The original reason Guantanamo Bay was famous for was a lovely song called "Guantanamera".

Kinda poignant when you hear the likes of Gonzales speaking over top of it.

http://www.wildcellist.com/c/guantazoles.mp3

(done with cello and the famous "habeas, what habeas?" session with Arlen Specter last year)

Send george, dick, rummy and condi to Guantanamo ASAP!

"ACLU, in the past few weeks, hundreds of Internet users have subscribed to its Close Guantanamo pages on Facebook and MySpace.com, including campaigners from both parties' presidential campaigns."

as usual, that's the best we can fuoking manage.

"ACLU, in the past few weeks, hundreds of Internet users have subscribed to its Close Guantanamo pages on Facebook and MySpace.com, including campaigners from both parties' presidential campaigns."

as usual, that's the best we can fuoking manage.

Not only is that fatalistic, it's just inaccurate. Look at the anti-war marches in 2003, as well as the civil disobedience that took place all over the country and the world. What is true though is that people have become beaten down and demoralized in the US, after 7 years of the Bush Administration. Things are looking up though, as this article shows. People are getting active in the US again, and rather than mope in the comfy chair, perhaps you should join in. :-)

Thank you, bowarm!

Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera
Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crecen las palmas.
Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crecen las palmas.
Y antes de morir me quiero
Echar mis versos del alma.

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera,
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera.

Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido.
Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido.
Mi verso es un ciervo herido
Que busca en el monte amparo.

The words mean "I am a truthful man from the land of the palm trees.
And before dying, I want to share these poems of my soul.
My poems are soft green. My poems are also flaming crimson.
My poems are like a wounded fawn seeking refuge in the forest.

The last verse says:'Con los pobres de la tierra'. With the poor people of this earth I want to share my fate. The streams of the mountains please me more than the sea."

(background)
Por los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
Por los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
Y el arroyo de la sierra
Me complace más que el mar

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera,
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera.

The Sandpipers - Guantanamera
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_sandpipers/guantanamera.html

restive- for every person who feels better about their role in this atrocity, for solely having joined a myspace or facebook group, there is one less person willing to make actual sacrifice, and to fight for what they claim to believe in.

I say because facebook and myspace are shallow, any efforts made using only them as an avenue are more shallow. Lots of the people on there have a laundry list of causes they feel active in for joining.

I love that there are people who are off their asses and fighting. I'm here today because I'm not feeling well, and more often here because where I am, I don't have much of those liberties that the real fighters use to get back at those who threaten them.

"People are getting active in the US again" No they are not. unless by active you mean supporting Hillary Clinton, and not withdrawing congressmen who support our global atrocities, and paying respects to people who do not provide for everybody fairly, and spending incredible amounts of money on disposable and wasteful things. Then yes. we're plenty active

fatalistic? I don't believe in fate. or american exceptionalism, or the manifest destiny. But I also don't believe that what is written here, right where you're looking, is going to make anything crumble and fall. No, it will be a conscious erosion of everything that supports the current milieu that will make change.

Revolution is not some sort of an "eureka" moment in the population, it only comes after a realization of long term discontent and human suffering, such that the american public has been so thoroughly cleansed so that they will not see. The government does not make infrastructure, or services, or protection, it is an opiate manufacturer and distributor. the happy sheep taste better to the wolves that will (and maybe this is fatalistic) inevitably prey on them.

Guantanamo is just one of the slew of reasons Bush and Cheney MUST be impeached before they can sneak out of office and into a safe corporate fascist supported retirement. Please, please PLEASE!!! get off your duffs and phone your Congressperson (US House representative) and demand that they support the impeachment efforts of Congressman Wexler and several others who are trying to get impeachment proceedings going. Call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office too and demand that she put impeachment back on the table. Failure to impeach would be complicity in the very serious Bush administration crimes.

"People are getting active in the US again" No they are not. unless by active you mean supporting Hillary Clinton, and not withdrawing congressmen who support our global atrocities, and paying respects to people who do not provide for everybody fairly, and spending incredible amounts of money on disposable and wasteful things. Then yes. we're plenty active."

What i am saying is that perhaps you're not looking at what is *beginning* to emerge, as in SDS, war politicians' offices being sat in on, and the overall feeling of discontent with the system. Discontent is not that same as action, this is true - and throwing your voting power behind Hillary is pretty much a sham, with ya there as well. We're not at a mass movement level, granted - but for god's sake, please differentiate between the beginnings of something that may be a sign of actual shifting back to the left, the fear, hatred and apathy that have marked much of the last 25 years, and being pandered to by corporate owned politicians. All things have to start somewhere, movements frequently start small - and cynicism is not the same as assessment.

I'm saying facebook and myspace are a guilt release, that makes people feel better, when they aren't doing what you've described, just like donations at christmas don't make up for year long poverty and struggle.

similar to how it is backwards to give credit to presidents for civil rights, protesters should not be grouped with the easily appeased facebook and myspace masses, because that is often as far as they look for change, and I'm saying that Hurts the effort.

I just listened to Michael Ratner on the Democracy Now program.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/11/on_its_6th_anniversary_calls_resound

He is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Juan Gonzalez asked him : "to what degree the American people are aware, the enormous international outrage, virtually every country in the world, over the continuing existence of Guantanamo".

He answered "You know, I think they're not. I think the American people have their usual ostrich—or at least a lot of them—their ostrich-like mentality where what the rest of the world thinks does not affect them. But, of course, it should, and it does, because this has really painted America as iconic in the Muslim world, particularly, but in the whole world of human rights, as essentially a Pinochet-like dictatorship. Let's remember, that's what Pinochet did. He ran Operation Condor, picked up people all over the world, took them into penal sites, tortured them and killed them. What is the difference, I would ask the American people, between us and Pinochet on this?"

I do not know one American who would not agree that if any country started picking up Americans for any reason spiriting them away to secret prisons, without any legal process, torturing, and killing them for whatever reason, they would consider that as anything less than barbarous acts of tyranny and aggression. And probably America being the gung ho hands-on violent place it is, would feel justified in demanding violent retribution for such crimes.

There is no possible valuable intelligence or military objective gained from holding these men and boys. This is purely an experiment in social engineering, in how to stimulate global hate, fear and aggression, how to actually prime the "blow back" of terror, that will "prove" the justification for their endless "war on terror" or rather America's war of terror. Billions spent, international laws and even domestic rights in the toilet, the supper gangsters in full control, the sheep like citizenry of the offending country kept in blissful ignorance, 30+% of them feeling afraid to be injured by a terrorist attack, while the same percentage suspect their own government of involvement in show in 9-11 six years ago. While using that infinitely manicured lie as the catch all rational America spreads death and tyranny wherever it pleases. Don't believe for a moment this will change with Obama or Clinton. They are played by the same masters of war.

There remains plenty more to do; to de-militarize, to destroy these prisons, the mentality that makes them, the system and regime behind them, but there's not much more to say. The future will not be pretty, especially for Americans, but they who made it, chose it, even those who acted out of ignorance or default. That's not fait, that's a fact. You will sleep in the bed you made.

Obama has stated quite frankly that he will close Guantanamo (although, so have some Republicans like Colin Powell). What is Hillary Clinton's position?

Anyone who believes that Guantanamo should stay open another day should be teleported back to the Middle Ages.

ren ren January 11th, 2008 12:28 pm
"ACLU, in the past few weeks, hundreds of Internet users have subscribed to its Close Guantanamo pages on Facebook and MySpace.com, including campaigners from both parties' presidential campaigns."

as usual, that's the best we can fuoking manage"

Are you aware, ren ren, that such fatalism and pessimism are roadblocks to progress. I do not know you, nor do I know how active you are in politics or protest. I do know that it is easy to succumb to such depressive expressions of hopelessness as I know that these are anathema to a solution.

Every activist must have one overriding quality to remain long in the fray, an overriding optimism in the eventuality of success. If one cannot muster such then perhaps a vacation is in order. I do not wish to insult or diminish you in any way but such speech is simply unhelpful. In a forty year span of activism I have maintained my faith in the USA and in the good intentions of its people. If one doesnt have such then what is worth the fight?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xl-jq08AGU

FOX TRADER -- Maybe you didn't get the memo, Geo the inferior's banker bosses are already seeing that we're all transported into the new feudal ages, w/o the need for time travel nor star trek wreckage.

The demise of the middle class, and return to the wonderful working conditions of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" are well underway. I think that it's so clever of those company contractors to just connect the toilets and drains directly to the sump under each house in our new neighborhoods. It saves so much compared to a centralized plumbing system, piping materials, and new waste treatment facilities - while it offers other advantages of promoting the spread of Typhoid and similar diseases to thin out the weaker critters in the herds.

GOD -- Thank you, for the rainbows, too

DREAMER TOO -- Thank you, my Spanish needs work, but that's quite likely to be handled now.

Ardee- my faith is in the people like you who actually make something

I explained a bit better earlier, as to what I mean, and that is that Facebook and Myspace are a crutch that help people hobble along with the government and anybody else who is committing atrocities against each other, because it makes it so they are satisfied with the roles they play.

I know you don't know me very well, and this is an honest account of something that occurred today which I think will describe my personality good and bad.

--a short story--
this afternoon, a young man drove slowly down my street in his truck and made a quick turn and parked in the driveway of my fathers' home. He surveyed the house, and the surroundings, but did not see me in the upper floor of the house. He walked hurriedly up to the front door, talking on his cell phone, wearing a hat, gloves and big coat, and rang the doorbell. I was not fully dressed, and a little bit apprehensive of his motives, and so I waited a moment to see if the door was locked or not. About 40 seconds later, he rang the door again. I figured he wanted to make sure that the house was as empty as it seemed, and I was stuck with a few concerns, and knowing now how it played out, they still seemed reasonable.

I don't believe in locking doors, because I think that if anybody wants anything of me, or my belongings enough that they would take them, that they are more in need than I am.

I also don't believe that being suspicious of people is fair, but in that same regard I am a hypocrite, because I am very receptive to threats of physical harm, and know I cannot retaliate.

I worry that if a person will bad intentions was surprised by my presence, they would be more likely to retaliate after entering, because of surprise, but I worry that because I would make my presence known, any interest of physical harm would be in play.

I noted that if the person had good intentions, it would be rude to ignore them, as they are my guest, and then if I made my presence known, an opportunist who is in need would be less likely to take my father's belongings or otherwise threaten me.

I go downstairs and open the door. The man snaps shut his cell phone. The person standing in front of me is a man who is about thirty years old, with dull blue eyes, and a look of utter shock. He looks to the ground between us, and quickly brings his eyes back into a stare and blurts out "is that for sale.." I look at him as kindly as I can manage, and his expression changes. He knows, and I know.
"is that red car for sale?" I say "sorry, I don't think it is, umm.. what did you say your name was?"

I feel bad, because the question confused him, he didn't have a plan past the car alibi. He says his name is ben. He shifts his body towards the door and I drop my attention to my cell phone which I open, and say; still looking away from his movement, as if I don't know, "if you want me to give you a call if it comes up for sale I can.."
Ben moves back, I look up at him, and smile, not because I want to intimidate him, or because I want to demean him, but because when I look at him his face is half scowl, and all pain. His phone rings and without saying anything he takes several steps backwards and away and jumps in his car and sped off.

What I know, is that Ben wanted to take things from my father's home. He told me so with what he did, and what he said.

This is sad for me, because if he'd known who he was talking to, and if he'd been willing to ask me for something, I would have given him whatever it was he needed. because I don't believe in personal possessions anyway. this is why I don't lock my doors. Now Ben might be at home (if he has a house he stays at) at a loss, of what happened, or he might be taking from somebody other than me. I did not call the police, and don't plan on locking my doors.

I feel sad,that because of my fear, I may have failed to ask him the important question, not what is your name? and that would be "is there any way I can help you"

---end of story for now--

This should help provide a bit of context, on where I am coming from. I am a bit paranoid, a bit suspicious and naive, and maybe a bit selfish too. But I like to think that given the chance I act in the same way I claim to think is right.

I don't claim to be doing enough for others, because I know damn well that I'm not. I am not being fatalistic, because I know it takes action to make things change, and I don't know whether you'll agree with what I did today, which is why I think it is a good story to describe me. I am not righteous in this story, and there may not have been a right answer, and I may have made a mistake with how I did what I did, but I think it shows how I am.

Yes, there are some lovely versions of Guantanamera. Pete Seeger had the strength to sing it in the early 60's, and quite nicley.

Its a sin that we have soiled the place so. I joined in with the DC protest for a while today, and was glad it happened, though it should have been 10 million strong. Our citizens don't seem to care.

I hope 'Ben' wasn't using his cell phone to post to Facebook, ren ren, or if he was and posted a picture that both of you were wearing orange.

dreamertoo I don't get it.

orange like in the article,

still don't get it.

ACLU Announces "Close Guantánamo" Campaign: Urges People to Wear Orange on 6th Anniv. of Illegal Detentions - Friday, Jan 11

ren ren,

thanks for your story. you may want to watch this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=npKaOddyrcY

it's about how all of what we're doing (including what we're doing here) is part of a very large decentralized clustering of movements; i don't think all of us know it yet. btw, the story you told, both its content and your telling of it? that is part of what i'm speaking about. enjoy.

Bush cried when he visited Aushwitz and said the U.S. should have bombed it. (It was later explained he meant we should have bombed the railroad lines supplying it.)

How can he react that way to Aushwitz, yet he has no problem with Guantanmo? Is it a matter of numbers? It's OK to hold two dozen people without trial or charge, torturing them all the while, but holding a million is a crying shame?

Funny (not really) I just noticed the coincidence that its also The Islamic New Year on my calendar. Its worse now than the astrologers in the whitey house during the reagan era.
Bush cried like any croc.

Shoot he cried because it stopped making his grandpappy money when the Nazis lost the war and the trading with the enemy law was passed. Whatever it was called.

"it's about how all of what we're doing (including what we're doing here) is part of a very large decentralized clustering of movements" (restive)

cluster blogging?

"How can he react that way to Aushwitz, yet he has no problem with Guantanmo?" (Opinionated)

crying because he didn't think of it?

"whitey house" (jungleboy)

HA!

"cluster blogging?"

hahaha

no, i mean more the hundred+ trends that are described in the Paul Hawken video I linked to; alternative media is definitely part of that though. :-) while i'm not as hopeful as he is about NGOs (let alone corporations), i do think that there is a huge decentralized base of action going on all over the planet, which he does an excellent job of describing. we're just not acculturated to seeing it as such, as the typical model we've been fed is that movements have charismatic leaders at the forefront, running singular organizations.

RESTIVE -- Thank you, a great link to self organizing renewal possibilities, synergized through interdependence and enhanced connectivity.

Paul Hawkins is our collective recognizer (detailer and charter) of the previously unknown scope of the vast domain of millions of social conscious groups working to save this Earth - that just don't usually rate for any notoriety due to lack of anyone being "in control", and contrasted as anti-ideological so mostly undetectable.

I love that part about the complete difference between the numbers and actual risks to Earth - and the people organizing the solutions - the former being really pessimistic and closing down (and if not seen, one's got to do more research), while the later is blessedly optimistic, growing abundantly and opening up of future possibilities.

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »

Great story ren ren. Many people who claim righteousness, when it comes down to it, will only take the cheap gutless way out. How many people will ever allow dishonesty to reflect itself in a mirror of love? I know you didn't mean anything like the comparison, but who, really, ever "turns the other cheek"? The general level of hypocrisy in our "Christian" country has reached a deafening howl. Most people, Left or Right would have shot first and asked questions later. No, actually, forget the questions. I'm not saying anyone should invite being walked on, but is it any wonder we live with the scourge of fundamentalism when our first response to any transgression is always more violence and punishment? And, yes, this does tie in to Guantanamo.

Can't help but wonder who the REAL terrorist is!

"the cheap gutless way"

The Republican Highway to Heaven/Guantanamo?

Are the soldiers still raping teenage boys in Guantanamo? That's it, join the military for fun and adventure! The military, by the way, has lowered its standards and will now take high-school dropouts, gang members, sociopaths, and those with criminal records.

I'm so proud of our "protectors of freedom." Aren't you?

Resistance of any kind, especially blogging, especially liberal blogging, especially progressive liberal blogging, is useless. You will do as we say, as we conservatives say, and you will do it now. Stop all this thinking and feeling and writing stop it stop it stop it!

Guantanamo is framed in the guild of the ultimate proof of bush/cheney/rice/rummy/mukasey/gonzales and the lot are guilty of High Crimes, Torture, Treason, being Traitors AND LILLULU the 17 year old sons and daughters from North Philly, Spanish Harlem, Bronx, the piss poor street in L.A. where my, is this a coincidence?, Cubana daughter resides, deliberately and deceitfully led into a war that should not have been. Recruiters, F@@KING VULTURES, incentives, young man, education sweet lady, travel, KIDS! Thirty K, WTF do you think that means to them? Oh, quite, in Euro... 80% of the military in Iraq are too young to vote, sweetkins. No EXCUSES, can always tell the psych babble ersatz daddy give me gals, 1.2 MIL Iraqi civilians murdered, 4.3 MIL internally and externally displaced, no food, no water, cholera outbreaks, this is why yesterday wearing orange T-Shirts sympatico for the GITMO shutdown but banners demanding IMPEACHMENT, then TRIED, CONVICTED, IMPRISONED, if our choice 'Black Sites' of the PEOPLES choosing.
Keep blaming those kids, like the women with RTS, PTSD, brain injuries, quadraplegics, stitched back together, resembling the 'Scarecrow' in Wizard of Oz. Their Moms, Dads, sisters, brothers, actually cry the same as an Iraqi Mom or Dad. Yes, their daughters, sons, sisters are 'Collateral Damage', it appears ours are murdered, which I always am glad to point out to my Rep. and Senators when they should be voting as a human truly should. You do not have the right to trivialize these families right to grieve regardless, ask Cindy, she knows. The women in the military raped with increasing frequency by superiors of the same branch. I am a middle aged woman who has been at this since 1969, I am a Mom of daughters, I am a sister, in flesh and peace, I am also a disabled USAF honorably discharged Vet, I still am yelling at the top of my lungs at the indignities, do I hear you?, I call, email, meet, write, march, and it isn't that, as the remarks made by you and others like you, it is entirely your fault, we are in survival mode now, most put into a severe fugue state by the decline of the bush II Empire led by psychotic, manic, sociopaths with the desire to keep his Empire alive. We are all severely strained by such horrific events minute by minute we no longer remain civil amongst one another. He with cheney the dark one have done well, well indeed. I wonder, do you lillulu recognize yourself when that image without a lilting smile grimaces back?

I'm so F@@KING glad you're here with us, O roe; it gets lonely sometimes without the truth.

XO

ALL THAT IS NOT COMPULSORY IS FORBIDDEN

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

It's the BURGERS:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261

I recently finished Carl Sagan's book "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark." Among many other topics, he talks about the centuries of witch hunts in Europe and America and about the kinds of torture used and their affects. Most of us know now that there never were any witches, but it was amazing how many thousands of people ultimately confessed to witchcraft, and how many were induced to implicate others. As Sagan put it, there were so many people implicated, ultimately, that if the whole thing hadn't come to an end, there would have been no one left in Europe. Torture doesn't expose the truth; on the contrary, it causes innocent people to lie just to end the pain. I don't think Guantanamo has anything to do with discovering the truth. I think it's an endless bank of "terrorists" to parade out for the general public every time Bush and Co. want to either scare the people or show how effective their "war on terror" is. Also, it's very useful when they're staging fake aborted terror plots to have fake suspects at hand. I would definitely expect more of these plots as the general election approaches. On another note, on the 11th my daughter and I put on our orange and went out in the world looking for like-minded folks. We were sad not to discover others wearing orange, even at our local vegan cafe, but maybe the endeavor was underpublicized. Oh well.

Our local groups, Chester County Peace Movement and Chester County Religious Campaign Against Torture, also had a vigil:

http://pax-et-lux.blogspot.com/2008/01/view-from-music-stand-shame-on-you-you.html

FEMME FATALE -- Very keen observations, about the purpose of torture to create terror, not to gain information.

The purpose of terror on FAUX's "24", is of course the usual violence and adrenaline rush to sell the marketed products, but much more insidiously wicked is the literal selling of TERROR (sorry I mean TORTURE, but it's the same now) itself as needed justifiable, and consistent with good people doing good things (even if that is illegal)

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »

When are you going to get into the Fight for Freedom?
Be a patriot give 'till it hurts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkCU4ANFc58

femme-fatale, great post. As near as I can tell you are correct, torture apparati are deliberate systems meant to induce terror externally AND internally. During the inquisition and Salem witch trials the "possessed" were always spared after full confession. The "truth" was never really a part of it, and the fact that very little actionable intel is generated by modern state torture is not really a part of it. It's more an instrument of propaganda than anything else. There is always an ulterior motive, like seizure of property or the implement of control. Mao Tse Tung once said that in order to maintain control it was necessary to stage revolutionary killings from time to time. That's what torture is, a global showing of teeth, pure propaganda.

Top U.S. officer would like Guantanamo shut down
Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:35pm EST
By Andrew Gray

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer said on Sunday he would like to see the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed because its image has damaged America's international standing.

"I'd like to see it shut down," said Adm. Mike Mullen. "I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."

But Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said closing the prison posed major legal problems.

"There are enormous challenges associated with that," he said. "There are enormously complex, complicating legal issues that are way out of my purview."
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN13328724

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein

DREAMER TOO -- … and even more dangerous when people who would look on, and then act, are denied free exchange of information (sight of the evil acts).

SECRECY is the hobgoblin of EVIL

Ipenek: Actually, as Sagan points out, even those who confessed were killed anyway. There was no way out once the finger was pointed at you, and those accused knew they were doomed. The confessions were used to justify the torture and killing, as were the protestations of innocence. I can't help but think that the captives of Guantanamo must feel that kind of hopelessness--especially after learning that our system of "justice" has determined that they aren't even considered "persons." I've been called to report for jury duty in a couple of days, and I'm planning to tell them that I can't participate in a system of justice that would support that position. I'll probably be charged with contempt. Oh well, I feel contempt, I might as well be charged with it.

Femme fatale - I'll take your word on it regarding the European witch trials. My info comes from a documentary I recently watched on the Salem trials. There, apparently, a full confession would spare "the possessed" from death, though I'm sure life from that point on wasn't all rosy.
Great about your jury duty position. Our system of justice is nothing less than draconian. I love the way they say "report." Sieg Heil!