My New Hero: Cathy Wright
She's 61, a grandmother, and she just started a 60 day jail sentence for trespassing. Cathy Webster is my new hero. Her story was reported in yesterday's Sacramento Bee.
Cathy Webster, a Chico grandmother of four, says she will not be silent. It says so on the black T-shirt she wore Wednesday as she reported to jail to begin a two-month federal sentence for trespassing at a military training facility in Fort Benning, Ga.
In November, Webster, a member of Grandmothers for Peace International in Elk Grove, slipped through a hole in the chain-link fence encircling the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It's the site of yearly vigils protesting what Webster, 61, and other critics allege is a training center for Latin American military squads.
Outside the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center south of Elk Grove, she urged Congress to close the federal facility in Fort Benning, which occupies the same site as the now-defunct School of the Americas -- a training center accused of teaching military techniques to Latin American soldiers and law enforcement personnel who, protesters charge, then use the training against their own people.
The U.S. Army, which runs the facility, has denied the allegations. But in 1966, the Pentagon admitted that torture manuals had been used in the School of the Americas. The school was shut down in 2000, reopening a month later with its new name. Defense Department officials said the curriculum's focus would be on human rights.
The very idea that there is an organization named "Grandmothers For Peace" should give hope to those of us who are sickened by the current state of this country, with its approval of torture, its constant sabre rattling, its trashing of the Constitution. It should also give us a good kick in the backside. When the federal government has taken away everything that was good and decent about this country, civil disobedience is the last best hope for righting things.
Recent world history has shown the power that such people as Cathy Wright can generate. In Eastern Europe and in Lebanon, power mad and corrupt dictators have been turned out of power by the massive assembly of citizens protesting the wrongs those governments have perpetuated. It may now be our turn.
Thanks for the reminder, Ms. Wright, of our duties as citizens. Thanks for being such a good example.
Cathy Webster, a Chico grandmother of four, says she will not be silent. It says so on the black T-shirt she wore Wednesday as she reported to jail to begin a two-month federal sentence for trespassing at a military training facility in Fort Benning, Ga.
In November, Webster, a member of Grandmothers for Peace International in Elk Grove, slipped through a hole in the chain-link fence encircling the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It's the site of yearly vigils protesting what Webster, 61, and other critics allege is a training center for Latin American military squads.
Outside the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center south of Elk Grove, she urged Congress to close the federal facility in Fort Benning, which occupies the same site as the now-defunct School of the Americas -- a training center accused of teaching military techniques to Latin American soldiers and law enforcement personnel who, protesters charge, then use the training against their own people.
The U.S. Army, which runs the facility, has denied the allegations. But in 1966, the Pentagon admitted that torture manuals had been used in the School of the Americas. The school was shut down in 2000, reopening a month later with its new name. Defense Department officials said the curriculum's focus would be on human rights.
The very idea that there is an organization named "Grandmothers For Peace" should give hope to those of us who are sickened by the current state of this country, with its approval of torture, its constant sabre rattling, its trashing of the Constitution. It should also give us a good kick in the backside. When the federal government has taken away everything that was good and decent about this country, civil disobedience is the last best hope for righting things.
Recent world history has shown the power that such people as Cathy Wright can generate. In Eastern Europe and in Lebanon, power mad and corrupt dictators have been turned out of power by the massive assembly of citizens protesting the wrongs those governments have perpetuated. It may now be our turn.
Thanks for the reminder, Ms. Wright, of our duties as citizens. Thanks for being such a good example.
Labels: Citizenship
posted by Diane at 3:37 AM
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