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Having lived through eight years of the Bush Administration and stuffing down helpless rage watching what Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales did in the name of 9-11, what Leahy proposes to do is something I thought I’d never see: opening the padlocked door to the darkest room of America’s house. This is the room where we tortured individuals, primarily Muslims, under the banner of 9-11 and national security. To do so, our former leaders worked around national and international laws based on the Constitution and the Geneva Convention to extract information using the most cruel means as possible.<\/p>\n
“When historians look back at the last eight years, they will evaluate one of the most secretive administrations in the history of the United States,” Leahy said in remarks provided by his office. “We also know that the past can be prologue unless we set things right. The last administration justified torture, presided over the abuses at Abu Ghraib, destroyed tapes of harsh interrogations, and conducted ‘extraordinary renditions’ that sent people to countries that permit torture during interrogations.”<\/p>\n
“Nothing has done more to damage America’s standing and moral authority than the revelations that, during the last eight years, we abandoned our historic commitment to human rights by repeatedly stretching the law and the bounds of executive power to authorize torture and cruel treatment,” Leahy said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Holding on to a cynicism bred by three decades of panels, subcommittees and special prosecutors investigating everything from Nixon’s enemies list to consensual sex between the president and an intern, I’m a mix of skeptical and hopeful. Will a special committee be enough to bring charges or will there need to be more hearings, more special investigators and more Senate sub-committees? Will the true perpetrators be brought to justice? Will we shine enough light on this dark room so that we can end the barbaric practice of torture and change our ways in handling our security in this modern world without cruelty? Will this be enough to stop it once and for all?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That is a tall order for the day, perhaps the millennium. But Chiron and Neptune, both in Aquarius, give the ground under Leahy’s efforts some movement. Chiron, the awakener and the planet that opens awareness, is conjunct with Neptune, the planet that in its lower vibration represents delusion and lies. Aquarius, the sign of the people, wants answers. And Neptune’s darkened room, haunting the nation’s house for seven years, is now before us. The time seems right for an investigation to take place — unlock the door and turn on the light in that room.<\/p>\n
I am of the belief that in order for us to evolve our ways of being in the world, we cannot divorce ourselves from the politics used to govern us. As a person who is spiritual and wants to involve myself with what government does, there is no way out but through it, to demand answers and get the truth. Our government is not above or separate from us. It is us.<\/p>\n
To work everyday, to inform and involve as many members of my community as possible in the decisions being made in our name sometimes seems a hopeless task. That is my cynicism speaking. But to get my community enough information to empower us to continue to stay awake, demanding truth and accountability, is my highest goal.<\/p>\n
If there’s one issue we must address even more urgently than our economy, it is this one. Our comfort and security these last seven years was based on pain, cruelly inflicted on others in our name. We underwent a period of cultural and societal sleep in order to cope with what was being done. We knew something was happening. And yet we were never told, nor would anybody listen or respond when we asked.<\/p>\n
Our sense of economic security, as important as that is, cannot eclipse our spiritual responsibility to the rest of the world and its people. Supporting Leahy’s efforts and demanding that the lights be turned on in the darkest rooms of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib is part of a larger social and spiritual movement to turn on the lights inside ourselves as a nation and a people. We’ve been ruled and abused by fear the last eight years to the point where we buried our highest sense of ourselves. Leahy’s message is a signal for us to relay to the rest of the world: We want you to know we’re awake, we are here, and we are in and with, not against, the world.<\/p>\n
Yours & truly,<\/p>\n
Fe Bongolan<\/strong>
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Friend and Reader: As I type these words, I cannot quite yet summon enough belief that this is happening: Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced a hearing on the formation of a special subcommittee to investigate the Bush Administration’s use of torture on prisoners. Having lived through eight years … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1,762],"tags":[1153,29,577,1788,1063,52,547,265,1154,1155],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}