Posted inPolitics: National

Tortured justifications

By Emil Pulsifer
Guest Blogger

Recently there has been an aggressive media campaign to justify
torture as a tool of official U.S. government policy: Attempts have
been made not only by Dick Cheney and others implicated in past
practices, but also by a variety of media allies who seem determined
to soften up public perception in support of future imperatives. Most
notably is the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer, who recently ran the second of two columns
(to date) defending torture.
 
Krauthammer, like other advocates of torture as a tool of official
government policy, begs the question: He assumes, in the premises of
his arguments, that which he wants to prove: First, that subjects in custody know the location of a ticking
bomb or a hostage; Second, that the authorities somehow know that the
subjects in custody possess this knowledge (without themselves
possessing this knowledge); Third, that standard law-enforcement
interrogation techniques have not only failed to produce the
information sought, but will continue to do so; and that torture,
instead of eliciting a false confession (stopping the torture by
telling interrogators what they want to hear), will produce the
information which the subject is "known to possess".

The obvious question here is, how do interrogators know what
knowledge the subject possesses without themselves possessing that
knowledge?

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Posted inPolitics: National

A fear blankets the land

For the past two years, I’ve heard people say something new. Something new and troubling and chilling. They say in conversations, "For the first time in my life, I’m afraid for our country."

For the most part these aren’t partisans or even particularly political people. They are intelligent, engaged, worldly, successful in their own fields and, usually, of a certain age. Old enough to remember the nation that America once was, not so long ago. They read. They’re not talking about government terror alerts or that taxes might go up on the richest 1 percent of Americans. The statement comes up without prompting or coaching, and the words are almost always the same: "For the first time in my life, I’m afraid for our country."

In Republican John Sidney McCain III’s "home town" of Phoenix last week, I talked to people who are so upset about this election, they can hardly do their work. So upset that enough Americans will be misled by the Fox News echo chamber, passively being fed propaganda — won’t vote, under any circumstances, for a black man. Again, I hear this not from Obama campaign ops, but just intelligent people who have been paying attention.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Can Americans be swayed by real issues?

Air America’s Tom Hartmann had a fascinating take on the McCain-Rove attack commercials, especially the ad that calls Obama "the One." While critics like David Gergen say they are code for uppity, designed to get out the racist vote, Hartmann said "the One" ad is code for end-time evangelicals.

A small group? They bought 68 million copies of the Left Behind series. The code of the highly misleading ads is that Obama is the Antichrist. These "communities of interest" are big enough to tip an election — or make it close enough to steal — especially when the corporate media continue to give McCain a free ride on the issues.

Obama may be running a very smart campaign: refusing to get in the gutter, showing a willingness to compromise on drilling if it also wins support for alternative energy and accountability for the oil companies. But enough Americans may be too addled, too addicted to promises of instant gratification, too ignorant to pay attention. Does that mean it’s foolish to hammer McCain on the issues? Not at all.

Here’s a partial list of what Obama and Democrats should be relentlessly pushing:   

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Posted inPolitics: National

An America that tortures, and other nightmares

We have more than a recession. The bottom has fallen out.

We debate whether the United States should torture prisoners. We debate it and the “in favor” argument wins. Not once, but again and again, for years now.

At the birth of the Republic, Gen. Washington forbade the mistreatment of British and Hessian prisoners of war. He hoped we would indeed inaugurate “novus ordo seclorum,” a new order of the ages. Because the Founders knew they were establishing a republic of men and not angels, they set this new order on a firm foundation of the law, particularly a Constitution based on separation of powers and, especially, checks and balances against the excesses of the executive. It wasn’t just that the Founders had rebelled against a king; they took their cues from ancient Rome, and knew how an emperor could use constant war as an instrument to destroy peoples’ liberties.

Constant war and torture.

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