Being two-faced and deceitful is not new territory for Diane. Hope, not at all!

Anyone that has observed her career knows that. The Wyden guy... I have no idea.

Due faccia is coming home to nest.

I always enjoy seeing Greenwald battling with his Inner Adnoto.

Massive, widespread, non-violent civil disobedience.

Or, just no one goes to work or pays any bills for one month. That would be total havoc.

Or, everyone goes to work but pays no bills for 3 months. Buy gas and food in cash and spend nothing else.

Note: I am not advocating not reading Glenn Greenwald; as that would be going too far, eh? (so, I guess we pay the cable bill) :-)

Link at sig

of Feinstein and Wyden is quite troublesome. What cowards. Why was it so important for them to propose legislation only with Bush as POTUS? Was this issue only important so they could be seen by their fellow colleagues and the public as 'standing up for making a point' rather than 'standing up for soomething right'? Mathew Alexander was on one of the evening shows last week, maybe Keith Olbermann, and he spoke about this very issue stating that by adhering to the Army Field Manual, he was able to effectively build relationships with many of the suspects being interrogated and as a result, made great progress in gaining needed information.

I want to know the specific reasons Feinstein and Wyden will provide for their cowardly backtrack because any reason[s] given will not be 'reason enough'. There is absolutely no viable excuse to change interrogation techniques especially when it’s been proven to work [Mathew Alexander]. I look forward to an update, because if Feinstein and Wyden renege on their insistence for following the AFM, I feel this story should be made as public as possible so that they will be seen as not possessing the strength of their original convictions. We don't need Senators who vacillate on important issues that affect America’s image at home and around the globe.

A substantial percentage of the public is never going to believe that refraining from the use of torture is more effective than torture in preventing terrorist violence.

I think this is largely true, but I think there's also an overpowering emotional element involved as well. To many Americans, particularly since 9-11, the idea of the "good guys" torturing a "bad guy" (begging the question of whether he is actually a bad guy) is emotionally satisfying, while the notion that such a vicariously cathartic activity might be stopped or impeded by canniving civil libertarians is at least as emotionally repellent.

"24" itself depicted this dichotomy, with an insidious efficiency. I remember one episode from one of the first seasons in which a detainee was going to be tortured for vital intel, and a walking stereotype from the ACLU (or something) showed up with a court order (damn activist judges!) to stop it at the most dire moment. I think Jack Bauer knocked him out or something, and the inevitable consequence was that his efforts were rewarded with helpful information.

That's why the fictional, fantasy realm of "24" is so important to understanding the emotional component of so many Americans' support for torture. As much as supporters of torture insist that it's not "punishment," for millions of others it certainly is, and that's why they like it.

Just for kicks, here's a little thing I wrote lampooning "24" and conservatives' crazed lust for timers and emergency scenarios (also at signature): http://insideoutthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/05/jack-bauer-fisa-reprised.html

What would a nonviolent revolution, in present-day America, look like?

Nicely said. If American consumers (forgive the redundancy) stopped consuming, it'd all fall apart. Yeats, that clever Irish fellow (and don't forget my mother's maiden name was Hooligan), was right: "Things fall apart; the centre will not hold."

I ain't kidding, neither. That would be one heckuva revolution. It's looking increasingly likely, at any rate.

Heru, I posed the question to Adnoto, but I'll engage your answer (Heru, you're not off the hook).

Massive, widespread, non-violent civil disobedience.

Or, just no one goes to work or pays any bills for one month. That would be total havoc.

Or, everyone goes to work but pays no bills for 3 months. Buy gas and food in cash and spend nothing else.

I was asking for specifics. Anyone can describe general conditions, which would be the putative outcome of the necessary specifics. How, specifically would that occur, what would be the catalyst, and how - again, specifically - could you get the critical mass of such people to agree on the official purpose and demands behind the action?

I meant, "Adnoto, you're not off the hook"

I have greatly appreciated your posts today, which have an admirable clarity. I particulary like the point about specifics: how do each of us start to make a particular effort that would result in the desired general effect? Until you can answer that, an answer would have no traction.

I hope you keep posting (paricularly as you did in your answer to the one so fascinated with hypotheticals: your response was a small moment of real education).

This is a really obvious point, but I think it's important to distinguish between torture as a last resort in some crazy-it-will-never-happen hypothetical (and the consequences of such) and having a policy that we routinely torture people. The difference between the two is quite vast, and that should be clear to anyone who's paying attention.

But, as you note, the response (we might need it some day, therefore, we must make it legal) is emotional. Emotion and logic aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but emotions can cause one to lose logical perspective. Just ask the Republicans.

Also, to DCLaw1: I'd like to ditto mutex and say great post!

I'll take your action. History shows us that such actions generally occur on the local level and with concrete goals that affect the entire populace concerned, i.e., its not enough that there is an immoral war, people from the populace are being drafted; or its not globalization, its the fact that Bechtel has hijacked your water; or you're against apartheid, you just want to use the same toilets as white folks.

Outside of large scale explosions of discontent under exceedingly brutal dictatorships (which are then co-opted into revolutions--the Intifada, the Octobers, etc. ) there has never been anything like a focused, concentrated polity-wide revolution. It would seem impossible to think of anything arousing that kind of passion in sufficient cross-section of a plural nation, especially in America.