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Confronting John Yoo, notorious Torture Professor |
By Curt Wechsler
Tuesday night April 5, World Can’t Wait and members of Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of America and 9/11 Truth mixed it up with teapartiers in Mountain View, California.
The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley was hosting a speech titled “Presidential Power in time of Crisis” by John Yoo, the sometimes-professor of law at UC Berkeley (he spends most of his time hawking a book). Hardly the “conservative” organization it pegs itself as, this group espouses radical ideas of unlimited executive power and a rewriting of the U.S. Constitution. Yoo has been traveling the country in a fierce attempt to rehabilitate the history of his part in establishing the state torture program employed by the Bush Regime.
Scattered throughout a crowd of about 200 of enthusiastic torture supporters, 10 activists interrupted the proceedings in as many times, identifying John Yoo as a War Criminal and calling for his arrest.
Yoo delivered his stock “presidential popularity” speech, focusing on the importance of the use of war to maintain American imperialist superiority, and lauding those who defied Article 1 of the Constitution to impose martial law and suspend habeas corpus.
Endorsing the current administration’s undeclared war on Libya, the Torture Professor citied Obama’s support of war and the President’s adoption of Bush policies as vindication for Yoo’s "Unified Executive" theory.
Unpleasant as last night’s entrance into the “belly of the beast” was, it was instructive to observe the disparate nature of the right-wing reactionaries. These not-so-rich Republican wanna-bees are looking for a piece of the pie which they themselves have been denied. The danger lies in their methods and determination to destroy anything in their path, people or institutions that work for the interests of humanity.