It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
Mother Davis waxes philosophical as she comments,

Wise heads used to ponder the question of whether there is any sound if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it.

Now, Republican members of Congress are pondering the question: If an Iraqi prisoner is tortured by an American, but we don't let the public see the photographs, did the torture really happen at all?

The GOP's cover-up machine has sprung into action, with Republican Tom DeLay suggesting that he doesn't think the torture is any big deal, accusing the public of overreacting to the gruesome photographs. Other prominent Republicans have stated that the photographs need to be classified Top Secret, because they would make the United States look bad.

This reaction by the Republicans in Congress is deeply disturbing to me, because it confirms that the Republican leadership does not regard torture by American soldiers as a serious problem. Instead, they believe that the only problem is letting the American people know that the military is torturing people.

This is as ridiculous as if a man found pictures of his wife having sex with another man, and then chided his wife by saying only, "You should know better than to take pictures of this. In the future, when you have an affair, make sure I don't see any more of these."

The problem is not that photographs were taken. The problem is the torture itself.

Yes, there is a secondary problem: The Republicans are behaving as the military officers in the Iraqi prisons did. They're trying to cover up the torture instead of taking care of the problem. The more that the Republicans in Congress come together to stonewall the American public's right to know, the more they try to keep the torture a secret, the more that the Republican Party is becoming America's pro-torture party. Donald Rumsfeld has gone so far in the last few days as to say, on the record, that he thinks that some of the techniques of torture used by Americans in Iraq, Guantanamo, and Afghanistan are a good idea.

I'm hoping that the American people are insightful enough to take note of the broad scope of torture that is taking place in the name of the United States, even if they are never given the right to see the pictures for themselves.

Wondering if she still has money in her bank account if she doesn't take a picture of it,
Mother Davis

Posted by Katherine Davis at 6:14 AM. # (permalink)  




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