Our government tortures people. How does that make you feel?

[Solly Mack]

Right here. Right now. In this time we're living in now - our government tortures people.

How does that make you feel?

My emotions run the gamut from the kind grief that makes you sick to barely contained rage. Depends on where my mind is on any given day - the direction my thoughts take. Mostly though, I'm disgusted.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. It makes me feel like a revolution.

n/t

[Solly Mack]

7. Well, something certainly has to give

I'm reminded of something Jefferson once said....about tyrants and patriots.

[TahitiNut]

58. The Tree of Liberty has gone far too long without watering.

The Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots both.
~ Thomas Jefferson

It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once.
~ Thomas Paine

[Double T]

2. Barbaric.

The current regime, specially bush and cheney, is a worldwide disgrace.

[Solly Mack]

11. They really are...and dragging all of us down with them

[ixion]

3. it makes me sad

and makes me question the purpose of our species.

[Solly Mack]

12. Yes :(

[Kagemusha]

4. It's the denial that what has been done is torture that irks me.

Even more than the fact it's going on. But Bush explaining to those "scholar" kids today that the US does not torture and respects all human rights... that's just. Ugh.

I suppose that's how Cheney explained it to him but ugh ugh ugh.

[Solly Mack]

10. I know! The denial flat out chaps my hiney

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

5. Makes Me Feel Like We Have To Do Everything In Our Power To Ensure Democrats Get Elected. n/t

[mod mom]

6. It makes me sick to my stomach. I started reading the Sy Hersh New Yorker

article "The General's Report" at the pool and had tears of anger. I met with a congress woman's staff after the Abu Ghraib story first broke, and have written letters since, but I wish there was something more substantial I could do.

I am ashamed of what this country has become. I am even more ashamed that such few people even care. We have these criminally insane monsters running the show and most people are too busy with their daily schedules to even learn more of what is being purported in our name.

[Solly Mack]

15. That sense of not being able to do more...

I feel helpless in the face of it.

[Socal31]

8. Although all forms of torture are bad,

I do differentiate between nude-human pyramids/barking dogs and, say, cutting off heads, electrodes to testicles, or other extreme forms, which the US does not use. (that we know of)

[IChing]

18. OK.....sorta like "i can't believe it's not butter " type torture.

thank you for clearing up your definitions on what "real" torture is.

[Solly Mack]

23. Thank you

Because I just couldn't respond. :)

[IChing]

28. Yes I think can't believe people are saying that.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2004/06/13/abughraib_dog_torture_430,0.jpg

[Socal31]

52. Sorry if I can actually differentiate between different things.

Its like Sex Crimes. ALL ARE TERRIBLE, but is a 19yr old sleeping consensually with his 16yr old GF the same as a 40yr old raping a 13 year old?

Im not defending anything here, maybe thats where you misunderstood. But I am smart enough to see distinctions, even in terrible instances.

[IChing]

59. Give me a fucking break and don't forget to check out your ass and electrodes

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. We don't know about the really bad stuff.

But there is no doubt in my mind that it happens. And if "we" aren't doing it, we are rendering prisoners to other countries, knowing full well that's what they'll do.

Anyhow, it's all bad. It's all torture. To regard the Abu Ghraib stuff as not "real" torture is an utterly disingenuous parsing of the meaning -- like Gozo and John Yoo and the other asshats who said if you don't cause organ failure you're not really torturing.

Sorry. It's all torture.

[devilgrrl]

32. Yeah, just some harmless frat house pranks...

http://smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/15/abughraib1_wideweb__470x306,0.jpg

:eyes::sarcasm::eyes:

Ghoul.

[devilgrrl]

33. "other extreme forms, which the US does not use...."

Oh, you mean the ones our friends in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan use?

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. Just a few thoughts to your question -

At the most basic level, yes, our government tortures people - the last 7 years under the Bush* regime provies daily torture for anyone in the world with decency, fairness, empathy, and a sense of what is right.

That was my first, flippant response.

Digging a bit deeper - it makes me ill...but a few things came to mind.

Empires fail. We are in the decline.
People tend to not learn very well from past experience. Especially stupid, stubborn people who have been filled with false pride. Introducing our so called president.
A lifetime failure will only continue to fail. Once again, yes, it is our pResident.
Republicans make terrible presidents because they pretend to have moral authority, pretend to have religion and wield it like a weapon of manipulation. We have the worst right now - someone who, if he did believe in a higher power, could never do what he does, say what he says. This goes for those he surrounds himself with.

We are seeing a truly evil bunch of people, corrupt and drunk with power, utterly devoid of intellect or decency, ruining the world.

And we are keeping our powder dry. Because we don't want to be unpopular.

And this only scratches the surface of my outrage.

[Solly Mack]

17. Oh, how I grok. I do grok.

"And this only scratches the surface of my outrage."

[Initech]

13. It pisses me off, especially when they seem to think it's OK.

:argh: :grr: :nuke:

[Solly Mack]

20. I know - like it's just perfectly fine to torture people

No big deal..about like asking them about the weather

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. Appalled beyond words.

But I've realized that most of us, at least to some extent, have absorbed and internalized the American myth that somehow we are "better" than the rest of the world. We've been taught this in school, by the media, the movies, everything we've been exposed to all our lives. And all of a sudden we get whacked in the face by the fact that "we" -- our country -- is just as capable of atrocities and acts of unimaginable brutality as all those less exalted countries we've been looking down on for so long. It's a shock, and we should be shocked.

The Constitution is a brilliant document that embodies the ideals of the 18th-century Enlightenment -- rationality, equality, the idea that people are capable of governing themselves, that there should be no monarch. These are great ideals, but the U.S. has never quite lived up to them, and has in fact done terrible things before. Our government has enslaved people, persecuted and committed genocide against the Native Americans, discriminated against women and others. Even so, at least up to now, most people, including those involved in government, at least took them seriously, and *wanted* us to be the kind of country the Founding Fathers envisioned. There was once the political will to stop the bad things, like discrimination and unnecessary wars.

What happened? Where did that will go? Did the Constitution fall apart because it couldn't stand up to the desire of evil, cynical people for power?

It's just heartbreaking.

[Solly Mack]

26. Well said.

I'm afraid people are waiting for this period of time to be the past, so they can relegate to history what is happening now. So they can tell themselves - that was the past...we're different now....and never really face up to what is taking place.

[treestar]

16. Sick

And remembering the days when I was proud to be American, because the USA would never stoop to such things.

[Solly Mack]

27. It is so sickening...it really is

[indepat]

60. The really sickening thing is those at the top who ordered it like it and evidently

those who otherwise might have been decent people must learn to like it when doing it after so ordered. Symptomatic of a very sick society imo.

[Elspeth]

21. Like this isn't the country I grew up in

:(

[Solly Mack]

29. Like a stranger...

[Laurier]

22. It's horrific

But, unfortunately, we'll still be torturing people when we boot GWB and his repub minions out of office in 2008. The U.S. government, regardless of which party is in power, has been doing the same shit for a long, long, long time, and it isn't going to stop any time soon.

[Solly Mack]

35. I keep hoping - and I kick myself for that hope - that humans

will ...I dunno...change? grow? learn? evolve? something... choose a better way to survive? Stop telling themselves this is the way it's always been so this is the way it has to be...because that just sounds like an excuse not to find a better way...

[whistle]

24. Anger with George Bush for not setting a standard of conduct

....in which torture is not an option, totally disgusted with former Secretary Rumsfeld for implementing a policy of torture as a means of interrogation, humiliated that VP Cheney, Secretary Rice and other Bush advisers and top military commanders present the use of torture to the world community as acceptable American policy, frightened for the exposure this brings for any U.S. troops taken prisoner knowing that they will be subjected to torture.

Torture is a crime against humanity and violates the Geneva Conventions and America has compromised its moral rights and code of conduct. The advocacy of torture and its use by anyone whether in war or any other situation is a travesty.

[Solly Mack]

Nicely said!

[tnlefty]

25. 2 of my kids and I watched a documentary on either LinkTV

or FreeSpeechTV last night about torture and they truly understood my having said, "We're like the Khmer Rouge now" when out government sanctioned torture, and then passed the Military Commissions Act. This documentary covered torture in Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, the French in Algiers, Americans in Viet Nam, Guatemala (many of the countries' trained at the School of the Americas).

Needless to say, none of us could justify treating another human being that way. There's another one of those 'southern sayings' that Dimson** has apparently forgotten and it is - "there's a special place in hell" for those who commit heinous acts no matter the variety.

Disgusted and heartsick that the folks around me seem to go on with business as usual. :crazy: :hi:

[Solly Mack]

31. Me too! About the people and business as usual

I don't know whether they are in denial , don't care, or don't know...and it doesn't matter. I want to scream at them anyway - WAKE UP!!!

[tnlefty]

64. I got into a rather nasty argument with my older brother approx.

1 1/2 yrs. ago, and I referenced the Taguba report, Human Rights Watch, etc., and in his mind they were ALL liberal groups who were just trying to make Bush** look bad! This from a CPA, and he should have better reasoning and investigative skills than this! Some will never wake up, sadly.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

30. see my sig line photo...

[Solly Mack]

36. ...

the picture says it all

[ninkasi]

34. Heart broken

disgusted, helpless, and furious, all of these feelings keep coming and going in my mind. I also feel guilty, that the American people, and their representatives in D.C. have not been able to stop these abuses. Bush's approval rate is so very low, why are our Democratic politicians being so timid?

[Solly Mack]

39. You've been a strong voice on this board against these outrages

How do we tell the future that - we didn't have the power or the votes or whatever excuse is used- to end war crimes?

Whatever the reasons - they will never be good enough.

[Dogmudgeon]

37. It's humiliating

We're America, damn it.

We're not supposed to be torturing people. That's for bloodthirsty bastards, not US.

How can I explain this to my overseas friends? Well, I can't. My nation's government has cast its lot with the worst criminals in history, and brags about it.

I'm not ashamed to be an American. I am ashamed that we, as Americans, have countenanced this obscenity.

--p!

[Solly Mack]

40. It's like we're just enduring it...hoping it will all just go away

Waiting for something better as it just gets worse and worse.


Please Sir. May I have another?...comes to mind.

[libodem]

38. Sick, sad

and ashamed.:(

[Solly Mack]

42. Me too, libodem

Very sad and very sick

[G_j]

41. it depends on much veneer I peel back

Underneath is complete disgust and anger.

torturers indelibly shame us all

[Solly Mack]

45. I know exactly what you mean, G_j

[Flatulo]

43. By the UN defintion I undergo torture every day.

Being yelled at, humiliated, and placed in stress positions.

It's called Work.

[Solly Mack]

48. FOS

[Robeson]

44. Pretty shitty is how I feel....

...I think of the medieval torture chambers of the dark ages, and how barbaric that was. How most people look at that, and think we've evolved since those times. Then, I think of our current torture methods, and realize we haven't changed at all. It's pretty sad shit.

[Solly Mack]

46. Yep...sure is

[Psyop Samurai]

47. I don't consider it to be our government...

...I regard it as an enemy occupation.

...which makes me feel very angry.

[Solly Mack]

49. Well, let's hope the same end comes to them that came to other

enemy occupations of the past.

[Balbus]

50. Not as naive as I'd feel if I believed...

our government never did torture people.

[Solly Mack]

51. Yes, I suppose that would come as a horrible shock to those who don't know

their country's history...but knowing America's history doesn't stop a person living in this time, under Bush and Cheney, from having a negative reaction to what is happening now.

At least, I hope it wouldn't stop a person from having a negative reaction.

[Flatulo]

53. There seems to be a cruelty gene, or some predisposition to it.

Although I am damned if I can figure out why it is useful, in the Darwinian survival sense.

I'm sure someone else here will remember reading about the psychology experiment done many years ago, where two groups of students were placed into interrogator/responder groups. The interrogators had the power to administer an electric shock if they felt the responder was being evasive in any way (the electric shocks were not real, but the questioners did not know this).

The researchers were shocked that about half of the interrogator group administered the shock even when the respondant was being cooperative. They seemed to be enjoying it.

I think people that self identify as left-leaning or liberal are clearly more compassionate than others. That's why we feel revulsion at the thought of inflicting pain on others.

Edited to add link http://www.i2r.org/fmm/issues/september2004/article2.html

[Octafish]

54. Makes me feel like a stranger in my own country.

This is the NAZI Amerika the hippies warned us about.

The same crowd is making money off this war tha made money off of Vietnam.

And Gulf War 1 and the Cold War for that matter.

Enraged is a word that comes to mind.

[Solly Mack]

56. Hiya Octafish!

We can't say we weren't warned, that's for sure

and you are so right!!! same old crowd making the war profits

[kineneb]

55. last days of the empire...disgust, shame, sadness

Words are just so much hot air, we are judged by our actions. Dipwad and Cathulu can blather all they want about "democracy" and "terrorism". But they, and we, are seen by others as a bunch of depraved asshats.

[Solly Mack]

57. Yep! The words mean nothing

the actions say it all...

[Time for change]

61. I feel nothing but utter contempt for the Bush/Cheney government

It is the most evil government that our country has ever had.

And it makes me sad that there isn't more outrage about this in our country, though I've been used to it for a very long time.

I don't know how else to put it.

[Solly Mack]

63. You put it well

[Midlodemocrat]

62. Sick to my stomach.