Torture as a tool for manufacturing evidence

McClatchy has now found a most intriguing (and, in retrospect, a most predictable) connection.

The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Read more about it at Koz. And also check out the new disclosure that the Bush Administration did its damndest to destroy a memorandum highly critical of the legality of its decision to torture prisoners. And now we know that Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney personally approved waterboarding. Finally, consider this conversation involving FOX's Shepard Smith and Judith Miller (the Judith Miller), who unrelentingly attack the memos for trying to justify torture. Maybe Miller is in a redemptive phase . . . THEN, listen carefully at exactly 5:07 of the video to hear a walloping Freudian slip by the conservative think-tanker, Cliff May, a guy who claims that waterboarding is fun and games, who accidentally admits that the Bush-approved techniques WERE torture (listen for the critical word is "it"). Yes, Cliff, it was torture and you (and everyone else in the country) know it. Miller raises the point that even Israel, which knows a thing or two about interrogating prisoners, outlawed waterboarding long ago because it is torture. But there's still more. Consider Republican strategist and Cheney-admirer Phil Lusser's "magic eyeballs" in a conversation with Lawrence O'Donnell and Norah O'Donnell. Go to the end of this video and you'll hear Lawrence O'Donnell clean Lusser's clock. It's all falling apart like a house of cards. After years and years of insanity, it's finally happening. Yes, sunshine is the best disinfectant.

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Here’s what often happens when you try to videotape police.

Here's what often happens when you videotape police. The priest who tried to videotape this incident eventually got his camera back, which is more than you can say for many other folks who have tried to photograph law enforcement officers in public places. Here's a related post dealing with threats of arrest for taking photos in public places. And be careful when you consider blogging about your First Amendment rights, especially when arrogant judges get wind of it.

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American productivity versus wages over the decades

Richard Wolff has been a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts since 1981. Media Education Foundation has just released a new video of Wolff, offering his opinions on the current economic crisis. Here's the trailer, which offers some dramatic motion-graphs illustrating wage stagnation versus productivity in America. Here's the blurb from MEF:

Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government bailouts, stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis, in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes.

I haven't viewed the entire video, only the trailer, but even the trailer presents important context for our current economic crisis. I do hope that, in the full video, Wolff puts blame not only on the profit-makers but also on American consumers, who have clearly made quite a few terrible decisions in their attempts to live beyond their means. Not all of that accrued individual debt was for the purpose of buying essentials such as food, housing and health care. There is a LOT of blame to go around: my targets include the greedy and corrupt financial sector and many irresponsible consumers. Not that all businesses are greedy, nor all consumers irresponsible. With this caveat, though, I did want to link to this video trailer because the graphs are mind-blowing. Further, MEF has put out terrific videos that offer clarity regarding many of our country's most contentious issues. One example is the MEF production, War Made Easy.

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Time to Change Congress – – again.

Change Congress? Didn’t we just change control of Congress? Well, we did change the party that controls Congress, but we haven’t yet changed the money that controls the politicians who control Congress. Barack Obama will have an uphill claim, guaranteed, because politicians are not going to judge his proposals based on their merits. There is always the money, which feeds their cravings for reelection. What if all federal politicians learned that potential donors took this pledge: “I'm pledging not to donate to any federal candidate unless they support legislation making congressional elections citizen-funded, not special-interest funded.” This link will take you to a speech by Lawrence Lessig, who explains the urgent need to “Change Congress.” As long as members of Congress keep themselves in a position where they can be influenced by large contributions of money, we shouldn’t trust them.

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My relationship with Bush.

Instead of taking this day to reflect on the Inauguration and the eminent change facing us,  how oh-so different everything is going to be, and every other overstated bit of hopeful drivel with which the internet is still a-buzzing, I'd like to muse on my relationship with the outgoing president.…

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