Do you remember Sept. 12? If you picked up a copy of the Daily Lobo, on the cover you saw an oversized photo showing the World Trade Center exploding. Inside, another photo showed people clutching to window sills, waiting for a rescue that wasn't coming. Pretty gruesome, eh?
Apparently, not gruesome enough. No one called or wrote to complain about those photographs.
So what was so much more terrible about the photo on the cover of the Nov. 14 Daily Lobo? Why did one small picture of Northern Alliance soldiers shooting a Taliban soldier provoke so much protest, when pictures of those dying Americans provoked so little?
Are we just afraid to see the consequences of our government's actions? To see that the people they're supporting are perhaps not such great replacements for the ones they're trying to depose, after all?
All the protections we may have for freedom of speech and press can't protect us from our own desire not to know.
In Friday's Daily Lobo, Maceo Carrillo Martinet brought attention to an issue that is too often overlooked: the School of the Americas. Since Martinet so eloquently provided the details, I'll just briefly re-cap.
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This "school" is the means by which our fair government trains Latin American soldiers to torture, "disappear," and otherwise slaughter civilians in their own countries. Many of the school's graduates have even managed to get caught and cited for human rights violations. Some of these graduates have been invited back as guest speakers since they've been cited.
Yet, somehow, it took 50 years before the school's training tactics were revealed in 1996. Perhaps we just didn't really want to know.
Five years later, public outcry against the school has won a great victory: the name's been changed to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Now, we can all just pretend we don't know it's still the same old thing.
Unfortunately, those pesky protestors are still around, refusing to leave us to our bliss. During the past weekend, demonstrations took place in Albuquerque and cities across the country, in solidarity with the annual protest at the School of the Americas' home in Fort Benning, Ga.
Even before the protests started, city and military officials in Georgia exercised their fear of speech by threatening four organizers with injunctions and asking them not to hold the protest. One of the four, Jeff Winder, confidently remarked on their refusal to agree not to march, "We knew that if four white guys who had been working on the technical aspects of the demonstration went to jail that would not stop the movement."
The rally on Saturday was permitted, peaceful, and located at a stadium six miles away from the fort. Still, the police felt the need to search protestors at the entrance. What, were they afraid the activists would try to blow each other up?
On Sunday, an estimated 10 to 15 thousand protestors marched to the gate of Fort Benning. That, of course, is when "democracy" really decided to rear its ugly head.
At press time, Indymedia reported that 104 people had been arrested thus far. Who were these heinous criminals and what did they do to deserve arrest, you ask? Some were black-clad protestors and Christian Peacekeepers who crossed the fence and staged a "die-in." Apparently, the sight of people lying immobile on the ground was just too frightening for the police.
Others did nonviolent, symbolic actions like crossing the line and sitting in a circle around a tree or washing a flag to "cleanse it of its sins." Later, some were singing, dancing and camping in the street.
Once again, protestors were arrested not because they were actually a danger, but because they were exposing things people don't want to see.
Freedom of speech and press were protected for the very purpose of protecting people's ability to expose and criticize the government, if they so choose. If you insist on supporting U.S. actions that lead to death and oppression, at least be willing to know and even see exactly what it is that you're supporting.
If you are truly disgusted by images such as the photo on the cover of the Nov. 14 Daily Lobo, don't just be disgusted by the photo, be disgusted by reality.
And do something about it.
by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo Columnist
