Ethan Persoff posted scans of this CIA-produced comic book indended for the good people of Granada. I have mirrored the posting here and added a little commentary of my own.
Civics Lesson 1: 22 December 2005
When I was 19, taking a bus out of New York City, I struck up a conversation
with a fellow who had just served time at a Federal Penitentiary in Indiana.
He described how important it was to be respectful in prison; it is how you
survive. Failure to give respect, to 'dis'respect, is a serious social error
that is only made by mistake among peers, or by people without social power.
His point has a reverse corollary: deliberately disrespectful behavior is not
only an indication of social power, but an assertion of it. This principle holds
true at multiple scales: from the individual aristocrat who insisted that the
commoner yield way (and similar intimate condescensions), to discourse among
social, political, and academic elites about others and their problems: 'others'
being any number of different categorizations which may in themselves be dubious
groupings, consistent only in that the Other is not included among those who
can participate in the discourse in any substantial way. Disrespect also scales
up to diplomacy. Militarily powerful countries that casually disregard the sovereignty
of other states and peoples are indicating not only that they feel they can
get away with such arrogance, but that for some reason they have a greater right;
that they are superior to others; and that they do not depend upon the goodwill
of other countries for their own long-term welfare.
It would seem that I have just stated the obvious. But the foregoing lesson,
understood by an ex-con, Machiavelli, and any number of thinkers in between,
suggests that the United States would benefit from a radical reversal of foreign
policy. A short list of recommendations:
1. Sign onto international agreements, including:
-the International Criminal Court
-the small arms treaty and the landmines treaty
2. Return to compliance with treaties we once ratified, including:
-the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war
-the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty
-the Fourth,
Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (please review them
against domestic wiretapping and holding prisoners without charge for more than
four years). And torture violates the 8th Amendment, which does not specify
whether the prisoner is held on U.S. territory or not.
Civics Lesson 2: 29 December 2005
When I was 22, taking an overnight train from Los Angeles to Phoenix, I met
an old man who had the big, gnarled hands of someone who had worked hard with
them for decades. At the end of our conversation, he said, "Remember: the best
you can do is make the world a little bit better, however you can. That is the
best that any of us can do."
I honor his advice and wisdom. I give my life to this principle.
My best hope is that through my work, research, writing, teaching, and collaboration
with others, I can help make cites more livable, more resource-efficient, and
better public environments in which the residents become citizens,
aware of both their rights and responsibilites towards similar and different
others. This public awareness can only be sustained through repeated personal
contact with others, through a daily practice of coping with diversity in a
civil manner. Tolerance and a cosmopolitan worldview are not abstract principles
which can be adopted in isolation; they must be lived on a daily basis. They
can only be lived in an environment—cultural as well as spatial—which
allows for citizenship. The environment itself must also be actively maintained.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I took about two hours to process the
shock of what had just happened in New York and Washington, and then I went
to work. I was overseeing the construction of 193 low-income housing units in
San Francisco, at a time when housing was desperately needed in SF. My work
was the opposite of the terrorists: I had taken years to work through all the
legal hassles and design problems to get housing built for people; the terrorists
were killing and destroying in haste.
In a visceral sense, commitment to creative, constructive work is a psychological
tonic for me as well. In the spring of 2003, as it looked like the United States
was about to invade Iraq, many of my friends were distressed by our obvious
inability to prevent our president from committing this act in our name, and
burdening our descendants with the disgrace and taxes for it. The dismay in
San Francisco was palpable and very understandable; but I was insulated from
this grief by my work. At the invitation of Afghan-American engineers I was
preparing to work for the Afghan Transitional Administration in Kabul, helping
the new Ministry of Urban Development and Housing formulate policy. I do not
agree with the men whose violent acts created this opportunity, but I will always
be thankful that I have the chance to do creative work.