“Then I disappeared from history”

bone chilling that Americans are disappearing people.

Negroponte…El Salvador…Bush mafia…

It’s not new, just noticed more now.

Remember, the Republicans don’t recant on their ideas, they just revise their performance.

So they abandon their duty to the Constituiton and country instead. It’s easier.

and the longer it is ignored, the harder it is to turn back from.

we knew there was torture by the winter of 2002 (obviously not all the details, but i remember reading reports from organizations like physicians for human rights). i remember getting in a big “discussion” with a co-worker (a scientist, supposedly trained in critical thinking) who ultimately refused to believe anything bad like torture was happening (regardless of all the reports) because he wasn’t reading about it on msnbc.

i think the op-ed from npr perfectly captures the mindset of willful ignorance. it’s even given a name to make it seem like a good thing, “constructive hypocrisy.”

this is one reason i wish al gore would run for president – he’s been consistently speaking out against our policy of torture for at least a couple of years.

sorry for the rant… but this continues to both break my heart and make me furious.

…So they abandon their duty to the Constituiton and country instead. It’s easier.

A trait we share with monkeys.

If there are 2 choices, easy and hard, 99.9999999 percent of the time, humans will chose easy.

It’s a wonder we’ve managed to make it this far, but heck, dinosaurs existed for hundreds of millions of years.

The odds as quoted in Lost Wages for us making it another thousand or so years are probably highly unfavorable, so in the end, the monkeys may collect the winnings.

They’ve gone full circle. Solicit the torture. Advise the torture. Cover up the torture. Reveal the torture. Prevent the torture victim from being able to pursue the DOJ officials who sent him in for torture.

Yeah for the rule of law.

Evening everyone. Thought this would be of interest to a number of readers here.

Thanks, Christy! As usual, you’re right on!

Bob in HI

First, if they do anything now it highlights all the time they did nothing and makes them look that much more ineffective and spineless and devoid of morality. I’ve talked to people who aren’t political who really believe things like: “we’re trying to give lawyers to those people at GITMO and they just won’t talk to them – what are we supposed to do?” Those are the people who, if you sit them down and explain things to them, are flabbergasted to the point of disbelief that neither Democrats nor Republicans are doing anything about it – as one person challenged me on a horse forum “if that’s true, why don’t we hear the candidates for President saying anything about it and why isn’t anyone doing anything to help those people?” Well, the more it comes out that no one helped them, the less anyone looks good.

Second, by not doing anything, not for days, or weeks, or months – but for years – they have set up a situation where the shipments to places like GITMO and elsewhere were unquestionably shipments of protected persons that are war crimes. That’s even without all that was done to the on the way there, before they go there in beatings at Bagram, the drugging for flights, the stripping, beatings, months and months of solitary, etc. at GITMO. All with no words from the Clintons, Obamas, Dodds (or the Sherrod Browns for that matter – who were happy to use “evil terrorists” as a meme to help get them elected without any care or concern or apology for what they did). So now to do anything on the up and up, you are looking at all kinds of people in the military and intelligence and DOJ being involved in war crimes – - and no will among Democrats for the perceived unpopular activity of trying them for those crimes.

So it’s easiest to just pretend it isn’t happening, dutifully say “torture is bad” but never follow through on consequences. Bc imposing consequences on anyone give Rush Limbaugh another wet noodle to beat them with. So they abandon their duty to the Constituiton and country instead. It’s easier.

Also, tonight on Frontline @ 10:00 p.m. program on Iran. Looks very good, if anyone is interested. (I saw a short clip but can’t remember where!)

SanderO @ 70

The retro immunity for the telcoms is the precedent.

They will fess up… kinda sorta maybe… but the CIA and it’s agents are all going to be granted retro immunity…

…They are gonna get a way with the torture. Wanna bet?

This was already granted to them right before the Nov. 2006 elections with the Warner/McCain/Graham “Its Ok to Torture Bill”.

And Junya signed it into law.

oct. 17, 2006