Torture 2; also Right Livelihood

The NYT has another story up about the deaths at Bagram (via Body and Soul, who accompanies her link with a discusison of the value of the big daily papers).

Why doesn't the NYT just put the full 2,000 page pentagon report online, and let the world sort out the facts of the case? By publishing the leak, they are saying "this is a secret the world should know." So why not let us know it? The argument for protecting US national interest is feeble. Plato argued well in the Republic that the best thing that can happen to an unjust person is for their crimes to become known. Only then can they begin to restore balance to their souls.

Below the fold: rambling thoughts on children and what I am and am not doing to save the world.



I've been thinking about torture a lot for the past few days. I've been really busy, but I've been thinking about torture. I've had surgery, and then a *lot* of childcare. My house has become more like the house of my bloggy hero, Jo(e). I have extras in the house! Our neighbor, Kung Fu Coffee Mamma, sent her children Ballerina Child and Informant Child to us, while she went to Colorado to meet her husband, who is coming home from Iraq. Well, in addition to the two extras, I and some other daddies ran day care at our house for 12 children yesterday while Molly and all the women in her mommy circle had a babyshower/wimmin's power ritual. Then today I took Molly's shift and the day care co-op while Molly finished a job.

But listen, all I have been thinking about while I was surrounded by all these adorable moppets is torture. (D. Boon, circa 1983: "I try to talk girls, and I keep thinking of World War III! I've got a pile of numbers and a ton of stats! Of warheads! of millions and piles of warheads!) Chomsky is fond of saying, when anyone asks "what can I do?" that the answer is obvious. "Obvious. There are hundreds groups working on these issues." I don't think Noam understands the question, though. The question isn't "What can be done" but "what can I do given the structure of my life?" How can I help dismantle the empire and hold down a job and take care of kids?

Here's a little platonic dialogue Molly and I had today:

Me: I want to add Amnesty to our list of charities. Can I sign up for $15 a month if we promise to never buy overpriced food on campus ever again?

MollY: I don't believe you.

Me: Please

Molly: This is not a good time. I'm quitting work when the baby comes, and we owe a thousand to the insulation people and four hundred to Organic Farmer Lady.

(She picked good debt examples here. These are all very high minded expenses: we are having additional insulation put in the house because the energy audit we purchased said we could be more energy efficient. We have also purchased a subscription from a local organic farmer for a summer's worth of produce.)

Me: But a taxi driver in Kabul...

Molly: I can't bear to hear it.

Me:

Molly: I'm trying to save the world by populating it with reasonable people.

Me: I just had a vasectomy.

OK, so then I'm thinking that what I really need to do is get a job in activism, then I wouldn't have to balance saving the world with work and family. Since I've been thinking about the death of Mr. Dilawar, I'm thinking about going to law school in international human rights law. Molly is excited about anything that smells like a change of career, because it might mean we will move to a real city. But the ugly truth is international human rights lawyers are less employable than philophers. Philosophers are generally to worried about abstractions to cause real trouble. International human rights lawyer just means trouble maker.

The other think is that I actually believe in what I do currently. The first day of my intro class uses a trick I learned from a woman at the last AAPT conference. I write "The unexamined life is not for a human being" on the board. Then I distrubite dry earase pens and leave the classroom. I don't return until the students have filled the board with responses. I teach ethics and critical thinking. I believe I can make the world better by filling it with people who are more ethical and think more critically. I guess Molly and I are a lot alike

Ok, so what I've been thinking about is what the Buddhists call Right Livelhood. I could type more about the things I have been thinking on this topic, but I'm just spinning my wheels. I'm going to the Amnesty site and seeing if they have any petitions to sign or letters to write. It's late (in my world) so I'm not going to be able to do serious work until tomorrow.