From the Deep WoodsRob Lafferty (164)    Rob Lafferty    Moon Valley Press The All-Important WhyPosted Saturday, June 14, 2008 (20 days 20 hours ago.) Viewed 1,527 times. "Why" may be the most important word in America today. It's certainly the least answered question in this country, because we seldom honestly ask it. Most of us would just as soon not know why bad things happen, so we tend not to ask. The answer, we suspect, would just interfere with our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Kids will ask that question about anything at any time. They seldom get a decent answer because the adult they look to for an answer seldom has a clue why anything happens. Generally I tend to answer questions of "Why..." with the full truth as I understand it. That often makes folks uneasy, however. People tend to shy away from truths that make them seem to be willing victims of circumstance, or merely pawns in the grip of powerful Others. For example, I could tell you three of the reasons why Osama bin Laden chose to inspire and fund the airplane hijackers who flew suicide missions into the financial heart of the American Empire. Those three reasons, however, all fall into the category of "chickens coming home to roost" and that's a phrase guaranteed to boil the blood of a true patriotic flag-loving ordinary American citizen. Because in America today, any suggestion that American interference in the governing of foreign countries might have bad consequences for us all is considered as unpatriotic as desecrating the flag. You can speak the truth in America if you choose your words very carefully; just don't say anything that sounds like a "coming home to roost" kind of comment. Why is that? Why do so many of us have a blind loyalty to the ideal of American goodness that we were taught to believe in? The evidence of our status as a nation of sinners is clear in our own recorded history, but so many of us reject that evidence with outrage or dismiss it as irrelevant. But the consequences of our century-long attempt to build an American Empire exist whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. The only time we don't want to hear a simple answer to the question "Why..." is when that simple answer is true. Because in America today, we prefer the simplicity of a short, neat answer that justifies our behavior. We don't have the necessary attention span to try and understand other people's motives, and we have no interest in examining our own. We'd rather feel better right now, and ignorance is bliss. For example, I could describe the one simple reason why the price of fuel is vastly different in various parts of the world and rising so fast in North America. But that one reason is too true for most folks, so I'll pass on that. I don't feel a compelling need to face rejection or dismissal. We ask the question "Why..." of others all the time, however. I know I do. I enjoy the wild variety of answers I get for their entertainment value, and because every now and then I hear a wisely phrased analysis of the reality behind the question. And then I learn something, which is the best fun of all... "Why don't they..." is a hugely popular question too, but it goes off track on that third word. It should be "we" instead of "they" if the question is meant to be taken seriously. Talk about what "they" could or should do is just gossip, idle chat, harmless but pretty much pointless. On the other hand, an honest examination of what "they" are doing now, and why they're doing it, is priceless. Like all efforts of value, it's not an easy task, but the information you need to understand how the world works is within your grasp. Lately, a lot of people are asking the question, "Why are food prices rising so fast?" Experts offer their analysis of fuel prices and the impact on shipping food, climate change and crop failures, national hoarding by countries that normally export food, increased demand by an ever-growing population, the conversion of farmland from food crops to fuel crops and a myriad of other factors as underlying causes. What you won't hear much is the true heart of the answer. Food is a commodity these days more than ever, an area of investment for speculation and profit. Global markets, free trade agreements and airfreight have made it possible for Big Agribusiness to become a world player in the commodities markets. Rice and oil are equally seen as products with the potential for big profits. Rice isn't food to those investors; it's just another opportunity to make more money without doing any real work. The trade in rice is just one example that illustrates why there are food riots happening in Egypt, Haiti, Cameroon, the Philippines, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal, among others. Free trade forces have been able to influence governments to rely on imported food instead of investing in local food production. The farmers who remain are encouraged to grow cash crops and use the money they receive to buy food. Seed companies flood markets with sterile varieties of food plants that can't reproduce, ensuring that they can continue to sell seeds again next season. It's not about any shortage of food on the planet; it's all about the distribution of food crops and how they are used. We humans already have what we need to feed everyone on the planet with organic, locally produced food. Instead, we grow mangoes and bananas on huge tracts of land in Central America, then ship those fruits to markets all over the world. Plantation workers have a little money in their pockets but not enough to feed their families even when food is available. Mexican President Felipe Calderon blames the food crisis in his country as the direct result of U.S. corn exports to Mexico having tripled since NAFTA took effect. All that American corn being sold in Mexican markets has caused domestic corn prices to drop by more than 70 percent. Mexico's 15 million corn farmers have always been poor, but now they're hungry, too. Many stopped growing their own corn because their crop was losing money. That's not the kind of loss that most American companies speak of, where potential profits are reduced to an unacceptable level. Small farmers around the world are seeing their costs for producing a crop exceed the price they can get for it in a global market where prices are manipulated just like the housing market or Wall Street stocks. Water is also on the list of commodities to be marketed and sold. I'm not talking about the bottled water that urbanites carry around with them everywhere to stay hydrated at all times; that's just capitalism doing what it does best, creating a market for a dubious product where one never existed before. What I'm talking about is the process of privatizing water supplies for an entire town or region. Of course, people in Hawaii and especially on Maui know all about the consequences of allowing a public resource such as water to be dominated by private commercial interests. When a natural and necessary element of existence is treated as if it were a product, the common good and quality of life enjoyed by the public will suffer. When food shortages start to occur in the islands and they will, that's nearly certain people could try growing subsistence crops again to feed their families, but where will they get the water they need for those crops? How much will it cost and how will they pay for it? Maybe then, enough people on Maui will ask the "Why..." questions that apply to water issues on the island. Why does water that falls from the sky become a commodity when it flows across someone's property on its way to the sea? Why do the state and county grant an ownership right to water that belongs to the public? Why can one user take most of the water from a stream and send it far away? But here's the one question that everyone needs to ask of themselves in these strange times; Why aren't we all mad as hell about the mess that has been created in our name? 
Permalink Comments (4) Onward Christian TorturersPosted Saturday, June 14, 2008 (20 days 20 hours ago.) Viewed 9 times. "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly." Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2003 after a meeting where interrogation techniques were discussed and approved. America doesn't torture its enemies. So says the President, anyway, and he might actually believe that what the CIA and NSA and military interrogators are doing in secret dungeons across the globe is not torture. Because George Bush and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice reside in a world where it's never torture when the good guys brutalize the bad guys. It's a world where Bush can listen to military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan describe their reality of fighting the Global War On Terror, and respond with apparent sincerity by saying: "I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks." And thus, in a few brief sentences, Bush reveals his ability to fantasize the present while forgetting his own past. Meanwhile here in the real world, we actually do sanction torture. Cheney speaks openly about the decision in 2001 to "take the gloves off" and journey to "the dark side" in order to "deal effectively with suspected terrorists" and protect America from the bad guys. Today our representatives in Congress argue over how much abuse will be allowed before "enhanced interrogation techniques" become inhumane treatment. Ancient water torture techniques and other forms of deprivation are openly discussed on national television and their effectiveness is debated. They have guidelines to work with: the U.S. Army Field Manual prohibits "acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation." It also explicitly prohibits forcing a detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes of a detainee; applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain; waterboarding; using military working dogs; inducing hypothermia or heat injury; conducting mock executions; and depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care. But thanks to our president and a majority of Congress, those restrictions only apply to soldiers, not CIA or NSA or any non-military Homeland Security interrogators. Those rules are far too restrictive for those folks, it seems, who feel the need to torture people on occasion. When torturing bad guys, it probably helps to know that they aren't legally persons at all. In January the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that detainees captured in Afghanistan and held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are not "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens being held outside the United States. According to Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who wrote the majority opinion for the three-judge panel, "It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably seriously criminal would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants." Go ahead and read that sentence again, because it's phrased awkwardly doesn't it make you wonder just what kind of "seriously criminal" conduct by military officials the judge is referring to? Judge Janice Rogers Brown was the lone dissenter in the decision and she wrote, "It leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare that those held at Guantanamo are not persons'." So there we have it according to an American court of law, torturing a non-person is inevitable, understandable and therefore somehow lawful. We are flawed beings, it seems, with a history of cruel and inhumane behavior towards each other. Some of it is understandable and much of it forgiveable, given enough time and perspective. Torture, however, is just wrong. It's one of the two unforgiveable things that we allow to happen in our name, in our desire for safety. The other? Dropping bombs and firing rockets into populated areas in an attempt to kill more bad guys but that's a different story for a different day... There is no justification, period, for mistreating any being, human or non-human, held in captivity. There's nothing to gain from acts of inhumanity even when inflicted upon those who have harmed others. It may be a natural human response to seek satisfaction through cruel acts of revenge, but it's immoral, illegal and just plain wrong. Every time. Circumstances make no difference. People who debate the morality of torture like to pose rhetorical questions along the lines of, "Would it be acceptable to torture someone if you knew that person had information that would prevent another mass attack on innocent Americans?" The answer is no, not even in the realm of rhetoric, if only for the reason that we can't ever be sure if we are torturing the guilty or the innocent. But then, there are no innocents at Guantanamo or in the secret prisons around the world that our interrogators use. There are only "suspected enemy combatants" or "unlawful enemy combatants" or "detainees" or "evildoers"; all non-persons who aren't granted the same human rights we claim for ourselves. Americans are quick to condemn the brutality of other governments but our own hands are not clean. For nearly two centuries American laws sanctioned genocidal wars against Native Americans and the brutal abuse of Africans into slavery. In Asia we killed thousands of innocent Filipino and Vietnamese and Cambodian people in two wars of occupation fought sixty years apart. Across the globe we claimed parcels of land wherever we wanted or occupied entire sovereign nations, as was done here in Hawaii. As a nation America has seldom lived up to the high moral standard that we like to claim for ourselves. We aren't doing it today in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in those prisons where people acting on our behalf treat "detainees" as worthless creatures who deserve whatever abuse they get. We claim to be a Christian Nation. That's not true, of course, even when you consider all the different kinds of Christians we have in America, but most politicians proclaim it as fact and many people seem to agree. And yet those elected officials who most loudly proclaim their faith in Jesus also support the bombing of neighborhoods and destruction of villages in Iraq and Afghanistan or wherever our "national interest" might lie at the moment. A few years ago one of our more prominent Christians, Pat Robertson, openly called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez's capital crime? He was legally elected by popular vote, he took strong actions to help poor people and took control of Venezuela's national resources. Chavez is fairly radical by American capitalist standards, but would Jesus publicly call for his murder? As a nation we turned a blind eye towards the use of napalm and Agent Orange and the carpet-bombing done in our name in Southeast Asia. We stood silently by or openly cheered as the entire city of Dresden, Germany, was bombed into oblivion during the latter stages of World War II. Would Jesus do that? And we still justify the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima as a necessary act to end that war. We don't say much about atomizing Nagasaki three days later, except to claim that the Japanese government didn't surrender quickly enough so it was necessary, too. Thousands of children obliterated; an entire city of families punished for crimes committed by their government, in their name. Is that a Christian way to behave? When seen against that backdrop of history, the deprivation and torture of a few thousand non-Christians during the last seven years must seem like a venial sin, no big deal to the Christian Soldiers of Torture who have emerged in our time. Their leader has already spoken, back in 2001 when Bush stood up and declared, "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." So evildoers beware as Christian soldiers march out in search of truth, repeating history as they leave dungeons in their wake complete with black hoods, naked prisoners and the ancient, cruel arts of inflicting pain.
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