in up-scale shopping malls and dance halls, but increasingly, so do middle-class Kenyans. Expensive shopping malls accommodate comparatively wealthy tourists, but are supported primarily by middle class Kenyans — a group gaining increased sway as its numbers grow. The Kenyan middle class and upper class defy the somewhat stereotypical notion of a universally starving and poor Kenya.The country’s elite, the top 10 percent who are most likely the friends and family of Kenya’s rulers, controls 34.9 percent of Kenya’s wealth. This wealthy group, when not investing their money in Swiss bank accounts, are helping to finance new banks, cafes and concert halls.

Wealthy Kenyans live well, sheltered behind gates, security guards and suites — these are not the emaciated women and children with bulging bellies, sad realities are amply covered by the major western news outlets. According to The Daily Nation, a Nairobi-based periodical, rich Kenyans are spending $534 million a year on lavish weddings alone. A sharp contrast to the millions of Kenyans who live on less than a dollar a day.

It is hard to dispute that Kenya’s elite is largely tainted by cronyism, nepotism and corruption — Kenya is consistently listed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by the western governments and NGO’s. However, this shouldn’t discount the fact that distinct, albeit narrow segments of Kenyan society are living the capitalist dream.

Where does Kenya go from here? The country is the most stable and prosperous of its east African neighbors; its people are friendly and love Americans, especially Obama. It borders a failed state to its east, a country devastated by the messianic cult the Lord’s Resistance Army to the west, and a genocide and civil-war-ravaged Sudan to its north. Too many still starve in Kenya today; too many can’t afford to attend its supposedly free primary schools; too many face violence, a 40 percent unemployment rate and an uncertain future.

It is hard to say if Kenya will follow the economic path of the Asian nations like South Korea and Singapore or if perennial election violence and tribal hatreds will drag the country to the depths of a Somalia or Sudan. The next time water-bottle-wielding tourists stroll down the pock-marked streets of Nairobi, they may well hear the wail of Tchaikovsky’s violin in place of the sickening sounds of gunfire. This time I’m pulling for Edward and his obsessive audience, Kenya’s blooming middle class.

[from http://www.wsusignpost.com/editorial/a-tale-of-two-cities-1.1010680] -structure changed with copy and paste-read original there]

Thanks!
Cameron