Hello silent onlookers
It has occured to me the this 'silence' may be an artifact of the the way in which my blog is structured; meaning, that some people may actually intend to make comments, but cannot; or, maybe nobody really has any desire to...Or, maybe, well, it doesn't matter, as I use this space for archives and, apparently, monologues--soliloquies perhaps.

In that spirit, I should mention that perusing the New York Times this morning at the public library, I found several articles referring to both the CIA's longstanding and notorious torture program (you remember, 'harsh interrogation;' and a gas chamber is a 'fumigation lounge,' I suppose), which was discontinued--although there is probably more to that story as well, since the military ran a similar program that was never actually abolished by the Obama adminsitration--but whose effects still reverberate; and, to the ongoing saga of the NSA information fisheries. It seems as if the 'Agency' regards its right to keep information regarding their own critical in-house study of the now-defunct program, just as secret as the program itself was intended to be. On that basis, they insist that a congressional intelligence committee--headed by Diane Feinstein, who often puts the KB in Kafkaesque Bureaucrat--should make do with an apparently limited palette of information. After all, national security is at stake!

Really? I suppose that there are numerous terrorist cells waiting with baited breath to find out the exact details of just how many times, various 'detainees' were subjected to invasive "tube-feedings" after 'concerned' Guantanamo doctors--who might want to check their Hippocratic oaths for comprehension--decided that 'life-saving measures' were necessary to revive their helpless charges. And I am sure that those same 'cells' will be dying to parlay the CIA's famous legal-justifications--which their primary spokesperson, has also claimed have classified status (by what logic I do not quite understand)--for their application of their other famous "persuasion" tactics. It boggles the mind, that anyone could argue, that--in addition to the actual details of torture and other activities--the justification itself, could somehow be kept secret. I suppose that this is the "trust-us-we-have-ourt-reasons-which-we-cant-reveal-either-so-trust-us-more" argument. Sounds like that same guy who once tried to argue that the government is like the 'father,' and the population (or the 'Volk' if that is a suficient hint) are the 'children,' and children don't require reasons just commands and assertions.

Just as disturbing however, is the cruelty disguiswed as the legitimate application of medicine. It just breaks me aup, and brings tears of gratitude to my eyes to hear about how our dedicated medical staff at 'GITMO' intervene to save the lives of the inmates. Am I being sarcastic, you bet your NSA-recorded-and-stored e-mails I am. Have any of these assholes ver heard of Aushwitz--perhaps not the way that I spell it, but no matter)? How about Bergen-Belson? Chelmos maybe? If it sounds like I am exaggerating, think of Guantanamo Bay, not as equivalent to the aforementioend concentration camps, but as a member of the same category, on a slightly lesser point on that continuum. In such a historical context, one should pay close attention to the way in which medical language was/is used to justify torture, by trying to give it the imprint of legitimacy by lacquering such distasteful acts with the varnish of "necessity;" the latter, being the most popular word in the lexicon of tyrants world-wide.
There was some other stuff, which I will post about later, which could mean tomorrow, or the next day--as my alloted time on this public library computer is running out (talk about information control, well in a sort of convoluted, unintended, sense anyway)...But the NSA program is starting to come under the sort of criticism that should have been prevalant from the moment that Edward Snowdens revelations became public...Snowden for President, or at least the medal of Patriotism; and fuch the NSA and Dianne Feinstein for her coindescending response to the Snowden amnesty request.
PTP steward out