nuts

For those out there in empireland and amoralists all over the known universe - it just doesn't *work*.

"Who would expect the Spanish Inquisition!"

I read in the paper exactly where Osama was two years ago. College students using ecological disaster species diversion mathematics and google maps figured out it was either of two compounds, and one was military so it had to be the one he was in. Osama had to use a kidney dialysis machine so the location needed electricity and passable roads.

When will FAIR stop calling it the "media" and utilize the proper descriptive--the Propaganda System?

"One can only hope the media treat the subject more carefully than they have in the past."

No, the evidence is stark. Truth telling is not part of the fashion of fascism…even the current American Brand.

And torture? Walk out the door, and try to find anyone nearby that gives a crap about whether or not their government is engaged in torture, Outside of peace groups, or traditional humanitarian groups, the American general public is at best, indifferent on the topic.

True, our shadow government has engaged in torture, long before 9/11, but had to hide it, and deny it. But not now, In fact, your next door neighbor is likely now an advocate of torturing anyone just suspected of being a "terrorist", and now the bar has been lowered even further as we have most Americans likely approving of the torture of American whistleblower Bradley Manning.

The darkest days of this country are ahead, unfortunately. A future brimming with poverty at home, Empire abroad, constant propaganda but ever more vicious at identifying the "enemy" at home (those who will still fight for the objective truth of any matter), political prisoners who will undergo systematic torture, and a court system that will uphold it.

I recently replaced my car stereo, after just having my mp3 player for several months, and I was immediately reminded why I stopped listening to NPR years ago. It was the last blurp of the news at the top of the hour, where the subject of the above article was raised, whether or not torture, or "enhanced interrogation techniques worked, in helping find OBL". NPR's reporter said, there was no evidence "yet" that would indicate that, but then that little blip, was immediately displaced with NPR's anchor, quoting Dick Cheney, as saying that the Bush Administration's policies had been vindicated.

NPR might as well be FOX. They have incorporated that style that FOX started, of "some people say", and putting demonstrable lies on par with the truth that occasionally gurgles to the surface.

But we no longer have any news organizations in this quickly devolving country, that simply put their reputation on the record, for actually getting at the truth through investigating reporting. We no longer have media in the MSM, or even most of the "progressive" media, who have a consistent conviction to get at the truth of any matter. Sure, Democracy Now, CD, Truthout, etc, do run articles by authors and the rare investigative reporter, that tries to eek out the cesspool of lies and corruption that has become the United States government, but the that chirp chirp chirp from the sidelines, doesn't come close to the quack quack quack in the MSM that most Americans get their news from.

The main problem with that, in my opinion, is that most Americans aren't really all that interested in ferroting out truth.

That disinterest, that ignorance is indeed the current fashion of American fascism, and is held with the most pathetic esteem. This criticism is not directed at the average CD reader/poster.

And isn't the timing of all of this convenient – Let me put on my conspiracy hat for a moment (mine isn't tin foil, but a more grounded to earth hemp fabric) – that right when there was finally a spotlight, through Wikileaks, being shone on Guantanamo, this happens.

Almost 10 years later, and no credible evidence trail has been brought to the American public to prove the official conspiracy of 9/11 to be true. A lot of the documents from Wikileaks regarding Guantanamo, highlight that the interrogators, while using torture of course, thought most of KSM's tortured confessions where just rubbish, except of course when he blurted out "im the mastermind okay, stop it already". And the rest of the "most dangerous" detainees, apparently there isnt any there there either.

And of course, they dump his body at sea to respect Muslim traditions. Of course, that makes sense!

But whatever you do, don't EVER, and I mean EVER DARE QUESTION the events of 9/11, here, or anywhere else, or you'll be called some really bad names and stuff.

Torture does work. Maybe you haven't heard about the new research programs where they use enhanced torture to find things out? So far they have discovered several new cures for cancer, the location of the True Cross, what was in the Big Bang before it blew, the nearest planet to Earth with intelligent life on it, and how much wood a woodchuck can chuck. They are working on finding a cure for fascism and the insanity of the right wing, but so far no success -- it's beginning to look like there is none.

David Ray Griffin--who has written extensively on 9/11--has argued that bin Laden died in 2001, and Griffin's not the only one who has argued that point. If this is true, if would explain Bush's diffidence regarding finding the man: Given that he knew that bin Laden was dead, such a search would be pointless.

Word is that the Obama administration is frustrated that the talk has turned so quickly to torture. But what did they expect? Obama ordered a targeted assassination, which is an illegal act. He threw red meat to the Right and opened the door for all the secret illegalities in our foreign policy to be brought into the open and justified. Unfortunately, by committing a war crime himself, Obama has no moral ground to point fingers at the fanatical right who want to exonerate torture. What's he going to say to them: Hey guys, extrajudicial executions are fine, but let's hold the torture? By taking the expedient route instead of the legal one, Obama has set a dangerous precedent and bad example. One wonders who will be next on Obama's hit list?

This whole charade about Bin Laden is manufactured in part to justify more militarizing, more desensitizing, more programming americans to accept and relish in brutality and imperialism. The word "ugly" doesn't even begin to cover it.

From the article:
"ABC World News reporter Jonathan Karl tapped Dick Cheney for expertise."

Too bad he didn't "double-tap" him.

it`s no wonder so much of the world hates the US...this is disgusting

You know, there are way too many tax cheats.
In fact, we could lower taxes if every person (and by that I of course mean every poor person) paid their fair share of taxes.
To meet these goals, the IRS should be empowered to inflict physical torture on all citizens (in addition to the mental torture they do now during audits).
We need to set up IRS torture chambers in every city, and as a requirement for filing, every citizen should be required to submit to water boarding in addition to their signature on the tax form. That would ensure that the forms were filled out honestly and completely.
However, rich people and corporations could still send in their accountant for the torture, because their time is just much too valuable, plus they don't pay taxes anyway.
USA number one! USA number one in torture!

This quick excerpt from "Torturing Democracy" by Henry A. Giroux, Paradigm Press says it all: "Since the turn of the twenty-first century, we have lived through a historical period in which the United States relinquished its tenuous claim to democracy. The frames through which democracy apprehends others as human beings worthy of respect, dignity, and human rights were sacrificed to a mode of politics and culture that simply became an extension of war, both at home and abroad. At home, the punishing state increasingly replaced the welfare state, however ill conceived, as more and more individuals and groups were now treated as disposable populations, undeserving of those safety nets and basic protections that provide the conditions for living with a sense of security and dignity. Under such conditions, basic social supports were replaced by an accelerated production of prisons, the expansion of the criminal justice system into everyday life, and the further erosion of crucial civil liberties. Shared responsibilities gave way to shared fears, and the only distinction that seemed to resonate in the culture was between friends and patriots, on the one hand, and dissenters and enemies, on the other. State violence not only became acceptable, it was normalized as the government spied on its citizens, suspended the right of habeas corpus, sanctioned police brutality against those who questioned state power, relied on the state secrets privilege to hide its crimes, and increasingly reduced public spheres designed to protect children to containment centers and warehouses that modeled themselves after prisons. Fear both altered the landscape of democratic rights and values and dehumanized a population that was ever more willing to look the other way as large segments of the populace were either dehumanized, incarcerated, or simply treated as disposable. The dire consequences can be seen every day as the media report about decent people losing their homes; more young people being incarcerated; and growing numbers of people living in their cars or in tent cities. Reports surface in the dominant media about unspeakable horrors being inflicted on children tortured in the "death chambers" of Iraq, Cuba, and Afghanistan. And the American people barely blink. The Bush administration further eroded a culture inspired by democratic values, replacing it with a culture of war and a culture of illegality that experimented with an extrajudicial detention system used to create torture chambers in Bagram, Kandahar, and Guantanamo Bay. After 2001, the language of war became all-embracing, not only eroding the distinction between war and peace but also putting into play a public pedagogy in which every aspect of the culture was shaped by militarized ideals. From video games and Hollywood films either supported or produced by the Department of Defense to the ongoing militarization of public and higher education, the notion of the common good was subordinated to a military metaphysics, warlike values, and the dictates of the national security state. War gained a new status under the Bush administration, moving from an option of last resort to a primary instrument of diplomacy in the war on terror. A dogmatic faith in war was supplemented by a persistent attempt to legitimate such a politics through another kind of war based on pedagogical struggle to create subjects, citizens, and institutions that would support such draconian policies. War was no longer the last resort of a state intent on defending its territory; it morphed into a new form of public pedagogy--a type of cultural war machine--designed to shape and lead the society. War became the foundation for a politics that employed military language, concepts, and policing relations to address problems far beyond the familiar terrains of battle. In some cases, war was so aestheticized by the dominant media that it resembled an advertisement for a tourist industry. The upshot is that it the meaning of war was rhetorically, visually, and materially expanded to name, legitimate, and wage battles against social problems involving drugs, poverty, and the nation's newfound enemy, the Mexican immigrant. As war became normalized as the central function of power and politics, it became a regular and normative element of American society, legitimated by a state of exception and emergency that became permanent rather than temporary. As the production of violence reached beyond traditionally defined enemies and threats, the state now took aim at terrorism, shifting its register of power by waging war on a concept, broadening its pursuits, tactics, and strategies against no specific state, army, soldiers, or location. The enemy was omnipresent, all the more difficult to root out and all the more convenient for expanding the tactics of surveillance, the culture of fear, and the resources of violence. War was now a permanent and commonplace feature of American domestic and foreign policy, a battle that had no definitive end and demanded the constant use of violence. War had become more than a military strategy: it was now a pedagogy and a form of cultural politics designed to legitimate certain modes of governance, create identities supportive of militaristic values, and provide the formative culture that supported the organization and production of violence as a central feature of domestic and foreign policy.It is difficult to imagine how any democracy can avoid being corrupted when war becomes the foundation of politics, if not culture itself. Any democracy that makes war and state violence the organizing principles of society cannot survive for long, at least as a democratic entity. The United States descended into a period in which society was increasingly organized through the production of both symbolic and material violence. A culture of cruelty emerged in the media, especially in the talk radio circuit, in which a sordid nationalism combined with a hypermilitarism and masculinity that scorned not merely reason but also all those who fit into the stereotype of other--which appeared to include everyone who was not white and Christian. Dialogue, reason, and thoughtfulness slowly disappeared from the public realm as every encounter was framed within circles of certainty, staged as a fight to the death. As the civic and moral center of the country disappeared under the Bush administration, the language of the marketplace provided the only referent for understanding the obligations of citizenship and global responsibility, undeterred by a growing war machine and culture that produced jobs and goods and furthered the war economy."

Leave it to the sociopathic pundits of the lame-stream media to promote torture. It shows Dr. King was right, except in his time our collective spiritual death was only incipient: the nation now not only approaches spiritual death but is already dead, and the vulture pseudo-journalists of the corporate media feed off the decaying corpse of the body politic. At least 50% of the population, at last count, support torture as an official policy too. A more telling indicator of the moral bankruptcy and spiritual vacuity of the country could not be found.

Waterboarding is torture.....Torture is evil and besides, it's flat out wrong.

land of the free, home of the brave? Not anymore I'm afraid. The people of the world don't respect us, they fear us.