Dr. Stephen Miles is author of the 2006 book Oath Betrayed. He is an expert on medical ethics during wartime. His book provides a gloss on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as centers of the torture conducted on prisoners of war or merely persons termed detainees. In the news today is that the U.S. sponsored regime in Afghanistan has been torturing its prisoners and detainees as well.
See this link for more on Dr. Miles and his writings and professional work as a medical ethicist:
http://www.ahc.umn.edu/bioethics/facstaff/miles_s/home.html
Friday, October 14, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Anniversary of Essay "Reflections on the Water"
One year ago, October 1, 2010, I wrote for this blog an essay entitled "Reflections on the Water." In this essay as author of the The Search for Completion, I wanted to assert the primacy of the scientific method which is the basis of knowledge of the physical universe (including negative matter).
Again, I applaud those who rigorously apply principles of research, logical thinking, and honesty about what is real as opposed to imagined. I however know that the truths of the human psyche are also the seeds of what should become of us as a species.
If you should read my blog entries, you shall see that our ways of knowing are also in part felt and intuited. It really matters to me when I say to a student, "But what do you think?" So oddly enough even my scientist friends, at least the creative ones, leap to a useful hypothesis to explain the derivation or behavior of identifiable singularities (i.e. the set of all fish who have lost gills and can be said to have lungs).
Our public policy makers who believe that the Theory of Evolution should not be taught to school children as in conflict with the creation story of the Bible are plainly policy makers, not educators. They would decree reality is a product of officialdom. That's just plain stupidity in high places! How does one reduce a religious explanation of relevance to the human psyche (which is true of the creation story) to a scientific theory. This shows a profound ignorance of the spiritual domain (which domain is definitely not reducible to science or even successfully to be treated as the object of scientific study).
Again, I applaud those who rigorously apply principles of research, logical thinking, and honesty about what is real as opposed to imagined. I however know that the truths of the human psyche are also the seeds of what should become of us as a species.
If you should read my blog entries, you shall see that our ways of knowing are also in part felt and intuited. It really matters to me when I say to a student, "But what do you think?" So oddly enough even my scientist friends, at least the creative ones, leap to a useful hypothesis to explain the derivation or behavior of identifiable singularities (i.e. the set of all fish who have lost gills and can be said to have lungs).
Our public policy makers who believe that the Theory of Evolution should not be taught to school children as in conflict with the creation story of the Bible are plainly policy makers, not educators. They would decree reality is a product of officialdom. That's just plain stupidity in high places! How does one reduce a religious explanation of relevance to the human psyche (which is true of the creation story) to a scientific theory. This shows a profound ignorance of the spiritual domain (which domain is definitely not reducible to science or even successfully to be treated as the object of scientific study).
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Call for Condemnation of Those Who Condoned Water Boarding
This is a call for comment here on your personal condemnation of waterboarding and other forms of torture used to procure our "safety" from harm that our enemies would do us. If we condone waterboarding in our name and supposedly to procure our safety, we offend the noblest of principles for which we could ever ask our soldiers to fight and die, the sanctity of an individual human life. What point is there in pursuing the enemy when the enemy is us, a nation that appears to have condoned waterboarding to procure its national retribution for the terrorism of extremists. Let it not be said that you condon the use of torture.
Has the public discourse on enhanced interrogation techniques informed or confused the public? Both. Is the public really only concerned with the safety of law abiding citizens? Seems like it. (See the previous blog entry for a review of some of the public discourse and the machinations of some who would foster the use of torture as useful, as in useful on the War on Terror.)
What about when the individual, me or you, is accused of not being loyal or law abiding? Well then, no. Should we be afforded protection from unlawful torture by our own government? Yes.
In this representative democracy, can the electorate ever trust again the adoption of enhanced interrogation techniques by the military and intelligence agencies of the federal government? Looks like we are trusting them to do so. Can we ever again leave certain individuals in office when they condone and justify the use of torture? Well, some of us can claim we did vote the bums's surrogates out of office by electing other guys and gals. Must we be prepared to call for impeachment of any official who condones torture or justifies it in a public forum? Yes.
To my knowledge, President Barach Obama and Senator John McCain have not endorsed holding any persons responsible for the adoption of policies permitting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, but rather look to the present and future in which the values of this country pertaining to the dignity and respect afforded the individual are not and shall not be compromised by the use of torture. See note 1 below for restraint of both our President and an eloquent stance of a former prisoner of war himself, McCain.
Of late the phrase "American exceptionalism" has been framed as one of high regard for the rights of individuals, even those persons perceived as guilty of heinous offense, to be free from torture inflicted by those agents of our government purportedly acting in our behalf. See note 2 below for a specific example of true note worthiness.
Do we Americans embrace moral turpitude? Do we want the historical record to one day say that we as a people looked the other way on torture of prisoners under the control and dominion of our government and its agents (which would include other countries who would conduct torture at our behest and in our behalf to gain intelligence valuable to procuring the national security of our country)? No, we do not.
Our Senate Armed Services Committee, among others, did obtain evidence and testimony of the torture and abuse of prisoners during the War on Terror and did report to the American people its findings of unlawfulness in the conduct of interrogation of prisoners and otherwise as means of subjugation and punishment of captives.
Do we want this record to say that the practices of our government in the execution of this recent war on terror were, even if immoral, necessary to procure our safety? No, we do not!
Let all who are charged with our Nation's security know that we the American people do not endorse torture, especially in its adoption as utiliterarian, a usefulness which argues that enhanced interrogation techniques, however denominated, are to be morally condoned because effective in procuring accurate information. In this blog see the previous article on the issue of flawed scientific acceptance of enhanced interrogation techniques. Furthermore, grounds for removal from public office, by impeachment or other legal means, shall always and forever be inclusive of authorizing, condoning, and utilizing torture as in the national interest as a means to procure public safety and the nation's security.
In those instances in which enhanced interrogation techniques induce learned helplessness the techniques shall not include torture even if the Red Chinese were able to extract confessions from captured American pilots due to the use of torture. That if speed is of the essence in obtaining information, that short cuts to obtain that information by means of torture can never be permitted nor condoned. Let all know that we the American people embracing our heritage of individual right, and governmental limitation in the face of that right, shall pay the personal price and embrace the sacrifice inherent in perserving our values and cherished way of life. We will not be stampeded into forsaking our values enshrining human dignity and decency in the treatment of individuals.
Former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey are hereby, by we the American people, censured for misleading, inaccurate, and harmful defense of immoral techniques, specifically water boarding among other methods used for enhance interrogation techniques which are categorically torture. We condemn these persons and others who deem the utilitarian outcome as moral justification of immoral means to procure our safety. We shall not permit a denigration of the sacred duty to defend our country by the use of torture, at least not while perserving our way of life and the sanctity of human life. We can not allow either of these two men to in effect argue that we as a nation had to torture a person held captive in order to save the life or lives of others without our censure of them for doing so.
Please join others in signing this condemnation of former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for endorsing enhanced interrogation techniques which include acts of torture such as waterboarding. Please forward to all your friends who share this view of our country's respect for individual human life.
Notes.
1. See Executive Order entitled Ensuring Lawful Interrogations issued by President Obama on January 22, 2009 shortly upon taking his oath of office. Also, see "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
2. See especially McCain's position: "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll, (The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
Has the public discourse on enhanced interrogation techniques informed or confused the public? Both. Is the public really only concerned with the safety of law abiding citizens? Seems like it. (See the previous blog entry for a review of some of the public discourse and the machinations of some who would foster the use of torture as useful, as in useful on the War on Terror.)
What about when the individual, me or you, is accused of not being loyal or law abiding? Well then, no. Should we be afforded protection from unlawful torture by our own government? Yes.
In this representative democracy, can the electorate ever trust again the adoption of enhanced interrogation techniques by the military and intelligence agencies of the federal government? Looks like we are trusting them to do so. Can we ever again leave certain individuals in office when they condone and justify the use of torture? Well, some of us can claim we did vote the bums's surrogates out of office by electing other guys and gals. Must we be prepared to call for impeachment of any official who condones torture or justifies it in a public forum? Yes.
To my knowledge, President Barach Obama and Senator John McCain have not endorsed holding any persons responsible for the adoption of policies permitting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, but rather look to the present and future in which the values of this country pertaining to the dignity and respect afforded the individual are not and shall not be compromised by the use of torture. See note 1 below for restraint of both our President and an eloquent stance of a former prisoner of war himself, McCain.
Of late the phrase "American exceptionalism" has been framed as one of high regard for the rights of individuals, even those persons perceived as guilty of heinous offense, to be free from torture inflicted by those agents of our government purportedly acting in our behalf. See note 2 below for a specific example of true note worthiness.
Do we Americans embrace moral turpitude? Do we want the historical record to one day say that we as a people looked the other way on torture of prisoners under the control and dominion of our government and its agents (which would include other countries who would conduct torture at our behest and in our behalf to gain intelligence valuable to procuring the national security of our country)? No, we do not.
Our Senate Armed Services Committee, among others, did obtain evidence and testimony of the torture and abuse of prisoners during the War on Terror and did report to the American people its findings of unlawfulness in the conduct of interrogation of prisoners and otherwise as means of subjugation and punishment of captives.
Do we want this record to say that the practices of our government in the execution of this recent war on terror were, even if immoral, necessary to procure our safety? No, we do not!
Let all who are charged with our Nation's security know that we the American people do not endorse torture, especially in its adoption as utiliterarian, a usefulness which argues that enhanced interrogation techniques, however denominated, are to be morally condoned because effective in procuring accurate information. In this blog see the previous article on the issue of flawed scientific acceptance of enhanced interrogation techniques. Furthermore, grounds for removal from public office, by impeachment or other legal means, shall always and forever be inclusive of authorizing, condoning, and utilizing torture as in the national interest as a means to procure public safety and the nation's security.
In those instances in which enhanced interrogation techniques induce learned helplessness the techniques shall not include torture even if the Red Chinese were able to extract confessions from captured American pilots due to the use of torture. That if speed is of the essence in obtaining information, that short cuts to obtain that information by means of torture can never be permitted nor condoned. Let all know that we the American people embracing our heritage of individual right, and governmental limitation in the face of that right, shall pay the personal price and embrace the sacrifice inherent in perserving our values and cherished way of life. We will not be stampeded into forsaking our values enshrining human dignity and decency in the treatment of individuals.
Former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey are hereby, by we the American people, censured for misleading, inaccurate, and harmful defense of immoral techniques, specifically water boarding among other methods used for enhance interrogation techniques which are categorically torture. We condemn these persons and others who deem the utilitarian outcome as moral justification of immoral means to procure our safety. We shall not permit a denigration of the sacred duty to defend our country by the use of torture, at least not while perserving our way of life and the sanctity of human life. We can not allow either of these two men to in effect argue that we as a nation had to torture a person held captive in order to save the life or lives of others without our censure of them for doing so.
Please join others in signing this condemnation of former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for endorsing enhanced interrogation techniques which include acts of torture such as waterboarding. Please forward to all your friends who share this view of our country's respect for individual human life.
Notes.
1. See Executive Order entitled Ensuring Lawful Interrogations issued by President Obama on January 22, 2009 shortly upon taking his oath of office. Also, see "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
2. See especially McCain's position: "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll, (The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Justification for Torturing Prisoners is not in the Effectiveness of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
We need to be informed on the uses of torture, not just the immorality of torture itself, but also that information is not to be morally obtained by any social scientist/torturer who argues the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Senator John McCain, May 13, 2011, in a Washington Post op ed has enunciated for the United States that torture must be prohibited by both our laws and our societal values, a moral imperative, with prospective benefit to our identity in the world as exceptional in our regard for individual rights as superior to the wishes of the majority which governs our nation:
"Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but evern then, as recognized in our Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others."
McCain states with certainty that "waterboarding," which he defines as mock execution, is an exquisite form of torture.
However, Senator McCain also took the position that those in our recent past who used these techniques should not be prosecuted. Does he also wish to protect from prosecution those officials who advised of the legality of waterboarding, authorized it, or condoned it? Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey may well endorse McCain's posture on prosecution, and for his own insularity from public condemnation for having condoned water boarding (although presumably there has to be some immunity available to this former judge and attorney general who has condoned and excused waterboarding). A former judge, the honorable Mukasey specifically has cited to the success however of waterboarding in unloosening the tongue of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
McCain concerned with Judge Mukasey's conduct checked the facts. He reports in his op ed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. The revelation of the name of a trusted courier of Bin Laden's by Khalid as valuable disclosure due to the effectiveness of waterboarding as an intelligence necessity was tied by Mukasey to the effort to capture or kill Bin Laden. McCain having checked his facts with the Central Intelligence Agency underscores that there is no such connection between the waterboarding of Khalid and the actual kill of Bin Laden by Navy Seals this spring of 2011. The good judge apparently in an effort to again condone waterboarding has been revealed as loose with his facts. His reputation for his brand of patriotism, my country right or wrong, appears to exceed his judicial review capacity for truth and veracity.
To make his case clear, McCain proceeds to point out that the information in fact obtained from Khalid was false and misleading. As a victim of torture himself, McCain has a clear picture of what disclosures might be made by a prisoner to bring an end to the torture experience. He makes it clear that the taint on the reliability of information which is the byproduct of torture is premised on relief from torture.
In effect, the victim of torture tells his tormentors what they want to hear if the victim can provide it and, if competent of subterfuge, will while doing so (if loyal to his cause, a patriot) provide misleading information or patently false information, especially if he or she can manage to do so. One has to believe that even a surcease of torture for a brief period of time is worth lying to your tormentors. I think it safe to say that an important aspect of torture is that the victim of it would do anything to have it stop (it being so psychologically harsh, a result of the type, nature, and duration of the pain inflicted). Waterboarding fits this aspect of the definition of torture.
McCain also makes clear that humane treatment of prisoners is ultimately a protection for our own who defend us in peace and war who may be taken prisoner, albeit not all enemies of the United States would reciprocate. At least, the U.S. known to the world as value centered could expect the humane treatment of its citizens as it treats its prisoners humanely.
Finally, McCain frames his position as a moral, not utilitarian one, and he would like for this country to decide from this time forward to be true to its values as the foundation of American exceptionalism. "Through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss, we are always Americans, and different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us."
President Obama likewise appears to be genuinely concerned that this basis of American exceptionalism be perpetuated. Both President Obama and Senator McCain also seem resolved not to hold officials to account for conduct which during the Republican Administration of President George W. Bush so discredited and besmirched our reputation for upholding the dignity and respect of the individual captive who is under our control and dominion. Note that much of the harm that was done in the War on Terrorism was done to prisoners under the control and dominion of another nation, while the U.S. stood by holding the figurative robe of the torturer. Not just nasty, immoral!
Peter Dross, Center for Victims of Torture, rightly takes to task Jay Ambrose, an apologist for waterboarding as of limited use, i.e. three admitted cases of waterboarding individuals. Dross is very clear that Ambrose's attempt to relegate the humanitarian concern that this country not stoop to torture its prisoners as a ploy of the political left is a misrepresentation of the institutional disregard of the use of torture by leaders of the military, national security, and foreign affairs of this country, who supported President Obama's executive order banning torture back in 2009 shortly after he took office.
The potential efficacy of what proponent's call enhanced interrogation techniques is arguable if one listens to the recent public debate on such techniques. See Note 4 below for an example of Gregg Bloche's recent stance on the issue of public debate enhanced interrogation. Bloche points out that the case for enhanced interrogation remains unproven and unprovable since the utilitarian justification of immorality requires the practice of immoral torture be condoned long enough to document its effectiveness in procuring the public safety. Indeed, anyone acting in an official capacity, policemen or operative of intelligence agency, who tortures one to obtain information should be removed from office and prevented in the future from holding any office of public trust. That would include anyone condoning a study to scientifically establish that the use of torture is effective in obtaining vital national security information from a captive.
Notes:
1. "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at All,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
2. Ibid.
3. "A Silly debate? What a senseless argument," Peter Dross, Star Tribune, May 13, 2011, at A11 (Peter Dross is director of policy and development for the Center for Victims of Torture).
4. See for example "Torture is bad - but it might work," Gregg Bloche, Star Tribune, June 5, 2011, Op 2-3 (in which the author reports on the science of interrogation in conjunction with learned helplessness and the benefits of torture in inducing learned helplessness and disclosure of vital information by a captive) (originally published by the Washington Post).
5. Bloche at Op 3 makes this argument in his op ed piece as well.
Senator John McCain, May 13, 2011, in a Washington Post op ed has enunciated for the United States that torture must be prohibited by both our laws and our societal values, a moral imperative, with prospective benefit to our identity in the world as exceptional in our regard for individual rights as superior to the wishes of the majority which governs our nation:
"Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but evern then, as recognized in our Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others."
McCain states with certainty that "waterboarding," which he defines as mock execution, is an exquisite form of torture.
However, Senator McCain also took the position that those in our recent past who used these techniques should not be prosecuted. Does he also wish to protect from prosecution those officials who advised of the legality of waterboarding, authorized it, or condoned it? Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey may well endorse McCain's posture on prosecution, and for his own insularity from public condemnation for having condoned water boarding (although presumably there has to be some immunity available to this former judge and attorney general who has condoned and excused waterboarding). A former judge, the honorable Mukasey specifically has cited to the success however of waterboarding in unloosening the tongue of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
McCain concerned with Judge Mukasey's conduct checked the facts. He reports in his op ed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. The revelation of the name of a trusted courier of Bin Laden's by Khalid as valuable disclosure due to the effectiveness of waterboarding as an intelligence necessity was tied by Mukasey to the effort to capture or kill Bin Laden. McCain having checked his facts with the Central Intelligence Agency underscores that there is no such connection between the waterboarding of Khalid and the actual kill of Bin Laden by Navy Seals this spring of 2011. The good judge apparently in an effort to again condone waterboarding has been revealed as loose with his facts. His reputation for his brand of patriotism, my country right or wrong, appears to exceed his judicial review capacity for truth and veracity.
To make his case clear, McCain proceeds to point out that the information in fact obtained from Khalid was false and misleading. As a victim of torture himself, McCain has a clear picture of what disclosures might be made by a prisoner to bring an end to the torture experience. He makes it clear that the taint on the reliability of information which is the byproduct of torture is premised on relief from torture.
In effect, the victim of torture tells his tormentors what they want to hear if the victim can provide it and, if competent of subterfuge, will while doing so (if loyal to his cause, a patriot) provide misleading information or patently false information, especially if he or she can manage to do so. One has to believe that even a surcease of torture for a brief period of time is worth lying to your tormentors. I think it safe to say that an important aspect of torture is that the victim of it would do anything to have it stop (it being so psychologically harsh, a result of the type, nature, and duration of the pain inflicted). Waterboarding fits this aspect of the definition of torture.
McCain also makes clear that humane treatment of prisoners is ultimately a protection for our own who defend us in peace and war who may be taken prisoner, albeit not all enemies of the United States would reciprocate. At least, the U.S. known to the world as value centered could expect the humane treatment of its citizens as it treats its prisoners humanely.
Finally, McCain frames his position as a moral, not utilitarian one, and he would like for this country to decide from this time forward to be true to its values as the foundation of American exceptionalism. "Through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss, we are always Americans, and different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us."
President Obama likewise appears to be genuinely concerned that this basis of American exceptionalism be perpetuated. Both President Obama and Senator McCain also seem resolved not to hold officials to account for conduct which during the Republican Administration of President George W. Bush so discredited and besmirched our reputation for upholding the dignity and respect of the individual captive who is under our control and dominion. Note that much of the harm that was done in the War on Terrorism was done to prisoners under the control and dominion of another nation, while the U.S. stood by holding the figurative robe of the torturer. Not just nasty, immoral!
Peter Dross, Center for Victims of Torture, rightly takes to task Jay Ambrose, an apologist for waterboarding as of limited use, i.e. three admitted cases of waterboarding individuals. Dross is very clear that Ambrose's attempt to relegate the humanitarian concern that this country not stoop to torture its prisoners as a ploy of the political left is a misrepresentation of the institutional disregard of the use of torture by leaders of the military, national security, and foreign affairs of this country, who supported President Obama's executive order banning torture back in 2009 shortly after he took office.
The potential efficacy of what proponent's call enhanced interrogation techniques is arguable if one listens to the recent public debate on such techniques. See Note 4 below for an example of Gregg Bloche's recent stance on the issue of public debate enhanced interrogation. Bloche points out that the case for enhanced interrogation remains unproven and unprovable since the utilitarian justification of immorality requires the practice of immoral torture be condoned long enough to document its effectiveness in procuring the public safety. Indeed, anyone acting in an official capacity, policemen or operative of intelligence agency, who tortures one to obtain information should be removed from office and prevented in the future from holding any office of public trust. That would include anyone condoning a study to scientifically establish that the use of torture is effective in obtaining vital national security information from a captive.
Notes:
1. "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at All,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
2. Ibid.
3. "A Silly debate? What a senseless argument," Peter Dross, Star Tribune, May 13, 2011, at A11 (Peter Dross is director of policy and development for the Center for Victims of Torture).
4. See for example "Torture is bad - but it might work," Gregg Bloche, Star Tribune, June 5, 2011, Op 2-3 (in which the author reports on the science of interrogation in conjunction with learned helplessness and the benefits of torture in inducing learned helplessness and disclosure of vital information by a captive) (originally published by the Washington Post).
5. Bloche at Op 3 makes this argument in his op ed piece as well.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Elementary School Bus Ride - Journey to the Future.
I have this penchant for trying to understand my personal history as a lens on the future. What is actually to happen that is in front of me is really not to be known by a mere mortal such as myself. I do suspect given a natural lifespan that the trajectory of my life at age 61 is essentially and relentlessly downhill. In a non-Narcissistic manner, that outcome is categorically not true for me on one level. In large measure, I have taken on a concern for the future of humankind, the people I will leave behind, when it is time for my life to end. My purpose is to see into a future for my children, my society, and the world at large by staying present, and I might add calm. If not adding anything to the mix, at least brokering for my part a healthy resolution to live in peace with a regard for justice and opportunity for all (especially the children).
This past Tuesday morning in the already sweltering heat as driver on an elementary school bus, my lifetime of trying to benefit from life's lessons would mean that I gratefully was agile and fluent and compassionate, but also dutiful. Due to a seemingly minor incident, my employer (the bus contractor) in the aftermath of this incident would want a discipline report and would want it turned into him as soon as possible (ASAP)! On this particular Tuesday morning after the incident on the school route, I shared my concerns with a school's assistant principal. Due to a parent's upset, the report of the incident reached my employer (and the school's district transportation department) before I would make out any incident report (and honestly had even considered not doing a report). As events further unfolded, it turned out that the time I had taken to understand what had happened on my bus that Tuesday morning was important, not just to that upset parent either, but to all of us involved with this public school (and society at large I believe).
After a whole day of reflection about Tuesday morning's incident, I finally did write up a student for precipitating racial enmity by loudly and bombastically calling out the child of another racially identifiable group for calling her girl friend "that brown girl." This girl was pronouncing the speaker of this phrase a rascist! Several other African-American students joined in taunting the child who had spoken the phrase. The child's older brother had also verbally escalated in defense of his little brother from being called a rascist but he was under control (an admirable trait).
The descriptive phrase was used first by a kindergarten age brother who did not know the girl's name ("a brown girl"). At the time I'd pulled my bus over, the best I could do was ask the students to visit with a principal when we reached school. As a result of my proposition and my calm, I believe things did settle down. At school, I asked the students not to take bad feelings about others into the school and to stay on the bus to visit with the principal if they had thoughts of taking any animosity into their school day. Three students were asked to stay behind to have a word with the principal.
I did not accuse the girl of anything when I wrote her up for deportment. I merely described her conduct. I had offered her words of encouragement before writing her up that she could have behaved differently in not exploiting the phrase and tinging her antipathy for the younger boy with charges of rascism. I do not believe the girl I wrote up would even know what the phrase "race baiting" would mean. I just know that the school these children attend is a peace site and dedicated to helping children live in a diverse school community.
By Friday, the concern for living in peace seemed to have a new foothold as the week ended with an afternoon school bus trip home the third last day of the school year with the children's spirits higher than kites, as it were, because the school year was ending in just two more class days.
The event of that Tuesday morning was a distant memory for most of the children the next week as I drove them home from school the last day of the school year. The sun shown brightly and a breeze blew comfortably through the bus windows. I felt elated that I had stood my ground through the school year. This last day was a day of tranquility for my children and we celebrated it with hugs, handshakes, toots on the horn, and waves goodbye for the summer. On the radio I heard another driver report one of his students had tossed a coke bottle and hit the windshield of a passing car. I said a prayer of gratitude that my last day driving this school year was not touched with a similar act of indifference and disrespect. Hopefully, I had had something to do with ending well a fine school year driving bus for the children.
This past Tuesday morning in the already sweltering heat as driver on an elementary school bus, my lifetime of trying to benefit from life's lessons would mean that I gratefully was agile and fluent and compassionate, but also dutiful. Due to a seemingly minor incident, my employer (the bus contractor) in the aftermath of this incident would want a discipline report and would want it turned into him as soon as possible (ASAP)! On this particular Tuesday morning after the incident on the school route, I shared my concerns with a school's assistant principal. Due to a parent's upset, the report of the incident reached my employer (and the school's district transportation department) before I would make out any incident report (and honestly had even considered not doing a report). As events further unfolded, it turned out that the time I had taken to understand what had happened on my bus that Tuesday morning was important, not just to that upset parent either, but to all of us involved with this public school (and society at large I believe).
After a whole day of reflection about Tuesday morning's incident, I finally did write up a student for precipitating racial enmity by loudly and bombastically calling out the child of another racially identifiable group for calling her girl friend "that brown girl." This girl was pronouncing the speaker of this phrase a rascist! Several other African-American students joined in taunting the child who had spoken the phrase. The child's older brother had also verbally escalated in defense of his little brother from being called a rascist but he was under control (an admirable trait).
The descriptive phrase was used first by a kindergarten age brother who did not know the girl's name ("a brown girl"). At the time I'd pulled my bus over, the best I could do was ask the students to visit with a principal when we reached school. As a result of my proposition and my calm, I believe things did settle down. At school, I asked the students not to take bad feelings about others into the school and to stay on the bus to visit with the principal if they had thoughts of taking any animosity into their school day. Three students were asked to stay behind to have a word with the principal.
I did not accuse the girl of anything when I wrote her up for deportment. I merely described her conduct. I had offered her words of encouragement before writing her up that she could have behaved differently in not exploiting the phrase and tinging her antipathy for the younger boy with charges of rascism. I do not believe the girl I wrote up would even know what the phrase "race baiting" would mean. I just know that the school these children attend is a peace site and dedicated to helping children live in a diverse school community.
By Friday, the concern for living in peace seemed to have a new foothold as the week ended with an afternoon school bus trip home the third last day of the school year with the children's spirits higher than kites, as it were, because the school year was ending in just two more class days.
The event of that Tuesday morning was a distant memory for most of the children the next week as I drove them home from school the last day of the school year. The sun shown brightly and a breeze blew comfortably through the bus windows. I felt elated that I had stood my ground through the school year. This last day was a day of tranquility for my children and we celebrated it with hugs, handshakes, toots on the horn, and waves goodbye for the summer. On the radio I heard another driver report one of his students had tossed a coke bottle and hit the windshield of a passing car. I said a prayer of gratitude that my last day driving this school year was not touched with a similar act of indifference and disrespect. Hopefully, I had had something to do with ending well a fine school year driving bus for the children.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
American Indian Magnate Pow Wow
Last night I was a guest of the American Indian Magnate School (Mounds Park Elementary) and its End of School Year Pow Wow - evening session. The highlight of the evening is that the school principal, Brenda Peltier, was honored and celebrated for her service to the school community. Unforeseen was that two blue heron would fly over the opening prayer and ceremony at the zenith of the sky. Brenda's Indian name is Blue Heron Woman. The regalia of Indian dancers was absolutely stunning and the Indian drummers into their art form as well. I took pictures and clapped and shared in the community spirit. Two teachers walked over to me at one point and offered me a tee shirt for having come out to celebrate with them. I wore it with pride the rest of the evening. I was bus driver this year to this school and its companion World Cultures Magnate. The children are well cared for in this village. The Lakota language specialist Thomas Draskovic worked especially hard coordinating the event. The evening was charmed and charming. It was a blessing to me to be included as a spectator.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama Bin Laden and Little Crow and the Consequence of Violent Dissent
Recently, I read an excellent history of Minnesota titled North Country by Mary Wingert, University of Minnesota Press, 2010. She writes of the pre-inception, inception, and infancy of Minnesota beginning with frontier and territorial days when its first inhabitants did as yet not think of themselves as Minnesotans. As I read this history I began to realize the focus on one seminal character in the basic conflict between aboriginal populations and the European settlers who would supplant them in the State.
This character was not one of the first to find himself in conflict with the Europeans who came into tribal regions to take possession and to remove native populations. He just happened to be a chief of the Mdewauketon band of Dakota people, a chief who was manipulated by the agents of the United States who wanted concessions of his band during the pre-Civil War period.
With time and consequence of unfulfilled treaty obligations, Little Crow learned by experience the betrayal of his own people by his own hand because he had furthered relations with the United States and its agents. Faced with a crisis in his band for leadership of his people, he resolved to die if die he must. He took up a forsaken role as warrior and accepted that death was his lot as the leader of consequence of his people. He is remembered by history as the person who started the Dakota War of 1862, sometimes referred to as Little Crow's War.
I find that Little Crow is an important exemplar of the "lightness of being" I find in those who take responsibility for the community and its welfare. They expend all energies in doing what they regard as right for them to do in support of that community, and then when they realize the futility of their efforts resolve to trust in God to finish the unfinished work or in other words trust in the work being finished by other hands than his or her own hands.
As I have written earlier in this blog, the best example of this is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Because Little Crow trusted in his earlier conditioning as a warrior, he wanted to die fighting the military forces that he had come to believe were about the work of a race war against his Dakota people by ouster, starvation, and slaughter. The higher order conduct of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., is of course the true change agent, but not all leaders have seen this pathway to justice and progress nor a modern media to publicize the racism and injustice of the oppressor.
The purity of the warrior is that in killing another warrior one accepts the groundrules that his opponent is bound by the same code of kill or be killed. Viewed in this light warriors are locked not only in mortal combat but in acceptance of the outcome as not determined by one's personal fate, but rather one is open to the outcome of trial by combat by putting oneself at risk of death by the sword.
In the course of human conduct, the course of warfare is that non-combatants are victimized by warriors who fail to live by chivalry's higher course of conduct. Because Little Crow in starting the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1852 (not causing it just starting it) can not wash his hands of either the fate of his own people or the fate of innocents in a time of war, he has to be viewed as a tragic character (by which I mean both noble and flawed).
The really fine point on this is made by Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Metaphorically, Black Kettle wrapped himself in the American Flag. He trusted in the Great White Father in Washington and he and his wife were slaughtered by the U.S. Cavalry at Washita Massacre. Had Little Crow the same fate as Black Kettle, then it really did not matter what posture the Native American took, the Europeans were about removal and destruction of Native Peoples.
These European Americans spoke of Manifest Destiny and the white man's civilization as the wave of the future for world domination. It's a terrible, terrible legacy for this country, and it lives with us yet as the imperial mindset which is capable of "justice" for others, but lastly for itself and its own criminal acts.
Today, the day I learned of the death of Osama Bin Laden, I fear my own country's capacity to hunt down and kill the dissenter's to capitalism and neo-colonialism as a new world order. If Osama had been brought to trial for his misdeeds on which evidence substantiated his criminality, it would have at least tracked a civilized response to terrorism by an extremist.
The War on Terror is ultimately about our own practices of terrorism by smart bombs and satellite imagery and interrogation by torture. War is not pretty. Little Crow oddly stands a little taller in my perceptions today not because he chose like Osama to take the war to his enemies, but because his dissent was premised on nobility, not hatred of his enemies. I do not agree with the perceptions of Little Crow or Osama, I just believe that the U.S. is no different than these two who can be termed paranoid, or realists, depending on one's point of view. The United States in its War on Terrorism can never prevail when its internal compass is predicated on paranoia, specifically fear of the victims of capitalism and neo-colonialism.
Without an adequate system of justice, victims, driven by the anger of the victim, take the law into their own hands (which is what Osama, and Little Crow, and the U.S. did in seeking military retribution). Osama started the War on Terror its true, but we can not be so glib as to conclude that he caused it! Our demand for oil has made the strangest of bedfellows: western democracies in bed with oligarch's and dictators! As long as these do our bidding we label them friend, and when they dissent we label them evil! Go figure.
In a truly ordered society a trial would have put Osama's conduct up for examination as well as the conduct of those who claimed clean hands before prosecuting him for his misdeeds. The reason trial by the sword works for us is that we won. Osama is dead! Osama is ennobled because he had to know that in taking up the sword he would die by the sword. We have made a hero for the disenfranchised Muslims of the world. Again, go figure! But now we stare in the face the Muslim world across Asia and Africa in which our "friends" are dictators, oligarchs, and butchers. The causes of Osama taking up the sword and having martyre supporters is with us yet.
Note on preferred use of Dakota: Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people are known to most of America as the Sioux people but that name Sioux is used by competitors of of the woodland Dakota peoples, the Chippewa, to whom Sioux means "enemy."
This character was not one of the first to find himself in conflict with the Europeans who came into tribal regions to take possession and to remove native populations. He just happened to be a chief of the Mdewauketon band of Dakota people, a chief who was manipulated by the agents of the United States who wanted concessions of his band during the pre-Civil War period.
With time and consequence of unfulfilled treaty obligations, Little Crow learned by experience the betrayal of his own people by his own hand because he had furthered relations with the United States and its agents. Faced with a crisis in his band for leadership of his people, he resolved to die if die he must. He took up a forsaken role as warrior and accepted that death was his lot as the leader of consequence of his people. He is remembered by history as the person who started the Dakota War of 1862, sometimes referred to as Little Crow's War.
I find that Little Crow is an important exemplar of the "lightness of being" I find in those who take responsibility for the community and its welfare. They expend all energies in doing what they regard as right for them to do in support of that community, and then when they realize the futility of their efforts resolve to trust in God to finish the unfinished work or in other words trust in the work being finished by other hands than his or her own hands.
As I have written earlier in this blog, the best example of this is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Because Little Crow trusted in his earlier conditioning as a warrior, he wanted to die fighting the military forces that he had come to believe were about the work of a race war against his Dakota people by ouster, starvation, and slaughter. The higher order conduct of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., is of course the true change agent, but not all leaders have seen this pathway to justice and progress nor a modern media to publicize the racism and injustice of the oppressor.
The purity of the warrior is that in killing another warrior one accepts the groundrules that his opponent is bound by the same code of kill or be killed. Viewed in this light warriors are locked not only in mortal combat but in acceptance of the outcome as not determined by one's personal fate, but rather one is open to the outcome of trial by combat by putting oneself at risk of death by the sword.
In the course of human conduct, the course of warfare is that non-combatants are victimized by warriors who fail to live by chivalry's higher course of conduct. Because Little Crow in starting the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1852 (not causing it just starting it) can not wash his hands of either the fate of his own people or the fate of innocents in a time of war, he has to be viewed as a tragic character (by which I mean both noble and flawed).
The really fine point on this is made by Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Metaphorically, Black Kettle wrapped himself in the American Flag. He trusted in the Great White Father in Washington and he and his wife were slaughtered by the U.S. Cavalry at Washita Massacre. Had Little Crow the same fate as Black Kettle, then it really did not matter what posture the Native American took, the Europeans were about removal and destruction of Native Peoples.
These European Americans spoke of Manifest Destiny and the white man's civilization as the wave of the future for world domination. It's a terrible, terrible legacy for this country, and it lives with us yet as the imperial mindset which is capable of "justice" for others, but lastly for itself and its own criminal acts.
Today, the day I learned of the death of Osama Bin Laden, I fear my own country's capacity to hunt down and kill the dissenter's to capitalism and neo-colonialism as a new world order. If Osama had been brought to trial for his misdeeds on which evidence substantiated his criminality, it would have at least tracked a civilized response to terrorism by an extremist.
The War on Terror is ultimately about our own practices of terrorism by smart bombs and satellite imagery and interrogation by torture. War is not pretty. Little Crow oddly stands a little taller in my perceptions today not because he chose like Osama to take the war to his enemies, but because his dissent was premised on nobility, not hatred of his enemies. I do not agree with the perceptions of Little Crow or Osama, I just believe that the U.S. is no different than these two who can be termed paranoid, or realists, depending on one's point of view. The United States in its War on Terrorism can never prevail when its internal compass is predicated on paranoia, specifically fear of the victims of capitalism and neo-colonialism.
Without an adequate system of justice, victims, driven by the anger of the victim, take the law into their own hands (which is what Osama, and Little Crow, and the U.S. did in seeking military retribution). Osama started the War on Terror its true, but we can not be so glib as to conclude that he caused it! Our demand for oil has made the strangest of bedfellows: western democracies in bed with oligarch's and dictators! As long as these do our bidding we label them friend, and when they dissent we label them evil! Go figure.
In a truly ordered society a trial would have put Osama's conduct up for examination as well as the conduct of those who claimed clean hands before prosecuting him for his misdeeds. The reason trial by the sword works for us is that we won. Osama is dead! Osama is ennobled because he had to know that in taking up the sword he would die by the sword. We have made a hero for the disenfranchised Muslims of the world. Again, go figure! But now we stare in the face the Muslim world across Asia and Africa in which our "friends" are dictators, oligarchs, and butchers. The causes of Osama taking up the sword and having martyre supporters is with us yet.
Note on preferred use of Dakota: Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people are known to most of America as the Sioux people but that name Sioux is used by competitors of of the woodland Dakota peoples, the Chippewa, to whom Sioux means "enemy."
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