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?
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