Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project
... If you tear it out, with full-scale prosecutions and top officials locked up behind bars, the whole rotten skein would fall apart. Once you start genuinely subjecting government officials – including security apparatchiks and military brass – to the full extent of the law, there would be no end to the unraveling: senators, contractors, representatives, bureaucrats, generals, lobbyists, judges, corporate chiefs – the whole edifice of Establishment power would be shaken to the core as its leading lights went down, one after the other.Thus the mere act of applying the ordinary, bourgeois laws of the land as they stand right now would constitute a world-shaking revolution, an overthrow of the existing order every bit as radical as any ideologue's dream of mass uprising. It would be, in effect, a re-founding of the Republic – and the end of the empire, which cannot survive without continual war, lawless rule and endless corruption...
Sadly, this vindicates all the intelligent and brave people everywhere who knew it all along. But there is no joy in vindication. The wheels were set in motion and there are no brakes. You cannot take back dead. You cannot erase dead with more death.
Now, word is out. Of course Rumsfeld didn't bother to read the Taguba Report before the hearings, he didn't need to. None of them needed to. Watching the pundits today bicker and debate about whether or not so and so did so and so is old, old news, new faces, same absurd defences. Keep in mind during the REPREHENSIBLE outrage, the 16 year-old first time out of the house lonely bookworm juvenile pirate is at this moment facing Guantanamo or perhaps more expediently and less costly, death. Where's the change we're supposed to believe in? Do you wonder if Bush celebrates Earth Day too?
8 comments:
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."--but, we can hope!!
Jj
Nina,
It is truly uncanny the connectedness that lies between - spent some time in the forest helping friends with a huge harvest. And no I did not succumb, not even tempted despite the richness of smell and spirit.
One day we went fishing and landed up in a bay, so remarkably similar to the one in the top painting that it took my breath away.
Upon our return, George was placed on my chest and he actually hotfooted up to my neck and proceeded to kiss me. Something I have never seen a guinea do, it was between a nibble and a lick. So obviously a mark of affection.
Strange that you put it that way. Way back, when I painted that portrait, I wrote the following...
I see the oceans edge, forceful and forbidding
reaching out for grains of sand
reminds me of the strikings of mortal man
dried fish lying on the beach, caked with sand and swarming flies
such is the product that spew from the sea of human lies
I see where lofty castles once stood along the shingle
virtue and ethics awash and made to crumble
such remnants of nobility strewn along the shore
mindful of what we've lost in our ever quest for more
Funny that's where my mind was 30 years ago, and it still is to this day.
striving not striking
cha!
Su, as you have stated on other occasions, George is very wise. The wisest of beings are capable of the greatest love because they have the developed the capacity. I get the feeling that George will be moving into the Heavenly Realm next time around.
I don't know what possessed me to put up that particular painting. But I am going to start chronicling it now. Maybe whatever it is wants to remain elusive. We'll see.
Dadnerd, are you continuing an Origami dialogue over here?
Here's another thing... your poetry is a clue to identifying the force I was just mentioning to Su.
It is something that is always with us, through our entire lives, we see it, we know it exists, is it Karma?
J-high, fess up. You made the Grange comment didn't you. Good one! But you can't fool all the people all the time. :)
Nina:
Les made a comment in SM to go to VO, which I did. We're dancing all over his blogs. I didn't fully address your comment on being banned, I admit I kinda avoided the issue slightly. My last comment started to deal with it but I didn't quite get there. Silly me.
Nina said...
"Here's another thing... your poetry is a clue to identifying the force I was just mentioning to Su."
I'm inclined to feel we are born with certain propensities, and only modify them as we age. I wish it were otherwise but have seen no real evidence that people can change in a radical transformative way. Being optimistic by nature, I really don't despair at the human condition, that looks for sure like its heading to ultimate self destruction. There is an unseen force at work and it would be foolish to assume we know everything or anything. Therefore I'm inclined to leave the future alone and just watch how things unravel.
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