  |
 |
| |
|
|
|
 Young Scholars Tell the President ‘No’ on TorturePosted on Jul 10, 2007By Amy Goodman President Bush got a lesson from a group of recent high school graduates. They were Presidential Scholars, a program designed “to recognize and provide leadership development experiences for some of America’s most outstanding graduating high-school seniors.” The 141 Presidential Scholars were being honored at the White House. One of them, Mari Oye, from Wellesley, Mass., describes what happened: “The president walked in and gave us a short speech saying that as we went on into our careers, it was important to treat others as we would like to be treated. And he told us that we would have to make choices we would be able to live with for the rest of our lives. And so, I said to the president, ‘Several of us made a choice, and we would like you to have this,’ and handed him the letter.” It was a letter Mari had handwritten. It read: “As members of the Presidential Scholars class of 2007, we have been told that we represent the best and brightest of our nation. Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to voice our convictions. We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.” The letter was signed by close to 50 of the students, more than a third of the Presidential Scholars. Mari described Bush’s reaction to the letter: “He read down the letter. He got to the part about torture. He looked up, and he said, ‘America doesn’t torture people.’ And I said, ‘If you look specifically at what we said, we said, we ask you to cease illegal renditions. Please remove your signing statement to the McCain anti-torture bill.’ “At that point, he just said, ‘America doesn’t torture people’ again.” In fact, after Bush signed the bill that outlawed the torture of detainees last year, he quietly issued a “signing statement” reserving the right to bypass the law, as he has more than 1,100 times, issuing more signing statements than all other U.S. presidents combined. Mari knows a little bit about detention. Not high school detention, but detention Guantanamo-style. Mari recounted this to the president: “I said that for me personally, the issue of detainee rights also had a lot of importance, because my grandparents had been interned during World War II for being Japanese-American.” The government has since apologized for imprisoning more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans during the war. Mari said she was also inspired to act by her mother, Willa Michener. She, too, was a Presidential Scholar—40 years ago, in 1968—and had wanted to confront President Lyndon Johnson with her opposition to the Vietnam War. She deferred to a teacher, who Mari said “stressed it was important to stay quiet when you’re in the presence of the president.” Willa Michener has regretted it since, Mari said. Mari called her mother as soon as she left the White House to tell her what she had done. “She was actually in the Holocaust Museum in the last room when I called her to say that we had given the letter. She didn’t know there was a letter beforehand. ... And she said that she walked out into the bright sunlight with tears streaming down her face, but since a lot of people walk out of the Holocaust Museum that way, you know, no one noticed anything out of the ordinary.” Another Presidential Scholar, Leah Anthony Libresco, from Long Island, N.Y., helped write the letter. She, like Mari, is remarkably eloquent. “If I’m going to be in the room with the president, I’ve got to say something, because silence betokens consent, and there’s a lot going on I don’t want to consent to.” Her middle name, Anthony, comes from the famous suffragist Susan B. Anthony. Afraid that Mari’s letter would be confiscated before she was able to deliver it to the president, Leah had a handwritten copy of it—yes, up her sleeve. She handed it to a reporter, as she said later in a blog, “at The No Child Left Behind photo op for which the Scholars were apparently supposed to be a backdrop.” With young leaders like Mari Oye and Leah Anthony Libresco speaking truth to power at so young an age, and demonstrating such eloquence, courage and discipline, the only thing that looks likely to get left behind are politicians like George Bush and his torture policies. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America. © 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate Previous item: Resolute on Iraq: To What End? Next item: Bush's Pakistan Paradox Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
By Skruff, July 18, 2007 at 2:09 pm # geoffludt on 7/11 at 7:01 am “How is this relevant? Are we looking now to the wisdom of high school graduates for guidance? Talk about “American Idiot"s ...” Maybe you are right, but personally I was far more passionate, far more involved, and considerablly closer to giving a shit when I was in high school. Also, these young people are closer to the front lines in Iraq than any of their supposedly “more aware” elders. People here have quoted the bible, and Johnny Cash.... I hear the words of Pink Floyd.
By Scott Enk, July 13, 2007 at 5:56 pm # Talk about youths speaking truth to power! These refreshingly honest and courageous young people, despite so much of what we’ve read, heard, and seen in recent years, give one heart for the future of our nation and world. I am far from alone in being honored by being able to publicly salute them!
By An Ottawa Reader, July 12, 2007 at 11:57 am # Damn. Those are some pretty brave kids. There are stories told about Nicolae Ceausescu that towards the end of his reign, when he did walkabouts in his kingdom, people would sometimes try to pass him notes telling him how desperate things had become in Communist Romania, thinking the Leader couldn’t possibly have let things get so bad if he’d known what was going on out there. Ceausescu would accept the letters graciously, and pass them on to the Securitate, the secret police. The petitioners were rewarded for their bravery by being imprisoned or shot. I have to wonder what Bush did with the letter.
By jbart, July 11, 2007 at 6:04 pm # In commenting to another story, I asked a single question. How can we, as we did in the 7-tees, affect change. The answer is here, like right in front of our eyes, the next generation. Our kids. They don’t have the burdens of support we’ve gotten ourselves into, over the years. They have the “flexibilities” that we all had in the 7-tees(when we were their ages). Brilliant answer. Get our kids to fight the “good fight”. But...are they willing to? These scholars seem to be, but all of our kids aren’t scholars, are they? Are they willing to “stand up” for their futures? And the futures of their kid’s generation? Maybe the answer is to get them to understand the power of protest. Maybe get them to get involved in their futures. Good idea, I think.
By rage, July 11, 2007 at 3:27 pm # And, a little child shall lead them! Out of the mouths of babies!
By Dale Headley, July 11, 2007 at 2:17 pm # These are the future leaders of America; and I rejoice that they got to watch the craven lying of the man first hand. Maybe this will prepare them for making wiser political choices than did many of their parents. My guess is that every one of these students would score 500 points higher, at least, on the SAT test than George Bush. The future is starting to look a little brighter than it did a couple of years ago.
By middlepath, July 11, 2007 at 6:27 am # Correction to faith’s post below, President Bush graduated from Yale, not Princeton.
By Debra Keasal, July 11, 2007 at 5:36 am # The scary bit is the fact that the students were worried their letter would be confiscated. I hadn’t realised that the First Amendment had been repealed.
By THOMAS BILLIS, July 11, 2007 at 4:50 am # I am not a religious person but as I read the blog the phrase “and a child shall lead them"kept popping into my head.Whether you agree or disagree with politics of the note it has to make you feel good about America that we can produce kids like this who understand the concept of speaking truth to power.Kids you are my heroes.
By eric swan, July 10, 2007 at 8:27 pm # interesting. the girls seem to have more courage than the boys. Add Your Comment |
|
UN Envoy Heads to Burma with Urgent Relief Message
Email
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Ma.gnolia
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo
Jump to Comments
Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|Comment Policy
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
COMMENT TOOLS:
Hide comments
Show comments
Comment on this article