Ramblings From Justin Penney

There are now some serious talks about closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. This is where we've been housing "enemy combatants" without any due process of law.

I don't see what abandoning a building does in this situation. It's not like the Bush administration is dramatically changing it's policy and ceasing the detainment of people without any recourse. It will just be moved somewhere else so it's low key for a while. Until this war on terror debacle I hadn't even heard of this naval base. Gitmo is the oldest overseas Navy base, a pretty unique existence. What does closing it now really do? Well, it makes us look the other way for a while. It's like closing Abu Ghraib. There are still prisons. The same people that were working there are still working in that field. The prisoners are still in prison. Just a different location. A change of scenery.

We're so hung up on symbolism and emotional attachment above all else. That makes us weak. We take things: flags, colors, sayings . . . and we attach so much meaning and importance to a fabricated idea that we'll fight over them. We'll spend hours enraged over a piece of fabric or a phrase tacked on to a stanza of words. We create these gaping holes of insecurity and they are exploited by both enemy and ally.

Everything has a symbol now. All manners of illnesses awareness and virtuous movements have a rainbow of pins, ribbons, magnets, bracelets. You take a trinket and feel good . . . like you're really doing something. But it's just a token on an intent. It's not an action and it's not changing anything.

Ceasing to use a building doesn't fix it. Changing the action does.

# posted by Justin @ 8:50 PM