Torture state
Does anyone, this side of the truly deluded -- really believe Olbermann is wrong?I'm a blame-America-firster, I admit it. Because it has so often been to blame. It's done some really shit things, caused a lot of misery and pain.
But I wish I couldn't say that America tortures. I truly do. Because there are decent Americans, not necessarily clear on their nation's past, not sure who did what, when, who are now citizens of a pariah state. Yeah, our governments will pretend, our businesses will trade with them, but we all know it.
And before you complain that it's out of your hands, remember, you can demand change. You have streets to march on. You have phones you can use to ring your representatives and demand that you stop being a nation that tortures.
And for fuck's sake, at least vote Democrat next time. Don't make the same mistake for the third time.
posted by Dr Zen @ 4:03 pm
13 Comments:
Olbermann has everything in the right place, but oh god how I wish he wasn't so carried away by the power of his own bombast.
I think Americans divide into two sorts. You have those who think Jack Bauer is a role-model, and don't see what's wrong with torture anyway, if there's a ticking bomb, and they're happy to believe there is.
Then you have those who hate this as much as you and I do, but they're in denial because it strikes to the heart of their very myth of America, and perhaps themselves. Maybe there's a possibility it's not torture, they think. Because what could be worse than to be a torture state, as your title says?
I'll tell you what could be worse: to be a gallows state. For me, this torture thing only reinforces what we already knew about the land of the free and the home of the brave: they are already in bed with the juntas, and the dictators, and the despots. Now we know they hand over their prisoners to the filth of nations in order to have them tortured. But we already knew that America stands alongside North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran and China as a nation that murders its own citizens in cold blood. Talk about shared values. We already knew that America had willingly rejected the appeals from every single civilised nation, as well as recalcitrants like Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Cambodia, the list goes on.
I'm no longer taken in by the American myth, if I ever was. But it's not because they torture. However if that straw helps to break the backs of a few people in denial, that's good. As long as they do something about it.
I think that because not every state murders its citizens, they can wriggle into a cosy, "states rights" corner. But yeah, I don't have illusions about the USA, obviously. I just think this is a new low for them, and one that the ordinary people -- the Dons, the Paulas, and so on -- cannot hide away from. Particularly given that they voted the cunts in.
Well, I do agree about the torture--and that I made a mistake voting for Bush (voted Gore in 2000). Of course I'll vote Dem this time, though I'm not sure if having a Dem Prez will make everyone love us. We're still going to be out there, "interfering." We're still going to do biz with China and Saudi Arabia. We'll still support Israel. My hope is that we can simply provide decent health care to our own citizens, which shows how far I've lowered the bar, and that might still be too high.
Oh, I am confident that by the time November 2008 rolls around, the Repubs will have succeeded again in dragging everyone down to a "one's as bad as another" mentality about the candidates like in 2004, and we'll end up with someone who makes Bush look like a peacenik libertarian.
How could electing a Dem make any difference? They are as beholden to the people who control our strategic direction as any Republican. You already know this. You already know America to be in the hands of corporations who care for nothing but profit, who are keeping other peoples down to keep costs low and maximize that profit. You know damn well that the first Clinton did nothing to reverse this, that Carter encouraged conflict (albeit, it can be alleged, unwittingly), and that Kennedy involved us in a nasty and unnecessary foreign war. What makes you think Clinton II will be any different?
A clear example of an evil corporation is Google. They and Yahoo collude with the Chinese to keep dissidents in prison for the sake of the internet action. Yet neither of those corporations are thought of as Republican fronts by any means. Google filters search results towards a leftward slant. Point: It makes no difference which way powerful Americans seem to lean. When it comes to keeping American power interests, they are all the same, left, right and center.
I oppose waterboarding: It is torture and should be punished.
I also am no fan of the death penalty but to refer to it as murder while referring to abortion as a private family planning matter requires a moral contortionism of such a degree we are easily reminded that Europeans are no less capable of the sort of denial you speak of than we are. History just happens at this time to give you a moral high ground in matters of foreign policy. This has changed in the past, and will again in future, however smug you can enjoy being at present.
by the time November 2008 rolls around, the Repubs will have succeeded again in dragging everyone down
The Dems don't do this? Come on, this is how American politics has worked since the beginning, Republican, Democrat, Federalist or Whig. Mass communication technology has intensified the dynamic a great deal, but to single out one side and not the other is hypocritical.
Don, the usual farrago of rightwing talking points. So let's have a look. Numbered for your convenience.
1/ Electing a Democrat would make a huge difference. Have you been asleep for the past seven years? Clinton was a hugely successful, moderate leader, who stabilised your nation after the damage done by Reagan/Bush. The only reason your economy has not collapsed under the severe bashing handed it by the neocons is that Clinton left it in such a secure state. You are simply repeating rightwing bullshit about Clinton. Yes, he was no progressive, but no, he wasn't as bad as the rightists. He made *some* attempt to redress the balance. Very difficult in your political climate. Dude, why do you think the right hated him so much? It wasn't just for being goodlooking, you know.
2/ "Google filters search results... leftward." Keep taking the tablets, you lunatic. I'm guessing you picked that up from a rightwing blog. It's a meme there. Your point's bullshit. Corporations are not "left" by definition (with the possible exception of John Lewis in the UK). Google's founders may have been leftists in their youth, but they are model rightists now.
3/ I'm glad you "oppose waterboarding". I look forward to your blogpost condemning it.
4/ Fetuses are not alive, Don, so they cannot be murdered. This is about the weakest defence of the death penalty that you can come up with. I'm not going to do this argument with you right now though.
5/ It's rather typical of Americans to say "yeah, but you've done it too". Yes, we have, but we're not doing it now. That's kind of the point. I do not excuse Europeans of the bad they do. I do not excuse my own nation of its part in the illegal invasion of Iraq. I believe Blair should be in prison, Don. I marched to stop it. I wrote my MP. And I personally have had the moral high ground when it comes to the States *always*, Don, because you've always been fucking horrible. And you likely always will be. All we're saying is that this is the horriblest you've been. "Wah wah, you've been horrible too" does not absolve you, because as any child, but seemingly no rightist, knows, two wrongs do not make a right.
6/ No, actually, the Dems don't do it. The Dems have just been blown away by how dirty your side plays it. I'd be ashamed to be a Republican right now. Ashamed, Don. Not arguing my side's case. Not going "wah wah, you're just as bad". Hiding my face in shame at how dirty, how disgusting, how sordid my side is.
Paula, I know, you were conned in '04. A lot of people were. It's easy to be scared when you are getting a steady stream of scare stories and propaganda. I recognise that it's harder on the inside than it is on the outside, because it was so plain to us outside that you were making a huge mistake. And yeah, you'll still do bad things. But there are degrees of bad. Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney plan *worse* than Bush. Particularly Giuliani.
And bob, I have to say, it's not just the Republicans. It's the corporate media. They are living in a world completely removed from ours, and in their world, politics is like chess, a game played by sides of equal strength, with well-understood rules. It's the only way they can understand what's happening, and it's disastrous because you do not get commentary on what's really going on.
1. Your opinions re Clinton are not universal.
2. I can't be bothered recreating my personal experience, so take the point.
3. I won't blog it. My so-called blog isn't for this stuff anymore. Hasn't been for awhile.
4. I was not defending the death penalty, dunno where you got that from. "Fetuses are not alive" is an opinion unproven. IOW there is doubt on that point, and where there is doubt we should consider erring on the side of human rights.
5. That you've done it too was not my point. Rather that your moral superiority, or anyone's, when not just a perception, is cyclical.
6. What is "my" side? I am not a Repub. The Dems are not better, as you would know if you paid less biased attention. (Admittedly, I will have to choose a representative of one or the other, or not vote seriously in that contest.)
1. No, it's not universal. His huge success drove you rightard nutjobs crazy. But you didn't hate him for being wrong, or for doing wrong, but for being the best president since FDR. Even FDR wouldn't have done much better in the awful climate that prevailed in the 90s.
2. IOW, you have nothing. WAINS.
3. It's the only voice you have and you won't use it out of sheer moral cowardice, which is so you.
4. I agree that we should err on the side of human rights, which is why I'm so strongly prochoice and against forced pregnancy as a punishment for women who dare to have sex.
5. Luckily for me, my moral superiority is eternal because I'm not a "my country can do no wrong" patriot. Indeed, I'm not a patriot of any type unless England are playing football.
6. Your side is the right, Don. I don't care which particular brand of horrible ghoul you are, because I despise rightists whichever shade they come in. Don, please try not to repeat rightist talking points as though they were actually grounded in fact. The Dems are much much better. They suffer from it, because the Repugs will do anything, say anything for power, and the Dems, though ugly and venal in their own way, won't. You can't seriously believe otherwise, because you are, so far as I know, at least in touch with sanity.
1. All opinion. Recollection of the "huge" success escapes me.
2. Point stands that perception of Google is not rightist, even though they act so (as you define it to mean).
3. You really are an asshole. But I won't glob up my blog because of it.
4. WAINS that you are never able to see your own chauvinism?
5. As exemplified by: "my moral superiority is eternal".
6. "Your side is the right," sez you. Sez I, my side is whatever develops from my personal application of philosophy, ever shifting as everyone's must if their minds are open. It's nothing if you call me a rightist, or falsely suggest I've ever claimed my country is always right (as in not wrong). It's hilarious that you can say "the Dems, though ugly and venal in their own way, won't" "do anything, say anything for power". Almost as astonishing as your assertion that Chavez' suppressing the opposition media is no big deal because free speech is overrated anyway. I guess 80,000 Venezuelans can be wrong. Increasingly I find it ironic that you speak of sanity.
Fuck you Zen. Fuck you hard.
You think voting makes any fucking difference in a Nation which has been torn away from the world by those with money and power?
Who the fuck were we voting for when wee voted for Gore back in good old two thousand and two?
No. You know I love you, but you are wrong when you write:
You have streets to march on.
...at least vote Democrat next time. Don't make the same mistake for the third time.
This isn't a bias against America, it's a Hatered towards the victim. Let me make the one distinction for you you have yet to touch.
When the world Protested the War - THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD ! what difference did it make?
None.
This isn't an Uhmurikkkan problem, Dr, this is a Humanitarian problem. And until there is a way to wrestle the balance of power from those who have stolen it, pointing a finger at Americans, and saying:
Hi! Long time listener, first time caller. You rape victims sure are getting an ass fucking, and I hope it doesn't spread to my friends and family, so will you stop that behavior please? I'll take my answer on the air...
...is just inexcusable.
Wake up.
- -
Father Luke
You're funny.
- -
Okay,
Father Luke
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