We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Some Torture Facts: Revelations from the Recent SSCI Report on the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

Click here to access article by Marcy Wheeler via Jadaliyya. (Note: I am making an exception to my rule that posting of articles must be from their primary websites. In this case Wheeler's posting appears to assume an audience who are well-informed of her previous work. Jadaliyya's editors fill in a lot of the background information and Wheeler's use of abbreviations to make the article much clearer.)

Wheeler and Jadaliyya should be congratulated for posting this article which exposes so many lies, both past and present, to understand how real "evil-doers" in our ruling class were allowed to use torture in our "land of the free, and the home of the brave." 

The post also provides more evidence that our official government institutions are controlled by a hidden government which, as I have frequently argued, is controlled by the highest levels of the ruling capitalist class. The Senate committee's report on torture only came about because more sensitive collaborating liberal members in the official government (like other liberals who find torture and war crimes repugnant) found the use of torture too much for them to tolerate. Nevertheless, it's clear that they went out of their way to assure members of the hidden government that they will fully cooperate to see that no legal actions are taken against anyone for these criminal actions. However, it must be admitted that this "cooperation" was not only from their common class interests, but out of fear of the people who, after all, murdered President John Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King among others.