Yesterday marked the twelfth “anniversary” of America’s most visible demonstration of its post-Constitutional existence, the opening of its Caribbean resort gulag at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Somewhere around 150 protesters braved Washington, D.C.’s rain for an event that started across from the White House and proceeded to the National Museum of American History; this account offers a picture (that’s probably me there in the front row in the orange rain poncho).
The most poignant part of the event took place after it “officially” ended, as a group of activists “occupied” the interior of the museum, for a human tableau depicting hoods and orange jumpsuit wearing protesters posed in front of an exhibit on the history of American wars entitled “The Price of Freedom,” which included, among other things, a reading of a letter from cleared-for-release-Guantanamo-prisoner Shaker Aamer with a background of American patriotic martial music emanating from the museum’s multimedia exhibit.
One of the subtexts your talking dog picked up from overheard conversations with activists concerns (my college classmate) President Obama’s political dodge of his own responsibility— and I mean exclusively his and no one else’s— for this continued abomination, because he managed to successfully blame Congress, especially the Republicans, for tying his hands. Well, he asked for relaxed standards for release of prisoners in a National Defense Authorization Act, and he got it… But, although a few prisoners have recently been released, it’s still proceeding at a comparative trickle. And so, the little pressure now, after a dozen years, to end this… will, we hope… pick up steam.
Fight the power!
tdog
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