What Then Must We Do... What Then Must We Do...

Naomi Klein has piece in The Nation entitled "'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate"

It's an important article in light of some of what I talked about yesterday. Go read it. If you have trouble getting it (you might have to register for The Nation) email me and I'll send you a copy.

The main point of the article is that torture is not a new way of doing business for the U.S. What IS different is that the Bushies are trying to do it publicly and while that's a treacherous step down a slippery damn road, it is NOT the only news. The School of the Americas has been in the business for a very long time.

When I went to Nicaragua 23 years ago with the very first Witness for Peace team in the midst of our nation's support of the Contras, I heard many stories of ugly abuse and blatant torture and those came first hand from people who had experienced it personally. I heard more of the same three years later when I returned with a group of people to paticipate in a music festival and record an album with Ken Medema and local Nicaraguan singers. On both occassions I had interviews with victims of our government's policies and I was moved and motivated to make some serious changes in my life.

Over the years, some of those changes have remained and some have fallen by the side of the road. What I am aware of at this particular moment on this particular day is that, as Arthur Miller has Linda Loman say of her husband's life in the play "Death of a Salesman," attention MUST be paid.

With all that is going on, from my backyard to Baghdad, I am feeling the need, as I said yesterday, to do something... ANYTHING... but to do it right away.

So... to quote another of my favorite dramatic characters, Billy Kwan (played by Linda Hunt) quoting Tolstoy in the film "The Year of Living Dangerously"...

WHAT THEN MUST WE DO?

The Things We Think And Do Not Say

I woke up this morning at 6:45, reached my arm out from under the covers as I usually do and turned on the radio. But, for some reason, instead of listening, as I usually do, to the morning jazz set on WWOZ, I switched over to WWNO for NPR's Morning Edition.

The first story right out of the box (so to speak) was news on the "trials" of Guantanamo detainees. The next story was about Dubya's visit to New Orleans tomorrow. I switched off the radio, got up, went to the kitchen and started to make coffee. As the coffeemaker did it's thunk, spurt, fizz thing I sat down and turned on the computer. This is something that I keep prommising myself I will not do - starting the day in cyberspace - but, like some weak assed, morally wrecked junky, I do it day after day after day despite my best intentions and theoretically better judgement.

The news on the radio made me think about a story I saw on 60 minutes Sunday night (in the hour before the Oscars) when they did a bit on a soldier who was being "unjustly accused" of killing two Afghan detainees. Men who died hanging from the ceiling by chains and with their legs, as the coroner's report stated, "pulpified."

It also made me think of a statistic that has been running randomly around in my head for the past couple of weeks. A statistic on the number of people dead and/or missing in New Orleans post-katrina. The official death toll of the storm is approximately 1100. However, as we move into the seventh month post-katrina it is important to remember that there are, depending on whose numbers you choose to pay attention to, between 500 and 1900 more people still missing and most likely dead. So let's expand that out shall we? If we make the obvious next step that officials are unwilling and/or unable to make and accept those folks as no longer with us, it brings the New Orleans death toll post-Katrina to at least 1,600 and very possibly 3,000 people.

This is what triggered my search for Jerry Maguire.

The premise of the movie, the "inciting action" as it were, is Jerry's creation of his mission statement, "The Things We Know And Do Not Say." His decision to say it elicits positive response from everyone… even the copy store clerk. Googling the title of the mission statement, I was surprised to actually find a copy of the document at a wonderful website from New South Wales, Australia. I have to say, I've always liked Cameron Crowe, but the fact that this guy actually wrote the mission statement out in full is a piece of screenwriting homework that I really admire… It's not really what I'm writing about here, but I had to say it anyway. Dealing with backstory is the woodshed work of writing and I am not very good at woodshed work. I prefer to think about it for long periods of time, but doing the actual work of writing out character bios, personal journals, mission statements… Ugh, please, do I have to!??!?

Well that's the synchronistic lesson of the day.

It really is the woodshed work that matters and I am as guilty as the rest of the U.S. electorate in not having done my part.

George Bush will fly into my town tomorrow - his tenth visit since Katrina - and he will make a nice show of how much he cares, just like he did back in September when he stepped out from behind Andrew Jackson's statue, strode across the grass of Jackson Square (originally named the Place de Armas) and told the displaced citizens of New Orleans and the nation as a whole that he would see that everything that could possibly be done to help New Orleans would be done, and that he would not rest until he made sure that it had happened. He'll make another grand and glorious statement for a collection of media people and at ten p.m. EST Anderson Cooper will make some grand and glorioius declaration about "keepin' em honest" while ultimately missing the point.

Last week we were treated to proof of what most of us (at least those of us who were watching television in New Orleans on Saturday August 27) knew six months ago. When George Bush stood before the public in early September and made the statement that "no one anticipated the breaching of the levees," he was lying. Straight out, no holds barred, fully functioning in his right wing, compassionate conservative, neo-con casuistry, lying. He did know that the levees would probably fail and he knew it well before the storm came ashore. Last week we saw the video evidence of it; the discussions of the levee problem took place and a week later Bush lied about it.

What the news folks chose to focus on last week was not the real story. Those who wished to make the president select look stupid tried to show video that made him look stupid and as usual the bilious pontificators proclaimed, with full dedication to the administration's talking points, that we weren't seeing everything.

Of course we weren't seeing everything! But what matters is what we were seeing and what we were seeing was proof that George Bush lied AGAIN.

He lied in September 2005, just like he lied in September 2001 when he, and his stiffly quaffed mannequin, Condi, spouted the line "No one anticipated that these people would use airplanes to crash into buildings!" As with the Katrina issue, it became clear very shortly thereafter that not only did a whole lot of people anticipate the "use of planes as missles," but they told the administration about it, and they did so rather emphatically.

As for the levees… hell… I even knew about the breaching of the levees. It wasn't that deep a secret. While still safely ensconced outside the hurricane zone in Northern California, I watched with fear in 2004 as hurricanes bored their way through the Gulf of Mexico and then, always at the last minute, turned aside from my (then) home away from home. There was a huge piece on 60 minutes about it in the summer of 2004 and there was a detailed article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about that same time.

The video evidence of last week was not about how stupid Dubya looked (we've had plenty evidence of that and even his supporters think he looks dumb). What the evidence showed last week, and what most people didn't talk about, was that BUSH ISN'T STUPID, HE'S A LIER!

Yeah yeah yeah… all president's are liers. Most likely true. They probably have to be to survive long enough in politics to get to the position of president. As the bumper sticker says… "Would somebody please give this guy a blow job so we can impeach him?"

There are lies… and then there are lies.

So back to the story about the soldier. He claims that he was trained and ordered to torture people, and Bush claims we don't do those kinds of things. But, when John McCain gets a bill passed through Congress, Bush signs the bill and crosses his fingers, issuing a presidential statement that says, essentially, "that's all well and good, y'all go ahead and play your funny games, but I'm gonna do what I feel like 'cause I'm the president damnit."

It's back to that quote from Edmund Burke that every single one of us has heard at some point in our lives… “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” There is some question as to what the actual quote really is, but thepoint is obvious.

George W. Bush has lied… consistently, repeatedly, intentionally and with malice. He has used a smokescreen of "I didn't know" and/or "I don't care" as a way to excuse actions that are intellectually dishonest, probably illegal, and certainly immoral. It has served him well to appear inept, but he is not inept. He is evil.

3,000 people died on 9/11 because he chose not to pay attention while on vacation at his ranch. Several thousand more American soldiers have died since then in a war that he lied to take us into and continues to lie to keep us from leaving. Countless thousands of innocent people have died for the same reason.

At a minimum, 1,500 people, and probably closer to 3,000 people have died from the worst natural disaster in American history because he chose not to pay attention in August 2005 while on vacation on his ranch. Subsequently he has made hollow promises while backing and filling, rolled up his sleeves while closing his eyes and ears.

It's impossible to begin to imagine the damage that has been done to the reputation of the U.S. - and the danger both present and future to U.S. citizens and soldiers abroad - because of immoral, illegal, and irresponsible torture policies sanctioned by his administration that he has chosen (and continues to choose) to ignore.

These really are "the things we think and do not say."

New Orleans cannot survive another summer based on lies and hope.

The country cannot survive another three years of lies and criminality.

The world cannot survive any more silent acceptance by those of us who know better, but do nothing.

Many of us - and I am definitely including myself - have mirrored the president's dishonest behaviour, giving silent agreement and willing participation with a wink, a nod, and shrug of our shoulders while this man and his handlers take our country down into hell on a set of greased rails.


It's time to stop doing nothing.

It's time for the woodshed work.

It's time to do ANYTHING.