pen event

The pen event last Tuesday was really moving. It had an amazing list of literary figures coming together to reflect on the American policy towards torture. The line up included: With Edward Albee, Paul Auster, Sandra Cisneros, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Martín Espada, Philip Gourevitch, Jessica Hagedorn, Heidi Julavits, Nicole Krauss, Rick Moody, Emma Reverter, Salman Rushdie, Martha Southgate, and Colson Whitehead.
It was a very powerful reading that made me feel that I need to do more to prevent what is happening in this country. To be completely honest I felt as though we were living through something that we will be ashamed of later. We will have to individually excuse ourselves from what is happening. One day my grandchildren may come to me and ask what I did to try and stop the torture and the kidnapping, the anti immigrant madness. I feel as though we will shun talking about it one day just as aging Germans probably do, just as southern whites during Jim Crow would have to explain themselves whenever the subject turns to the past. This may seem very extreme but I can't help but feel as if this is going to appear much more horrific through the lens of history. I feel so very complacent, so bought. The reading has spurned me into action, I haven't yet decided on the best strategies to adopt to try and stop these terrible policies. I have some ideas and am formulating others. If anyone out here has any good and successful methods letters they are involved in, not just internet chain mail, I would love to hear about them.