Anti-torture month
Bloggers Against Torture
Look for this logo in Deep Blade Journal and in many other blogs, like those listed way below on the left in the anti-torture blogroll. It means that we all support the Blogger Alliance Against Torture, formed in support of Torture Awareness Month, June 2006.
Check out some of the links in that blogroll. There are people from many points on the spectrum united in opposing torture. Hell, even President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, and other administration figures (perhaps not so much Vice President Cheney) all say they oppose torture, and insist the US actions are ``legal.''
Of course, for reactionary administration officials to be saying these things is a canard of the worst degree, born of their evidently concealed desire not to appear to have completely ripped up the rules, perhaps with an eye towards future defenses in their richly-deserved war crimes trials. But at least it is a point of reference in language that can serve to unite many of us across the spectrum in the notion that torture is wrong, international law is right, and not even President Bush is above the law as much as he may think he his.
When forced to justify these frankly un-American policies on torture, the president and his supporters inevitably invoke the threat from Islamic terrorists. Sure, this threat is real. And it is currently being enhanced as people opposed to US policy throughout the world begin to engage in more actions designed to harm the power that they see as a threat to their own existance. The Terror War and its torture component nakedly is a total failure in its stated goal, and serves much more to destroy the core values of America than it does to protect Americans.
So let's put this notion of fear of terrorism in perspective, as former Vice President Al Gore did in a stunning speech on January 16, 2006:Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: ``Men feared witches and burnt women.''
As an anti-torture blog, Deep Blade Journal stands to do its part to protect those core American freedoms and values from the much bigger threat now posed by the Bush presidency run amok.
The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.
Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.
Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march—when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?
It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same.
I want to thank the always-interesting, always-valuable Rodger Payne for putting me on to the link for this campaign.
Torture readings
Deep Blade Journal has since 2004 given extensive coverage to the outrageous mendacity of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Secretary of State Codoleezza Rice. These now-infamous actors and their underlings have led a worldwide campaign of dungeon creation as they have usurped dictatorial power to kidnap, rendition, humiliate, and torture--in a manner any reasonable person would believe to be contrary to US and international law--on highly dubious claims of ``unitary'' executive power.
Here is a selected list of some postings in Deep Blade Journal and elsewhere that help tell the Bush torture story so far:
Sadly, this list probably will grow as time goes on. Torture stories will continue to post in Deep Blade Journal this month, and beyond...
