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Bye-bye Bybee movement mounting, protesting 'torture judge' healthy
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The three women in their 50’s and 60’s escorted out of a Pasadena, California courthouse yesterday after telling Judge Jay Bybee that he is a torturer and needs to resign, say they will be back.
Bybee, former Bush administration lawyer, is author of the recently-declassified federal documents called the "torture memos."
Reprieve estimates that 80,000 people have been through the "rendition" system, kidnapped and taken to secret prisons. According to specialists such as U.S. Air Force reservist, Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, the American public has only seen the "tip of the iceberg" of torture horrors secretly practiced in their name.
The man now called the “torture judge,” Bybee sat at 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena yesterday.
Members of Code Pink, Progressive Democrats, World Can't Wait, and others were at the court protesting “the outrageousness that someone who thinks torture is legal is sitting in judgment on others,” according to the invitation sent to thousands of LA area citizens before the protest.
The invitation requested that protesters wear handcuffs, orange jump suits, hoods, and signs calling for Bybee’s resignation.
Change the world change your health
“It’s very depressing to see our government protecting criminals and allowing them to hold high-level positions, Dianne Wright said, “It’s up to us to refuse to be silent,” adding “It was bit scary.”
Wright, co-coordinator of this and a similar event two weeks ago, stated, “It’s powerful to be present outside the court, even just quietly holding a sign.”
In addition to potentially changing the world, joining people such as Wright and citizen action groups in protests can be just what the doctor ordered.
In a University of Sussex study led by Dr. John Drury, lecturer in Social Psychology, psychologists interviewed activists who had participated in over 160 collective actions.
The study found that the activists experience emotions that are beneficial for mental health and that can lead to better health and longevity.
These benefits are from power of "collective action" when people gather for a common cause and act in unison for a purpose, according to Drury.
In The Humanist report, Raising Hell May be Good for Your Health, Timothy Lutero writes that “activists intend to improve a community, and that sense of purpose provides feelings of happiness and fulfillment.”
Wright said that the rest of the protesters remained outside the court when she and two others went into the courtroom.
Two security guards interacted with the three, one polite and the other “quite rude” according to Wright.
The younger of the two guards, a Marine back from the Middle East, kept ordering one of the protesters, Susan Harmon, “Stop talking to me! Don’t talk to me!” Watkins said.
The women “waited for the gavel to go down after the session before calling Bybee a “torturer” and calling for his resignation, reported Wright, adding, “but we were not ‘yelling’ as one reporter wrote.”
Bybee ignored the protesters, “But he heard us,” said Wright. “It was a small room. We’ll be there at the court again next time he is.”
Learn More, take action, ask “Why” and “Why Not?” Join the group next time Bybee is at The Richard H. Chambers Courthouse, 125 South Grand Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105. For more info, contact Dianne Wright, 323-661-3681, dianne.writing@sbcglobal.net
