#Guantánamo Hunger Strikers: Tortured With Your Tax $$

When I was young, in the 20th century, we read about the USSR's crimes against humanity in The Gulag Archipelago and we read about the concentration camps the Nazis used to torture and control millions, and which the Allied forces liberated. We, the USA, were the good guys.

Now I'm aging in the 21st century and Guantánamo Bay is just one site -- perhaps the most notorious -- of my own empire's archipelago of torture prisons. It's isolated from U.S. courts and from the view of most citizens. Reports are the CIA decided to locate a facility to detain "war on terror" prisoners in Cuba especially to piss off Fidel Castro. Closing it is one of the many, many campaign promises that the current occupant of the White House made to trick peaceniks into voting for him the first time.

Photo source: World Can't Wait. Sign their petition and find out how to take action to shut down the torture center the U.S. illegally maintains in Cuba.

89 prisoners there have been cleared of any suspicions of terrorism, but have been held for a decade or more anyway. Many were swept up in a global dragnet following the dramatic events of September 11, 2001, the prey of informants or in some cases guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their despair at the indefiniteness of their detention is palpable. Their three-month hunger strike is inspiring those of us on the outside of the prisons -- all the prisons we pay for while Head Start programs close and unemployment compensation is cut --- to fast in solidarity with them.

If we fasted for every wrongly imprisoned (man with brown colored skin) in the U.S. archipelago, we would all starve to death.

The executive branch of our failed government recently ordered fresh squadrons of force feeders to Cuba (the propaganda term for them is "medical reinforcements"). The president is afraid if the prisoners succeed in escaping Guantánamo by starving themselves, it will look bad for the U.S. The medical establishment is afraid that if its members succeed in forcing a tube that feels "as sharp as a razor" into the nasal passages and down the esophagi of prisoners, it will make the medical profession look bad.

I am afraid that the people of my country have lost their way so badly that the militarized police state their taxes support will remain invisible to them until the very day that they, or their son or daughter or grandchild or friend, is locked up, too.

When I was young in the 20th century, Guantánamo was known to me only as the subject of a song that my mother would sing. More than a year ago I posted this video of the singer Celia Cruz performing "Guantanamera" or "woman of Guantánamo."

I added this verse to express the pain in my heart here in the 21st Century:

You broke my heart when you tortured
The beautiful ones, and the bad ones.
You broke my heart when the young soldiers
Had to watch all this being done.
How could our Constitution
ever stand for something like this?
If there is such a thing as a court,
I hope all you torturers stand before it.

Guantanamera...oh women of Guantánamo
And may the indigenous 
grandmothers save us.

Mass Arrests At Hancock #Drone Base

Photo source: Syracuse Post-Standard coverage of the protests and arrests

Ann Wright sent around this press release from a weekend of drone resistance noting that $34,000 was needed to bail out those arrested during civil disobedience. People were blocking the gates at a military base in Syracuse, New York where drones are piloted, I modified the press release to highlight the local angle and sent it out to press contacts in Maine.

When everyone does a part in the resistance, sharing info and helping to get the story out to the wider public, we are a team. I couldn't go to Syracuse, so I'm participating this way.

Photo source: Syracuse Post-Standard coverage of the protests and arrests

For more information: 

Carol Baum, Syracuse Peace Council,315-472-5478, 315-383-5738

Ellen Grady, Ithaca Catholic Worker, 607-279-8303

Activists Press Hancock Air Base to Obey International Law

275 People at Protest; 31 Arrested

Bruce Gagnon of Bath, Maine was among thirty-one members of the “Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars” to be arrested April 28, 2013 at Hancock Air Force Base in Syracuse, NY. Gagnon was protesting the illegal use of drones in Afghanistan,  Pakistan and other countries.

Gagnon is a co-coordinator of the campaign to Bring War $$ Home in Maine and a coordinator for the Global Network against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

Over 275 people marched in a solemn funeral procession to demand that Hancock Air National Guard Base cease drone strikes. People carrying banners and coffins identified countries where U.S. drone attacks have killed over a thousand innocent civilians. As they were arrested, some read the names of people who have died in the drone attacks.

People who participated in the demonstration, including some who were arrested, came from all over the country to raise an outcry against the proliferation of drone strikes abroad, including countries with whom the US is not at war. Drone use violates the US Constitution, Article 6, and International Law, which the U.S. has signed on to. Demonstrators also object to the militarization of the police and the growing domestic use of drones. The protesters raised the issue that drone use globally makes Americans unsafe because of the blow back effect.

Demonstrators attempted to deliver a war crimes indictment to the base. It reads:

We, the people, charge the US President, Barak Obama, and the full military chain of command, to Commander Colonel Greg Semmel, every drone crew, and service members at Hancock Air Base, with crimes against humanity, with violations of part of the Supreme Law of the Land, extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression, violation national sovereignty, and killing of innocent civilians.

The thirty-one arrestees were arraigned in De Witt Town Court before Judges Benack, Gideon, and Jokl, who imposed bails ranging from $500 - $3500, totaling $34,000. Some of the defendants were released with appearance tickets   Others are refusing to post bail and will be held in jail until the next court date of May 7th & 8th. Donations may be sent to the Syracuse Peace Council, with checks made out to Syracuse Peace Council,note : Upstate Drone Action Bail Fund.  2013 E. Genessee St., Syracuse, NY 13210.

Those Arrested:

Beth Adams, Levertt, MA

John Amidon, Albany, NY

Cynthia Banas, Vernon, NY

Ellen Barfield, Baltimore, MD

Russell Brown, Buffalo, NY

Kate De Mott Grady, Ithaca, NY

Beatrice Dewing, New York City, NY

Max Farhi, Ithaca, NY

Sandra Fessler, Rochester, NY

Daniel Finley, Ithaca, NY

Bruce Gagnon, Bath, ME

Jack Gilroy, Binghamton, NY

Charlie Heyn, Damascus, PA

John Honeck, Hamlin, NY

Rae Kramer, Syracuse, NY

Joanne Lingle, Indianapolis, IN

Mary Loehr, Ithaca, NY

Bonnie Mahoney, Buffalo, NY

Harry Murray, Rochester, NY

Valerie Niederhoffer, Buffalo, NY

Julienne Oldfield, Syracuse, NY

Jules Orkin, Bergenfield, NJ

Elizabeth Pappalardo, Crystal Lake, DE

Joan Pleune, Brooklyn, NY

Beverly Rice

Grace Ritter, Ithaca, NY

Matthew Ryden

Andrew Schoerke, Shaftsbury, VT

Mary Snyder, Johnson City, NY

Eve Tetaz, Washington, DC

Patricia Wieland, Northampton, MA

Photo source: Syracuse Post-Standard coverage of the protests and arrests