"It's an interesting point, but I do think the citizenry bears responsibility for the acts of its government, especially where the government is democratically elected and some -- but not much - efforts are expended to stop those practices.

It wasn't "the Bush administration" that tortured. It was the United States."

The current government was democratically elected, but we were lied to. How do you deal with that?

I disagree that we are responsible for this mess. The citizenry as far as I can tell is powerless to stop the government from doing what is doing. There is a miniscule percent of the population that cares about governmental abuses, but as you indicate, it doesn't add up to much.

I'd be more than willing to do something, like contribute or participate in something dedicated to changing the ways of the government, but the best I can come with is a cathartic post on a progressive blog. I support the ACLU but they are screwed left-and-right by the DOJ.

The Supreme Court is run by Scalia and is a joke. The CIA does its evil with impunity. Things are becoming murkier and less transparent every day. The M$M is in cahoots with the perpetrators and is their biggest cheerleader. The deck is stacked in favor of the powerful, elite, unknown people who are controlling the erosion of our rights. I don't know who they are or what their motivation is, but I know it is something I can't stop.

Please, once again, swarm NPR. The article Glenn referred to in the update is a deserving target. They've stepped in it, again, and should hear about it by as many who can or will take the time to drop in and voice an opinion.

You are correct to note that the courts and others, interested in justifying U.S. torture practices, have often made a distinction made between methods that leave scars and others that may initially sound almost benign -- solitary confinement, exposure to changes in room temperature, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, loud noises, forced standing, "walling", etc., although singly and in combination they have caused the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody.

But what proof do you have that this is the standard for applying the word "torture" in any American media outlet? Is there somewhere that the Times editors have set forth this rationale?

In the example from Slackman that I quoted previously, from an article on police brutality in Egypt, the word torture is used uncritically, without any evidence that the reporter had made the distinction you cite.

The internet is our panacea.

How is it that there really aren't mass protests going on? For even if the MSM wouldn't cover such protests, we would find news of them here, or Daily Kos, or Truthdig, etc. The fact is, nobody is seriously protesting, as people did during Vietnam. And I wonder why. Just the bank bailouts should have brought everyone to the streets.

[snip]

I think these things are likely, but it still doesn't explain the lack of willpower evinced by the liberal groups. It's all willy-nilly and haphazard. So I wonder if the internet isn't the bone thrown to us - hey, even Obama reads Glenn; there now, happy? OK, so shut up about your lack of voice. Maybe we are fooled by this very technology into thinking we are heard, and by participating in blog comments we are lulled into feeling that WE HAVE DONE SOMETHING.

This is difficult to articulate, and I am not a good writer in any case, but what I'm trying to say is that maybe we are letting ourselves be marginalized.

So where will we go when the people in charge just shut down portions of the internet like they do in China? Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Chris Hedges, and Dennis Kucinich's Congressional webpage would be the first to go. It wouldn't serve for them to do that, and I don't believe that it would actually ever happen. No need - as long as we are happy HERE we will never be found on the streets waving signs. -- teri49

Yeah.

Have you considered that the internets and the netroots (as it is today) are actually an impediment to real activism? I am more than willing to grant that it is a great system for information dissemination, recording and countering the out-and-out lies of the establishment and for raising money for candidates but, when it comes to direct action, it is my belief that it acts as a ineffectual substitute and actually inhibits activism which might actually accomplish something.

Instead of leaders we have bloggers, who are natural leaders though, for the most part, they do not and will not acknowledge that fact. They are in a position to be the modern day organizers for real, direct action but for various reasons, not the least of which is, in some cases, wanting to appear "serious" so as to gain credibility and leave open the possibility of becoming part of the establishment themselves, they choose not to assume that natural mantle. Their readers (followers) are content that they are doing all they can by writing letters, making phone calls and, recently, throwing money at the problem. They are content even though nothing of significance is has been accomplished through those tactics. Over and over they are disappointed by their "representatives" lack of responsiveness...disappointed at their lack of "will to do the right thing"and yet these internet activists continue to do bang their collective head against the wall.

To these bloggers and their followers nothing is ever serious enough that it calls for direct action and, from what I have seen, nothing ever will be. Not lying us into a preemptive war of aggression, not the systematic dismantling of the constitution, not the Patriot Act, not torture, not the rape of the treasury, etc. etc. and certainly not illegal domestic spying.

And so it goes... --adnoto

Permalink Tuesday, June 17, 2008 02:22 PM

I wonder if others find it odd that Obama campaigned as wanting all Americans to become active in their government and working for change, yet that is not how he governs. If he really wanted Americans to take an interest in their government, why then would his administration dump stories like their request for yet another delay in releasing the CIA Inspector's report into the weekend holiday news dump? They also have done the same with other items just as bad like their schemes to hold prisoners indefinitely at Gitmo and elsewhere. If you want Americans to be better informed so that they do take an interest in what their government is doing, why would you use a weekend news cycle to dump these stories into? In other words this kind of behavior in how they are using the media represents a government that wants to hide its "Bush-supporting" less popular policies and bad behavior from as much of the public as they can. This also explains the Obama Administration's horrible record on government transparency including fighting the release of FOIA requests in court and requesting another extension on releasing this CIA report, which is nothing more than an attempt to keep more torture reports out of OUR news.

And it may also manifest itself in Obama using his powers or getting Congress to weaken FOIA to prevent the release of documents that Americans should not only have a right to see but want to see. None of this represents the behavior of a government that is best served by informed citizenry. And by definition is designed to exclude more participation.

On a side note and I think this is very important: If Obama claimed that DADT actually weakened our security, which is the claim he made while meeting with various leaders of the Gay community at the White House, why then would he refuse to suspend this law using an Executive Order or force Congress to act to change this law immediately? Is Obama willing to allow a national security flaw to stay in place when he could act to fix this? And if this hadn't been an issue affecting gay people and our national security the GOP would have jumped all over this like flies on poop.