What if there’s a
time bomb ticking?
Tick, tick, tick… what if
a time bomb were ticking? So did Brit Hume posed the question
while speaking with a panel of would-be Emperor-Presidents.
But like so many public spectacles and mediated diversions,
inquiries and discussions about the other bombs, real and imagined,
metaphorical and figurative, never arose. Thus, I try here,
to draw your attention to the ubiquitous sounds of tick, tick,
tick.
For torture and terrorism!?
In May, during the second media event (wrongly-named
a debate), some of the self-named Republicans declared their
commitment to terrorism – i.e. their willingness to order
underlings to terrorize others. As offered by a cheerleader
for war, lies, and torture, Brit Hume of Faux News, presented
a hypothetical:
“after suicide attacks in several
U.S. cities, a group of attackers believed to know about further
strikes was [sic] captured off the coast of Florida and taken
to Guantánamo. How aggressively would you interrogate
... ?”[1]
I shall ignore the impropriety of Mr. Hume implying
that any of these men, in the role of Emperor-President, would
actually dirty their hands – I trust they understood Hume
to ask, “what orders would you give?”
The responses of Giuliani and Romney were stunning.
Giuliani said that he would tell the interrogators to use “every
method they could think of,” including waterboarding.[2]
To justify his orders to torture (which is inconveniently illegal
under U.S. law) and which only results in the extraction of
lies and expanding the war-machine (how convenient), Giuliani
made reference to 9/11 saying, “I’ve seen what can
happen when you make a mistake about this.”[3] By “this”
I guess Giuliani is telling us that he knows more about 9/11
than he lets on. Apparently, Giuliani witnessed some non-torture-based
interrogation of people who were in on the 9/11 attacks –
prior to the events.
Imitating John Kerry (“I can make a bigger
and bloodier war than Bush”), Mitt Romney, explained that
torture is needed for torture’s sake. Romney give the
line, “some people have said [that] we ought to close
Guantánamo, [I say that] we ought to double Guantánamo.”
Romney added that he liked the idea of holding suspects [sic]
in Guantánamo because “they don’t get the
access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil.”[4]
Of the 10 white men invited to appear on national
television in South Carolina, only the war-criminal/torture
recipient, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), insisted that torture
is always wrong. McCain said, “It’s not about the
terrorists, it’s about us. It’s about what kind
of country we are.”[5]
What kind of nation are we Mr. McCain? Are we
a nation of torturers, where millions vote for war-criminals,
where members of patriarchal churches celebrate the idea of
compelling innocent men to lie as they say anything to stop
the torture? At least we are a nation where millions of so-called
Republicans and current government officials say, with a straight
face, that Clinton lied about sex (recall Clinton claimed not
to have had “sexual relations”), but that they do
not authorize torture (though they have authorized beatings,
rape, waterboarding, sodomy with glow sticks and other objects,
no-touch torture, sensory deprivation, mock executions, etc.).
But perhaps those who advocate “aggressive
interrogation” (when someone else does the bloody work),
are right. But why limit torture to the terrorists? Why choose
to detain only a few hundred people without access to the minimum
standards developed since 1215 through the Magna Carta? There
is a ticking time bomb…
Who is driving the car?
Someone is driving over the speed limit …
tick, tick, tick.
With no time to waste, when hypothetical lives
are at risk, save any that might be in the wrongfully speeding
car, there is no recourse, but for the police to use aggressive
methods. Just ask Victor Harris. He might just answer with a
blink or a nod. Victor is a quadriplegic.
In March 2001 (before 9/11, but after Bush and
Cheney planned to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam), a 19 year-old
Mr. Harris sped past a cop car. Harris was clocked at 73 mph
in a 55 zone. Instead of pulling over, Harris drove away from
police with flashing lights.[6] After eluding them in a parking
lot scene equivalent of a Keystone Cop’s routine, one
squad car driver, Timothy Scott “took him out.”
(You can hear the police use this language on the video they
provided to the U.S. Supreme Court.)[7]
That is, instead of just tracking Harris, following
him via helicopter or using radios to communicate with state
troopers or county deputies, Scott escalated the conflict. As
soon as Scott rammed the back of the car Harris drove, Harris
spun out, and his car flipped over in a ditch. Roughly 10 seconds
after other officers approached the burning vehicle with guns
drawn, they were waving for help to rescue a boy who would be
in a wheelchair for life. tick, tick, tick…
Although Harris sued, alleging that the police
used excessive force to stop someone who was not suspected of
committing a capital crime (police are not even supposed to
use deadly force to capture a fleeing criminal suspect or a
known felon, see the 1985 case of Tennessee v. Garner)[8], the
Supreme Court, ruled 8-1 (yes Clarence Thomas sided with the
cops, again) that because the police alleged that Harris endangered
the safety of others on the road (though he hit no civilians,
injured no one, and caused no other accidents due to his driving),
it was reasonable for the police to continue the chase and ultimately
force Harris into a life-threatening crash.[9]
The Supreme Court has already given police carte
blanche to stop non-white people who want to avert a confrontation
with whites driving in a Black neighborhood, declaring that
anyone who runs from armed, plain-clothes officers, riding in
unmarked cars creates a reasonable suspicion that the runner
is a criminal. (See Illinois v. Wardlow, 2000). Now the cops
can kill you in the name of “preventing” harm to
others.
There are more excuses for the use of force …
mere words
What does it mean to write an essay?
I once heard the great writer, novelist, and
thinker, Gore Vidal, define an essay. He said that an essay
is a commentary written for the self, a piece of self-expression,
a way to organize and present thoughts and arguments. In this
context, I have come to realize that across the United States,
within our schools, millions of bombs are ticking. Explosions
manifest on paper. What must good people do in the face of such
mental firepower?
Allen Lee, a High School senior in suburban Chicago
looks like any other East Asian (non) American. With short hair,
eyeglasses, a 4.2 GPA (on a 4.0 scale), and a desire to be a
Marine, he fit the mold. Lee’s creative writing teacher
heard a strange ticking …(do I need to tell you that she
is white?)
In response to a free-writing assignment, where
he was told not to edit and not to censor, Lee produced 340
words which reflected his thoughts.[10] In following the directions
of his teacher, the teenager took images and words from his
experience, his music, his video games, and the news. Lee’s
macabre opus looks like the foundation for a Stephen King novel
or that of Anne Rice or Thomas Harris (the creator of Hannibal
Lecter). At worst, the ramblings fit the profile of a soul wounded
by war, tied to a brain besieged by images of war, diseased
by depleted uranium and other neurotoxins.
tick, tick, tick
As the Chief of police for Cary, Illinois, Ron
Delelio insisted:
When a straight A student uses, with all sincerity,
and without a sense of irony, the euphemism “to defend
the country” to mean, join the U.S. military and kill
people instead of protect civil liberties as embodied in the
Constitution, I think that I hear some ticking.
It is a ground swell, from the South
I recently had the pleasure of visiting a number
of places beside the interstate freeway as I drove across the
American South. When I reached the Heart of Dixie (that’s
Alabama for those of you without a sense of history or geography),
and being a cynic, I expected that some gas station/restaurant
would sell all sorts of memorabilia that celebrated the ideology
of white Supremacy, lynching, and violence. The kind that would
harken back to a time when good Southern, Traditional, and Christian
values were honored by the appearance of Strange Fruit.
At the first diner/gas station, I was delighted
to learn that my children will never have to speculate about
the vile nature of white Supremacy, the cowardice and insecurity
of white people – of the past. At this particular establishment,
it was like living in 1863, 1913, and 1963 at the same time.
One could buy a nice four inch-square replica of the flag of
the Confederate States of America, to be placed on a car window
or bumper for all to see.
When I approached the woman working at the check
out counter, and expressed by dismay and disgust, noting that
the flag was about hate and the righteousness of slavery and
that she should be ashamed to work where such is sold, she paused
and said, “We sell those all the time.” (Do I need
to say, she was white?)
What came first, the hatred, the war,
or the push for a violent police-state?
Of course, those CSA flags sell like hotcakes.
Why not sell such a symbol? Our troops need to be rallied. We
are under attack. How did the dear, friendly and likeable Dr.
Falwell put it?
More recently, Limbaugh and O’Reilly fret
over immigration and illegal immigration and Mexicans and Spanish-speaking
people who will reduce the relative size of the white population
of the United States.
Yes, they are out there, they need to be sent
to Gitmo! Where is Emperor Mitt to save us from the evil-doers?
That flag, whether it be displayed on the capital
grounds in South Carolina, or on the front of an 18-wheel truck,
or on a car bumper, says a lot about our way of life …
Just as much or more than the new Age Conservatives who see
a terrorists in every pot and who insist that having faith in
torture (like their faith in creationism) is more important
than evidence showing its lack of efficacy.
To give a little credit to the war criminal McCain,
we should ask, “Who are we?” And what shall we do
when and because these bombs are ticking?
There is a bomb coming …
tick, tick, tick
Sources
[1-5] Washington Post. 2007. A
Question of Torture. Excepting John McCain, Republican candidates
for president seem to favor it. Thursday, May 17; A16
[6] Sherry F. Colb. 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court
Condones Paralysis of a Speeding Driver: Taking the Reasonable
Out Of Reasonable Seizures. Findlaw, May.
14.
[7] supremecourtus.gov
(See Recent Opinions, Scott v. Harris)
[8-9] Colb.
[10] See the essay
and Lee’s explanation.
[11-12] Jeff Long and Carolyn Starks. 2007. Student
writes essay, arrested by police. Chicago Tribune, April 26.
[13] Act
Up NY
BC Columnist Dr John Calvin Jones, PhD, JD has a law
degree and a PhD in Political Science. His Website is virtualcitizens.com.
Click
here to contact Dr. Jones.