There is only one test of torture: would we want it done to our troops or our citizens?

You know, like the Golden Rule someone said in the Bible, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Whenever Cheney, Yoo, or the apologist of the day is being interviewed, this is the only question they need to be asked.

If they play the 9/11 card, ask about all the innocent people tortured and sometimes killed.

Not incidentally, they realized a guy they claimed was number three in Al Qaeda and tortured the crap out of, Abu Zubaydah, was INNOCENT and let him go.

PIC: Why IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is Xmas favorite of GOP (and Wall St)

How many of you heard protesters in Oakland shut down police HQ for hours Monday?

This got live coverage on Pacifica, but I didn't have a chance to see how or even if it was covered elsewhere.

I can't remember something like this happening before.

It seems to border on being revolutionary, which is why I wondered about coverage elsewhere.


From the Los Angeles Times:

Anyone asked Obama why whistleblowers are in prison but not torturers they exposed?

I mean to his face.

What will Obama ultimately do about Bush era torture?

Far from setting up prosecution, torture report tees up pardons

While there was some new information in the Senate torture report, some of the most damning details were left out like systematically cutting a guy all over with a razor including his genitals, rape of men, women, and children, showing prisoners relatives killed in custody and on and on.

Why not include these if they are already in the press record and even in past government probes like the Taguba Report?

Because if these crimes that even the far right would have a hard time forgiving were included, it would be impossible to pardon the Bushies.

Anthony Romero of the ACLU makes a case that pardoning the Bushies will at least make it clear that they committed crimes, and there is some merit to that argument, but if Obama does it, that will not be why.

If Obama pardons Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, and the others who had a hand in the torture and other war crimes, it will be to protect them from prosecution from future administrations that may be less corrupt and have a higher regard for the law and human rights than the leadership of either of our two major parties.

When we get to that point in our history though, actual justice will probably trump indefensible "get out of jail free" cards for those who ordered the torture of thousands and deaths of over a million, and used our tax dollars and soldiers lives to do it.

How can Obama & AG Holder stick to the ludicrous "look forward not back" on WAR CRIMES today?

Even if the American people gladly go along with that, the rest of the world won't forget our crimes or that they let the criminals go into a lucrative retirement (and in some cases, still influence policy).

The Supreme Court forced the inbred, morally degenerate Bush on us, so to some degree, we can rationalize that we don't own his sins.

But when we allow the other major party to not only look the way but prosecute those who reveal these crimes against humanity, that says to the rest of the world that Americans support illegal wars, large (and small) scale killing for private profit, and violation of whatever human rights our elite feel are necessary to advance their financial interests abroad.

Even if you don't give a rat's ass about foreigners, we should be worried about the world figuring out how to unite and "contain" us, and even more worried that those who are allowed to commit such crimes with impunity won't hesitate to go Pinochet on us when they feel it's necessary to protect or advance their financial portfolio.

Michael Brown was Killed Because He Didn’t Prostrate Himself to Police Authority

Even if you don't think this killing was racist, it's hard not to agree with the premise of this article.

A white Jewish friend of mine was jogging in Santa Monica, and saw a motorcycle cop down the street, and figured he had time to cross before the cop was even close.

Instead, the cop sped up, cut my friend off, and asked him why he crossed when he saw the cop coming.

My friend didn't think much of it and told the cop the truth, he thought he could cross before the cop got there, but he sped up. Figure their business was done, my friend went on his way, only to find the cop waiting at the NEXT corner.

"Let me ask you again, why did you cross when you saw me coming?"

My friend figured the cop wouldn't leave him alone until he groveled, so he looked at the ground mumbled his apologies and said it wouldn't happen again.

It's not hard to imagine that to the nth degree if the person stopped is black and in a former Jim Crow state to boot.

What’s wrong Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson’s killing of the unarmed 18-year-old black teenager, Michael Brown, and with a Grand Jury decision not to indict him for that outrageous slaying, is what is wrong with American law enforcement and American “justice” in general.

Both actions were permeated not only with racism, which clearly played a huge rule in both the verdict rendered by a Grand Jury composed of nine whites and only three blacks, and in this tragic police killing by a white cop of a black child, but also by a mentality on the part of police — and apparently by at least a majority of the citizen jurors on a panel evaluating Wilson’s actions — that cops are authorities who must be obeyed without question, on pain of death.

Let’s recall the most crucial evidence in this killing: According to the New York Times it was two shots into the top of the head by Officer Wilson that killed Brown — shots that multiple witnesses confirm were fired after the unarmed Brown was on his knees, already seriously wounded by four other apparently non-lethal shots to arm, neck and upper right chest, with his hands raised and pleading “Don’t shoot.” The Times also reports that those shots, apparently fired when Brown’s head was leaning forward, or from a position above him, appeared to have been fired “not from close range,” a determination based upon an absence of gun powder residue around the area of the entry wounds.

It should not matter in the slightest whether or not Brown had first struck Officer Wilson inside his squad car during a scuffle, as claimed by the cop, or even that the officer, as he testified in an unusual appearance before jurors, “felt terrified” at that time. Nor does it matter, beyond being evidence of an inherent racism, that Wilson says he thought that Brown, approaching him at his car initially, “looked like a demon.” If the non-lethal shots that first hit Brown in arm, neck and upper chest had been fired at that early point, perhaps Wilson would have been justified in firing them in self defense, but it’s what happened after Brown tried to leave the scene that matter.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/27/michael-brown-was-killed-because-he-didnt-prostrate-himself-to-police-authority/

LAKOFF: In Politics, Progressives Need to Frame Their Values

Lakoff sums up the problem with large corporations in a way that is hard to imagine the corporate owned wing of the Democratic Party ever doing (or Republicans even contemplating).

If a politician tries to serve both corporate and financial interests and regular people, the money interests will eventually make sure the politician has no other gods before them.

Cosby digitally replaced with Wayne Brady in Cosby Show (STORY & PICS)

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Nick at Nite will be returning the beloved Cosby Show to television after pulling it in the face of sexual assault allegations against star Bill Cosby, but with one critical difference: Cosby will be CGI'ed out of the series and replaced with Wayne Brady.

"Wayne Brady is the least controversial, least offensive, least intimidating black man in the history of television," said Nick at Nite programming Associate Vice President, Frances Lawrence, "maybe in the history of the world. He makes Urkel look like Mike Tyson."

"I'm pretty sure Wayne Brady has never raped anyone. Hell, I'm not even sure if he's ever had sex at all," Lawrence added....


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