torture

Maybe you grew up reading the same books I did: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1984, The Gulag Archipelago, Animal Farm, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number... it all seemed very distant, so far away, so... unlikely.

But yet, now we're here -- now my government and your government carries out exactly these policies. And only God knows now what else, what fetid immortalities men believe they are justified in committing in the name of the American state, in some deep, dank cell, far underground, where they know to be ashamed of what they are doing but do it anyway.

And a man -- a man himself tortured for over 5 years, raised and sent to secure his country's empire, a man who apparently learned absolutely nothing in all those desperate, wasted, ugly, caged hours, days, months, and years -- thinks the way to attain progress is to convince us that torture is somehow OK, that this is what we must aspire to, this is what we must become. And this fucker wants to lead us.

We are further down the path than any of us will acknowledge. Can't any of you people see that?

When this is over we need some Truth and Reckoning. Up front. On all the channels. Haul them all out, the very top people and the sniveling go-alongs and mid-level ass-lickers, and the stocky gloved men who have been salivating for this kind of chance their whole lives. Smoke them all out, down to the very depths, until they come up gasping for air, looking around, pretending to be bewildered. Then clamp some justice around their puny little throats and watch closely for that one, exact moment when they suddenly wonder, deep down, if they will get anything like what they have given.

Watch for it.

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

-- AJ Muste