“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

What a horror. Surreality prevails.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah

The CIA interrogation strategies were based on work done by James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen in the Air Force’s Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) program.[2][28][60][61][62][63] The CIA contracted with the two psychologists to develop alternative, harsher interrogation techniques than those allowed at the time.[2][28][60][61][62] However, neither of the two psychologists had any experience in conducting interrogations.[60][61][62][64] Air Force Reserve Colonel Steve Kleinman stated that the CIA “chose two clinical psychologists who had no intelligence background whatsoever, who had never conducted an interrogation… to do something that had never been proven in the real world.”[61][62][64] Associates of Mitchell and Jessen were skeptical of their methods and believed they did not possess any data about the impact of SERE training on the human psyche.[62] The CIA came to learn that Mitchell and Jessen’s expertise in waterboarding was probably “misrepresented” and thus, there was no reason to believe it was medically safe or effective.[60][65] Despite these shortcomings of experience and know-how, the two psychologists boasted of being paid $1000 a day plus expenses, tax-free by the CIA for their work.[60][61][62]

… and it pays well.

There are times, not many and not often, when I get the feeling that there may indeed be hope. Found a link to this guy over at Busted’s place. More like him please.

Shit, forgot my manners this morning. Good morning Attaturk and pups. Thanks for the post, ‘turk.

In the nine months prior to 9/11, they dropped the ball. They failed. Torture is their way of trying to erase that fact, and little else.

hey all… thanks for the link. he says it. will pass it on, though i am single payer all the way… but he makes the case. :)

Welcome to September. The clinical psychologists did have experience to draw on, despite that contention in LibbyL’s link; ‘to do something that had never been proven in the real world’. It has been proved that torture ruins info, and it cannot be used in court. That’s what’s been discovered in the use of torture by those third world countries we as a nation always deplored until the worst administration in history.

Thanks, oldnslow. I wouldn’t want to have Mr. Shilling agin me. I’m doubting Grassley’s going to run for reelection, anyway. He’s set for life.

Good morning, Liiby. Both Cbl and me would prefer a single payer system as well. However, I have long considered the Public Option to be about the most logical form of transition from the current system to a single payer system.

No argument, though I am calling Reps each day about single payer vote on Conyers HR 676 bill in fall. And Kucinich’s state right to single payer deserves support. (I fear public plan useful as Trojan Horse for more corporate opportunism … Obama made that deal already with drug companies).

I just sent your link to many single payer workers to use in their arsenal … so thank you!!!

I read that the training time for interrogations was two weeks, and that contractors did their own torturing.

And that most likely 85% of the torturees were innocent (sorry, forget the article but on information clearing house.) And there is no official expression of basic regret on this, not from Bushco, not from Obamaco either, no mention in the press, no hard ball question to Cheney and his countless appearances to hypnotize through the media to the dark side.

I put on a black arm band mid-May to mourn a country that now functions without a collective soul. I had no idea the duration of wearing it. I thought Obamaco was just being slow. It was a spontaneous action from helplessness and dismay. Our new administration does not seem to possess moral clarity. An old Congress that hasn’t for so long now.

Do they really think officially acknowledging our regret over the torture and rendtion programme of colossal depravity will give comfort to the enemy? The morale of a tragically corrupted CIA is the priority showing jingoistic exceptionalism is alive and well in this administration as well. Empire building and racism and exploitation for oil and political gamesmanship.

libby, i love your idea of a black armband. i wore one for awhile after the start of the iraq war, and i think have some stored away somewhere. maybe it’s time for me to look for them.

oldnslow, libby and cbl2 (if she’s around) – could you please explain how any of the public plans now under consideration could ever lead to anything approaching single payer? i see them as most likely something of the opposite but would like to have a reason to change my mind. thanks.

Good morning, pups. It’s Bobo and Herbert this morning. Bobo gives us “The Obama Slide” in which he gurgles that most Americans still admire the president and want him to succeed. But if he doesn’t proceed in a manner consistent with the spirit of the nation and the times, voters will find a way to stop him. (Any ideas on how we can persuade Bobo to extend his vacation? Maybe permanently?) Mr. Herbert, in “Innocent But Dead,” says scientific analysis has shown that Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three children, had in fact been innocent.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got Thomas’ English muffins with your favorite jam. We had more storms yesterday, with a brief power outage, and are scheduled for more of the same today and tomorrow. The jasmine is going crazy, and has really covered one section of fence where I planted it. The little birds are starting to use it as cover, and from time to time you can see little heads popping up and peering around. Have a great day.

Tom Ridge is doing the boogaloo on Mornin Joe

RE: “Max Boot, would have spirit broken by being made to wear tighty-whities.”

MY COMMENT: Yes, he definitely looks like the studded, leather thong type!

selise, good for you. During the first Gulf War I wore an old peace sign necklace with a yellow ribbon tied around it. No one ever mentioned it. Now I wear tiny silver peace earrings and my black arm band for the torture. But each day I put it on my mind travels to many reasons (horrors) to apply it.

Then for a sec I was thinking of wearing and promoting a white or blue maybe armband for single payer… but let’s see. My arm will soon resemble a barber pole there are so many ISSUES right now. Oy vey.

The media ignores single payer, so much collusion to SAY it was off the table, which was so insulting to the thousands of sane people trying to find an efficient and just way to reform health care, so many who work closely with the present dysfunctional system and are perfect consultants not pie in the sky liberals, and this unwillingness to even explore it is one more cronyism gesture from BO which breaks my heart one more time. (lucy and football).

my hope for public option I guess is with a Kucinich opportunity to allow states the option to grant single payer. But with Obama telling drug companies government won’t seek discounts, this is a game of crazymaking.

I agree that single payer would give this country enormous relief but it would mean jolting the health care industry and promises have been bought. But I think we need to focus on what we want and fight for the unalienable right of universal health care, without breaking our collective backs, we the working class, for the MERE vendors who have taken over the entire program. I think we need the passion of this cause, not the compromise of the public plan that doesn’t fire the belly.

Did you see the link Cujo shared of Dana Gould dealing with the town meeting protesters and then the sane but uninsured citizens grateful for donated temp health care? Priceless.

http://videocafe.crooksandliar…..-town-hall

The GWOT is over and it was never anything but an excuse to invade and occupy the ME. What were the attacks supposedly thwarted by the interrogation of anyone? Lay it out or shuddup. The CIA stopped the hurricanes in July too and the meteor headed for the US. What a bunch of BS.

Those who utilize and hide behind a facade: “state’s secrets doctrine,” to perpetuate criminal activity, the fleecing o America, while committing numerous crimes in the process are as bad or worse than pedophile priests, cops gone bad and/or tax exempt health insurers who practice legalized discrimination, under the color of state law while being considered public charities? The degree of myopic self interests manifest in the statement: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” is tainted by arrogance. Jefferson wrote in the “Origins of good Government” about two types of aristocrats. Those who understood the role of government i.e. law in protecting the right of individuals from “tyranny,” compared to aristocrats not capable of protecting the rights of others because of their inability to control their passion. Rather than a noble man protecting the rights of men and law, this less noble aristocrat is concerned with manipulating law to the benefit of narrow interests, usurping the rights, Life and Liberty of others, in the lust for corporate profit!

Was it Abu Z. who admitted under early interrogation that his major issue was with Israel and he only had ricocheted anger to US because of its enabling of Israel? They certainly covered up that revelation. Kept torturing for different answers I guess.

Agreed. Was horrified to have another commenter here talk around torture because it was ‘of terrorists’ – they’re ‘the accused’ or ’suspects’ (which I answered), not Terrorists. We tortured so they can never be convicted, even anyone who might be guilty.

The black arm band works for me, too.

But, but … even left of the left Richard Cohen thinks that torture may be innocent:

The questions of what constitutes torture and what to do with those who, maybe innocently, applied what we now define as torture have to be removed from the political sphere.

Does that mean that the guys convicted at the Tokyo War Trials were actually political prisoners?

When the means are the end the ends are mean.

The normalization and desensitization re torture right now is frightening. It is depraved and it is a felony and a war crime. Why is this getting lost in the discussion? The same way the true super felons are getting immunized from accountability.

Those lawyer bastards torturing the letter of the law while DEFYING the spirit of the law, and then being enabled to do this by a cowardly and compromised Congress and administration (present administration included!).

And someone on Fox news actually compared any criticism of the torture apologists and architects as being an INQUISITION, totally missing the irony of such a statement. (I think McGovern made that observation in one of his articles on ICH.)

And can you believe the gall! Marching German Citizens through gulags!!!

you are wiser than me. i didn’t start paying attention to foreign politics, or even national politics until sept 12, 2001 (domestic violence and other issues had my attention). it wasn’t just the attacks, it was the national blood lust (sadly, very well represented among liberals in blue MA) that shocked me into paying attention.

The media ignores single payer, so much collusion to SAY it was off the table, which was so insulting to the thousands of sane people trying to find an efficient and just way to reform health care, so many who work closely with the present dysfunctional system and are perfect consultants not pie in the sky liberals, and this unwillingness to even explore it is one more cronyism gesture from BO which breaks my heart one more time.

i agree… except what has been the most shocking and disheartening to me is the way so many have lined up behind BO to shun the thousands of grass roots single payer activists who have been working and studying the issue of universal healthcare for years.

my hope for public option I guess is with a Kucinich opportunity to allow states the option to grant single payer.

imo, something like the kucinich amendment to allow states (or i wish regions) to experiment with single payer is THE critical issue. i’m even considering working to defeat the legislation (with or without po) if such an amendment is not included.

as a matter of policy, i do not see how the po will actually work (magical thinking required?) and i do not understand the focus on it.

the wars, the lack of universal healthcare (and economic policies in general) — our choices cause so many needless deaths. an armband or something to acknowledge that appeals to me.

thank you for C&L link, will check it out…

That’s Max’ Amazon pic. Also the one he uses, as a straight republiKKKan male, on Men4SexNow. Oddly, when you do a Google image search, you get a more varied range of takes:

http://images.google.com/image…..&biw=

I think the (actual) boots on the page add a suggestively reich fetish touch.

I suppose that his attitude of toughness is his revenge for being mercilessly mocked in high school

How tragic that we have so much garbage injected into the public discourse about so many issues. We are truth and fact challenged here in America on so many issues – perhaps all the issues before us. Ideology trumps rationality and critical thinking.

Of course, some people can connect the dots and figure out the lies and deception streaming down on us constantly. It’s not that hard if one is intellectually honest. I suppose that is how most of the left came to be defined.

It was not they the left if socialist, Communist, or anti democratic, they have accepted the principles in the founding documents and used that as the prism to gauge what what conforms to these laws. The right comes at this all from the POV of a selfish personal oligarchical patriarchal approach. They went off to the right and the “left” (in this country) is really wanting what the constitution states.

selise, have to go soon, but Dr. Marcia Angell who teaches at Harvard and was editor of New England Journal of Medicine is one of the leaders of single payer and said she will sadly reject any other proposed “reform.” I want to stay tuned to her commentary about this. Many contend that reform will be the proverbial Trojan Horse for further opportunism which is scary and contemptible.

The CIA stopped the hurricanes in July too and the meteor headed for the US.

and if it hadn’t been for information aggressively gathered from other hurricanes and meteors, we’d have been well and truly fucked.

Afraid that only prosecution of our own war criminals will ever bring us back into stature as a country. If you think the nutcases are hysterically brawling in public now, wait until we get to that … and yes, I believe Holder is working up to prosecution.

selise, it was VERY lonely protesting the first Gulf War and I wish I had been braver and more active back then. I was stunned by my long time proverbial “DFH” comrades who had gone through Viet Nam protests with me and were now supporting this war as noble. And then the media was so technology crazed and no one on the media would EVER talk about the horrific number of casualties in Iraq. They still won’t then and now but back then it really stunned me. Collateral damage never a relevant factor.

dr. marcia angell (and dr.s david himmelstein and steffie woolhandler, also at harvard and who have studied healthcare financing and reform for many years) are definitely people i want to hear from too.

it was VERY lonely protesting the first Gulf War

(((libby)))

thank you for doing it. knowing about earlier protests and calls for peace is an inspiration to act now.

Re Abu Ghraib … that invertebrate Rumsfeld lets the “bad apples” languish in prison as he minimizes and LIES about his responsibility and HE IS ALLOWED TO. Two-tiered justice as Greenwald says. I am leaving messages on the voice mails to Reps when I call for single payer that I also want full accountability at the highest levels for torture crimes. I think I may also add as long as I am calling that Goldman Sachs should have a Windfall Profits Tax levied at it for the AIG payback to it with the TARP. The book salon fellow this past weekend (looting book) mentioned that. There, so many issues …. what color arm band for the rape by the bankers?

Torture is treason.
The government, led by george the traitor to our bedrock principles, embraced wanton reckless violence as a response to 911.
We threw out the rule of law that day when Elliot Spitzer was prevented from doing a full, through and complete criminal investigation of that crime. Haven’t had that investigation to this day.
So going postal was the answer under george.
The Treason is we no longer can discern right over profit because the GWOT sure was profitable for some.
The ability to remove Iraq’s 10% of oil off of the market meant the sky’s the limit on oil as in $4 /Gal gas our economy be damned and it was.

Cindy Sheehan is certainly feeling abandoned. I read an article she wrote about the post-Bush reduction of war protesters, especially about Afghanistan.

I am curious about the Doctors Who Are Mad As Hell or something like that. They are going on tour soon.

Gotta go. See ya on campus, (((selise)))). Thanks for exchange once again! :)

yesterday’s post at pnhp: IT’S THE INSURANCE COMPANIES, STUPID!

off for more coffee…. take care all.

ps … just saw john ely’s posting. Will they really use “absence of malice” as a defense for torture????? Talk about IRONY!

And Rome was an Empire that became so craven and ossified it eventually collapsed under the weight of it’s own corruption, nepotism and hubris. So went Rome so goes the U.S..

the two psychologists boasted of being paid $1000 a day plus expenses, tax-free by the CIA for their work.[60][61][62

Why would this payment be tax-free??

From the usual tilt of the worst administration in history, perhaps as a religious institution.

Morning all,
Sunny, Not sure how it works with CIA but in the military when they are serving in “theatre” they are not subject to taxes. Even if it is just one day out of a month the entire month is non-taxable.

The thing is that the Blue Dogs constantly promote themselves as centrists, but in this instance where the public option is the centrist solution they shrink from the obvious and paint themselves as no more than corporate shills completely indistinguishable from most Republicans. Their solution is to give the store to the private sector and hope that the best interests of the American people will be served.

The Blue Dogs is an insane job killing proposal that will increase the percentage of GDP spent on health care costs and which will negatively impact the ability of American businesses to compete globally. A public insurance option, on the other hand, would mean that a predominantly healthy patient population would be insured through the private sector, the private sector can compete with the public option if you continue to allow them to screen out their plan participants, and a higher risk for disease and illness patient population would obtain their insurance coverage through the public option. That will not doom the public option if you develop rigorous medical/surgical treatment protocols for the most common recurring illnesses/injuries like diabetes and hip replacements.

Let me give you n example. About 8 years ago my mother has a tumor removed from behind her left eye. Her initial choice was to have the surgery performed at the Lahey Clinic by a surgeon who did about 15-20 such surgeries per year. Ultimately, she had the surgery performed at NYU under the supervision of a surgeon who had instituted a program that performed about 12-14 of similar surgeries per week. The differential in the morbidity and mortality rates were very substantial according to my father, Harvard School of Public Health and Boston University Medical School grad and practicing physician of 40 plus years. And he estimated the cost savings from having such an advanced surgical program together with highly specialized nursing care to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

This should be the ultimate goal of a public insurance option, which is to deliver higher quality outcomes than are now realized in the private sector with a less healthy population of patients. (Incidentally, this should also be the goal of Medicare, but that is a program that is almost hopelessly fragmented and so your health outcome is difficult to predict.)

The premium for the public option should be based on the average premium for the private sector plans, and the administrators could offer upgraded plans that minimized or eliminated co-pays and deductibles in exchange for higher annual premiums. If the private sector has a healthier population, then it stands to reason that there will be price competition if all health insurers can enter markets nationally without restriction. That means a better deal for all those individuals and businesses that purchase their health insurance through the private sector. It also means that there will be continual pressure on the public option to manage its resources effectively and efficiently to provide high quality health care without bankrupting itself. These are the conditions that usually lead to break through improvements in information management, innovative preventive medicine, gains in hospital morbidity and mortality, and the elimination of every layer of fat in the system that can be eliminated. Patient choice in the public option will be inevitably more restrictive than in the private sector and Medicare, but it should lead to dramatic efficiencies too.

Blue Dogs haven’t don their home work very well. The public option only trumps the private sector health insurers if the private sector en masse tries to retain its near-monopoly pricing power. If it responds to normal competitive pressures, then it should do just fine because a healthier population paying smaller premiums should yield the same or greater profit per capita and with less need for oversight as a result of that healthier population. The converse would be true for the public insurance option.

As for those who are without any health insurance, since the average premium would be equal, then each person would have a choice between enrolling in the private sector through the health insurance plans offered through their state/federal government to state/federal employees. If they cannot afford the premium then that would be a matter for the state/federal government to subsidize, or not, and to develop a revenue stream for such subsidies.

Finally, those who choose not to enroll in any insurance plan, and I think people should be not be forced to purchase health insurance, would be limited to ER care, like a motor vehicle accident. (I would suggest because of that obvious and serious risk that all dangerous instrumentalities like cars, trucks, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, et cetera, carry medical/hospital insurance coverage for injuries that result from accidents caused by their operation.) Obviously, these prior uninsured would probably have to purchase insurance for any serious illness/injury after the fact, and that would almost certainly mean buying public option insurance. If that patient type posed a systemic risk to the public option, then it may become the case that a health insurance mandate would be warranted.

Just some thoughts. The public insurance option is the centrist solution!

ao, every report tells us they got nothing from torture, information became less frequent and with less quality before we used torture, yet these “pundits” get to go on teevee and say the complete reverse

I remember report after report telling us Iraq was not associated with al qaeda and immediately after every report cheney would get on teevee and tell us that there was no doubt they were connected

and nobody called him on it to his face, now he’s doing the same thing

Cheney is a wacko neocon. I Believe him to be seriously deranged. The only constant with this guy is being wrong and thinking that the only solution to any problem is violence.

LOL!! Sounds about right.

He may be but he is given a soap box.

Give Perris a soap box instead!

Didn’t know that, makes sense. Also makes one wonder about *other* contractors.

Blue Dogs are mostly out for power. Just like the rethugs. Principle has got nothing to do with it.

Deranged or defective, I chat with a doctor who has experienced this disassociation from reality in other heart patients, possibly from the drugs.

Single payer is the way to go now if we can only get Obama to stand up along with the Congress that we gave him to show some leadership instead of acting like a bunch of wimps who lost an election instead of winners maybe we can get to see some of that Change we were promised.

in re: torture .. aka EIT ..

“all evil needs to triumph is that good men [and women] do nothing ..”

thanx turk ..

And that most likely 85% of the torturees were innocent

Since one is innocent until proven guilty, by definition 100% of the torturees were innocent.

thanks so much for the overview and the self-share!

I think of the $1.4+ million a day invested on bribery … anything to keep status quo, vendor control of the whole shebang going, with that money essentially being used to protect the illegitimately deregulated amoral profiteers and the horrifying amounts to the military budget that is going toward oppression and death elsewhere and further profiteering by those illegitimate profiteers … and it boggles the mind and heart how the “common good” and the community of nation is under such sustained attack by so many self-servers and there seems little heart and conscience among those who were entrusted with power and trust. Little devotion to the family of nation and the broader family of man.

Absolutely right, OFG. Yes.

But my point was the track record of Bushco and the CIA to recognize a possible “enemy”. What frightening frame of reference? What ethical freakshow depraved crazymaking — don’t just stand there torture someone non-stop and keep them in a cage for say seven years and we can’t let them go because then we will be admitting we are monsters even if they are innocent and were in the wrong place (which the US is collectively) at the wrong time. And if accused of our disgusting behavior we will cling to our myth of righteousness.

And these traumatized beings … well then we have the sheeple group that gets so hysterical that the traumatized beings after so many years of torture cannot be put on US soil with their PTSD-wracked psyches because they will hurt US I mean “us” … ????? Even though they will be in our own prison system, that is no cake walk and is incidentally in need, long long overdue, of some SANE and HUMANE regulation.

I guess America’s War on Empathy is the only War On … being won. What a tragedy.

nick, I think it is our only hope. Otherwise it is a Sysiphisean (spelling?) future for us American serfs of playing lucy with the football in the quicksand with betraying leaders. (sorry for the mixed metaphors :))

yes, yes, yes. 3 groups of people. those who make things happen. those who watch things happen. those who ask “wtf” happened?

thanks for their link!!!

selise, don’t know if you will get to see this, but Jacob Hacker on the Newshour on Tuesday night did a great job pitching a public plan. FYI. Haven’t googled him yet but will. He spoke pretty passionately on how a public plan would take care of the self and unemployed or those with inadequate plans and to provide competition to break pricing inflation of health and drug industries. A healthy competition if they both had a level playing field. Jim Lehrer seemed very concerned that the public would “crowd out” the insurance companies and the ultimate goal was single payer. Lehrer seemed pretty arch for himself and kind of pressed … for an answer about progressives. Jacobs said that substantial number of progressives treat public as deal breaker and many people in country are confused why Congress so anti-public plan since competition supposed to be good for America.

Okay.. now I am wondering… Is Newshour sponsored by insurance company or drug company? I always want Newshour folks to be more feisty with guests, but is it inspired by corporate loyalty??? Sigh.

thanks for the heads up libbyliberal. i will try to find and listen to the podcast of the newshour tomorrow. i am interested to hear what hacker has to say in that kind of forum.

my current take is that hacker’s original proposal for a public option, if combined with strong regulation and enforcement (including risk adjustment), might have worked (not nearly as well as single payer, but at least not the disaster i think the pos in current bills are). unfortunately, that is not what is currently in play (see for example, kip sullivan’s analysis). but maybe there is something i’m missing, so that’s another reason to give hacker a listen on newhour.

thanks again!

p.s. if you put my name in a comment, there is a good chance i will see it — better than 50/50 anyway — asi have my rss reader set up to flag me.

Thanks, selise. I appreciated Hacker as someone who seemed sincere and teacherly and appealing but kept thinking in a non-corrupt world he had a case not in this one. Still, glad I caught it. The part where he said both public and private should not have any advantages but level playing field made me nervous since I think public will get the most expensive cases and deserves to have a bulk bargaining discount ability, but that is my single payer voice talking eh?

Thanks for link. Will check it out. I am continuing with my single payer phone calls and will follow the pnhp updates. When you see Lehrer on podcast with Hacker, let me know if you think old Jim is putting his thumb on the scale’s other side. Was it my oversensitivity from my increased raised consciousness about corporate media being CORPORATE? Awwww….. I guess I don’t want to give up my Newshour kool-aid. Sigh.

Take care.