“TORTURE IS AS TORTURE DOES”

Or, a Fervent Lament About What Yoo Should Repent

Morally impaired professor John Yoo. Now there is a man this country should sue.
May his days writing White House memos and briefs bring him to trial and eternal grief.

This is the lawyer who “Torture” he said,“is hard to define and all in your head.
Besides with all the time bombs a ticking, mustn’t we give those suspects a kicking?”

True, dogs, sticks and stones might break a few captive bones,
But, near drowning it seems, shouldn’t even be counted as mean.

So what if it risks all our soldiers and troops. And, makes us liars and hypocrites to boot.
Jack Bauer did it and look at his result. To not follow his lead would be a big insult.

Jailing forever without charge, counsel or trial? As to any Amendments, John Yoo’s in denial.
“The Constitution is quaint and really quite dead.” Or, so he proclaimed and deliberately mislead.

May his words of malevolent and ignorant intent result someday soon in his prompt disbarment.
A thank you from Bush was his apparent sole goal. For that he sold out his profession and soul.

Convict Bush as well for his unlawful bend since he swore a solemn oath the Constitution he would defend.
But, try Yoo first cause he should’ve known better. Aren’t attorneys supposed to follow the law to the letter?

Nazi lawyers and judges caught Nuremberg ire. That too was for fulfilling their boss’s desire.
Unless for this there’s some stiff punishment, others will assume rules are meant to be bent.

“GETTING ABOARD WATERBOARDING”

We don’t need Jack Bauer. Let the Fox "News" Commentators Test Drive Torture Techniques

The one and maybe only thing that made the US of A different from all the countries of the world and maybe of all history was that it stood for something more than just self interest or mere self protection. It stood for certain almost unique principles, one of which was that we do not torture. No matter the provocation, no matter the magnitude of the threat, no matter the strength or pervasiveness of the enemy, no matter the risk of delay or harm. We did not torture as official policy and we did not tolerate those who do. Simply calling it something else was never a defense. And, I have never understood why the current crop of "conservative" Republicans seems to hate so much what America once proudly stood for.

Here are a couple thoughts since it does not look like the Republican leadership and their followers will be satisfied until they get torture approved. If we must be like the Nazis, the Imperial Japanese, the Spanish Inquisition, and all the others who used such methods without qualm, let's at least insist on two preconditions.

First, no one can vote for or authorize any torture method unless they themselves, their spouse and their children are subjected to it first by a sadist. That might eliminate some of the worst methods. Second, as to any methods that are NOT first "tested" by and survived by those employing them, let's have some consequences. IF they are used for, say, the apocryphal justification of the ticking Atom bomb, then fine. Give the torturer a ticker tape parade, declare him a hero, thank him for his "saving humanity" (an interesting irony) and have the parade route deliver him straight to solitary confinement for the rest of his life since anyone doing that obviously is not fit to mingle with the rest of humanity. That way they get to call themselves "heroes", but we will not have to have such dangerous sociopaths in our midst.

Click to enlarge if desired. The shoe throwing at the president cartoon was created by the author at the Funnytimes website were everyone can create their own cartoons

“SNEAK ATTACK”

Or, World War By Those with Money Against Those Without

Nearly a trillion in bailout grants handed out without strings to banks and companies owned by the ubër rich while a comparatively small loan to the American car industry denied unless the last big unions agreed to commit hari kari.

Legislation to restrict bankruptcy protection for individuals but not companies, and no restriction on predatory lending and credit practices that put borrowers at risk.

Then there is the difference between what CEOs “earn” and what the average employee earns which has already multiplied by a multiplication factor thousands of times greater than it used to be and that doesn’t even include the company perks for CEOs for which they don’t even pay taxes.

Can we forget a concerted decades long attack on both health care and social security to eliminate the “safety net” that once existed for the poor?

What do these have in common?

In retrospect, what seemed to have made America great and relatively unique throughout the world after the last Depression was the size of its middle class, the opportunity at least to move upward despite more humble beginnings, and the relatively benign treatment of even those who remained in lower classes (at least in comparison to most countries) and the rough parity between the competing class groups. Class warfare has always been going on to a certain extent, but it was muted with all three classes each having some genuine power and the ability to weld it after the Depression. The situation evolved a rough set of checks and balances which tended to hold down the avariciousness of any one particular class. Two against one usually prevented excesses of any single group like the ubër rich once exercised back during the Robber Baron Age for most of the late 1800s.

Unfortunately, since Reagan’s time, the ubër rich have secretly re-declared the class war while simultaneously attacking anyone who points out the obvious by declaring that even asking the question is tantamount to “instigating class warfare.” Astonishingly, it worked. The ubër rich have pretty much won. While few were looking, they not only regained control of much of the government most of the time thereby emaciating the opposition, they also tightened control over what was left of the independent media as well. The balance of power was throughly shattered.

A key component of that warfare by the ubër rich was to emaciate or destroy the unions through new laws restricting unionization, bankruptcy courts killing labor contracts, diversion of pension funds, abusive tactics against organizers, shipping jobs elsewhere and PR campaigns vilifying the very concept of collective bargaining to redress serious economic disadvantages. Unions were the prime voice for the lower class. The only other spokesperson for the poor was churches, but the upper class managed to completely distract the ministry from their earlier biblical mission of helping the less fortunate. Now apparently, the sole interest of the clergy is the gender mix in bedrooms and conflating birth control into murder. So much for any effective voice remaining who spoke for the lower class. Keeping them ignorant of what was going on, keeping them distracted with either pablum or more pressing needs, and ultimately making them fearful of speaking up for themselves has succeeded, probably beyond the ubër rich’s fondest dreams. Although the ubër rich are few in number (and want to keep it that way), they made up for it with money and staying power.

The ubër rich war against the middle class has been succeeding too and the current economic crisis is merely one more tool to accomplish the end of reducing the middle class. The tactics there seem to be maintaining ignorance, cutting off avenues of upward mobility especially education, eliminating the good jobs that made them middle class, turning them against the lower classes and playing on fear. Fear not only of the lower classes, but fear of damned near everything starting with “terrorists,” including jihadists (pictured as anyone dark hued and of a different religion), so-called eco-terrorists (i.e. anyone who opposes corporate greed and pollution) and racketeers (usually defined as any and all labor union officials).

Whether the latest meltdown of the economy was a deliberate class war strategy or merely inadvertent side effect due to the massive move of middle class tax revenues and other resources into the hands of the already ubër rich makes no difference. The result was the same. Our large middle class is an endangered species. Downward mobility is a distinct possibility and already on the way. Those who are left as middle class have been convinced by PR that the fault is of the lower class for wanting a living wage (as opposed to the ubër rich wanting obscene amounts to add to what they already cannot spend). Cleverly done.

It also helped to have a cynical bought off journalism corp that no longer believed in quaint journalistic ethics like independence and fairness or traditional investigative reporting. Once the ubër rich controlled the reporter hiring and editorial policies, it was a foregone conclusion of how things would turn out. Of course, the subversion and perversion of the punditry was greatly helped by the laziness, greediness, and cowardice of those being hired to “report.” The capture of the media was complete when the small number of on-screen “talent” was paid so much, they had hopes of being ubër rich themselves. They certainly weren’t going to speak against the ubër rich class they hoped to join, even if they had anything in common with the lower or middle classes anymore.

Prognosis: Poor, just like what many more of the population will likely soon be. Unless we wake up and realize we are under attack, that is a foregone conclusion. Our only hope is that the economic meltdown will prove to be a Pearl Harbor in the Secret Class War of the ubër rich against everyone one else.