Torture Day, October 17th

[andygates]

Note it in your diaries, it's the day that the USA gave up on all that "shining beacon" rubbish and signed torture into law. The moral authority of that country is now on a par with, say, China, or Burma. It seems you can indeed boil three hundred milllion frogs alive by just turning up the temperature slowly.

Just think, this time next year you could be celebrating the first anniversary of institutionalised, legal torture. How neat! Quick, get an Abu Ghraib torture hoodie for your kids for Hallowe'en!

You could wrap copper wire around Jefferson's coffin and generate enough power to light a small town, he's spinning that fast in his grave. You Americans who read this: how did you let your country get this bad? How do you tolerate it? Have you no shame?

Comments

[flitljm.livejournal.com]

Says here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6058970.stm that torture specifically not allowed.

You have other info?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

"The bill forbids treatment of detainees that would constitute war crimes - such as torture, rape and biological experiments - but gives the president the authority to decide which other techniques interrogators can use."

"Torture lite" - stuff like waterboarding. Lovely. It is to torture as tentacle hentai is to p0rn: that's not a willy, so it's legal; that's not a scar, so it's legal.

[skean.livejournal.com]

Hey, did you notice Star Wars is back on the same day? Makes me wonder what other stuff has been stuck in there. You know, lets legalise toturelite today, splash some really big headlines about keeping space safe from the Reds no longer under the bed and stick the really e-vil stuff as a footnote on some legislation about libraries.

And to be fair, we did "let" Blair invade Iraq in the same way. What did we do? How did we let our country get so bad? OK, maybe our planes weren't flying over Lebanon, but we helped get the bombs there. Guatanamo? Ooo, its bad Mr Bush. Tut tut tut....and? For 5 years, what?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Yes, we did. I did the lobby-your-MP-and-go-to-the-biggest-street-protest-ever thing, and it had no effect whatsoever. If the protest had been violent, it would have, but a violent protest for peace has a certain oxymoronic flavour. And as a state, we're too far up America's arse to make any meaningful protest: we don't dare upset them. Italy to their Germany? Perhaps.

It was pivotal in making me convinced that the only way to effect real change was direct action - and then it's the risk/reward balance, and frankly I don't care enough. Stupid atrocities happen all the time, all over the world. Stupid people vote for them. We're in a world of stupid and the stupidest people of all are the ones who think that we're not. The smart ones, they're the selfish bastards working the stupid biomass for their own gain.

Once you get over the sheer grotesqueness of it, it's actually quite funny to watch, but you do have to decouple your moral outrage.

[flitljm.livejournal.com]

Yuck. Thanks.

[estaratshirai.livejournal.com]

Sure I do. Lots of shame.

I am not the one who let it get this bad. I voted against every one of the fuckers responsible for this who was within my jurisdiction (yes, I'm sure. Believe that I keep track of which of my locals votes for what garbage), every time I had the chance. And donated to their opponents. And to organizations attempting to safeguard us against this and all the other nosedives we've been taking lately. And gone to protests. And raised hell to anyone who would listen to me.

There's loads of us doing likewise. It just isn't working. Because the idea that The People are actually in charge of this country is not entirely correct. There's widespread voter fraud, just for one example, and it's well-documented, but who's in charge of fixing it? Why, the people perpetrating it, of course. Hmm, wonder why more's not getting done.

What exactly is it you would have us do, Andy? Threaten armed revolt? Have ourselves declared domestic terrorists? In a country that's just legalized torture?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I think you've hit two nails on the head there. First, the idea that The People are in charge is at the heart of democracy, and yet it's clearly a crock in a dynastic plutocracy with big-business lobbies. I'm not saying we're better, but it does rather highlight how there may be cycnicism and resistance to the export of "democracy".

Good government has the people fairly represented. That has nothing to do with votes - that's just one method and arguably the hardest to bork. All that matters is that the rulers represent the peons; this is why I have a big problem with plutocracy, as big business interests don't have to listen to the people, just the market. And corrupt centres cannot export virtue.

The second nail is of course that YES! You should get up in arms! That's the whole damn point of the Right to Bear Arms, isn't it? To get pissed at King George and throw his tea in the bay? Or is this a case of risk/reward balance: legalised torture isn't quite horrible enough?

[estaratshirai.livejournal.com]

It is a risk/reward balance, in fact: not because legalized torture isn't horrible but because my particular King George has much more sophisticated killing machines than the previous and isn't across an ocean from me.

Contrary to what might be the global concept of Americans, we're not actually all capable of just taking up the semi-automatic weapons we've got stashed in the basement and killing other members of our own community. I'm not a soldier - I'm a mother and a priestess. The kinds of help I might be able to provide a resistance movement are much less bloody than what you're asking of me.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Aw, you're no fun :)

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

I was *raised* to be a blood spattered soldier against The Man. I actually do know how to pick up the semi-auto. (it would take me a bit to get back up to speed, childhood was long ago)

But I'm not inclined to being gunned down, disposed of, or tucked in some cell.

Instead I do the things that I can. I vote. I write letters. I attend events. I contribute. I get involved as much as I can. But it isn't working.

Just because we live here doesn't mean we're running the show.