With news about the torture report taking up so much space, we should not ignore the fact that we just saw another example of the way that the big banks control the government. The spending bill that was passed last night had a provision that repealed a measure that was introduced after the last financial collapse in 2008.
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The more one digs into the senate torture report, the more depressing it gets. In addition to the details of what was done which are bad enough, comes the news that the US government paid the enormous sum of $81 million to two psychologists to come up with the methods, even though they had no “specialized knowledge of al Qaeda, a background in counterterrorism or any relevant cultural or linguistic experience.” They apparently just copied what other countries had used, not to get information but to obtain false confessions for propaganda purposes. So right from the start, the idea that these torture methods were useful was not even credible and the members of the psychology and medical professions were complicit in these acts. You can read about these sadists here.
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Jon Stewart struggles to tries to find some way of injecting humor in reporting the horrors revealed by the torture report and the lies told about it, without at the same time trivializing the events. He manages to show how culpable everyone in power is in these acts of depravity, from the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Congress, and the intelligence agencies.
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The Senate torture report executive summary released yesterday has revealed some new and horrifying details of what was done to the people taken into custody by the US. Just look at some examples of the incredible sadism on display and the callousness of everyone from George W. Bush downwards to these actions.
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Jon Stewart made an error in one of the examples he gave of police killings of black people and of course Fox News seized on it as if it discredited his entire thesis, which it did not. This illustrates a popular diversionary tactic of the right and especially Fox News and that is to try and find an error, however slight, in anything that reflects badly on them, their heroes, or the positions they take (whether be race, rape, the NSA, torture, etc.) and then try make the discussion all about that error.
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Should we be surprised that countries who have been subjected to endless moralizing by the US about their human rights abuses have, in the wake of the senate report describing the incredibly brutal torture practices of the US, taken the chance to highlight US hypocrisy?
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Trevor Noah, the newest correspondent to join The Daily Show, hails from South Africa and he used his introductory appearance to highlight one thing that really bugs me and that is the way that Africa is often portrayed in the west, as a continent that consists of wilderness or villages that have none of the features of modern society. People in the US need to be reminded of how rapidly the rest of the world is changing while the US shows all the signs of a decaying empire.
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The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finally released the Executive Summary of its report on torture practices by the US government. You can read the ‘most gruesome moments’ of the report here and they are disgusting.
The Guardian has a summary of the main conclusions
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On NPR’s Weekend Edition on Sunday, December 7, 2014, host Rachel Martin interviewed three veteran police officers (two white, one black) from Columbus, Ohio, a city in which the department had been accused in the past of police officers routinely conducting illegal searches and using excessive force. She also spoke with Malik Aziz who is chairman of the National Black Police Association.
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The Daily Show looks at the extraordinary effort by those on the right to find something, anything, other than excessive and unreasonable use of force by the police to blame for the recent deaths of black people.
Incidentally, some are arguing that the fact that despite the clear video of the Garner killing no indictments were brought suggests that having police wear body cams will not help. I disagree. The existence of the video has created much greater consensus on the appalling nature of the killing which is why the excuses proffered on behalf of the police in this case are so absurd.
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