Posted by themonitor on July 15, 2008
This week’s guests:
– CCR President Michael Ratner on SCOTUS ruling allowing Gitmo detainees to challenge their detention
– Professor Catherine Lutz on US bases in Iraq
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Michael Ratner
Michael Ratner returns to the Monitor to discuss the Supreme Court ruling granting detainees at Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge their detentions using writs of Habeas Corpus. Michael is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York, New York.
He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, and a textbook on international human rights. Ratner is also the co-host of the radio program, Law and Disorder. He and three other attorneys host the Pacifica radio show that reports legal developments related to civil liberties, civil rights and human rights.
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Catherine Lutz
Catherine Lutz is a Watson Institute professor (research) and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Anthropology. She talks about the leaked report on the details of US bases in Iraq and the immunity being sought for US military personnel (and civilian contractors) from prosecution for crimes committed in Iraq. Her most recent books include Local Democracy under Siege: Activism, Public Interests, and Private Politics (New York University Press, 2007) and Homefront: A Military City and the American 20th Century (Beacon Press, 2001, winner of the Leeds Prize and the Victor Turner Prize).
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Posted by themonitor on July 15, 2008
UT Professor ROBERT JENSEN on current events
This week’s guest will be ROBERT JENSEN, an associate professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas in Austin. We’ll look at current events, including the recent controversy between George W. Bush and Barack Obama about whether meeting with adversaries is a good idea, or treason.
About what Bush said, reported by Yahoo:
Bush gave a speech to Israel’s Knesset in which he spoke of the president of Iran. Then, Bush said: “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history,” Bush added.
Prof. Jensen has done work on media and power. He has delved into the topic of pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality for over a decade. He has addressed questions of race through a critique of white privilege and institutionalized racism. In speaking and writing he has challenged American assumptions of patriotism and empire, and he is involved in a number of activist groups working against U.S. military and economic domination of the rest of the world.
His undiluted views have stirred controversy; in 2004 he was named on a “professor watch list” published by Young Conservatives of Texas. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a professional journalist for a decade. A native of Fargo, North Dakota, he obtained his Ph.D. in media ethics and law in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. He lives in Austin.
RECENT BOOKS:
“Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity”
“The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege”
“Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity”
“Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream”
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