Monday, November 27, 2006

"Hidden In Plain Sight" Screening

The Walpole Peace and Justice Group is continuing it's speakers series on Dec. 5th with the video, Hidden In Plain Sight. We have choosen this film due to the fact that it documents the history of the infamous School of the Americas at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia which just had 16 people arrested for civil disobedience, out of a crowd of 22,000 that demonstrated on Nov. 17 - 19 to close the school. Since 1990, there have been annual demonstrations to close the school that has grown from a few 100 to around 20,000 in 2005 and 22,000 in 2006. There have been over 170 people arrested who have served more than 78 years in federal prison and local jails. These demonstators come from all over the U.S. and are made up of religous leaders, teachers, veterans, students, grandmothers and torture survivors.


Hidden In Plain Sight


The reason that so many people want to close this school is because it has been training many of the worst human rights violators in many of the countries of Latin America. These people object to the fact that our tax dollars are being used to promote a foreign policy that has supported many oppressive goverments. The film, Hidden In Plain Sight, gives a good overview of this foreign policy and how The School of the Americas has been used as a tool by various governments to control the poor. If you want to see why so many people in Latin America (especially the poor) don't like the U.S., then please come see this very revealing film.

The film will be shown at the Walpoe Public Library at 7:30 on Dec. 5th.