Activists Re-enact Photo to Protest Prisoners’ Treatment– Bush Crimes Day hits UC Berkeley campus when World Can’t Wait protests UC Berkeley Professor John Yoo. Yoo is the legal architect for torture.
Check out this article in the Daily Cal.
Students Plan For Rally in New Paltz– From the New Paltz Oracle
Scott Ritter Speaks at Western Michigan State – From Western State Univ Newspaper
Activists Re-enact Photo to Protest Prisoners’ TreatmentBy Brian Whitley
One political activist group hopes the provocative recreation of the infamous Abu Ghraib photograph draws attention to an equally provocative message-that President George W. Bush is a war criminal. A handful of UC Berkeley students were among about 40 people who attended a protest, organized by The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!, of what they call government-sanctioned torture by the U.S. military.
Several activists denounced the allegedly abusive treatment of prisoners at facilities like Guantanamo Bay, while others displayed signs with political slogans and sold T-shirts. “My distinction, fellow citizens, is that I am a citizen of a country that practices torture,” said Joanna Macy, who also teaches at Bay Area graduate schools. “That is my woeful distinction.”
The speakers followed a smaller event earlier yesterday morning, when about 10 people spoke using a bullhorn and entered the Boalt Hall lobby to protest the political stance of UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo. While serving as deputy assistant attorney general during Bush’s first term, Yoo authored memos that defined “torture” very strictly, which some activists said left room for abusive treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.
During a similar event last year, protesters entered and disrupted Yoo’s classroom. The protesters yesterday made no attempt to leave the law school lobby, said UCPD Lt. Doug Wing. A “sufficient” number of officers policed the event, he said. Yoo said that while he does not mind demonstrators outside his classroom, he thinks their efforts will have little effect on national politics. “I think if they really believe (Bush is a war criminal), they should try to change that at the ballot box,” Yoo said.
Many people who attended the protest, however, said the group’s activism is necessary. Carlos Mauricio, who was kidnapped and tortured by the army of his home country of El Salvador in 1983, said torture is an ineffective intelligence-gathering technique. Mauricio, who now teaches math in Oakland, said prisoners will say virtually anything to end their pain. He also worried the government will torture prisoners at more locations. “The next step is torture in U.S. cities,” he said.
Event organizers said the protest was held in conjunction with other demonstrations across the country to mark “Bush Crimes Day.” The day was designated in a The World Can’t Wait report by a five-person panel that “convicted” Bush of numerous crimes. Some onlookers, like Boalt student Jesse Geraci, did not share the enthusiasm of the activists.
“It strikes me as odd that they’re speaking here, where 99 percent of people agree with them anyway,” he said.
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Letter to the Editor,
In the article (Wednesday, September 20th) about the World Can’t Wait protest in front of Boalt Hall against John Yoo, one quote from a law student stood out. He said, “It strikes me as odd that they’re speaking here, where 99 percent of people agree with them anyway.” As a participant in the protest, I have to respond: if we are preaching to the choir, when is the choir going to start singing?
At a place like UC Berkeley, where the biggest student group is the Campus Republicans, where forums on creationism fill up giant lecture halls and a known war criminal responsible for the legal justification of torture goes unopposed, it is more clear than ever that this choir needs to start singing!
With a government in power that has declared unending war on the world with the “nuclear option on the table,” that takes away women’s reproductive rights and leaves poor black people to die on their roofs, it has never been more clear that we cannot simply agree that things are bad. If we agree we must act. That is the moral imperitive. What would Mario Savio do?
On October 5th we”re going to be bringing that legacy back to UC Berkeley. Walk out of school and join World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime in the streets of San Francisco (12 noon at Justin Herman Plaza)!
-Giovanni Jackson