This really sickens me

The name of the CNN piece is "Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds". Take a look:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Shameful. Shameful.

Just 'cause I like their style

About our "vital economic interests"

I have had Simone Weil on my mind today. (Largely, I suppose, because of her ambiguous relationship with the Church.) Here's something she wrote that truly bears pondering:

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war; petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. Thus when war is waged it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. It amounts to this, that a self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. But why is it so essential to be able to make war? No one knows, any more than the Trojans knew why it was necessary for them to keep Helen. That is why the good intentions of peace-loving statesman are so ineffectual. If the countries were divided by a real opposition of interests, it would be possible to arrive at a satisfactory compromise. But when economic and political interests have no meaning apart from war, how can they be peacefully reconciled?

It's hard to be optimistic with observations like these, isn't it? But those observations are also immanently sensible.

The truth about torture

People have known for centuries, millennia even, that the real reason for torture is not to get true information but to extract false confessions.

Now Frank Rich writes about it in the New York Times. The column is called "The Bush White House's Appalling and Evil Legacy: Now We Know the Whole Story" and the lead goes like this: "Did we torture to extract bogus 'intelligence' from detainees to make the case for Iraq?"

Just take a look at this paragraph:

The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantnamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: "A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful." As higher-ups got more "frustrated" at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, "there was more and more pressure to resort to measures" that might produce that intelligence.

I think I want to throw up.

And I certainly agree with Rich's conclusion:

President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won't vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don't need another commission. We don't need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation's commitment to the rule of law.

Sounds like there are some people involved in this who have Obama by the short hairs...

Just sayin'.

About waterboarding

Here's something from a Huffington Post article by Paul Begala:

In a CNN debate with Ari Fleischer, I said the United States executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding. My point was that it is disingenuous for Bush Republicans to argue that waterboarding is not torture and thus illegal. It's kind of awkward to argue that waterboarding is not a crime when you hanged someone for doing it to our troops. My precise words were: "Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves."
...
I was referencing the statement of...John McCain. On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Not that I approve of capital punishment, mind you, but they deserved it if anybody did. When are we going to let go of this completely dishonest silliness that waterboarding is not torture?

Quote of the week

In my humble opinion, that is!

Listen up Republicans: It's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new.

-- Bill Maher

The rest of the article is right here.

Recommended

I've just read an article I'd like to recommend but it's really impossible to offer an excerpt that will give you a good idea of its message. Here's the title:

Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why It Matters

And the lead is this: "Liberals and conservatives have highly different moral priorities. And we have to understand them if we want to accomplish anything."

It's very thought provoking - as are the comments that follow.

A reminder to us all

Shakepeare's birthday

Yes, today is the day. Or, at least, the day it is traditionally observed.

Here are some of the things the Bard wrote that I really wish all politicians would ponder:

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the flatterer.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Ah, there are so many more! I could so wish that our nation's leaders could be counted on to have a liberal arts education!

Quote of the day

Another good one from Sojourners:

You should never let your fears prevent you from doing what you know is right.

- Aung San Suu Kyi, (Nobel laureate and leader of the nonviolent movement for human rights and democracy in Burma)

Happy Earth Day!

This is encouraging

From the Sojourners Daily Digest:

President Obama said Tuesday that he would not rule out prosecuting senior Bush administration officials who provided the legal rationale for harsh interrogation techniques used against detainees in the war on terrorism.

Constitutional privilege

I really like this story (true or apocryphal!):

Like every other president, William Howard Taft had to endure his share of abuse. One night at the dinner table, his youngest boy made a disrespectful remark to him. There was a sudden hush. Taft looked thoughtful.

“Well,” said Mrs. Taft, “aren’t you going to punish him?”

“If the remark was addressed to me as his father, he certainly will be punished,” said Taft. “However, if he addressed it to the President of the United States, that is his constitutional privilege.”

I found it here.

Okay, guys! Wanna save your marriage?

Take a look:

The more housework a woman sees her husband do, the less likely she is to think of divorcing him. That’s the conclusion of researchers Joan Huber and Glenna Spitze, who note that each one of the following tasks performed by a husband at least half the time lowers the chances that his wife is thinking about divorce by 3 percent:

* Meal preparation
* Food shopping
* Childcare
* Daily housework
* Meal Cleanup

Source: Robert Bellah, in The Good Society, Signs of the Times, February, 1994

Just sayin'....... :-)

(Well, maybe 3% isn't a heck of a lot but if you were in that 3% it would be your marriage that got saved!)

So true, so true

Sojourners sent this out today:

As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.

- Rosa Parks