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We Are F***ing Sadists: We Are Not Decent, And We Are Not A Democracy - Salon
Last edited Wed Dec 17, 2014, 10:16 AM - Edit history (2)
We are f***ing sadists: We are not decent, and we are not a democracyThe torture report requires us to look in the mirror -- and accurately assess the monster that we see
PATRICK L. SMITH - Salon
TUESDAY, DEC 16, 2014 04:00 PM PST
(Credit: MoreISO via iStock)
“You’ll comment on the torture report?” a friend in London asked just after the Senate’s revelations came out last week.
“No, everybody and his in-laws will be on it within hours. Besides, I do foreign and there’s no angle.”
Wrong times 10.
True enough, better thought than this space could offer has come out in the past few days, not least from Salon’s Elias Isquith. Read it here and here. “Now that we know some of the harrowing details of what was done in our name,” Isquith wrote with acuity, “it’ll be easier for us Americans to step a bit closer to the mirror and see what we’ve become.”
Charles Blow made a similar point on the opinion page in Monday’s New York Times. It is here. “America, who are we?” the headline asked, and Blow’s piece earned the head. It is the Miracle on Eighth Avenue that he gets this kind of thing in the paper from time to time.
Who we are and what we have become are exactly the questions before us. Their implications for foreign policy were not immediately evident, at least not to me, but they are now and they are of monumental importance. Elephant in the living room, I have to admit.
And as soon as I started thinking about the Senate’s torture report in the context of America’s conduct abroad, many other things seemed immediately of a piece. The string of police murders. The Surveillance State. The license granted corporations and the wealthy to purchase elections. No welfare for the poor but welfare for Wall Street. A minimum wage no one can live on. The bold-faced biases of our highest court—and when the judiciary goes, I learned during my years as a correspondent, all else is either gone already or on the way down.
The list goes on, of course. The reality in plain sight is that America is not the nation many of us think it is and we are not the people we think we are or claim to be. It follows: If we continue to act abroad as we have it will be to our loss and at our peril, given what we have just had our noses rubbed in, as Glenn Greenwald put it in the interview he gave Isquith.
Let’s look closely at why this is so. The core question in the foreign policy debate today, no matter what one’s stripe, is American exceptionalism. Are we exceptional, indispensable, or whatever the term du jour, or not? To put the torture report and all else just noted in the context of foreign policy is 1) to see how they are related and 2) to recognize that the exceptionalists have just sustained a critical blow — fatal, were logic to apply. And the task before us now is to make it apply.
“No, everybody and his in-laws will be on it within hours. Besides, I do foreign and there’s no angle.”
Wrong times 10.
True enough, better thought than this space could offer has come out in the past few days, not least from Salon’s Elias Isquith. Read it here and here. “Now that we know some of the harrowing details of what was done in our name,” Isquith wrote with acuity, “it’ll be easier for us Americans to step a bit closer to the mirror and see what we’ve become.”
Charles Blow made a similar point on the opinion page in Monday’s New York Times. It is here. “America, who are we?” the headline asked, and Blow’s piece earned the head. It is the Miracle on Eighth Avenue that he gets this kind of thing in the paper from time to time.
Who we are and what we have become are exactly the questions before us. Their implications for foreign policy were not immediately evident, at least not to me, but they are now and they are of monumental importance. Elephant in the living room, I have to admit.
And as soon as I started thinking about the Senate’s torture report in the context of America’s conduct abroad, many other things seemed immediately of a piece. The string of police murders. The Surveillance State. The license granted corporations and the wealthy to purchase elections. No welfare for the poor but welfare for Wall Street. A minimum wage no one can live on. The bold-faced biases of our highest court—and when the judiciary goes, I learned during my years as a correspondent, all else is either gone already or on the way down.
The list goes on, of course. The reality in plain sight is that America is not the nation many of us think it is and we are not the people we think we are or claim to be. It follows: If we continue to act abroad as we have it will be to our loss and at our peril, given what we have just had our noses rubbed in, as Glenn Greenwald put it in the interview he gave Isquith.
Let’s look closely at why this is so. The core question in the foreign policy debate today, no matter what one’s stripe, is American exceptionalism. Are we exceptional, indispensable, or whatever the term du jour, or not? To put the torture report and all else just noted in the context of foreign policy is 1) to see how they are related and 2) to recognize that the exceptionalists have just sustained a critical blow — fatal, were logic to apply. And the task before us now is to make it apply.
More: http://www.salon.com/2014/12/17/we_are_fing_sadists_we_are_not_decent_and_we_are_not_a_democracy/
42 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
New poll finds majority of Americans believe torture justified after 9/11 attacks
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-poll-finds-majority-of-americans-believe-torture-justified-after-911-attacks/2014/12/16/f6ee1208-847c-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html
And...
Link: https://news.yahoo.com/majority-of-americans-approve-cia-torture-poll-190804404.html
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-poll-finds-majority-of-americans-believe-torture-justified-after-911-attacks/2014/12/16/f6ee1208-847c-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html
And...
The survey also found a partisan split on the issue of torture. Among Republicans, an overwhelming majority (80 percent) said the Bush-era practices were acceptable, while just 9 percent said they went too far. Among Democrats, 32 percent said the techniques were acceptable under the circumstances, while 44 percent said they were unacceptable.
The full results of the poll, conducted Dec. 10-14, will be released Wednesday.
The full results of the poll, conducted Dec. 10-14, will be released Wednesday.
Link: https://news.yahoo.com/majority-of-americans-approve-cia-torture-poll-190804404.html
And these numbers just drive the last nails in the coffin.
YES, it iS Fascism now, no bout adoubt it. 
to N.Korea when???
Let me know when you start protesting
about water being wet.
Of course it'll be on your PC or iPhone
in a home most of the world would kill for.
But you keep posting on how you're so oppressed
or whatever. It gives me something to chuckle at.
Well said. 
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