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59% Of Americans Support Post-9/11 Torture – Propaganda, Cultural Sickness, Or Both?

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. Government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage.

 

Whenever America is forced to confront its heinous acts, the central strategy is to disappear the victims, render them invisible. That’s what robs them of their humanity: it’s the process of dehumanization. That, in turns, is what enables American elites first to support atrocities, and then, when forced to reckon with them, tell themselves that – despite some isolated and well-intentioned bad acts – they are still really good, elevated, noble, admirable people. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a large majority of Americans believe torture is justified even when you call it “torture.” Not having to think about actual human victims makes it easy to justify any sort of crime.

 

– From Glenn Greenwald’s latest piece: U.S. TV Provides Ample Platform for American Torturers, but None to Their Victims

After reading about a new poll that shows 59% of Americans support post 9/11 torture, I’ve spent the entire morning thinking about what it means. Does this confirm the total degeneration of American culture into a collective of chicken-hawk, unthinking, statist war-mongering automatons? Alternatively, does it merely reflect the effectiveness of corporate-government propaganda? Is it a combination of both? How does the poll spilt by age group?

These are all important questions to which I do not have definitive answers, but I have some thoughts I’d like to share. First, here are some of the observations from the Washington Post:

A majority of Americans believe that the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified, even as about half the public says the treatment amounted to torture, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

 

By an almost 2-1 margin, or 59-to-31 percent, those interviewed support the CIA’s brutal methods, with the vast majority of supporters saying they produced valuable intelligence.

 

In general, 58 percent say the torture of suspected terrorists can be justified “often” or “sometimes.”

 

The new poll comes on the heels of a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which President Obama ended in 2009. The report concluded that controversial interrogation techniques — including waterboarding detainees, placing them in stress positions and keeping them inside confinement boxes — were not an effective means of acquiring intelligence.

This is important, because despite the Senate Report showing torture was not effective in acquiring intelligence (see: Revelations from the Torture Report – CIA Lies, Nazi Methods and the $81 Million No-Bid Torture Contract), the American public thinks it was. This is the power of mainstream media spin and propaganda.

Fifty-three percent of Americans say the CIA’s harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists produced important information that could not have been obtained any other way, while 31 percent say it did not.

 

In a CBS poll released Monday, nearly seven in 10 considered waterboarding torture, but about half said the technique and others are, at times, justified. Fifty-seven percent said harsh interrogation techniques can provide information that can prevent terrorist attacks.

While the above is disturbing, if I felt that the culture is lost beyond hope and that my fellow American is akin to a zombified sociopath with no hope of awakening, I wouldn’t be writing on this website. I would have renounced my citizenship long ago and moved somewhere else. In contrast, I think there’s a lot to fight for in these United States and I think the war for freedom, civil rights and the rule of law can and will prevail. After all, I was admittedly more or less a zombie during the years immediately following 9/11 and for most of my time on Wall Street. If I was able to make such a profound transition (and countless of my friends have as well ), then there is always hope.

I continue to think that the vast majority of human beings are not particularly ethical or unethical. They are basically somewhere in the middle and thus very easily molded by propaganda. History pretty much proves this to be the case. My sentiments on the subject can be best summarized by something I wrote back in 2012 in the post: Humanity is Rising.

I have always felt that human disposition lies on a bell curve.  So let’s say for the sake of argument that 1% is just extraordinarily wicked, selfish, mentally deranged so along the lines of a Stalin like character.  Then let’s say the 1% on the other side is gentle, enlightened, and moral almost to a fault so a Gandhi like character.  Then the masses in the middle are not of any extreme disposition in either way, but are easily malleable and generally just “go along to get along.”  Well as far as recorded human history is concerned, the 1% of nasty, immoral parasites have dominated humanity through the various playbooks strategies that I and many others have outlined.  The 1% on the other side have generally been silenced or ostracized systematically by the control freak “leaders” and if that fails to work, they are simply murdered.  I mean even up until the 20th Century think about the kinds of guys that have been murdered.  Gandhi.  Martin Luther King Jr.  John Lennon.  Oh and if we want to go back a couple thousand years there was Jesus.  The list is endless.  Guys that talk about a higher level of consciousness and love and actually make inroads in society are murdered.  Yet no one ever seems to take a shot at the genocidal, sociopaths that run our lives through politics and banking (nor would I ever want that as I do not condone violence as a solution to a violent system).  Interesting isn’t it?  I think it is pretty obvious why this is the case.  The 1% on the decent side of the bell curve aren’t murderers.  The guys on the other side of it are.  

While certainly not giving the middle of the bell curve a pass for its unquestioned apathy and ignorance, I am convinced that the key variable here is information, which is why it is so imperative to conduct alternative narratives, and is why I spend most of my time working on this site. Glenn Greenwald’s recent piece in the Intercept helped to reinforce the impact of media propaganda in shaping public perceptions. Here are some excerpts:

Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. Government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage.

 

Whenever America is forced to confront its heinous acts, the central strategy is to disappear the victims, render them invisible. That’s what robs them of their humanity: it’s the process of dehumanization. That, in turns, is what enables American elites first to support atrocities, and then, when forced to reckon with them, tell themselves that – despite some isolated and well-intentioned bad acts – they are still really good, elevated, noble, admirable people. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a large majority of Americans believe torture is justified even when you call it “torture.” Not having to think about actual human victims makes it easy to justify any sort of crime.

 

This self-glorifying ritual can be sustained only by completely suppressing America’s victims. If you don’t hear from the human beings who are tortured, it’s easy to pretend nothing truly terrible happened. That’s how the War on Terror generally has been “reported” for 13 years and counting: by completely silencing those whose lives are destroyed or ended by U.S. crimes. That’s how the illusion gets sustained.

 

Thus, we sometimes hear about drones (usually to celebrate the Great Kills) but almost never hear from their victims: the surviving family members of innocents whom the U.S. kills or those forced to live under the traumatizing regime of permanently circling death robots. We periodically hear about the vile regimes the U.S. props up for decades, but almost never from the dissidents and activists imprisoned, tortured and killed by those allied tyrants. Most Americans have heard the words “rendition” and “Guantanamo” but could not name a single person victimized by them, let alone recount what happened to them, because they almost never appear on American television.

 

It would be incredibly easy, and incredibly effective, for U.S. television outlets to interview America’s torture victims. There is certainly no shortage of them. Groups such as the ACLUCenter for Constitutional RightsReprieve, and CAGE UK represent many of them. Many are incredibly smart and eloquent, and have spent years contemplating what happened to them and navigating the aftermath on their lives.

 

I’ve written previously about the transformative experience of meeting and hearing directly from the victims of the abuses by your own government. That human interaction converts an injustice from an abstraction into a deeply felt rage and disgust. That’s precisely why the U.S. media doesn’t air those stories directly from the victims themselves: because it would make it impossible to maintain the pleasing fairy tales about “who we really are.”

 

When I was in Canada in October, I met Maher Arar (pictured above) for the second time, went to his home, had breakfast with his wife (also pictured above) and two children. In 2002, Maher, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent who worked as an engineer, was traveling back home to Ottawa when he was abducted by the U.S. Government at JFK Airport, heldincommunicado and interrogated for weeks, then “rendered” to Syria where the U.S. arranged to have him brutally tortured by Assad’s regime. He was kept in a coffin-like cell for 10 months and savagely tortured until even his Syrian captors were convinced that he was completely innocent. He was then uncermoniously released back to his life in Canada as though nothing had happened.

 

When he sued the U.S. government, subservient U.S. courts refused even to hear his case, accepting the Obama DOJ’s claim that it was too secret to safely adjudicate.

 

There are hundreds if not thousands of Maher Arars the U.S. media could easily and powerfully interview. McClatchy this week detailed the story of Khalid al Masri, a German citizen whom the U.S. Government abducted in Macedonia, tortured, and then dumped on a road when they decided he wasn’t guilty of anything (US courts also refused to hear his case on secrecy grounds). The detainees held without charges, tortured, and then unceremoniously released from Guantanamo and Bagram are rarely if ever heard from on U.S. television, even when the U.S. Government is forced to admit that they were guilty of nothing.

 

This is not to say that merely putting these victims on television would fundamentally change how these issues are perceived. Many Americans would look at the largely non-white and foreign faces recounting their abuses, or take note of their demonized religion and ethnicity, and react for that reason with indifference or even support for what was done to them.

I’m not so sure this is the case, and in any event, we can’t know unless we try.

Keeping those victims silenced and invisible is the biggest favor the U.S. television media could do for the government over which they claim to act as watchdogs. So that’s what they do: dutifully, eagerly and with very rare exception.

Watching television is easy and addicting, particularly if you came of age before the internet. Television news is simply horrifying. On those rare instances when I catch a glimpse of it at the gym, I feel as if I have entered a bizarro world of idiocy and shamelessness.

Nevertheless, it remains true that a lot of the pre-internet generation still receives intellectual marching orders from the idiot-box. This is why I’m so curious to see how the Washington Post poll splits by age bracket. Either way, hope is never lost and the torch of liberty must remain lit and carried forward by those who care. That’s precisely what I try to do here at Liberty Blitzkrieg, and I ask you to do the same in whatever capacity you can.

 

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Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:05 | 5564099 Arnold
Arnold's picture

Wow, OWS activities winding down for the winter?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 18:09 | 5565345 Bananamerican
Bananamerican's picture

your last name isn't Ziffel by any chance is it?

of course it is...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:15 | 5563809 Disc Jockey
Disc Jockey's picture

THERE IS NO REAL WAR ON TERROR.

IT'S ALL BULLSHIT.

Aside that is from the one the bankers make upon us everyday.

Good God man, wake the fuck up Jose. Are you on ZH or what?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:34 | 5563841 Usurious
Usurious's picture

 

 

exactly.....

Gorby to Colin Powell in 1989........

''As I write and have written and said many times, I was with President Gorbachev when he looked across the table at me and said “General, you’ll have to find a new enemy.''

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2012/05/17/colin-powell-exclusiv... 

hollywood was in lockstep with this.......

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:15 | 5563815 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture

Hey moron, our problem isn't Americans being killed over there.  It is innocent people being tortured over that makes people over there want to come here to kill us.

You don't wanna die there?  Don't go there. 

You reap what you sow.  You sow torture and so I hope, hope beyond hope, you are captured by Islamists (or better, their CIA bosses) and tortured for years.  I hope they pull your fingernails out.  I hope they waterboard you for months.  I hope you are never allowed to sleep again.  I hope they make you deaf with the loud music 24x7.  I hope you live through it all so you can come back and tell us how it made us safer.

 

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 07:10 | 5567475 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

Maybe the CIA can have the Police rape his children in front of him...

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 07:11 | 5567473 HardAssets
HardAssets's picture

Lots of war mongering azz hats here who undoubtedly never wore a military uniform & served. Well here's the word from a man who actually knew something about war:

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

When you use such methods as torture, not only are they ineffective for gathering real intel - they mean you lose the moral high ground and destroy your own cause.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:48 | 5563650 One Day Only
One Day Only's picture

Correct, there should be no sympathy.  However, that sentiment should be carried out on the battlefield.  You put a rabid dog down in the field, but if you capture it, you don't just continue to beat the crap out of it because you're angry with it.

A good followup question in this survey would have been, "If there were other methods for obtaining the information, would you still be in favor of these torture techniques?"

Check out Michael Yon.  He's a former special forces, independent correspondent that spent a LOT of time imbedded with our guys in Iraq/Afghanistan.  He's got a first-hand take on intel gathering.  If we treat people fairly and humanely, most good intel comes from locals, and often enemy combatants.  But if those locals see us as torturers and murderers, they clam up.  People are generally the same across the world.  They're just people, and want to be left alone to live their lives.  The people we fight aren't that, so locals don't want them around either. 

www.michaelyon-online.com

Yon has been posting a lot on his FB page about this topic lately as well.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:49 | 5563654 Syrin
Syrin's picture

Agreed, but when we do what they do, we're equally as bad.  We could simply lock them up indefinitely.  Keep in mind, our CIA CREATED Al Qaida, CREATED ISIS, so ultimately, who is to blame here?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:27 | 5563888 frankly scarlet
frankly scarlet's picture

What? AccreditedEYE doesn't agree with Albright that the suffering deaths of five hundred thousand (500,000) Iraqi children wasn't worth it....."those to whom evil is done do evil in return"

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563558 Son of Captain Nemo
Son of Captain Nemo's picture

The Washington Post's address

1000 Colonial Farm Road, McLean, VA 22101

Got question(s) about that 59% poll they just conducted contact the editor at (703) 482-0623!

The Washington Post?...

The guys that told you that it was 19 guys in a plane armed with box cutters that really work for these guys!

And that "you're either with U.S. or you are with the terrorists"!

Where are the real real self-hating Jews like Carl Bernstein and Dan Froomkin when you need 'em?

   
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:47 | 5563636 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

I called but they put me through to Tel Aviv.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:37 | 5563561 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

Moral hazard is a real bitch once things really get going and supply lines go down.

No rules for the elites means no rules for us motherfuckers!!

I wonder who will open the first guillotine manufuacturing company.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:42 | 5563586 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

My money is on a more disorganised and decentralized approach.

Maybe some disgruntled, unemployed snipers who have returned from a worthless war and have not been exposed to the WS Bankster brainwashing and can see the causes.

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563635 Sub MOA
Sub MOA's picture

;)

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:50 | 5563665 Syrin
Syrin's picture

I've been waiting for this and wondering what the delay is.   There are lots of treasonous soft targets they could take out fairly rapidly and easily.  

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:05 | 5563758 Sub MOA
Sub MOA's picture

It's a touchy situation you have the panic factor first of all then theres the "gun rights" issue and martial law as I see it it has to be a timed event and the time just isn't right yet.  Like I'rv posted before I like to think of those (un)fortunate banker deaths/suicides as the work of pissed off citizens makes me smile and one can still dream right ?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:51 | 5563668 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

Good to see another optimist.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:36 | 5563562 Monty Burns
Monty Burns's picture

I'm 100% in favor of the most terrible torture for the perpetrators of 9/11.  Would love to see Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeldt, Zakhein, Zelikow and all the other Ziocons hanging by their balls with their heads buried in Condaleeza's Bush.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563627 LasVegasDave
LasVegasDave's picture

right, cuz that wouldnt be torture.....

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 16:12 | 5564565 Silky Johnson
Silky Johnson's picture

Fuckin pewww! I just had to open a window after that visual.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:37 | 5563563 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

"Torture, It's the exceptional thing to do!"

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:37 | 5563566 pods
pods's picture

Amerikans, on the whole, are ignorant self obsessed narcissists.  Post that on your twitter feed.

They don't give a flying fuck what happens to anyone else around the world, as long as THEIR way of life isn't impacted.

End of an Empire.

Time we get Down with the Sickness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09LTT0xwdfw

pods

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:41 | 5563587 SickDollar
SickDollar's picture

sad but true  as long as they can consume MOAR money, food, etc....

they deserve to be called sheeple

 

 

 

it's a big club and  you ain't in it

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:41 | 5563589 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

Yep, and the rest of the world knows this.

Full faith and credit...tick tock motherfuckers.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:26 | 5563840 Disc Jockey
Disc Jockey's picture

Faith.

1a :  allegiance to duty or a person :  loyalty b (1) :  fidelity to one's promises (2) :  sincerity of intentions 2a (1) :  belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) :  belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) :  firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) :  complete trust 3  something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially :  a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

Tick tock indeed. Who really thinks that people have much faith (a very strong word) in what has become the biggest clown circus on planet earth?
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:53 | 5563677 Syrin
Syrin's picture

Agreed, and I love that song

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:15 | 5563812 pods
pods's picture

It's on my lifting playlist.  

But seriously, most people don't give a shit about who we kill, as long as the stores have what they want.

Music can show us the way and there is a lot of truth out there:

"You depend on our protection,

Yet you feed us lies from the table cloth."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUzd9KyIDrM

And THEY do need our consent to keep doing what they are doing.  We have the numbers.  They have the controls of the idiot box.

pods

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 07:37 | 5567506 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture
Why don't you ask the kids at Tianemen Square Was fashion the reason why they were there They disguise it. Hypnotize it. Television Made us buy it I'm just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoheCz4t2xc

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:57 | 5564487 Grumbleduke
Grumbleduke's picture

CITIZENS = "CITIZENS ARE PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE WORLD." 

DRONES = ..."DRONES ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE SO OVERWHELMED BY THE CHALLENGE OF SURVIVING THAT THEY'RE UNAWARE OF ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF THEIR DAY-TO-DAY LIVES."

 

from the book "The Traveler" by John Twelve Hawks

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 16:28 | 5564647 eddymunster
eddymunster's picture

You are, enemy
You are my hated enemy
I am enemy
Number one rated enemy
I'm a labelled enemy
I am your mortal enemy
My actions enemy
Make me your bitter enemy

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:39 | 5563573 SickDollar
SickDollar's picture

the tribe and their polls  what a fucken joke



it's a big club and you ain't in it

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:38 | 5563574 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

The syndicate's ziomafia media have been supremely effective in programming the donkeys.

That's what this proves.

We're all headed to a dark place, led by pathological psychopaths.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:38 | 5563577 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

And by a 3-to-1 margin, ISIS members prefer beheadings to extreme torture...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:41 | 5563594 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

ISIS is trained, funded and treated for their injuries by Netanyahoo and the mossad.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:04 | 5563746 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture

Not true.  The CIA helps a lot too.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:05 | 5563763 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

I consider the CIA and the Mossad to be the same organization with an east and west branch [east branch is in charge].

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:08 | 5563774 Sub MOA
Sub MOA's picture

same crew just different sub-set

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:00 | 5563579 oddjob
oddjob's picture

Funny how that 59% equates to the amount of the population that sponges a living off the government.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:41 | 5563592 fauxhammer
fauxhammer's picture

Please pass the braunschweiger

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:41 | 5563599 firstdivision
firstdivision's picture

Can I get a list of those that said they support it so I can do a follow-up poll of "was it okay for the Nazis to torture Jewish citizens into providing the name and location of other Jewish citizens"

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 17:12 | 5563602 alexcojones
alexcojones's picture

"Unbroken" the WW2 movie featuring a Japanese soldier torturing a POW, opens on Christmas.

Of course all the "Loyal, patriotic, American taxpayers" will be aghast at "our" guy being tortured and never see the irony, or should I say hypocrisy?

Unbroken Official Trailer #2 (2014)
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 17:34 | 5565133 Squid Viscous
Squid Viscous's picture

they should have called it "Unleavened"

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:42 | 5563604 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

I suppose Stalin did OK in the polls too. I know Kim Jung does. Heil HILLARY!

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:51 | 5563672 kito
kito's picture

right as if the u.s. has always been the church choir boy. as if the cia hasnt been torturing since the inception of the agency. dude give me a break. every american has known the cia tortures for 50 years +. they wrote a manuel on it in the 1960s which was used globally!!!! nobody has ever cared as long as america stayed safe. usual tyler bullshit headlines

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:42 | 5563610 1stepcloser
1stepcloser's picture

those are the same 59% getting a check from uncle sam in one form or another

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:42 | 5563611 ZenWaiter
ZenWaiter's picture

You cannot igore the context in which most of the EIT were used. Many in the CIA believed nuclear bombs were on the way or already planted in US cities. They did what they had to do. This orwellian paranoia you have is just that, paranoia. Government isn't smart enough to pull of the evil plots people accuse them of, don; give them that much credit.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:22 | 5563847 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

"Many in the CIA believed nuclear bombs were on the way"

Many of the sick f's in the CIA were busy planting thermite in the towers for the PNAC revolutionary media extravaganza before they were getting their jollies off sodomizing people with flourescent light fixtures.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 08:43 | 5567639 Reptil
Reptil's picture

Bullshit.
The US militairy industrial complex orchestrated the Anthrax attacks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc6B_n-lTL4
https://www.commondreams.org/headlines.shtml?/headlines01/1212-01.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fort-detrick-scientist-commits-suicide-as-anthrax-investigation-closes-in/9730
http://stevenwarran.blogspot.nl/2009/05/american-media-inc-headquarters-hit.html
It's because of gullable people like you, that reason from expectations (programming) instead of facts, that we're now up shit creek as a planet.
Even this late in the game, with all the evidence becoming obviously visible, you still hang on to the idea of normalcy.... amazing...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:42 | 5563612 ZenWaiter
ZenWaiter's picture

You cannot igore the context in which most of the EIT were used. Many in the CIA believed nuclear bombs were on the way or already planted in US cities. They did what they had to do. This orwellian paranoia you have is just that, paranoia. Government isn't smart enough to pull of the evil plots people accuse them of, don; give them that much credit.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563616 JR
JR's picture

After reading about a new poll that shows 59% of Americans support post 9/11 torture, I’ve spent the entire morning thinking about what it means. – Mike Krieger

Easy answer, Mike. It is not true. And common sense tells us that Americans may be confused but no way can this society be supporting torture. The evidence is that people went crazy – nationwide – on the release of this report. And the backtracking of the politicians who had supported torture and the blasting of people like Cheney who said the report was crap is reason enough to believe that the polling is not only incorrect but is deliberate, coming from an Administration besieged by criticism of its warmongering and torturing.

As for the “valuable information” produced, several officials, even Diane Feinstein, have said there was no valuable information gained by this torture.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:52 | 5563667 Usurious
Usurious's picture

99% of the people dont understand debt-money........so lets quit with the polling until americans really understand what enslaves them.......USURY

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:27 | 5563891 kito
kito's picture

bullshit. torture has been an open secret forever and i doubt if the polling would be different during ww2. we interned japanese americans for chrissake and you think americans didnt approve of torture during those years? you think if americans were pollled on the justification of torturing nazis during that time americans would be up in arms? or if we tortured surviving kamikaze pilots americans would dissaprove?  spare me your bullshit man. guys like tyler and krieger and synder weave every longstanding societal stat or ill into his narrative of "the new ugly america". propaganda works both ways but most here are too rabid to know the difference. 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:42 | 5564377 JR
JR's picture

The flood of information through the years has included a large percentage of falsehoods. A mentality of torture, perpetrated by Fed warmongering for world wars beginning in 1913 in America by government employed propagandists such as Socialist propagandists George Creel and Edward Bernays is meant to stir up hatred and revenge against a targeted people, be they Germans, Japanese or Muslims (and now Russians and E. Ukrainians).

Once they are hated and the crowd cries for revenge, torture can be used with impunity:  “They are beheading us, so what’s a little water boarding in return?”

It was deliberate propaganda that stirred up the mob to crucify Jesus rather than Barbarus.

John 19:6-12

When the chief priests, therefore, and the servants, had seen him, they cried out, saying: Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause in him. 7 The Jews answered him: We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. 8 When Pilate therefore had heard this saying, he feared the more. 9 And he entered into the hall again, and he said to Jesus: Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Pilate therefore saith to him: Speakest thou not to me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee?

11 Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. Therefore, he that hath delivered me to thee, hath the greater sin. 12 And from henceforth Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying: If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar's friend. For whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar.

Would the American people have justified Dresden had they known many of the true facts concerning the background of WWII, such as POW Kurt Vonnegut’s later report: only 3% of Germany’s POWs died at the hands of the Germans.

The Bombing of Dresden in World War II & Slaughterhouse-Five: Kurt Vonnegut (1997)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyw5vFe4Kcs

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675031437_bomb-damage_Wilhelmstrasse_Berlin-Cathedral_River-Spre

Vladimir Lenin, in the 1917 Russian Re-Revolution: “The press should not be only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.”

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563619 Hazlitt
Hazlitt's picture

Worldwide Milgram experiment confirms original findings. Given commands and sanction by powerful authority figures, most people, except true contrarians (mostly libertarians), will gladly carry out horrid acts without any shred of empathy for their victims. 

I wish this was surprising.

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:56 | 5563699 Captain Willard
Captain Willard's picture

Yes. Of course, this explains the new view that the original Milgram experiemts were unethical.

A few weeks ago, I suggested to George Washington on his blog to expect this poll result. 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:14 | 5563813 Hazlitt
Hazlitt's picture

Unethical...maybe. Lying itself isn't immoral if no one is actually hurt (physically, financially, adversely psychologically, etc.), and no one was actually hurt in them, not to mention most of the participants of the study were glad to do it and would have participated again. You could argue that the participants acted immorally because they carried out nonbinding orders despite being told about the pain they would be inflicting, especially because they largely felt they were surrendering moral responsibility to the authority figures, which is impossible unless you are coerced into participating and can't escape. 

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 01:16 | 5567040 BadLibertarian
BadLibertarian's picture

Milgram pain experiment + Stanford prison experiment + Dunbar's number + Berkeley wealth study + Maslow's hierarchy = most of what you need to understand and predict human behavior.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563626 Silver Bullet
Silver Bullet's picture

Yeah, this isn't surprising. I actually thought it would be higher.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563629 CuriousPasserby
CuriousPasserby's picture

I only say I support it because the left says they're against it.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:45 | 5563633 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

See how they like torture in the FEMA camps.

"Do you except Jesus as your personal savior, or am I going to have to pull out another finger nail?"

An American, not US subject.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:35 | 5563932 Augustus
Augustus's picture

Typical 100% bull shit fom the head chopper defenders.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:46 | 5563634 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

59% of polls are bullshit

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:33 | 5563923 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

WaPo/ABC prove it.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:46 | 5563637 Urban Redneck
Urban Redneck's picture

Fuck the retards who blindly accept the establishment's lie that "Torture doesn't work"

Just because Bush and Cheney couldn't get torture right (amongst many other things) does not prove anything.

Here's a simple litmus test- go get yourself a safe and fill it with gold, and lock the safe then invite your whole family and a bunch of barbarians hunting barbarous relics over for dinner. YOU WILL GIVE UP THE TRUTH UNDER DURESS (and internet tough guys guys will lie and deny it).

Or you don't have the stomach to watch your loved ones dismembered... there's always the Socratic problem of what happens when the State changes its tune from "torture doesn't work" to (or is revealed as) "torture does work" -- should the 41% change then their mind?

The arguments as to why States should NOT torture have NOTHING to do with the efficacy of torture.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:52 | 5563676 IridiumRebel
IridiumRebel's picture

Not disagreeing, but how do we create enemies that we must torture?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:29 | 5563906 Augustus
Augustus's picture

Drinking a beer and wearing soccer shorts will do it.

If you let a woman drive a car you are a target.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:32 | 5563917 Augustus
Augustus's picture

Drink a beer and wear soccer shorts will do it

If you let a woman drive a car you are a target.

Don't let a female child become educated or you will die.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:38 | 5563952 Urban Redneck
Urban Redneck's picture

Or why do we create enemies that the State chooses to torture? Unless someone is trying to hit the Repeat button endlessly on the Rinse, Repeat machine...

It often seems to come back to why, because the objectionable how is often just an extreme of a continuum that the moderates almost never object to. For the morally "flexible" or weak who think torture "OK" -- the few instances when it can be effective are predicated on the "conventional" answer to why (i.e. actionable intelligence that cannot be better obtained).

Given that the establishment's cherry picked example of the "ticking time bomb" is actually a case where torture is even less effective than the hypothetical instance is rare -- Why is the establishment framing the public narrative and the debate in a fashion such that any outcome can be easily undone to suit their future "needs"?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:57 | 5564063 Captain Willard
Captain Willard's picture

Yes. You're making a really subtle but important point about the framing of the narrative. But of course the art of propaganda is the art of framing narratives. 

A nation that defends its borders and has no foreign entanglements probably won't need to torture anyone (unless Katy Perry's music and the Redskins' woes count). Getting everyone to accept all the priors that lead up to the choice of torture/don't torture is the whole ball game. The choice itself, standing alone, is obvious. The trick for the State and the elite is to frame the narrative, as you put it so well.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:57 | 5564488 YHC-FTSE
YHC-FTSE's picture

One could equally say, Fuck the retards who blindly accept the establishment's lie that "Torture does work" (Along with the faux hand-wringing reluctance). You torture anyone long enough, you will get them to say whatever you want, the truth, the fantasy, any narrative the tortured figures will stop the torture. If you want to win a war, it is ineffective and self-defeating to implement it. If it is an act of desperation against the person you know to be guilty, then it may yield results. The media always concentrates on the latter and not the thousands of poor sods who have been tortured, sometimes to death, for nothing. Less than nothing, because the logs of the CIA operations are full of useless intel that were given up during torture by innocent men.

The argument against torture is simple: You do not ever have a national policy that includes the torture of suspects. History is full of "emergency measures" that gave enormous powers to the government and its minions, income tax being one of them, which later became the norm. You cannot give any more power to sociopaths than endorsing torture as a method of governance. Those smug in their belief that it's just a bunch of brown hajis on whom this "necessary tool of government" is being used will oneday very soon discover that it isn't so great when it is being used on them in their local police cell, especially if you are wholly innocent and it is being used to make you confess to a crime you did not do.

Variations of Luke and Matthew's "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" rule is known as the "Golden Rule". I rather like Confucius' version which seems more pertinent in this case - "What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." They are all good maxims to live by as individuals, and absolutely obligatory in the affairs of state which should be acting as a nation's conscience. What we see here is a complete lack of conscience of any kind. A subhuman tribe of regressed animals acting on survival instincts alone, where anything goes as long as it offers safety. Murder, theft and torture have consequences - every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The world becomes shittier as a result, that should be abundantly clear.

As for this article, I don't know how the questions were phrased and I don't know about the sample population so from a quantitative method point of view, I can't comment. But it seems about right. We've had many years of media and government propaganda, along with popular fiction to excuse the use of torture by authority figures. Stanley Milgram was a student of Solomon Asch, so I always quote them together when I try to explain the importance of their works on Conformity and Obedience to Authority. It has been proven definitively that people will accept the strangest things to conform to the group and obey authority figures upto and including committing torture/murder for them, given the right stimulus. We humans are quite predictable in our ways, and sadly for most of us not quite smart enough to evolve beyond our hard wired programming. That is precisely what these sociopaths exploit every day - This poll being one of many.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 04:29 | 5567321 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

Excellent UR point, excellent YHC-FTSE riposte, very disturbing poll. ZH has gems among all the detritus

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:49 | 5563648 Panic Mode
Panic Mode's picture

59% is the fat thick walmart population.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:50 | 5563653 alexcojones
alexcojones's picture

BTW, the "justified torture" Hollywood movie, Zero Dark Thirty

Won Oscars and critical acclaim. What does that say?

Liberals love torture and propaganda just as much as Nazis.

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:54 | 5563683 homiegot
homiegot's picture

Nazi = National Socialist German Workers' Party

Democrats = National Socialist American Workers' Party

 


Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:50 | 5563657 Crash2012
Crash2012's picture

The left wing media has conflated this story for years and is stunned to see how many people have seen through their lies.

The simple truth is the 9/11 attackers were part of a SPY ring. There are NO established 'norms' for the treatment of SPIES. Not in the Geneva convention or anywhere else.

This debate of what constituted 'torture' in this case, is a red herring promoted by people both inside and outside of the USA.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:51 | 5563660 economessed
economessed's picture

I support torture -- under the condition that the people who are authorizing it experience what they are endorsing first hand so there can be no uncertainty of its effacacy.

Unwilling to have electricity applied to your testicles and later describe what you felt? Unwilling to experience sustained sensation of drowning and later describe what it was like?  Unwilling to be raped and discuss the rationalization of the procedure upon yourself? 

No?  Then let's not make the mistake that torture is an effective way of soliciting the information we seek.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:50 | 5563664 homiegot
homiegot's picture

As long as it's not them getting their fingernails ripped out, who gives a fuck?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:57 | 5563698 homiegot
homiegot's picture

Down votes support torture, by the way.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:28 | 5563885 Augustus
Augustus's picture

^^^^^^

 

The comment of a fool.

There was no fingernail ripping.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:53 | 5563666 dexter_morgan
dexter_morgan's picture

I suspect the numbers are accurate. C'mon people, most Americans can't even agree that strangling a guy for selling loosies is a crime, and he's an American citizen, so why would we expect them to find torturing those labeled as 'enemies' a problem?

We kill 1400 kids a day in the name of choice, we drone innocent people in 'enemy' nations, we support our allies killing of innocents in the name of 'defense', we keep voting neo-cons of both parties in to office, so why would anyone think the torture stuff was going to be shocking?

As long as they get their i-crap, teevees, and DWTS at least 61% could give a fuck about any of this.

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:52 | 5564456 SpeedKing
SpeedKing's picture

You win the award for most uninformed comment on the internet today.  Implying that Garner was 'strangled' is intentional ignorance I'm assuming.  It takes minutes of strangulation to kill someone, not 10 seconds, despite what Al Sharpton would have you believe.  But please, by all means, continue to play the useful idiot role.  You'll make the people who disagree with you look smarter.  

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:52 | 5563671 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

This poll means that only 41% of the people will march willingly into the FEMA death camps - the other 59% will resist

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:02 | 5563728 Tsar Pointless
Tsar Pointless's picture

You have that totally backwards. The 59% in support will do whatever their masters tell them to do.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:52 | 5563675 StackShinyStuff
StackShinyStuff's picture

In other news, 59% of respondents stated that they either "beat their wives" or "he beats me but I LOVE HIM"

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:55 | 5563682 Hapte
Hapte's picture

Prompt, humane executions for all torture adovocates.

I'd get out and vote for that.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:55 | 5563686 EINSILVERGUY
EINSILVERGUY's picture

Maybe we should have a discussion on what constitutes torture. If they waterboarded 3 people in custody at Gitmo I'm not sure that qualifies. Hell they had more journalists and special forces waterboarded for training purposes than these 3 guys.  I think there is some serious amercia hating bashing going on

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:57 | 5563704 Hapte
Hapte's picture

Waterboarding is torture, next discussion maybe?

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:57 | 5563695 where_is the_nuke
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:58 | 5563701 yogibear
yogibear's picture

Most liberals are supporters of dictators as long as they can do what they want. 

If that makes any sense.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:00 | 5563714 Tsar Pointless
Tsar Pointless's picture

Wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:02 | 5563720 himaroid
himaroid's picture

king, ghandi and lennon set up the torturers

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:58 | 5563702 Oldrepublic
Oldrepublic's picture

George Washington was opposed to torture

a quote:

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” – George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775…

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 04:37 | 5567328 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

+1 this goes beyond George Washington being against torture. Here, he was advocating the respectful treatment of Prisoners of War. Yes, the same spirit that is in the Geneva Conventions

just as a reminder, in the era he was general it was perfectly common to grant prisoners of war parole. Meaning they were free to move in their's captors lands, bound only by their word of not committing any further acts of war. This freedom could be extended from a prisoner's camp to the city or province or even to a return to their homes

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:00 | 5563708 Tsar Pointless
Tsar Pointless's picture

Answer to question: Both.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:59 | 5563711 bigrooster
bigrooster's picture

WTF!  The key word is SUSPECTS!  These people were never tried and convicted of anything!  Nazi Germany here we come.  Next it will be most Americans support torture against suspected domestic terrorists.

 

"A majority of Americans believe that the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified, even as about half the public says the treatment amounted to torture,"

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:22 | 5563852 Farmer Joe in B...
Farmer Joe in Brooklyn's picture

I had an argument with my dad (unabashed midwestern right-wing conservative) the other day.  We were discussing the torture report.  He, of course, falls into the 59%. I shut him up real quick when I asked him if he would still support it if I was abducted and tortured on suspicion of being a "domestic terrorist". Because I would bet my lunch money that most, if not all, of us on ZH could probably be called "domestic terrorists" by the sociopaths running this country. It's only a matter of time before they start rounding up and disappearing any who even think of questioning the status quo.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:19 | 5563713 BullyBearish
BullyBearish's picture

Sorry...a "CBS poll" has no credibility with me...do you know who owns CBS?  Same people who own the rating agencies...and they NEVER lie!

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:00 | 5563715 reader2010
reader2010's picture

Mission Accomplished. Welcome to Dark Age 2.1.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:01 | 5563719 HowdyDoody
HowdyDoody's picture

Americans have finally learned to love Big Brother.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:01 | 5563721 SMC
SMC's picture

The propaganda continues...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:02 | 5563731 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

Which way would those now headless ISIS prisoners have voted?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:02 | 5563733 U4 eee aaa
U4 eee aaa's picture

Debauching the currency debauches the country

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:02 | 5563737 graftvshost
graftvshost's picture

New poll shows 100% of all 'polls of American opinions' are totally fucking worthless and depressing.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:05 | 5563743 U4 eee aaa
U4 eee aaa's picture

Insert America is no better than a Nazi state cliches here

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:05 | 5563748 BeerMe
BeerMe's picture

Who cares the fuck about torture when the banksters are raping & pillaging?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:06 | 5563757 sainchaw
sainchaw's picture

that's an easy one: go out in public and talk to people. they are fucking stupid.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:05 | 5563762 cherry picker
cherry picker's picture

I suspected as much.  There are many good people in the USA, but there are also a bunch of self centered, egotistical, ignoramuses without any moral scruples and that is why the Amerika now has a K in it.  Fortunately the rest of the continent still has a bit of soul left.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:07 | 5563765 kowalli
kowalli's picture

USA don't have an official war with any country - so stop supporting torture because of that

second - your government just afraid of people which are living in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,Pakistan, etc.. , countries which was bombed, droned or democratized, this people lost their homes and relatives and just hate you for this.

It's fucking simple

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:06 | 5563771 Pumpkin
Pumpkin's picture

Well about 95% of Americans think that their government is their god.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:08 | 5563781 kowalli
kowalli's picture

government is a organ which is needed to organize people and protect them from external problems, it's not a ruling thing...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:08 | 5563775 joego1
joego1's picture

It's hard to imagine how these polls could show up favorably for a government that is on the hot seat for torture right now. Just lucky for them right? You can put me down on the negative view of the Muslim religion. Nothing justifies torture.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:08 | 5563779 Encroaching Darkness
Encroaching Darkness's picture

The issue you seem to be bringing is that they tortured the WRONG people - those who were not part of the conflict. Innocent Canadians, Syrians, etc. Did I misunderstand?

I think that most people would torture the guilty to prevent further loss of life. Let's say, your home is invaded, and you turn the tables on the invaders. They have taken your (wife, daughter, son) somewhere else (unknown location to you) in order to extract something (information on hidden valuables, sexual gratification, power of possession) from them. You now have the upper hand on ONE invader, the rest left with your family member(s). Would you:

(1) Call the police so they can arrest and Mirandize the suspect, while the others rape & torture YOUR family members,

(2) Kill the suspect immediately so they cannot sue you for wrongful detention,

(3) Torture the suspect until they give up the unknown location?

(4) Other?

I think any human would support torture in limited circumstances; the argument appears to be who defines the circumstances and torture. Tell me I'm wrong, but tell me what YOU would do.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:24 | 5563868 pods
pods's picture

This isn't about what ONE person would do.  This is about official government policy.

Big difference.

pods

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:54 | 5564044 Encroaching Darkness
Encroaching Darkness's picture

Governments have no powers not delegated to them by the people - I know you might not want to take on the 3rd Armored Cavalry by yourself, but it is your taxes that enable them. Given that, can the government torture if you cannot? Would the government torture if you didn't support it?

I noticed you didn't answer the question. To protect you and yours, would you torture?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:48 | 5564014 Sub MOA
Sub MOA's picture

What your question seeks is justification of a small controlled situation which the choices lead to that justification...what you're missing here is giving some power over you the right to torture anyone any where they please for their not your benefit .  I choose to give no one power over and above me therefore I cannot give them power to engage in this non-sense on by behalf...  In other words fuck them they get no justification from me

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 16:11 | 5564111 Encroaching Darkness
Encroaching Darkness's picture

I don't think I missed that; you empower your government, as long as you pay their taxes, vote for their hand-picked candidates and support their policies. Shall I discern from your answer you're OK with having your family tortured by criminals in order to preserve your own moral purity?

I did not say I approve of indiscriminant torture of whoever falls into their clutches - as a citizen, the best I can hope for is that they choose to torture only those who are necessary for the minimum amount necessary. Not being on the scene and recognizing the fallibility of other humans, I can quarrel with who and how much torture took place, but only after the fact. And I do - I abhor the torture of innocents. Members of ISIS, Wall St. psycho / sociopaths who have ruined the lives of others (Where did it go, J Corzine? Where's it hidden, Jamie?) not so much.

Are you living on an island on no map, with no commerce, taxation or interaction with any nation? If not, how can you defend "I choose to give no one power over and above me"? Just curious.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:50 | 5564015 thruid
thruid's picture

That is a good question.  Now answer my quesiton.  Which role does the US government represent in your scenario ??  The innocent victim whose home is invaded, or are they the invaders ??

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:18 | 5564190 Encroaching Darkness
Encroaching Darkness's picture

Different branches different roles, all at the same time. The Wall Street branch is definitely invaders; the intelligence agencies invaders when they guess wrong and torture the wrong people, and home defenders when they guess right. The NSA bunch lean invaders; the military lean invaders, but can defend when the occasion warrants (killing Taliban in Afghanistan to defend civilians). It may come down to individuals, I can't tell from here.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:13 | 5563799 DonutBoy
DonutBoy's picture

The problem is the continuous obliteration of language.  Rape is redefined to mean "she didn't sign a notarized document agreeing to the sex act".  Torture is redefined to mean "he had to stand up for 12 hours".  Islamophobia was created to define a condition which does not exist - it is not an irrational fear.  The net of this is that claims of rape, torture, racism, sexism are taken with a grain of salt.  The true moral bankruptcy was in re-defining these words and thus demeaning the actual victims of rape, torture, and racism.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:37 | 5563943 Hapte
Hapte's picture

Haha, mate, I hope you don't think you're intelligent or insightful?

Sophist drivel you posted above. You sound like a real faggot to me.

Maybe you are a pro?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 17:54 | 5565259 Ass Burger
Ass Burger's picture

You've (allegedly) been a member for 3 years and you finally break your silence to call someone a faggot?

 

Serious question: where do you buy old, unused ZH accounts?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 18:49 | 5565545 Hapte
Hapte's picture

"Ass Burger" is it?

I guess you dont know how to search comments?

You've been a member for 9 whole weeks and you sling some weak adhom at me w/o even grasping the full functionality of the forum you're on?

That's a real faggot move m888t, you dumb as shit or wot?

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 16:01 | 5564450 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

This is a sign of Fascism. I just can't find the link.

Here is one.

"we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs."

" Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers on behalf of the large landowners."

"Paxton characterizes stage five as "radicalization or entropy." Radicalization is likely if the new regime scores a big military victory, which consolidates its power and whets its appetite for expansion and large-scale social engineering. (See: Germany) In the absence of a radicalizing event, entropy may set in, as the state gets lost in its own purposes and degenerates into incoherence. (See: Italy)"

http://www.alternet.org/story/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism

Oh here it is:

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism by Lawrence Britt

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BRI411A.html

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 17:12 | 5564967 Encroaching Darkness
Encroaching Darkness's picture

"rural, less-educated parts of the country .. "

This pretty much invalidates the rest of your comment. I come from rural roots; my less-educated experience did not include such benefits as:

sexual education in grade school (although they did tell the girls what their bodies were doing to them, in separate classes)

drugs and alcohol resistance education

revisionist history that blames DWEMs for everything

exaltation of deviance and unusual behavior

minority group grievance understanding

And despite all those disadvantages, I went on to earn a doctorate in science / engineering. I did not fall prey to alcohol or drug abuse; I have evaded jail all these years. I pay taxes and have a job in these trying times. My children, homeschooled almost exclusively, have similar experience.

Your assumptions of urban = good and rural = ignorant are as blanketing as stereotypes. I hope you learn better someday.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:13 | 5563800 LibertyBear
LibertyBear's picture

I don't trust polls anymore. Especially the ones right before an election or vote.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:33 | 5564320 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

I notice that WAPO & ABC don't really criticize the Economy or Government Statistics on the Economy.

This indicates a corporate take over of free press whether by office of the president, the CIA, or Wealthy Corporate Elites/Fascist.

If a Lap Dog takes an official poll, is it really a poll?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:16 | 5563801 Minder For Priapus
Minder For Priapus's picture
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:13 | 5563810 cherry picker
cherry picker's picture

The assholes tortured an innocent Canadian after the idiot intelligent service in Canada handed him over to the CIA.

The Canadian CSIS and the CIA are evil and so are the bastards who let these institutions survive and steal money from working men and women to enable them.

I have no pity for these types when they get hurt or killed in a foreign land, they shouldn't be there to begin with.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 16:24 | 5564626 Oldrepublic
Oldrepublic's picture

The Canadian government paid that man 10.5 million Canadian  dollars, the US courts refused to hear his case. He remains on the US no fly list

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:16 | 5563814 Number 156
Number 156's picture

I think that for the most part, Americans do not support torture or want to get involved in a conflict that's not theirs directly,  but if they do suffer an attack...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymLJz3N8ayI

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:16 | 5563824 Augustus
Augustus's picture

Of courssethis article begins with the false assumption that waterbording is torture.  That is pure nonsense.

The practice is usedin US ilitar training.

Several hundred media nutters have volunteered to be waterboarded.  None would volunteer to be burnt with cigarettes or have their testicles squeezed - examples of real torture practices.

Population recognizes that Democrat politicians will condone torture of US taxpayers.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:23 | 5563851 pods
pods's picture

Rock solid logic there.

So if the US burned trainees with cigs that wouldn't be torture?  

What if a soft handed woman gently squeezed my testicles?  Is that still torture? Or is volunteering the deciding factor?

I think it is about time for your forced rectal feeding, you seem to have lost some cognitive abilities.

pods

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:45 | 5564400 rwe2late
rwe2late's picture

After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as "water cure," "water torture" and "waterboarding," according to the charging documents.

In a recent journal essay, Judge Evan Wallach, a member of the U.S. Court of International Trade and an adjunct professor in the law of war, writes that the testimony from American soldiers about this form of torture was gruesome and convincing. A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps.

"... 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."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/yes-inational-reviewi-we_b_191...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:18 | 5563826 22winmag
22winmag's picture

I bet fewer far Germans supported the Nazi party at the same late stage in the game if such a poll were held.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:27 | 5564265 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

I'm not sure they would have figured out the problem with their political-economic model. Hitler was loved & popular. In the End maybe the Junkers & smart highly placed Nazis figured it out and tried to put plans into place to get rid of Hitler. But Propaganda was very strong at the time both in Germany & in the USA.

But you have to think constant war is not a political model. People suffered due to labor conditions, wages, shortages of healthy food, cold, and blackouts, bombing, fear, lack of electricity, education probably.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:20 | 5563835 alexcojones
alexcojones's picture

I support torture.

I thought that guy who killed 77 kids, Anders Brevik, should have had 77 pieces of his body sliced from him, one piece each day, while he was conscious and unsedated.

Would wipe that Cheney-like smirk right off his ugly mug.

Images for anders breivik

 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:18 | 5564018 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Death by 1000 cuts was a Chinese practice. Somehow doubt that the clerks or Mandarins in charge picked people that deserved it... But don't know the history here.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:22 | 5563839 rejected
rejected's picture

Even the German People mostly agreed with the Nazi's,,, in the beginning.

Fascism is a disease which attackes ones sense of morals and justice: 

Torture is ok and necessary sometimes if it keeps us free...

Corporations are profit oriented only and have no loyalty to cummunity or nation...

Governments can bypass constitutions because [insert here]

Police need to be militarized to protect us and keep us free...

Military [war] is more important than any social / educational institution...

Fascism is a top down disease. Starts at federal level, then state, then We the People...

The fascist nation is usually the 'exceptonal nation' for one reason or another,,, usually race as was in Germany, as for the u.s it's just because we say so... 

Most fascists don't know they are and will deny it until it appears they are the majority,,, then they will proudly admit it to belong. 

Unlike most other 'isms' there is only one method to eliminate the fascist state and that is to put it down,,, but it usually rises again somewhere else, most likely where the least expected,,, like the u.s.

The poll has probably been doctored to push the fascist government agenda but would not surprise me either way.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:19 | 5564071 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Ironically, Hitler pandered to the middle class, and they provided some of his most enthusiastically violent supporters. The fact that he did this while simultaneously destroying them was a terrible achievement of Nazi propaganda.

Hitler also destroyed organized labour by making strikes illegal. Notwithstanding the socialist terms in which he appealed to the masses, Hitler's labour policy was the dream come true of the industrial cartels that supported him. Nazi law gave total control over wages and working conditions to the employer.

From: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11155.htm

Her “five stages” are summarized from probing analyses including work reported by Robert Paxton, world’s leading authority on fascism, in 1998, published in The Journal for Modern History; and supplemented by others recognized in her report.

From: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august092009/fascism_today_hcr_8-9-09...
http://www.alternet.org/story/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism (Sara Robinson quoted above)

According to Paxton, the forging of this third-stage alliance is the make-or-break moment -- and the worst part of it is that by the time you've arrived at that point, it's probably too late to stop it. From here, it escalates, as minor thuggery turns into beatings, killings, and systematic tagging of certain groups for elimination, all directed by people at the very top of the power structure.

http://www.alternet.org/story/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism...

It comes down to Defining Conservatism Properly, the American Idea. Freedom, Liberty, Equality, and Justice with Our US Bill of Rights/Individual Rights... and some regulations, Standardizations to prevent Fraud, Corruption, and Monopolies. Proper Business Practices, Accounting, Auditing are the base whether someone is democrat or republican.

Ethos & Logos not fixed markets and slave labor taking our jobs.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:21 | 5563846 FreeShitter
FreeShitter's picture

Think the stupidty of americans is bad now? Wait till Jeb or Hillary gets in on it. God help us.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:25 | 5563861 cpnscarlet
cpnscarlet's picture

I would like to have a reasoned argument that what I've been through as a PM investor in the last threee years is worse than anything in the CIA report.

HOWEVER, I have no lasting scars or bruises or missing limbs...just like the people who were supposedly "tortured". Now, who should get more sympathy?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:26 | 5563872 ILikeBoats
ILikeBoats's picture

Question of the day:  what is a "push poll"?

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:12 | 5564146 besnook
besnook's picture

asking questions with a bias built into the answer. for instance, what do you like about apple pie? the question assumes you like apple pie and any comment about the results have a "what is liked about apple pie" angle so even if you did not like apple pie you would say something positive about it or choose one of the selections given in a multiple choice answer(also open to bias).

asking questions to get the desired result. or

it is a misspelling of the abbreviation "push a politician off a cliff, today!".

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 15:19 | 5564225 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

see also "97% consensus on global warming" questions

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 01:03 | 5567000 HughK
HughK's picture

If you actually want to know how those 97% consesus on global warming statistics work, here's a link.  

It has nothing to do with polling, and the methodology is very clear, and also repeatable, by the way.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:26 | 5563876 alexcojones
alexcojones's picture

"Good God man, wake the fuck up Jose. Are you on ZH or what?"

Classic, Disc Jockey, just classic.

I would have added multiple exclamation points !!!!!!!

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:28 | 5563886 Ned Zeppelin
Ned Zeppelin's picture

I don't know about anyone else but if I am suspicious of the BLS statistics why would I believe a "poll" that coincidentally supports the government's position on this issue?  Sounds like bullshit to me. 

In other words,  I stand with Las Vegas Dave. 

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:33 | 5563929 atomicwasted
atomicwasted's picture

It is not a coincidence that "24" appeared on the Fox network at the same time that actual torture began.  It was pure propaganda to acclimatize people to just this kind of depravity.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:42 | 5563970 TuPhat
TuPhat's picture

Mike, I quit reading when you put Jesus on the same list with Lennon and ML King.  There is no logical comparison there at all.

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