Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

January 11 is the 10th Anniversary of Guantanamo – What are YOU doing?

So, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture is hosting a Day of Action: It’s Time to Close a Symbol of Torture in Washington, D.C., with a rally at Lafayette Square at noon, a Human Chain from the White House to Congress at 1:00, and an interfaith service at 3:00.  If it’s possible for you to make it there, please put it on your engagement calendar.

In support of that, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of my Quaker meeting will be hosting a candlelight vigil at the San Francisco Federal Building at 7th and Mission at 5:30.  (Same date: January 11).  Readers from the Bay Area are entreated to attend.

I am also, personally, learning more by reading Alfred McCoy’s A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.  At only 30 pages in, it is bone chilling, and clearly a text every citizen has a responsibility to familiarize her/himself with.  I learned of this book through Andrea Giovannoni’s essay on torture from a Catholic perspective in Voices of Feminist Liberation, of which I am a co-editor.

Please use the comments to talk about related events in your neighborhood, ruminate on the issues, and, of course, go off topic.


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2 comments

  1. Chris Blask

    I watched The Big Lift yesterday. It is a 1950 movie about the Berlin Airlift and an interesting period piece.

    In it, Paul Douglas plays a gruff American Sargent who had been tortured as a POW in a German prison camp during the war and harbors strong resentments. He gets a German girlfriend and tries to explain America to her. She notes that in America Jews are mistreated and not allowed to join certain clubs. Douglas’ character asks her where she read that:

    “In a book.”

    “Where did you get the book?”

    “From a soldier.”

    “An American soldier?”

    “Yes.”

    “And where was the book printed?”

    “America.”

    “It’s true and it’s lousy and it needs to change. But it was written by an American and printed by an American publisher and distributed by the American government to sell in American Army PXs to American soldiers. Go over to the Russian sector and try to find a Russian book about what is wrong with Russia written by a Russian author, printed in Russia and distributed by the Russian government for Russian soldiers.”

    Which is an important point about America. I think Gitmo is wrong and I certainly think antisemitic clubs are wrong. As long as we don’t lose our will to voice our opposition to what we see is wrong we can always hope to fix our flaws.

    Douglas’ character also hooks up with the Nazi guard who tortured him and wears his knuckles bloody on him. Because in America – at least post-WWII America – we never, ever, tortured prisoners. Even with millions of lives on the line.

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