The gaping chasm

"Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war. We are called upon to look up from the quagmire of military programs and defense commitments and read the warnings on history's signposts. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal."

- - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).

Today's sermon at church featured a guest - Jennifer Harbury, a lawyer and human rights activist who became famous when her husband was imprisoned, tortured and then extrajudicially executed by the Guatemalan government in the 1990s. Harbury conducted a lengthy hunger strike as part of her effort to find out what happened to her husband, and to shed light on the US government's complicity in his fate and that of thousands like him around the world who are imprisoned, tortured and killed with the resources, training, knowledge and often physical presence of US intelligence agencies. Harbury, the granddaughter of Jews who fled the Holocaust and found a home in a Unitarian congregation in upstate NY, now works for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, as the director of their STOP Torture program.

Harbury talked about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other countries that conduct torture on behalf of, and on the payroll of, the US government. She talked about how this is not new, and the threads of such activities trace back through many decades despite numerous international treaties and US laws specifically prohibiting and criminalizing them. She talked about the effects of torture on our moral health as a people, our standing in the world community, and the safety of our citizens and soldiers abroad.

So, a couple things:

• There is an amendment to the current defense spending bill that would prohibit (again) U.S.-sponsored torture anywhere in the world. President Bush has threatened to veto the entire bill if it includes the anti-torture provisions, despite the fact that the Senate voted 90 to 9 in favor of the anti-torture amendment sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). This overall spending bill is next headed to a conference committee, where representatives of the House and Senate will agree on its final form. You might feel moved to contact your members of Congress about that. Learn more here.
• I am about to start a 3-day-a-week interim director job. I hereby designate one of my two remaining weekdays as "Social Justice Day," wherein I will spend my time doing whatever I can think of to try to help make the world a more just place. One day a week. It may not do much, but it can't hurt to try. So there. I have a few ideas already, but suggestions are welcome.