Fox Nation - are you man enough?

Fox Nation -- do you have the stomach for it?

"It's Time to Say NO to Biased Media and Say YES to Fair Play and Free Speech."

is the curtain behind which they spew out biased interpretations as freely as Fox News ever did. Fox Nation is a month old "Conservative opinion" site that is by their own description " for those opposed to intolerance," and of course intolerance means that gagging sound one makes when trying to swallow the allegedly conservative outrages against the misrepresentations they perpetrate -- just like Fox News itself.

"Why aren't white males being considered for the Supreme Court?"

asks this fine publication today. Of course the court always has been and still remains mostly white male, but it's good for readership to get the skinheads and Aryan nation idiots in an uproar about their being persecuted. I really don't have the stomach for it, but I'm sure they're opposing intolerance here in some obscure fashion.

"attempts to monopolize opinion or suppress freedom of thought [and] expression,"

are what they oppose as long as those thoughts don't include any objection to pointing an M1 Garand military rifle at Barak Obama and Jesse Jackson.

Coincidence? Only their psychiatrist knows for sure. Of course I've been thoroughly excoriated on right wing sites for suggesting that "heads should roll" in the hate radio business and it was interpreted in fair and balanced fashion that I was calling for the murder and ritual decapitation of Rush Limbaugh, so I really don't feel any inhibition when asking whether or not this is a subliminal thing, meant to make the bigots giggle and their trigger fingers wiggle -- or pure accident. It could be that, certainly and I'm being fair and balanced about it.

Charles Krauthammer is…

…you guessed it…an idiot!

I know there has been a lot of discussion of this here lately, but it's so important I wanted to add this. In his Friday column, Charles Krauthammer outlined scenarios under which torture is appropriate.

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb.

[...]

The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great.

[...]

Under those circumstances, you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding. (To call some of the other “enhanced interrogation” techniques — face slap, sleep interruption, a caterpillar in a small space — torture is to empty the word of any meaning.)

Of course the ticking time bomb scenario never really occurs. We’ve been Jack Bauered into believing torture is occasionally the only means of gathering information needed to save lives. But in reality, effective interrogators can make even the most despicable terrorists sing without raising a fist. Krauthammer raises concerns that this less barbaric approach, while it can be effective, takes too long. But we are never really in a position in which we know of an impending threat and know exactly which captive has the exact information on that threat that we’re missing. We either have enough information to act without resorting to torture or we’re even more in the dark, in which case, unless we relentlessly torture everyone we come across, we can’t possibly get the right information in time anyway. This article from The Progressive a few years ago explains very well why all of Krauthammer’s logic is wrong (it’s a bit long, but a must read).

(And isn’t interesting that Krauthammer reduces prolonged sleep deprivation where captives are kept in a brightly lit room and doused with water any time they start to nod off to “sleep interruption.” It takes a special kind of depravity to turn something that is clearly cruel and inhumane into a mere “interruption.”)

Krauthammer goes on to cite intelligence officials - Tenet, Hayden, and Blair (at most one of which is reliable - Blair) - who said we gathered valuable information from these enhanced interrogation sessions. This of course ignores the fact that 1) we could have gotten the information through less horrendous means (which Krauthammer simply dismisses by saying that KSM wouldn’t have cooperated - but last I checked, Charles Krauthammer wasn’t a trained professional interrogator) and 2) information gathered through torture is unreliable. I ask all defenders of torture to try to put themselves in the shoes of these captives. Your strapped down. You have a towel placed over your face and a jug of water poured over the towel so you literally can’t breath. You feel as though you are drowning. Then you are subjected to that treatment 182 more times. At that point (most likely much sooner) would you not tell your interrogators anything they wanted to hear - true or not? I would. And that’s just the point. False confessions are too likely. And if just one confession is false, that brings into question the reliability of all other information gleaned through torture.

But there is a larger problem with the recent debate over torture - that there even is a debate. Torture is morally wrong, it’s ineffective, it creates an abysmal image of our nation abroad (and at home), and it even puts us on a slippery slope to worse practices (the above linked Progressive article effectively explains how torture policies can lead to extensive extrajudicial executions - the CIA notes that it’s Phoenix program during the Vietnam War resulted in more than 20,000 such executions). In short, torture is un-American. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out, even Ronald Reagan, not exactly a bastion of liberal thought, made a strong push against torture - he even helped ratify a treaty against it. Yet many of today’s conservatives argue that torture is justified. I’ll say this plainly: torture is never justified. How low have we sunk?

--

Adapted from a post at The Political Panorama.

A Few Thoughts About Cultural Imperialism and the T-Word

A Few Thoughts About Cultural Imperialism and the T-Word

1. With regard to what a previous commenter on Capt. Fogg's thread wrote, I believe it's safe to assert that nationality doesn't determine the value of a human being's life. The poorest he or she from anywhere whatsoever is no less human than the wealthiest person in the United States or Europe or Japan. This is not to deny that differences in opportunity allow some in so-called post-industrial societies to develop their minds and skills more than some of the least advantaged elsewhere. But to allot a greater degree of humanity on that basis would be to go down a dangerous road indeed, placing cultural and economic sophistication (perhaps a troubled phrase, that) in the service of imperial brutality and just plain arrogant dehumanization of our fellows. People are people, and all have the same potential for good or ill, kindness or cruelty. To posit otherwise is to betray one's own utter moral confusion.

2. That torture is even being debated as if it were a legitimate response to threats (even serious ones) betrays a startling degeneration in the moral status of our country. There are just some things one shouldn't do. Period. That's why I'm not interested in utility-based arguments about such a loathsome subject. I don't say this out of fondness for whichever genuinely guilty terrorists have been dealt this fate. But that isn't the point. And I don't give half a thumbscrew whether torture works or not. It places us beyond the pale of civilization even to entertain using it.

SWASH ZONE MATINEE - THE DANISH POET

A film by Torill Kove
Narrated by Liv Ullmann
Winner of the 2007 Oscar for best short subjects animation.

Let's all torture like it's 1499

I know, I know, you're going to tell me that I'm obsessed with Ann Coulter and I should just ignore her until she goes away. Well, I'm not and she won't of course, but it's just that every time I think I've identified the craziest or most repugnant, evil minded, nasty and dishonest humanoid resident within the US borders, Ann, like one of those sea cucumbers that extrudes its intestines in order to gross out predators, gives us another and bigger load from her oversized colon.

Yes, of course Rush Gassbaugh is already on record as stating that the beatings, the attachment of electrodes to testicles and worse at Abu Ghraib were something only a girly man and liberal would object to, but Abu Ghraib is old news. It's all about Guantanamo and it's Ann's turn to tell us that waterboarding someone 189 times is just like a carnival ride people would actually pay to experience and that "the Muslims" are laughing at our weakness because we don't torture them enough. Only a hundred have died, after all. What we do is to put an "adorable little caterpillar" in someones cell, said adorable Ann to Sean "insanity" Hannity -- kind of like Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition using soft pillows and comfy chairs. We're "Wussies" for having any sense of morality greater than a jackal's says Ann while lounging around her luxury Palm Beach estate drinking a glass of human blood and munching on some child's barbecued leg.

Of course she's referring to our playing on some prisoner's phobias and to some, being trapped and unable to prevent an insect crawling up their leg is worse than pain. We all have some secret fear, after all. Imagine being trapped in an elevator with Coulter and Limbaugh, for instance, on the day you forgot to take your gun with you.

So I guess what the Arm Chair warriors from Palm Beach would like to see, is an America so utterly depraved and devoid of conscience as to make the world shudder in horror as we torture, maim and kill for pleasure -- you know, like real men like Ann and Rush do. Well they don't actually do anything, but they do giggle and laugh and snicker and mock decency while telling us we're "godless" for not torturing more people in more horrific ways and that we're suffering from "derangement syndromes" for criticizing evil.

Anyway, the dishonesty, the depravity, the malignant personality of laughing Ann doesn't need me to criticize it. Someone who makes a living lying, insisting that concerns of right and wrong, good and evil are for weaklings and that only cruel and inhuman leaders who make us safe by terrifying and disgusting the world can be supported -- while ridiculing liberals for being without religion isn't going to listen, and those who support her will simply read inexplicable hostility into my words and claim she's the victim.

We don't burn these people at the stake any more -- perhaps that's the danger of being Godless, but I'm just as happy that he's dead or gone or never was at all, since this is the kind of thing that would provoke any deity into raising the sea level once again.

LYSISTRATA REVISITED

LYSISTRATA: We're going to save you, my good man.

MAGISTRATE: But if I don't want to be saved?

LYSISTRATA: Why, all the more reason!!

The feud inside Kenya’s fragile coalition government has taken an ominous turn as women’s groups have threatened a weeklong sex strike to force the president and prime minister to end their impasse. According to Rukia Subow, chairwoman of the organizers, sex is the great equalizer:

"We have looked at all issues which can bring people to talk and we have seen that sex is the answer," Subow said. "It does not know tribe, it does not have a (political) party and it happens in the lowest households."

As expected, the men disagree. Here is how Kenyan legislator, David Musila, characterizes the strike:

"It is a shame that these women can make such a statement.  First of all, in my view, it is un-African [my bold], and these are some of the things in Africa we don't talk openly about, sex in front of children, and so on.  And therefore, I think they are misguided and in any case, who is going to supervise and see that the boycott is implemented?  It is just rubbish," Musila said.

The women, of course, have covered their bases.  The group intends to pay prostitutes to cease work and join the strike.

Asses of Evil

"They understand I’m not like no politician they have looked at, ever."

I'm not so sure, but I am sure that if Neal Horsley were running as a Democrat, the blowhards would be in ecstasy and the blogs would be brimming over with hilarity enough to last for years and years of giggling.

Horsley, after all, admits to having had sex with a mule.

“You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually”

says the Georgia Creator's Rights Party gubernatorial candidate. That's the TCRP or T-Crap for short. Of course Neal is all grown up now and that's why his family hates him and he's almost killed his son and he publishes the names of doctors who perform abortions and crosses them off as they are murdered and is willing to start another civil war so that Georgia can secede and overturn Roe Vs. Wade even if it costs the life of his child - or yours.

Is this what's left at the bottom of the barrel the GOP has drank from all these years or is this just a Georgia thang?

“I contend this is really about people’s ability to believe in God. When it comes to that place, when your’re talking about God’s plan to protect himself, then the lives of people become, really, almost irrelevant… in the degree that they result in Him being glorified. That’s the nature of the truth”

says the very Christian Horsley. That's the nature of a scared, vulnerable and weak God who needs to protect himself no matter who gets killed in the process. Glory is important, people are irrelevant and if you don't believe in Horsley's God, then you're irrelevant.

I suspect Neal isn't the sole bat in the Religious Right's belfry. I suspect Sarah Palin is just as bonkers but more reluctant to open her personal can of batshit gumbo to a public viewing.

To be sure Horsely is a long-shot candidate even in the Bible Belt, but with careful handling and sufficient rabble-rousing, there is no reason he can't go far. Just how far he does go will be interesting to observe as a measure of the post-Obama fundamentalist world that continues to lower the bar in their desperate game of Limbo.

WHEN TROLLS ATTACK!

Our own (O)CT(O)PUS has brought this subject to light here at the Swash Zone as well as posting in the comments of several other blogs. There is a long, heated comment thread over at Pam’s place The Oracular Opinion but I can’t figure out how to post there so I thought I’d just weigh in on the subject as a post – just because I can.

Some commenters missed the point and went on to attack others. Some commenters took other comments to be a personal attack and some commenters are just trolls, stirring the pot and wreaking further havoc.

There are blogs I simply don’t bother with anymore because the comment section has become a playground for infantile bullies, hiding in the dark in their computer rooms, gleefully typing profane and disturbing comments/threats/insults.

But the larger question remains; are some of these trolls dangerous and should we be taking their threats more seriously?

I, for one, have no problem with someone using their blog to engage trolls and do whatever they want at their place. I understand that some people view trolls as harmless gnats. If I am uncomfortable or disgusted, I’ll exercise my right to not visit.

But 8pus has a very credible point in suggesting that not all trolls are benign. And he has cited some recent examples, including the woman who so viciously attacked the girl on MYSPACE, she committed suicide. And when I saw this woman being arrested I was horrified at her lack of repentance. It seems she believes she bears no responsibility for what happened! This is not a benign troll but a sick, sick individual.

Yes, in our internet anonymity we can bring forth our alter egos and to coin an old phrase, “let it all hang out” but should we not remain responsible for our words and deeds? In this Information Age, internet stalkers can be potentially very dangerous and any escalation on their part should be taken very seriously.

So while I respect the rights of others to operate their blogs as they see fit, I do hope that visitors will respect our comment policy. I think most of us are capable of recognizing the difference between heated debate with the occasional snarky comment as opposed to outright trollish diatribe.

The final word here goes to (O)CT(O)PUS:

“The Internet is an amazing tool for research and idea exchange, but there are always folks who abuse a good thing … who use it to harass, humiliate, stalk, and victimize other bloggers as if the Internet were a giant phantasmagoria for self-amusement by masochists and sadists … or a medium for narcissists and character disturbed folks who do not know how to manage their anger.”

Waiting for Ann

Oh goody! The Republicans on the Supreme court have handed down another victory to the Republicans here on Earth who think we need to punish people who say "indecent" things like "shit" and yet want to "move on" when it comes to punishing people for lesser indecencies like torturing suspects to death.

Now any minute now, Ann Coulter will be calling for these "activist judges" to be poisoned, won't she? After all, if it's Communism (or Fascism on alternate Tuesdays) to let a 3% tax cut expire and Fascist censorship to restore the Fairness Doctrine, how bad must it be to allow Federal censorship over broadcast TV? Any minute now, I'm sure. Ann and Godot -- any time now.

Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania

Extra - Extra

"Sources" are talking again and they assure us that Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania will leave the Republican Party and become a Democrat. That's good news in terms of giving the Democrats a filibuster proof majority, assuming that Al Franken gets seated before his term runs out.