Why should I care about human rights?
This article fleshes out some of the ideas in the introduction and would be a good one to read after that.
The massacres in Rwanda were an event that touched me deeply, and taught me much about the world. Here are a couple of good summary articles about why the west should also learn from them.
In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me...By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone
Part of my attraction to this book is that I enjoyed his previous bestseller Fast Food Nation so much. I am from the generation that took the threat of nuclear annihilation more seriously. The cold war was still happening right through my formative years. We watched movies like "The Day After" and "The China Syndrome". The news was dominated by stories of conflict between the United States and the USSR. The debate between capitalism and democracy, authoritarianism and communism, was very real in our lives. Nuclear weapons and nuclear war were something we thought about often. Damocles underpinned our lives...