Suppose that a major terrorist attack happens on, say, September 10th, 2009. Exactly how long until “patriots” and “serious people” call for Obama to be tried for treason?
I give it until the next Monday.
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In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families.
And in a breathtaking display of deaf-to-irony stupid-fuckery, Michael Scheuer wrote a self-serving screed explaining why the best way to display our nation’s moral compass to the rest of the world is to pack it up in an unmarked box and throw it in the back of some vast government warehouse somewhere for the rest of time, like they did with the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Indiana Jones.
Bush’s worldview thereby produced an enemy that quickly outpaced the limited but proven threat-containing capacities of the major U.S. counterterrorism programs—rendition, interrogation and unmanned aerial vehicle attacks.
Now, in a single week, President Obama has eliminated two-thirds of that successful-but-not-sufficient national defense troika because his personal ideology
Am I wrong in interpreting this as “Even though the current situation is all FUBAR because Bush felt pretending he was John Fucking Wayne was more important than realistically assessing the problem, Obama ten times worse for not staying the course.”
I mean, successful? Successful???!!! Saying that Bush’s torture policy was successful just because we haven’t had a 9/11 since 9/11 makes Scheuer Homer to Bush Admin’s Lisa:
After a single bear wandering into town has drawn an over-reaction from the residents of Springfield, Homer stands outside his house and muses, “Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!”
Lisa sees through his reasoning: “That’s specious reasoning, dad.” Homer, misunderstanding the word “specious”, thanks her for the compliment.
Optimistically, she tries to explain the error in his argument: “By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.” Homer is confused: “Hmm; how does it work?” Lisa: “It doesn’t work; it’s just a stupid rock!” Homer: “Uh-huh.” Lisa: “… but I don’t see any tigers around, do you?”
Homer, after a moment’s thought: “Lisa, I want to buy your rock…”
Bush (well, let’s be fair, mostly Cheney & Co) scared the living shit out of America for nigh-on a decade, and all we have to show for it is more problems in the Middle East, no Osama bin Laden rotting in our jails, a “terror alert” system that hasn’t dipped below orange since the day it was unveiled and a destroyed economy. Scheuer will have to forgive me for not thinking that Obama’s “This Didn’t Work, Let’s Stop Doing It” policy is the end of American security as we know it.
Michael Scheuer is a wierd one.
The guy is actually a foremost expert on Al Qaeda, not just your usual conservative bullshit artist. He has many times gone on record saying things that are completely counter to the usual US propaganda of the “Global War On Terror”. He has made the argument that, in essence, Americans have two overall choices as regards the radical Islamist movement: either we will have wage a genocidal war against radical Islamists, or we will have to make pretty deep changes in the way we engage the Middle East. This stark assessment seems too black-and-white to me, but I think there may be truth to it as well.
Politically Scheuer may be something of a Ron Paulite. He has definitely defended Rep. Paul’s views on foreign policy. At the same time, Scheuer is a hawk, especially as regards the policy of torture. That “SundayPaper” link credits him with the actual creation of the “Extraordinary Rendition” program. Scheuer claims that it was Clinton’s idea. He also claims that the CIA has never kidnapped anyone as part of the “Extraordinary Rendition” program. If these claims smell somewhat of horseshit to you, then trust me you’re not alone.
So, in sum, a guy with actual deep knowledge of Al Qaeda and of Osama Bin Laden, with views on US grand strategy that actually make good sense, yet at the same time a huge fan of torture. Appears to have a rather unreasoning hatred of liberals. Nasty yet quite accurate statements about US relationships with Israel and with Saudi Arabia. Somewhat of a Ron Paul fan. Occasionally seems like he’s either nuts or lying. Is there some genius here who can make sense of all these apparently contradictory things, and tie the threads together into a coherent pattern?
I couldn’t even read the whole thing. First paragraph is a 24 fantasy script, and then he devolved into Obama’s “personal” belief that torture is inhumane and criminal being foisted upon an unsuspecting country.
HEY, ASSHOLE! Torture IS inhuman and a crime. It is UNAMERICAN, as in it is against our values and founding principals, not as in we haven’t done it. Obama was ELECTED by people who believe torture is inhumane and criminal and that it is not keeping us safe. He was elected by people who believe the wars in the desert were predicated on lies and are doing nothing to keep us safe.
That’s right, asshole, unlike his predecessor, Obama isn’t acting like a dictator following his own whims. Obama was elected by a mandate-sized margin TO STOP THE TORTURE AND THE FAILED WARS. HE WAS ELECTED TO CHANGE THE COURSE INTO LAWLESSNESS.
Your torture pipedreams? Just your own sick fantasies.
————
As for 9-11? Bush OWNS it. He was warned against it, as reported SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/
Americans should be clear on what Obama has done. In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families. The interrogation techniques in question, the president asserted, are a sign that Americans have lost their “moral compass,” a compliment similar to Attorney General Eric Holder’s identifying them as “moral cowards.” Mulling Obama’s claim, one can wonder what could be more moral for a president than doing all that is needed to defend America and its citizens?
To my mind, there is something oddly childish in his anger over these statements.
“So if the above worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, Americans will have at least two things from which to take solace, even after the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen.”
Wow! It sounds like we can’t even wait for an attack, which will come as surely as Summer follows Spring. It’s obvious that we need to preemptively prosecute Obama now, because we can’t allow the flowers in our soldier’s rusting rifles to be replaced with atomic mushrooms planted by crazed, bearded, Muslofascist fanatics emboldened by our tie-dye-shirt-wearing make-love-not-war hippie president who believes suffocating prisoners and bashing their heads against the wall violate his panty-waisted sensitivities.
“First, they will know that their president believes that those losses are a small price to pay for stopping interrogations and making foreign peoples like us more.”
When you deal with terraists, there’s only two ways to go: The Jack Bauer way, or give it all up and give the keys to America to our sworn enemies and report to the nearest concentration camps for the cyanide showers we well deserve.
“And second, they will see Osama bin Laden’s shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin.”
....well, we won’t see it, ‘cause we’ll all be dead, killed by our own naive compassion and sense of right and wrong. But the Islamic fanatics that trek to the smoldering ruins of America to dance on our graves will see it. And they’ll praise their satanic Allah for it.
I hope all you dirty peacnik hippies are happy now that were all dead and America is gone…
“And second, they will see Osama bin Laden’s shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin.”
U MEK TEH BABY JESUS CRI
U MEK TEH BABEE BIN LADEN SMILE!
I’d really like to hook this guy (and other torture apologists like Pat Buchanan and Bill Bennett) up to one of those devices that measures penile blood flow and see what happens when they talk about torture. I’m pretty sure I know what would happen. These guys just like the idea of torture; it’s that simple. Maybe belonging to a cult that thinks that God tortures the vast majority of mankind forever for the crime of picking the wrong religion has something to do with it…
MS, that is probably true, but what’s really scary is that people like Scheuer and Buchanan are distinguished from the rest of the conservatives by actually being right about some things.
I am with Caren. I read his intro as “Americans should keep this ridiculously unrealistic 24 script in mind as they consider whether to prosecute those who ordered torture. Unless we can torture people at will, we are sitting ducks.” And I read his closing paragraph as “If the above booga-booga-booga scenario comes to pass and a brazillion of their countrymen die, then Americans can take comfort from the fact that we stopped our heros from causing any discomfort to al Qaeda murderers and we also get to see smiling happy Osama.”
I voted for Obama BECAUSE I hoped he would drop this bullshit narrative.
As Thers said:
Fascism flourishes when “intellectuals” preach about the pointlessness of ordinary democratic modalities, figure duly elected officials as illegitimate, nurse inexplicable grievances, encourage xenophobia, appeal to a “nation” supernal to a political system, exploit economic crises, cheer on the crazies, apologize for stuff like state-sanctioned torture, deliberately fuck with established law, and generally make shit up and fart around with accountability-free shitheaded opinionizing.
Michael Scheuer reminds me of Colonel Jessup from A Few Good Men in that sense; in his own heroic self conception, he does the dark things that make it possible for the rest of us, for whom he can barely contain his contempt, to have our freedom. We are soft and sybaritic and naive; he is a manly protector man. We can no more direct the conduct of the CIA and the armed forces than an eight year old child can tell his father how to pay the bills.
But I would ask Michael Scheuer this. If, after 9/11, George W. Bush had adopted, instead of aggressive wars and torture, a counterterrorism program that relied principally on genocide, would you be making the same argument? If there is no higher morality than protecting Americans, would a newly elected president have any right to reverse a policy of carpet bombing the Middle East?
“The President has placed himself in a very bad position.He has renounced the use of the Bush tactics-torture,if you will-but is also saying it would make no difference in the US’ safety.Given that the sine qua non is ‘NO Attacks”,there’s no room for error on the political front.”
...corwin, do you honestly believe if Obama continued the Cheney/Bush policies intact, and an attack occurred, that Obama would not be blamed for it?
It seems to me you’re saying that by getting himself elected Obama has “placed himself in a very bad position”. It goes with the territory. Welcome to the real world…
“Finally,re’ impeachment.Please be serious calls.The first thing opposing and friendly politicians would do is cry croodile tears.Then,planning a way to not lose your own office.”
...what does this even mean?...
Scheuer also said “... the world will not be safer because the president abandons interrogations ... .” Interrogations can continue without torture. Scheuer is a careful writer; this false equivalence is not accidental. Given that he is seeking to intentionally mislead us, I am not inclined to buy his “Just trust me, we REALLY REALLY KNOW that torture is necessary for Jack Bauer to defend us from nuclear armed Salafists.”
Can we establish a policy of preemptively torturing everybody for no particular reason? Just every once in a while, pick up a few guys somewhere in the world and torture ‘em. That’d show everyone who’s boss, right, Michael Scheuer?
Michael Scheuer reminds me of Colonel Jessup from A Few Good Men in that sense; in his own heroic self conception, he does the dark things that make it possible for the rest of us, for whom he can barely contain his contempt, to have our freedom.
Southpaw, I think this is an excellent point. Scheuer has written at length about how current US strategy assumes that Al Qaeda, and bin Laden, are simply terrorists, and how this vastly underestimates them. There even seems to be a bit of a mutual admiration thing going on between Scheuer and Osama bin Laden (bin Laden stated in his message to the world released on September 7th, 2007: “If you want to understand what’s going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer.”)
So, we know that Scheuer has a measure of respect for our enemies, the radical Islamists who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But as you point out, it doesn’t really seem that Scheuer has respect for the US public. Or at the very least, Scheuer considers himself on some level above the US public. That might be key.
Besides the moral questions, the other thing that makes this argument absurd: we tortured two of these terrorists. what? 160 times and 200+ times and it did not generate much information. Under his scenario, if they’d known about any bombs ready to go off, America would be a nuclear wasteland right now.
Again, the following compromise does spring to mind - a 10 to 15 year mandatory sentence for torture.
If you *really* and *truly* think there’s a bomb ticking, you set up the video cameras and torture the guy anyway - and then plead guilty and accept the mandatory sentence with a smile. If you *really* and *truly* believe you’re saving lives, 10-15 years in jail is a reasonable price.
On the other hand, if you just want license to go trolling around through the medium of other people’s pain and despair, go fuck yourself.
“What can we do to make Osama bin Laden talk?”
Because religious fanatics are known for their weak wills, low pain threshold, and submission to authority when confronted with the possibility of being forced to die for their faith.
Look how well it worked for Nero.
Posted a short note earlier, but this issue really upsets me, so a longer one (not that I think anyone is hanging around just waiting for me to post again; I’m not that egotistical):
I am so sick of 24-esque ticking time bomb scenarios… In the real universe, that kind of situation essentially just doesn’t happen. But let’s go with it, for the sake of argument. Say that we have a captive, and we know to a reasonable degree of certainty that he knows the location and disarming code for a dirty bomb about to go off in NYC (how we could know that much without also knowing where the bomb is, I don’t have any idea, but let’s assume we do). Our intrepid defenders decide to use torture. There is absolutely no guarantee that it would work. Consider the most likely possibilities: 1) He just resists. Anyone entrusted with that information in the first place is going to be highly motivated, highly disciplined and probably a pretty tough hombre. And remember, in a real ticking time bomb situation, he doesn’t have to resist very long, just a matter of hours or perhaps a couple of days. 2) He lies. He pretends to break, but sends the good guys on a wild goose chase, or gives them a code that makes the bomb go off instantly. 3) If his cohorts know of his capture, which seems probable, they just move the bomb, or set it off earlier.
But let’s be charitable and assume that they get accurate information from him and save the day. Millions of lives are spared. Were I the president, I could, just maybe, in such a once-in-a-million-years scenario, where the consequences of failure would have been so catastrophic, be persuaded to give the torturers a clandestine pardon and cover up the incident. Maybe.
But this is a far cry from legalizing and normalizing torture in situations where we simply suspect that someone might have some information that might be useful someday, somehow, somewhere.
Moreover, even this, as reprehensible as it would be, is not even remotely the real situation. In reality torture was used not to get actionable intelligence, but in the hopes of securing false confessions, false data, that could bolster the administration’s case for invading Iraq. This is what torture is almost always used for. It’s why the North Koreans used torture on American GIs: to extract false confessions that would embarrass the US. The Inquisition used torture to extract confessions to convince the populace that they were surrounded by witches and heretics bent on their destruction, and to consolidate their temporal power (and confiscate the property of the condemned, of course). Stalin and Mao used torture to extract confessions for their show trials for similar reasons: “See, there are enemies everywhere, and only I can save you.”
And of course another other reason torture is used is that some people just like to torture, or they get off on the power to have people tortured. I strongly suspect that this is a much bigger factor here than people want to face up to or talk about.
If any one has a verifiable story where torture produced a war changing outcome; I’d like to hear it.
“Finally,re’ impeachment.Please be serious calls.The first thing opposing and friendly politicians would do is cry croodile tears.Then,planning a way to not lose your own office.”[“corwin”]
...what does this even mean?…
MikeEss on 04/26 at 07:31 AM
I think “corwin’s” translation map from Thari to English glitched somewhere between Avalon and here. Perhaps there is blood on the Pattern and the whole universe is unraveling?
Because I didn’t understand anything corwin was saying.
Atheist:
here is my take away from Scheuer (i had to read some of his stuff in a poly-sci class that was on Middle Eastern politics…)
We Just Don’t Understand How Muslims think.
for instance, jihad. a jihad is supposed to be the war that a Muslim fights WITH HIM/HERSELF to be obedient to God. a jihad is a personal thing - jihad’s that are external are rare, rare things. i grant that many people probably *ARE* currently engaged in a “jihad against the horrible evil Shatitan-spawn United States”; but that is just as much of a perversion of their own beliefs as sacraficing infants to Moloch was a perversion of Jewish beliefs.
now i know that i am not an “expert” - i have read a fair bit, but not a huge amount, and the ME is not my focus in political study. but here is what i see:
1. there is not any single area in “Arabia” that has what we would consider to be “natural” borders. Iraq is the perfect example of this - Kurds? seriously? i blame Britian and France almost exlusively for this, when that sat down after WWII and had 3 year olds randomly draw lines to create “nations”
2. we talk about class gaps here, about the slow loss of the middle class, rich people forcing less rich people into poor people… piffle. (not dismising US problems, because they suck. saying that comparatively, the homeless guy who wanders my neighborhood is RICH compared to most “Arabs”, many of whom aren’t really Arabic, but thats not the point). in most Muslim countries, the divide between rich and poor isn’t just visible, its legally enforced. and the poor people… in all senses of the world “poor”... to a very large extent are complicit with their almost-slavery, because they BELIEVE. they have too. by complicit, i mean in the same sense that Christians, 1800 years ago, would give up most of their goods to prove that they were good Christians.
3. we always go to the religious view. which we shouldn’t. yes, Islam is the visible “reason”. but what is Islam? MOST of the practices that are called “Muslim” are NOT. they are holdovers (or re-dug-up) traditions from the pre-Islamic paganism. Mohammad called for men to treat all their children, male and female, equally and stated that women were as loved as men by Allah. as WORTHY to Allah. the things that Muslims do that we hate (stoning women for being raped, locking women up, giving no rights to women, the way they treat their girl-children, FGM, etc) are AGAINST THE RULES OF ISLAM. they are CULTURAL, not religious - and they will NEVER be able to be counteracted so long as non-Muslims hide behing “religious freedom” to excuse this.
4. Muslims are ALSO capable of some of the most wonderful things. until after all those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Crusades, Arabia was an oasis of poetry, science, and female liberation. i have read some accounts that say the current barbaric treatment of women really only started AFTER WWI. not sure if that is totally accurate, but its food for thought. Charity is AUTOMATIC to most Muslims - not that they’ll personally house lepers or anything, but they were literally commanded to “tithe” 10% of their incomes to poor people - and the percentage of people who even try to evade this is MUCH smaller than the percentage of USians who try to evade personal taxes (not corporate, personal income taxes)
5. alot of the monetary extremism would be recognizable to anyone who lived through the Great Depression, only more so. the way that they display wealth is generally done as an attempt to reasure themselves that their children will never need to go through the private that their parents (and all their ancestors) went through.
6. the rest of the monetary issues are, essentially, OUR fault. we spend DECADES screwing over most of the Middle East for oil (and don’t doubt that we really did screw over 99.9% of the inhabitants, in ways that make presidents calling out the army to break up strikes look pleasant). we directly encouraged some few people to collect all the money we paid for resources, we directly encouraged them to act like the most lavish of emperors. we thought we needed to control a few key, corruptable people to keep control of the resources. it apparantly never occued to anyone to set up systems that were *FAIR*
7. at least half of the “military” and “terrorist” issues were ALSO *OUR* fault. bin Laden? everyone KNOWS that the CIA trained him and gave him lots of equipment and money. everyone knows that *WE* put Saddam in power, that *WE* put the Taliban in power, that *WE* are at least partially responsible for the government of Egypt, we meddled in Iran to the point of lunacy - and I won’t TOUCH the issue of Israel (mostly because i still don’t have any clue as to how to fix it. but i DO know that putting Israel THERE was the biggest fuck up in the history of fuck ups)
i think i know how to at least START fixing it. it would have been easier back in 2001, of course. MONEY. invest in Arabic companies. start in Iraq, and LITERALLY set up companies that are IRAQI, backed with US money, but FAIR AND EQUITABLE. we have fucked those people UP. we have an obligation to help fix the mess, and this is the only way to do it. buy their affection. i mean it. spend money thier, set up companies that are owned by Iraqis, where the Iraqis get a fair and equitable return, hire Iraqis, work with them, give the people (not the GOVERNMENT, the PEOPLE) money for hospitals and other charities. it will be cheaper in the long run that we *are* doing. and by “long run” i mean the next decade. same in Afghanistan, same in Saudi, same EVERYWHERE we can. right now, most Muslims, when they think “American” they think of A) the wars and B) how we have screwed over Arabia over and over and over. of course they think we’re evil! we have treated the whole area with evil intent since we first looked at it!
show them generosity, mercy, fairness. in a decade, it will pay.
how do i get people in charge to listen
Mark… lol
you are sayin Corwin needs to go back to Amber 
hehe
Ah, shit. We’ve got another name-stealing troll on our hands.
There has been a lot of buyers’ remorse and there will be more to come as people realize they’ve been had.
Does this look like “a lot of buyers’ remorse”, asshole?
So, you don’t actually read other people’s posts, do you, Hector?
as your attempt at translation was of a passage that explicitly said “Torture doesn’t get forgiveness, so if you truly feel it is justified, you get to be a goddamn heroic martyr who will be remembered for your sacrifice of 15 years of your life to prison for the good of everybody, because you were THAT CERTAIN that it needed to be done. Simply saying “it needs to be done” doesn’t get you a free pass.” and turned it into… “I’m personally attacking you.”
See me? I am personally attacking you. You are a goddamn idiot with the reading comprehension skills of a mouse.
Denelian, thanks for the comment. That is interesting that you have read Scheuer’s book, as I have really only heard it talked about and looked statements of his up on the web. I totally agree that it is very important to increase understanding of the Middle East among Americans, since we seem to be having so many deadly interactions with that region, and yet we really need the oil there and probably will for a considerable time. I still can’t decide whether Scheuer truly has something useful to say or is more like a crank who got some things right, but whatever.
Your statement that some of the practices of the Muslims in the Middle East are really against Islam is interesting. I always like to keep in mind that any system be it religious or not, might have the best ideas in theory, but it is important to keep in mind how it has actually been used in the real world. You are absolutely right, though, that many of the most important breakthroughs for human civilization have come from that supposedly backward region.
I’m not sure what you mean about “monetary extremism”. Are you referring to the system that was put in place by the US in Iraq after the invasion in 2003? Or what?
Yes, it is important to keep in mind that many of the conflicts we enter or get pulled into in the ME have roots that go back to US interventions in the past. For instance, I was pleased when Obama made overtures to Iran in his Nowruz video, but was somewhat frustrated that no mention was made of the 1953 Coup against Mossadegh, which was done by the CIA in response to Mossadegh’s plan to nationalize Iran’s oil. But that was a minor thing.
Hector,
My point was that Obama wasn’t acting solely on his “personal beliefs” when ignoring the ridiculous Jack Bauer scenarios put forth in justification of torture; he was also acting on the beliefs of those who voted for him. On this topic, about which I care a lot, I have been most satisfied with my vote for Obama.
Cheers,
Craig
how do i get people in charge to listen
Denelian, that is an excellent question. A lot of Americans have been asking that, how to change US foreign policy, how to pull our nation back from the crazy, nonsensical “Global War On Terror” and all the pointless chaos, death, torture and destruction that is called for under this war. Its not an easy question by any means. I think that the election of Obama was a step in the right direction, as he was willing to straightforwardly call the Iraq War a mistake. Unfortunately he also has been escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which if anything could be a worse mistake.
I would advise that, if you are interested in working to change US foreign policy, you find a group that is organizing against the wars in your area and work with them to whatever degree seems appropriate to you. The coalition, “United for Peace and Justice”, has a list of member groups around the nation (& the world). If you open the link and then scroll down the page, you will see a list of states in the US, and then countries, under the heading “Search by state or country:”. Locate your area there, click on the link, and it will take you to a list of groups in that area organized by city/region, with contact information for each group. That should be enough to get you started.
Additional groups include:
Declaration of Peace
CodePINK
atheist,
Scheuer truly has something useful to say on the origins, motivations and beliefs of Salafists generally and Osama bin Laden specifically. His books are quite good for that (though he did buy at one point the Iraq/al Qaeda link, which I’ve always thought was highly unlikely, and thus my respect for his superior knowledge on this subject is somewhat tempered.) Beyond that, I think he is a crank. I find the piece we are discussing here particularly crankish.
Cheers,
Craig
atheist:
Scheuer, to me, is a guy who *should* have something useful to say, but can’t see past his own bigotry and hatred to actually be able to say it. i haven’t read a whole book, we were given excerpts of a couple of different ones, so its entirely possible that i missed something. but, i don’t think so. we read effectively half of his first book (i can’t remember the name of…) and a couple of articles that he had written for magazines.
“monetary extremism” - i have to remember that not everyone uses my made up vocabulary. what i mean is that there are a lots of Muslims who are ostentineous (how is that spelled?) we see it here alot in the US - like the rapper who had diamonds embedded in his teeth or however that worked. Muslims build houses (small palaces, really) they will have, say, a door made out of PLATINUM just because they can. its a big deal, how they spend their money (display their money, rather) and it breeds a lot of class resentment (of course) and its a *lot* more polarized than it is here in the US for a couple of reasons. the first is that these displays of wealth really are “hey look at me i’m rich” statements, and the poor people who have to see them correctly identify them as “fuck you i’m rich” statements. poor people in the ME know that they literally can be bought and sold by the rich people. and, too, there is no narrative of “rags to riches” - the US elite class keeps us poor masses in check because they hold out the promise that if we do everything right, we might become rich too. there is no such narrative in the ME. you are what you are, trying to change it is probably against what Allah wants (i have read the Koran, or at least an translation, and i never saw anything that actually even implies that attempting to better yourself is bad, but many Muslims think that it is… if they are born poor, its because Allah wants them poor…)
as for joining a group…
i can’t sit up for more than about half an hour with excruciating pain. i don’t get to do things right now :( its why i write stuff here or on my LJ or whatever - i can’t go out and protest, so i try and do it online. Drs are still working to fix (some of) the problems, and i still hold hope that in a year or three i can be a real person who can do normal things, like have a job or join a club. but i will look through your links, maybe there is online stuff i can do - i have been looking for more. thanks!
denelian, I see now what you meant by “monetary extremism”. I’m not sure if I know of a phrase that will make that clear in only a couple of words. Maybe “a rigid class system”?
I’m sorry to hear that you have those physical issues. I’m sure it is difficult for you. I hope that with help from your doctors you can be more mobile. In the meantime, there are often online actions that you could take. Act on a level which feels appropriate to you—everone has to balance activism with their other responsibilities.
atheist:
“rigid class system” at least starts, you are correct, i will use it in the future. actually, by future i mean for a paper for class thank you! i have been looking for a succinct way of explaining.
i do do online stuff, but not alot, i am looking for more. which is why i am grateful for those links - after i get out of class today i am going to start exploring them.
and also, thank you for the kind thoughts. i appreciate them. i don’t have a lot of money (who does?) but i can write for hours. i know that my senator is sick of me :D
While alternative histories can be fun, Franklin, they really have no bearing on the topic of Scheuer’s use of ridiculously unlikely “24” scenarios to excuse torture.
You optimist. 48 hours max. But of course, George W. Bush, who directly ignored intelligence warnings about exactly that sort of attack, is the greates patriotic protector of America EVAH (except of course for Ronnie RayGunz, who ran away and hid when Hezbollah attacked the US embassy).