Rendition to Continue

This marks the first major disappointment I've experienced in President Obama's performance. The second major disappointment is in the works -- I expected something vastly different from him as part of the national conversation (or rabid ranting) on healthcare reform. (I expected him to carry out his mandate and not to pander to numbnut extremists.)

What has me upset? In short:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture,” said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush.

Ms. Singh cited the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian sent in 2002 by the United States to Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cable despite assurances against torture.

This is so far from acceptable that I'm almost speechless at the audacity. Almost.

The United States of America needs to be as transparent as possible in its treatment of *all* criminal suspects in order to reestablish some of the trust that the Bush administration allowed to erode so egregiously. There can be no more claims that the one hand knows not what the other has done.

I'm inflexible on this issue, having been a thoughtful adherent to the views of Amnesty International for several decades now. It's amazing how easy it is to distinguish between right and wrong when the "rules" of the game are straightforward and fixed. (That's not to say that policy review should not be a constant, ongoing endeavor. Scrutiny should be welcomed.)

I stand with AI in the belief -- in the knowledge -- that "torture and ill-treatment are wrong, always and everywhere..."; That only accountability for US counter-terrorism human rights violations will allow us to really counter terror with justice.

It was a "pushmi-pullyu" moment when I first saw this headline about the continuation of renditions, for it was published just below a related article: U.S. Shifts, Giving Detainee Names to the Red Cross.

WASHINGTON — In a reversal of Pentagon policy, the military for the first time is notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross of the identities of militants who were being held in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by United States Special Operations forces, according to three military officials.

The change begins to lift the veil from the American government’s most secretive remaining overseas prisons by allowing the Red Cross to track the custody of dozens of the most dangerous suspected terrorists and foreign fighters plucked off the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a major advance for the organization in its long fight to gain more information about these detainees. The military had previously insisted that disclosing any details about detainees at the secretive camps could tip off other militants and jeopardize counterterrorism missions.

Both sides of the mouth, speaking at once? The eternal one-step forward, one-step back, the illusion of progress?

I would like to be able to extend to the Obama administration a measure of my trust -- and say that opening this population to the scrutiny and protection of the Red Cross should bolster my faith that future renditions will, of course, be free from torture and ill-treatment.

Sadly, I cannot extend that trust.

On a lighter note, look at the consternation and then the relief on this child's face at the National Spelling Bee -- as he contemplates numbnut.

,

Ecclesiastes 1:9

Dr. King's notes on Ecclesiastes 1:9
Courtesy of The King Center

REPOST from August 31, 2009.

January 4, 2015 Introduction:

Many people react as if the "recent" report(s) reclassifying as torture the Bush-era "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" came out of an unforeseen overhead vista of cerulean blue -- that overlapping and sly sky blue. Perhaps from those interwebs' "cloud" storage devices about which I hear such rumors?

A redacted, unclassified version from the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is available HERE. This short version addresses the years 2001 to 2006, and represents "an executive summary" of the key findings. The complete edition, still classified, was adopted by the SSCI in 2012. The CIA response to the SSCI document, delivered in memorandum form on June 27, 2013, was released in a redacted, unclassified version in early December 2014, and can be found HERE.

Where does the political and media "shock" come from, and the straight faces from which the surprise and awe are delivered?

I don't know.  You've only to have followed the work of the ACLU and the individual FOIA requests of hundreds of reputable organizations and individuals over the years -- and beyond the neatly forgiving endpoint of 2006. The ACLU Torture Database documents their efforts to obtain documentation and is the basis of their document, "U.S. Torture Program: A Blueprint for Accountability," which can be downloaded HERE.

Maybe you recall President Obama's quiet statement from August 2009, summarized this way in the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Perhaps my skepticism of the tardy, off-Broadway response by the public, the pols, and the Fourth Estate last month can be forgiven if my bouts of hypertension and re-postings of Buckeye Surgeon's blogging on torture and the clear knowledge of it within the Executive Branch of our Esteemed Estate o'er in the United States of America are taken into account. Such interrogation techniques are unheard of in our present home in Tête de Hergé, though I wonder sometimes at the bovine revelations emanating from the Animal Husbandry Division of Marlinspike Hall's Miniature Genetic Project. (Yes, I am something of a Dr. Doolittle.)

I like one of the comments to a related ACLU article on Torture, American Style, left several years ago:

Simple solution.Water board members of the Bush Administration, until they tell us the truth.
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." -- Abraham Lincoln

And, of course, should you, like me, feel that the top of your head may explode any day now (Hey, Congress reconvenes tomorrow!) -- there is always the pointless and yet temporarily invigorating method made popular by the movie Network:

In the oppressive spirit of "[w]hat has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.," then, we republish "Pourri, Pot," and hope you are not terribly jarred by the redundant hodgepodge of cats and Dick Cheney.  Close your eyes and pretend it's August 31, 2009.

*************************************************************************

POURRI, POT

Pot pourri (rotten pot). Fitting that the name for a beautifully arranged bowl yielding questionable scents derives from the Spanish designation for olla podrida -- pork&beans. True, the Spanish being Spanish,said pork&beans stew is subject to the rarefying whims of the creative cook, a clay pot, and a long cooking time, and becomes a satisfying culinary hodgepodge.

I learned from reading the entry for potpourri in Wikipedia that,
"(when mixed, you need to enclose the mixture in a bottle or jar,and let it
sit for a few weeks. Towards the middle of the weeks, the soon to be potpourri
may smell rotten. If you wait a little while longer, it will start to smell
better, so don't get discouraged or disappointed." (I particularly relish, and
appreciate, the encouragement to fend off the ravages of clinical depression.)

Yes, indeed. Words to live by, words with which to guide your children: If you wait a little longer, it will start to smell better...

So many unimaginative people of my generation... uh-oh, incoming, incoming! Flying lyrics, flying lyrics!

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we g-g-get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
-- The Who, "My Generation"

As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, the more anemic among us are humming "Teach Your Children," and feeling oh-so-competent. And organic. You know what I mean -- don't you? Look around you -- aren't there a few competent/organic types lurking in your shadows, obnoxiously humming:

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
-- CSNY, "Teach Your Children"

The men ye shall know by their thin ponytails and receding hairlines. (The women ye shall spot by their insistent middle-of-the-hair part -- a style best reserved for those few of perfect face.)

Pot pourri. Potpourri.

Sadly, we have actual odor issues going on this morning. Fred decided to change cat litter brands -- again -- and I believe there is some sort of intestinal rebellion in the works. He wants to "go green," an impulse we all applaud, in public, but occasionally regret, in private.

I want to be as eco-friendly as possible. Really, I do. Thus far in our kitty greening, we've done recycled paper litter, corn litter, and alfalfa litter. At the moment, I believe we're using a combination of compressed sawdust and alfalfa. [One of the eternal questions: Why are simpler, less-processed products more expensive than standard commercial stuff? Shouldn't the cost of production be lower?] And as often as possible in our upkeep of Captain Haddock's ancestral home, we try to use products original to its construction -- the reason we have two-pound cans of clean sheep tallow tucked in various nooks and crannies, plus a stash of sustainably harvested local wood in [our replica of] the Knoppenburg Manor* Stables.

And should the good Captain Haddock ever depart Bongi-country and approve our plans for expansion, we've opted to employ straw bale in our framing and pneumatically impacted stabilized earth (PISE) -- or rammed earth* -- in the construction of our walls.

* Rammed earth, also known as taipa[1], pisé de terre or simply pisé, is a
technique used in the building of walls using the raw materials of mud, chalk,
lime and gravel. It is an ancient building method that has seen a revival in
recent years as people seek more sustainable building materials and natural
building methods. Because of the nature of the materials used it is
incombustible, thermally insulating and very strong and hardwearing. It also has
the added advantage of being a very low cost and simple way to construct
walls.

Ha! Dobby just came by to give the computer a good sniff.

Dobby is sometimes known as The Nose. Small, pink, and often quivering, his nose misses nothing. He insists on sniffing certain things -- and we participate... because we're weird. For instance, my water bottle. One of the ways in which I supported Hillary Clinton during her bid for the presidency came through the purchase of this 32-ounce water bottle, appropriately festooned with her name and a hint of the American flag. I drink probably 100+ ounces of water a day, so this monster bottle is never far away. I also have a Hillary tee that is totally irksome. I cannot prove it, but I believe it is a factory reject. An ounce too heavy, a few stitches awry.

In the beginning, Dobby was just fascinated with the movement of the water inside the dark blue cylinder, and I would turn it sideways to make "waves." He would slap them with his paws. Then he became curious about what was inside, about whatever it was that drew me so often to the bottle. So I would hold the open bottle in front of his small, pink, and quivering nose, and he would begin the serious task of sniffing.

I am a clean person. Good hygiene, and all that. Almost spotless house. I floss. But Dobby? Dobby is absolutely scrupulous about cleanliness. Dobby is Mr. Clean. Mr. CleanCat. When he encounters something off in his environment, the cat stands and delivers -- loud, obnoxious vocalizations.

No one may rest until all is well in DobbyLand.

I offer The Dobster whiffs from the Hillary Bottle about three times a day. He plants his front paws, approaches the opening with The Nose, and takes about three good sniffs. All is well, I drink the water, and we rewind.

Yesterday, at the first Hillary Bottle offering, he blink-blink-blinked and recoiled in obvious horror. As there had been a break in the water main down the road from Marlinspike Hall, I thought: "Aha! I'm like a miner with a canary. Thanks to Dobby, I've been saved from sure poisoning."

I rinsed it out, and added fresh filtered water. A few hours later, now confident in the quality of my water, I offered the little idiot another whiff. He looked at me in abject terror, then turned and ran, vocalizing a banshee's keening wail.

Everyone's a critic.

Even though the human consensus was that the bottle was clean and that Dobby was touched in the head -- after I scrubbed the Hillary Bottle inside and out with an old toothbrush and ick-smelling lemon detergent, Dobby once again was happy to offer his schnoz.

Pot pourri. Potpourri.

"Maybe I could interest you in a hot cup of shut-the-fuck-up..." (Jon Stewart, 3.18.09)

Oops! Sorry! I didn't mean to write that out loud, much less carefully attribute it by author and date of original production.

I was just sitting here, cozy in the chiaroscuro of pre-dawn, waiting for those rosy fingers, Homer's trope, contemplating Dick Cheney's latest pronouncements.

Obama's decision to authorize Attorney General Eric Holder's investigation "serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security." He went on to call it an "outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term."

"I just think it's an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration," Cheney said in an interview aired on "Fox News Sunday," during which he was peppered with pre-determined, softball-type queries, dotingly, lovingly pitched by Chris Wallace.

A politicized Justice Department? An Attorney General, under the thumb? There's a name that keeps nibbling at my crumbling memory... Who was it? Something guttural... G-g-g-g?

Gonzales?

Oh, and I really want to hear how Cheney and Bush kept us "safe" (for eight years, Cheney qualifies, and even that is wrong). There was that tiny glitch on September 11, 2001 -- and then, Cheney likes to pretend, nothing! Absolute safety, brought to us by virtue of EITs, enhanced interrogation techniques -- some of which qualifies as torture.

John McCain, who perhaps has the most informed opinion on the matter, said this of Cheney's remarks during his appearance on Face the Nation:

"I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan," said the Arizona Republican. "I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq... I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And I believe that information, according go the FBI and others, could have been gained through other members."

There ought to be a Hallmark card. I bet that Chris Wallace has that covered, that and the Whitman Sampler. Andrew Sullivan has a slight opinion about his journalist colleague, though he expresses it in tepid, half-hearted fashion. That's what they're known for at The Atlantic:

When future historians ask how the United States came not only to practice torture but to celebrate it and treat torturers as heroes, a special place in hell among the journalists who embraced and justified it should be reserved for Chris Wallace.

I find it outfrigging outrageous that we continually have to deal with this frustrated little man that is Cheney.




*Knoppenburg Manor is, in fact, for sale. Sad that one of its key selling points is that this area of Belgium has "remained free from the threat of terrorist attacks." Our stable replica is a lovely place in which to relax, chat, contemplate -- at least on warm days. Built some time in the 16th century, the Manor Knoppenburg's charm is in its simplicity and functionality. Make a bid!

A thousand words worth: Torture and Yoo

In the hoity-toity world of literary criticism, there is a term used to designate something sorta opposite to "cooptation." Not quite an antonym, it is difficult to pin its wiggly self to the stiff black stock paper upon which we display our dead insect pests.

Under glass.

To void a term.
To empty a term.
To suck a freaking term dry.

The thing is slimy, too, so we sometimes add vacuum suction to the volume of air (really mites, mosquito dander, one frizzy and split multicolored human hair, two hydrogen atoms, at least, and oxygen).

We hope to desiccate; We hope to be exceedingly tedious; Death to the term!

Sure, first we tried other things, less drastic, less noticeable -- but those wacky words! They remained in use.

Neonate. Nigger. Necromancer. Nazi. (And that's just *part* of the N-words. Must I follow my fellows and begin with A for Aborigines or go backward with a start at Zygote? Thanks, I didn't think so!)

Before bed last night, I did some wholesome reading over at this psychotic café of aborted thought. Of course, yes, it was a bad idea. Slap an X for Xenophobe on that sucker!

Actually, had it not been time to sleep -- wayyyyy past time to sleep -- I might have had a qualified appreciation for the site. My area of purported expertise is precisely in the relationship between image and word. So what if I am supposed to stay in the confines of eighteenth century French literature? Diderot got to walk right out of the frames and pages of his Salons... Why can't I?

I arrived at PsyWarrior's place via a search for a photograph. I was thinking about the impact that PBS made with its decision to air photos of United States casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. By the way, to make a study of it, this is a well thought out place to begin -- Media Literacy: Images of War. As even the term death is voided by some kind of human immunological protective response, the war of words continues, but illustrated. We are marvelously still concerned about what is polite, what is couth, and how-shall-we-hold-our-teacups, must-i-really-curtsy-to-the-queen?

Bill Moyers even got to wondering whether respect is something that we really ought to owe, and, of course, if so -- to whom is the debt, and what is the currency?

I discovered that I do not have it in me to research the nag, nag, nag in my head. As I began to explain above -- I landed at PsyWarrior in the course of searching for visual impact. I wanted a picture of Iraqi war dead, civilian and military -- something along the lines of the poster-like spread that many newspapers published of victims after the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- those nine long years ago.

Google search led me to a poster published on Herbert A. Friedman's blog on the history, means, and uses of psychological warfare. He claims that it was created by an antiwar group -- but that it was coopted by Iraqi propagandists who used it in ad campaigns against the United States.

[Aside: Man-O-Man, another term in the process of being vacated, voided? "American." I try to be aware of my wrong usages, and the Jeux-O do help to drive the point -- but jeez, what are we supposed to call citizens of the United States? What? "Citizens of the United States"? Cute, very cute. Too many characters. That would mean death to my 140-limit tweets. And uscit sounds too much like ocelot, God forbid I be the Author of Confusion.]

Okay, so he's just another asshole, retired. However, knowing something of military men, I presume him honorable, in some technical chapter-and-verse Rules of Engagement kind of way.

But I cannot find another source for the poster he published! It's driving moi batty. If you find it, would you please let me know? He requires that *his* permission be granted to reproduce the thing... and I am just not dressed for going out. I need to wash my hands first.

As usual, it matters -- how one gets from Point A to Point B. We'd like to stake a claim for linearity, and for that line to go from vague and uninformed to perfect intelligibility, for logic as wielded by philosophers.

But words, and pictures, are tricksters.




1885 illustration from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, captioned "Misto' Bradish's nigger"



















After a steaming mug of coffee and a piece of whole wheat toast, I settled down to work a bit this morning, satisfied and sated, both.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue. I had a lot to do. If you're already humming "I read the news today, oh boy..." -- well, you must be one of My Beloved (but your demographics are safe with me!)

Report Faults 2 Authors of Bush Terror Memos
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE
Published: February 19, 2010

WASHINGTON — After five years of often bitter internal debate, the Justice Department concluded in a report released Friday that the lawyers who gave legal justification to the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects used flawed legal reasoning but were not guilty of professional misconduct.

The report, rejecting harsher sanctions recommended by Justice Department ethics lawyers, brings to a close a pivotal chapter in the debate over the legal limits of the Bush administration’s fight against terrorism and whether its treatment of Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture.

The ethics lawyers, in the Office of Professional Responsibility, concluded that two department lawyers involved in analyzing and justifying waterboarding and other interrogation tactics — Jay S. Bybee, now a federal judge, and John C. Yoo, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley — had demonstrated “professional misconduct.” It said the lawyers had ignored legal precedents and provided slipshod legal advice to the White House in possible violation of international and federal laws on torture. That report was among the documents made public Friday.

But David Margolis, a career lawyer at the Justice Department, rejected that conclusion in a report of his own released Friday. He said the ethics lawyers, in condemning the lawyers’ actions, had given short shrift to the national climate of urgency in which Mr. Bybee and Mr. Yoo acted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Among the difficulties in assessing these memos now over seven years after their issuance is that the context is lost,” Mr. Margolis said.

Indeed, the documents released Friday provide new details about the atmosphere in which Mr. Yoo and the Justice Department prepared their initial findings in August 2002, shortly after the capture of Abu Zubaydah, suspected of being an operative for Al Qaeda.

The report quotes Patrick Philbin, a senior Justice Department lawyer involved in the review, as saying that because of the urgency of the situation, he had advised Mr. Bybee to sign the memorandum, despite what he saw as Mr. Yoo’s aggressive and problematic interpretation of the president’s broad commander-in-chief powers in trumping international and domestic law.

Mr. Philbin said that “given the situation and the time pressures, and they are telling us this has to be signed tonight — this was like 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock at night on the day it was signed — my conclusion” was that it was permissible for Mr. Bybee to sign the memorandum. “They” apparently referred to White House officials....

It has taken a couple of years, but I no longer react to Mr. Yoo's name by leaping, cursing, or baking bread. True, I do pause to wonder about the direction in which my alma mater has gone. And, yeah, okay, I do quickly search out succor here, and sweeten my memory with this, and cheer on the SF Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

But the fact, as they say, remains.

Yoo is still a professor in good standing. But now, by golly, I've planted so many asterisks after his name that he barely registers anymore on The Outrage Meter.

I've never made poppy seed bagels before, wish me luck!

{she pirouettes figures eight, nine, and ten -- into the kitchen -- toes taut, responsive, screaming damn:damn:damn}

Yoo, who?

He delights in condiments

Hi, salut, hola -- and salvete, magister!  I make many promises, too many to keep, I've realized, and intentions do not matter.

But I don't intend to let this blog pass on, even when I find myself dwindling.

The comfort of Marlinspike Hall's innate insanity, the hijinks of our neighbors, even the tonsured monks, but especially some new monied hippy-types who enjoy playing with remote-controlled whirring toys, including some scare-you-senseless mockingbird-sized helicopters that may suddenly appear hovering over your shoulder, tempting you to shout things that might be misconstrued as non-liberal, non-progressive, if not outright supportive of the NRA...  Ah, I mean to say that nothing much changes here, and that is a good thing, something to hold on to.

The pain of CRPS has settled, for this mean while, in my legs, and the osteomyelitis pain is clearly focused in the absent left shoulder wreckage and in the right hip prosthesis.  Which mean that Joint of the Week honors go once again to the right arm, whose wrist now sports eight Pura Vida bracelets that are clearly an excess, and, for now, at least, something of a wondrous bother.  My right hand is aflame but I'm determined to make it just another desensitization exercise -- which I shall approach with a better attitude than I did the huge bucket of rice grains that Physical Therapists seemed to think was such a cool therapy tool.  I go too fast.  First, the kindly PT reminds you s/he is your friend and that you signed on for this torture in sound mind, and that some medical school graduate also is keen on it.  Then you roll up your oversized  scrub pants or switch to shorts, and place one of your feet in the middle of the empty huge bucket -- the bucket coming to just below knee height.  Then, dear darling PT begins the dear darling and searing process of adding grains of uncooked long grain rice.  I assume it is long grain rice, as that's what is generally cheapest, and this rice ain't for eating.

Much like I imagine shards of glass dropped one by one might feel, that's how I'd overdramatize the feel of those accursèd grains falling on my feet.  I'd continue on in hysterical fashion, except things tended to ease once the rice level achieved ankle-height.  In lieu of dropping glass shards, I'd revise the description to being assaulted with a pellet gun, something else I've not experienced.  (This is why CRPS patients tend to sound insane.  Our available set of experiences has no matches that accurately correlate to this degree of pain, so we become writers of very bad, over-the-top prose.)

Anyway, such went the rice routine.  It was topped only by the heated chaff torture -- which was so awful that I terminated the exercise and a goodly amount of its technology within a minute.  Some well-meaning but unexposed to CRPS PT dude assured me that his extensive background with the disease proved the validity of our little endeavor:  encasing my right leg in a plastic sheath that was then hooked up to what looked like (and may well have been) a shop vac, set on reverse.  The plastic wrapper was first blown large by blasts of HOT air, which were then joined by particles of swirling chaff. The clever idea was clearly based upon desensitization while under the benefit of crack.

So I think the Pura Vida bracelets are a decent compromise to that ill-informed therapist practice of rice grains and blowing chaff.  Prettier also.  And within a few days, I'll be able to look upon these ringlets of color and appreciate them as mindful additions to the environment. The browns, greens, and maroons of "deep impact," atop the NEGU blues, whites, and one braided blue, white, and black.  Shiny silver beads,.stray threads everywhere (to the cats' delight), and out of it will come a touchstone for instant calm.

I don't know which drug or combination of drugs is defeating me so right now.  Actually, it's the infection, I'm pretty sure, and though that seems to be my favored excuse, there are reasons for that.  The Spaz attacks and the fever and sweats, the particularity of the pain, and its peculiar brown fuzz deposits on the brain -- after five years of it, I've not been wrong yet.

But hiding it, not mentioning it, not rushing off to schedule another end of the days surgery (always do the contaminated patients last) -- that's hard.  Learning NOT to track my fever.

Learning to shut up.

I made Fred a gorgeous salad, with shredded chicken and boiled eggs.  I pickled onions, just for him, and while I showered (cheer for me!), assigned him the task of dressing the thing.

He delights in condiments.

I'm hanging on!

As in Judo: Apoplexy Justice

When I am reduced to burps and gurgles over some antic by Dick Cheney or by the way torture citations are lightly glossed, tossed, and reseasoned before being plated and served up as homegrown and fresh from the garden...?

And when the subterranean amoral violence that diminishes us as both a nation and a species is explained away by that particular cavernous Talking DeathHead?

When the two are intertwined by the tendrils of justification (national defense, intelligence, terror:terror:terror) then I am simply apopleptic* and can only thrash about, trying to find my voice.

Thank goodness, then, for Buckeye Surgeon and his posts on torture, and his refusal to let Cheney off the hook.

I officially became a fan of the Buckeye Surgeon last May, when he published the post: Baudrillard and the Hyperrealism of the Parathyroidectomy

This is going to be a bizarre post; I'm just warning you.

I've been reading from Jean Baudrillard recently. Baudrillard is a post modernist French thinker/philosopher who writes about the preponderance of images, signs and representations in our technologically-driven, post modern lives. A lot of what he writes is almost deliberately obscure and esoteric. You find yourself re-reading entire chapters two or three times because nothing makes sense and you get pissed off thinking hey I'm not a moron, I have advanced degreees why is this guy being so intentionally obtuse? I sort of hate Baudrillard, actually, for that reason. But he does have some interesting takes on the nature of reality that are rather illuminating.

I believe the exact wording of my thought at the time was... chouette! [True, I had to put aside the whole Forget Foucault (Oublier Foucault) nonsense... which was submitted to Foucault, himself, for publication in Semiotext(e) and to which Foucault, himself, never replied. Which is to say, don't miss Sylvère Lotringer's interview, Forget Baudrillard. In short, what must be acknowledged is the impossibility of participating in a field of study or in its criticism, without complicity.] Buckeye Surgeon plays on the subject/object shenanigans chez Baudrillard, and, oddly enough, chez super-specialized endocrine surgeons, as well. Actually, not odd at all, given consumerism à la Baudrillard. Hyperreality and this consumerism mark the Baudrillard of the 70s, the on-again, off-again marxist "thinker" in evolution as provocateur.

There are precious few medical bloggers who could pull that off, and even fewer that one would want to. I found myself wanting to hear Baudrillard on Abu Ghraib (war porn), among other things, through the filter of this particular midwestern general surgeon.

So recently, when he decided to beg all questions, in To blog or not to be, I was bummed, and responded snarkily.

I know, I know. [Like Frank Drackman -- which is a phrase I never ever thought I'd write -- I have a framed Master's of My Domain upon the office wall...]

I am so happy he continues to blog, even happier to know that he does so with his young daughter in mind.

Who else is going to keep that upstart, Atul Gawande, in check?

* At those moments, I am at such a remove from the inane boggle-headed chirping about how "il faut cultiver notre jardin" that I am, to overestimate myself, dangerous. I nod along with Jean-Luc and pump my cold, purple fist at his "Je me contenterai d'ajouter qu'il y a aussi sans doute un peu de malice chez Voltaire..."


“As in judo, the best answer to an adversary maneuver is not to retreat, but to go along with it, turning it to one’s own advantage, as a resting point for the next phase.”

— Michel Foucault

I love Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick and it turns out that Ochoa is not the only turd in town...

Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick has pretty much dedicated his life to bettering the lives of people with CRPS / RSD, and having scoped out some of his other interests, he's kind of into bettering life on the planet, in general.

After many years in Anesthesiology and Pain Management at USF in Tampa, he established there the world's only RSD / CRPS Treatment Center and Research Institute.  If I had some bucks, I'd have been there when the doors opened.

[One of the majorly sucky things about CRPS / RSD 's most effective doctors and treatments?  You have to be monied to have access to them.  Oh, I'm sorry.  That's a universal truth!  I try to expunge the obvious from my posts, but it was a long night...]

I'm also not blind to the down side of such fervor as his, but I prefer it to torpor, and I definitely prefer it to doctors practicing CYA medicine or suffering terribly from Dr. God complexes.  I see him as the obvious antithesis to my archenemy Jose Ochoa, known on this blog simply, eloquently, as The Turd.

Anyway, here is a new Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick video meant to expose, inform, and help:



Part 2 cannot be embedded, but here is the link to it:  Part II: Do doctors torture patients with CRPS?
Part 3 cannot be embedded, either:  Part III: Do Doctors Torture Patients?

The Bering Strait Bridge

Very strange and totally unexpected, this. That my political will should find its voice again and finally slough off the dead weight of the malignant illogical who have dominated discourse for so long: hate-mongers, and shrill, every last one of them, fostering straw argument upon intended lack of clarity, and through pure laziness and underestimation of audience, linking unlike to unlike, as if the rejection of one entailed the necessary rejection of the other.

Parse *that*, my friends.

Friggin' obfuscators. But, you know, at worst, obfuscators waste my time.

Piety in rhetoric is the real cagey beast -- is, in fact, most often a downright out-and-out shitty rhetorical device.

I challenge you. Think of a person of your acquaintance whom you'd qualify as "pious." Now, are you having warm fuzzies or are you feeling a wee bit disgusted -- either with said person or with your own hypocritical self?

I'm just sayin'.

To keep myself in check, for you must concur that I'm on the edge of discourtesy, I had recourse to A List Of Fallacious Arguments -- from which the following is a citation:

In the context of debates, a Pious Fraud could be a lie. More generally, it would be when an emotionally committed speaker makes an assertion that is shaded, distorted or even fabricated. For example, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused in 2003 of "sexing up" his evidence that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Around the year 400, Saint Augustine wrote two books, De Mendacio[On Lying] and Contra Medacium[Against Lying], on this subject. He argued that the sin isn't in what you do (or don't) say, but in your intent to leave a false impression.

As much as I would love to talk, discuss, and debate salient points of socialism/Socialism or Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian sensibilities -- for I would be in a position to learn a lot, and want to, too -- I can no longer stomach the clinging, dangling, desperate dingleberries posited by some right wing journalists and bloggers -- those cozy little pearls of turds in the middle of what might have been an honest communication...

William Bradley wrote a piece today for HuffingtonPost.com, making reference to the recent reign of bombasters and generally blowing off steam. All citizens of good political will need to get this crap out of their collective and individual systems. Open the window and scream that you aren't going to take it anymore.

CNBC can see Russia from its house. It's just one example of a fin de siècle
folly, albeit one of the most recent and dramatic.

This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven't gotten the memo. Or been able to read it.

Jon Stewart's already legendary takedown of the CNBC financial "news" network was an extraordinary rebuke of a fitting stand-in for a clueless money culture.

It should have been obvious the era was ended with the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, not to mention the sweeping victory of Barack Obama. But the old attitudes -- which represent a sort of intellectual entropy -- have been very persistent.

He goes on to mention Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, Katon Dawson, even Joe the Plumber.

I hope he feels better.
I am beginning to.
It doesn't hurt to state the obvious; Certainly, I need iteration upon iteration when asked to absorb what I don't like (or almost anything, actually).

Constant repetition of lies has been this nation's steady diet for eight years. Its cunning simplicity is genius. Witness the Dick Cheney Show on CNN yesterday.

Cheney, against all odds and normal perceptions of reality, still insists that things went great for the past eight years. He and George W. Bush bear no responsibility for the near-meltdown of the financial system. Their policies of torture kept America safe and strong, notwithstanding the general unreliability
of torture as a means of interrogation, or the international opprobrium it brought America. Oh, and the Iraq adventure, which has kept the Americanmilitary pinned down for six years and empowered Iran? A smashing success.

He sees Russia from his house, too.

Go read something!

A huge factor in having little to nothing to say? Not reading, and then not discussing what I have not read.

And quality matters.

When I read crap -- such as The Tweets of Stupid People or the intimate machinations of pulp media -- it's not so much that I, in turn, produce crap, but that I fall silent. There is nothing much worth repeating, rehashing, reposting, retweeting, reiterating in any way. The original iteration was failure enough.

I set out to defeat this tendency today. I grabbed some old New Yorkers, read some online articles, including George Packer's Stop the World, and Twitter: A Conversation (as the day went on, I got better with my chronologies!).

Allowing Twitter to stand in for all technology-driven communication, anyone concerned about Twitter, reading, and writing wonders along with Packer:

My question is whether Twitter and its accomplices will yield to some kind of reaction, a backlash, like, say, the reaction against urban sprawl or suburban sprawl. Back then, they sounded like reactionaries who said development is not a good in itself, we need to think about how we’re developing, and maybe there should be some limits on development.
Read more: here.

I moved on to Rolling Stone, thinking to work fast and hard at developing my hep attitudes and contemporary smarts in musical culture. My Darling Brother-Unit, Professor Grader Boob is coming here for Spring Break, after all, and we wants to be up to snuff, we does.

On that front, however, I have not just simple suspicions, but sneaking ones, as well. Grader Boob went and took on a course load of SEVEN classes, which does not bode well for his free time, or for things such as sleep and personal hygiene. His water bed having finally dried up, he has yet to purchase a new bed, and is therefore sleeping on the floor, and then daring to complain about back pain. (I thought the floor would be much better for him than the nightly tsunami that was his water bed, but it seems I am wrong.) So we are luring him onward to The Manor, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs) with promises of luxurious bedding, sponge baths administered by our healthy young Swedish neighbor, Helga, and culinary delights of which he has heretofore only dreamed...

Still. SEVEN classes. Maybe I will forgo the cooking of delights, and offer to bring my red pen out of retirement.

Mais je divague... I confess to rereading the 2008 article on John McCain, "The Make Believe Maverick," trying to look at old information in a new light. Not much resulted from that effort except brief muttering and foaming at the mouth. I am sure I have a pill for that but am equally sure that I cannot afford to fill the prescription.

It brought me back to the temper tantrum mode I was in after watching "my Sunday shows" yesterday. I was screaming at the television even though Rachel Maddow ably took dipshit Rep. Aaron Schock to school. I broke. The young whippersnapper had The Technique down Pat (I loved that old joke!). Hell's Bells, go here and read about it, watch the netcast, hoot and holler in your own space, time, and way.

In the meantime, here are two short clips of her training regime for gently slapping Lying Republicans on the snout:




She continues to spank the boy...




We tend to confuse real political conversations with the carefully orchestrated repetition of lies prevalent among the righteous right wing (as well as among the more knee-jerky of the left). Nothing maddens me more. As I age, the certainty that the electorate is full of Stupid People -- most are kind and use the more amenable term sheep -- has become set in stone. The Stupid People are easy targets for this type of bullshit.

Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. got my ill-fated fist pump (I deliver one per show): "We are in the majority; We have an obligation to govern." I am not a fan of his, in particular, as he is quite the slick trickster and incestuous love-child of Wall Street, but that phrasing summed up my feelings well. As I slowly but surely head to my grave, I could give a Royal Hoot about bipartisanship.

The ever present Dick Cheney also participated in this plot to rob me of functional vocal cords. He is Beyond Scary and it would not be an overstatement were I to say that I wish he would... oh, well, you know. I don't need Halliburton Enforcers and Blackwater Ninjas showing up at my door.

I wasn't surprised to find that one of my favorite bloggers, Buckeye Surgeon, has kept his finger on the pulse (see how deftly I worked in that smooth medical reference?) of the torture issue, and Cheney, torture's greatest advocate, with his post Unabashed Torturer. It is perhaps the shortest and most emotive of what is beginning to be a regular Cheney Series. Poor Buckeye Surgeon sometimes fails to convey with clarity and can get lost in his words. Like here: "Dick Cheney is a criminal." I wish he would pick an opinion and stick with it!

To sample Buckeye's burgeoning Cheney Series, go here.

Ya, so from the McCain article to this little medical blog, my political muscles have been been working hard. It's like tossing perfectly dry split kindling onto the beginnings of a mighty bonfire -- I may well burn up, go up in smoke before the conversations are ever made meaningful, but at least I kept myself in the game.

I CAN'T HELP IT! THE TUBE IS SET TO LES JEUX-O and Bode got his bronze on! I don't think I've ever divulged my love affair with an Olympic Downhiller. Have I? Oh, so much to read, so much to say, so much to do!

See? Tear yourself away from the soaps and Twitter and Dr. Phil -- go read something. Start a freaking conversation.

my kingdom for an excuse...

help!  fred wants to spend friday afternoon "together."

watching a movie.

machete.

The Rolling Stone Review:

Machete: Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal,
Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan
Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis


By Peter Travers
September 1, 2010

This unholy mess replaces the artful ambition of The American with torture, blood spray, kinky sex, twisted fun and a bizarro critique of U.S. policy on illegal immigration. It's a digital gorefest that expands on the faux trailer Robert Rodriguez included in Grindhouse, the 2007 exploitation epic he unleashed with pal Quentin Tarantino. Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis revel in the glorious sight of Mexican-American actor Danny Trejo as Machete, a former federale out to kill a drug lord (a never-lumpier Steven Seagal) and assassinate a corrupt Texas senator (a never-hammier Robert De Niro). Trejo, 66, looks like four miles of torn-up road, but here he is convincingly kicking pretty-boy ass and bedding hotties such as Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez and, omfg, Lindsay Lohan. Is he redeemed? Your senses will be too numb to care. Just to hear Trejo deadpan the line "Machete don't text" is tasty compensation.

help!

please?

someone?  anyone?

48 Minutes Ago OR The Tip of the Iceberg

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project

By SCOTT SHANE 48 minutes ago

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.

The question of how completely the C.I.A. informed Congress about sensitive programs has been hotly disputed by Democrats and Republicans since May, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to reveal in 2002 that it was waterboarding a terrorism suspect, a claim Mr. Panetta rejected.

The law requires the president to make sure the intelligence committees “are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.” But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be done “to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters.”

In addition, for covert action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says that briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Okay, so I threw in "torture" as a tag.

Call it habit.

I Suwannee -- And Guess Who Is Still A Big Fat Turd?

CRPS is nothing if not weird.  I was hoping to catch some of that weirdness on video, thinking that it might help someone who is undiagnosed, or newly diagnosed, to get a glimpse of the possible "visuals" that go along with the syndrome/disorder/disease/krap.

It didn't show up as I was hoping it would, of course!

I wanted to capture something I've never seen or experienced before -- mostly because I think it's *impossible*.  My left wrist began burning and stinging, which is not, by itself, unusual.  What is unusual is that there is a space between my normal finger and upper palm involvement and the wrist area that's acting up.  Visually, that painless space in the palm of my left hand is white, with red at each of its ends.  There is documented nerve damage that follows the distribution of the ulnar nerve from little and ring finger (and half of the middle one) across the palm and partly up the forearm.  Well, okay, it deviates from the traditional, boring, established dermatome for the ulnar nerve in that it crosses the palm and goes up the opposite side of the arm. 

The wrist area is also swollen.

[I apologize, but along with often being unable to distinguish right from left, I've never been able to ably use helpful words like proximal and distal...]

Anywho... it's gone now -- the white space between two reddish-purple ones -- and I am back to what looks like a straight line, and what feels like an angled kind of pattern.

On the right, things are following the party line.  Extreme pain up to the elbow, extreme sensitivity to a point mere millimeters beyond that.  Sausage fingers and a line that looks almost drawn by a ruler below the knuckles, straight across, identical in length to the one on the left.  (The mirror effect of CRPS can be mind-boggling.  I have a DENT in both legs -- permanent DENTS -- that appeared several years apart and that are identical in appearance, placement.   Spooky.  In the old days, when people like Dr. Jose Ochoa, The Turd, evaluated people, he and his Trainee Court Monkeys decided that patients were deliberately binding their legs to achieve that lovely dented effect.  Yes, sigh, I will take a quick vid of it.  Warning -- it's ugly.  I'm ugly, by extension.  I miss my clothes, my legs, my figure, my unmarred face;  I MISS SHOES!  Especially red Italian shoes.)

Hmmm?  What?  Oh, right!  The dents ("fascinating!") are now memorialized below, in the bottom vid.  Blow in my ear, call me DimpleShin, and I'll follow you anywhere... 

Vic over at NeuroTalk wrote his assessment of Ochoa this way back in 2006:

Just a quick note:


Dr Jose Ochoa was once a highly respected writer and researcher who focused his work almost entirely on RSD. Then one day he saw the light: RSD is not a neurological disorder; try as he might, he was never going to be able to prove the unproveable.


Actually, the light he saw was a dollar sign. He was getting older and it was time to think of his golden years. He figured out that he could make a lot more money working for work comp lawyers and descredtiting RSD than by trying to prove it is something he knows it isn't.


He did the work. He was, and is, familiar with those who are still trying to prove RSD is what it isn't. He can go into a court room and advise work comp lawyers which questions they should ask, and he can testify knowledgeably about this disease.


By the time he and the lawyers are finished, they have made the doc testifying for the RSD patient look like either an idiot or a liar. It's easy, one simple question will do the job, it is the same thing I have challenged Forum members with for five years:


"Doctor, you say this is a neurological disorder. Can you provide this court with one example of scientific research - not an opinion you want us to believe - that even suggests that there is evidence of nerve damage in the etiology of RSD?"


He may try to duck and weave. He may try to tell the jury that nerve dysfunction is obvious in RSD. But in the end, he will have to answer that question. He will have to say; "No, there is no research showing that any nerve injury has ever been shown to cause RSD".


By the time they have reworded that question in a dozen different ways, and the doctor has had to admit a dozen different times that even though "everyone knows" RSD is caused by a nerve injury, no one can prove it. No one can even prove it is possible.


The doctor's credibility has been completely destroyed. The record has been filled with uncontradicted testimony that RSD isn't what the experts say it is. They haven't proved RSD isn't real; they didn't have to. Dr Ochoa is ready to testify that he studied RSD for years and in his expert opinion patients are either psychologically unbalanced or just plain liars.


By the end of the hearing, the RSD patient is sitting there in total shock. He or she has just seen any chance for compensation or treatment blown out of the water. She/he has just been described as a nutcase or a liar, and the expert as even worse. she/he is going to have to try to survive for the rest of his/her life disabled, in terrible pain, and without hope.


Is it any wonder that this this is called the "suicide disease"?


Do you Forum members who have been here or in other sites for very long ever ask yourself why any number of people suddenly stopped posting? There are names I still think about. Names that creep into my mind after I have turned the light out and prayed I would be able to sleep this time: Names and more names. Are they still alive? Did they turn out their light one night and then decide they could not face another morning?


I think about SamYamin. He wrote a goodbye post. Some concerned members started sharing bits of information and came up with enough to call the police. A few days after that goodbye post, Sam posted again: he thanked everyone for their concern and for saving his life, then told us he would be going into therapy and would not have access to the Internet for a while, but not to worry.


I didn't worry. I knew Sam had learned his lesson: Don't tell anyone. I knew Sam was dead.


I didn't pray for him anymore, you don't pray for the dead; you hope they knew Jesus and had asked Him to forgive their sins. If they did, there is no need for prayer, they are happier than I have ever been. If they did, I will meet them face to face in a little while.


And there is Andi; and Meg; and sunshine; and Heatherdawn. We rarely hear about those who committed suicide. RSD didn't kill them. They died of hopelessness. I miss them. We all do. And we all look at every detail; trying to find that one clue that should have alerted us. That something we should have seen; that if we had seen might have made the difference.


It won't do any good to say it; it hasn't helped me and it probably won't help you, but that clue probably wasn't there. If it was, it probably wouldn't have changed anything, nor will it be of much use the next time.


Hope is the last thing to go. Once it is gone, there is no reason to live. By the time we learn someone has lost all hope, it is too late. If we are to take any small bit of comfort from these tragedies, and it is too small to measure, it is that people who decide to die don't tell anyone. You tell someone while the hope is still dying, when you want someone to give you some reason to hope. Most of the time it works.


When I began this post I would never have suspected where it would lead. It went in an unexpected direction when I used the word suicide, and after rereading it, I see that if I can't understand why I wrote these words on this post, you probably can't either.


I delete a lot more than I post, and I would delete this; but something is stopping me. Something...something that outweighs the fear that some will think my words are out of line. That this isn't the right place or the right time.


I want to ignore that something, but I can't. All I can do is hope there is a reason that I don't understand now but may become evident later...Vic

A few months later, Vic added this to the thread:

Hi again,


I am usually a bit more organized, but what I wrote in my last post kinda threw me off stride: I didn't finish my comments about Ochoa, and there are still some things we all should know about this (I believe literal), butcher in a physicians lab coat. I still have to finish yet another post in which I'll present some views on the original topic.


About Ochoa: I don't know whether he is still malpracticing medicine, but if he is, forewarned is forearmed. I have some "abstracts" of "articles" he has written about RSD. They are actually more in the nature of advertisements aimed at insurance company lawyers: showing how well he can testify in their behalf.


If you live in Oregon and work comp orders you to see him for what in Kansas is called an "independent medical evaluation" (IME) [what it really means is intentional misrepresentation of evidence], I will be happy to provide your attorney with a critique of these abstracts.


Ochoa is knowledgeable and good with words, but like all liars his words expose the truth about him. What I wrote about his victims sitting shocked at the end of a hearing really happened to people I know, and I would enjoy doing my small part in preventing this from happening again, exposing his deceit, and paying the S.O.B. back for the damage he has done.


One of those abstracts describes a trip to the land of his birth: Chile. The problem is that this trip occured during the regime of Auguste Pinochet: the most brutal dictator in that country's history, and with the possible exception of "Papa Doc" Duvelier of Haiti, the most brutal dictator in the history of the Western Hemisphere since Spain left the area. He was a nasty man, responsible for the torture and murders of thousands of Chileans whose only offense was belonging to the wrong political party.


(Pinochet came to power with the help of our CIA; overthrowing a democratically elected president "we" (the CIA) didn't like, then murdering him).


Anyway, Ochoa went to Chile. Upon his return, he wrote about his experiences in a hospital ward full of RSD patients. He wrote that during the day, all of them exhibited extreme motor dysfunctions (jerking, falling, etc), but he suspected something was amiss: that these patients might be faking their symptoms.


He described secretly having video cameras installed; lo and behold! In the evenings, after the staff went home, the motor deficits vanished. They all walked around, talked, etc, and no one appeared to be in distress.


There are a few things wrong with this picture. Chile was and is a very poor country, where hospital beds are reserved for the rich, not the needy. Also, it would be difficult to find a large enough group of RSD patients in most cities in this country to fill a ward: Chile is probably no different.


Then there is the fact that RSD patients here are rarely (if ever) hospitalized for movement disorders or anything else related to RSD in this country; a land filled with beds and insured patients.


And Chile doesn't have any worker's compensation laws, so why would people fake a medical disorder? OK, some hospital beds in Chile probably had sheets, which I know are more comfortable than straw mats. But there are other disorders/diseases/syndromes/whatever that don't require as much effort to fake as RSD.


By the way, in this country, staff don't go home for the night leaving patients unattended; they are relieved by other staff. Oh, well, they may do things different it Chile. In fact, you can be damn sure they did things different in Chile.


Ochoa, however, is an expert in RSD and he found RSD patients. Is all this coincidence? Or could it be that he made it all up? That he lied.


Mike can correct me on this, but I suspect that any attorney with two brain cells to rub together would fight like Hell to introduce this abstract and then ask some rather cogent questions of the bad doctor....

I can't prove it, of course, but I would be willing to bet this shiny new computer my son gave me against a bucket of pig **** that none of the "patient's" he saw had RSD.


Like I said, he is knowledgeable and good with words, but someone who understands RSD would be able to blow him out of the water for a change....




Blowing Ochoa out of the water is not my purpose in life. If given the opportunity, I think it would be better called a necessay but extremely rewarding and pleasant diversion. We need to enjoy life's little pleasures wherever and whenever they appear...Vic

In the small area under his avatar, Vicc's status is now listed as "In Remembrance."  That's too bad, because I think we might have hit it off.  Pinochet held a coveted position on this death penalty abolitionist's List Of People Needing Extrajudicial Execution.

Due to a recent rise in moral ambiguities, The List is now nonfunctional and out of circulation -- but you can still get a bumpersticker...

Anyway, dunno what happened to Vicc but enjoyed his attempts to teach people of the futility in following the "sympathetic nervous system" bullcrap to its illogical conclusions and to offer in its stead a unifying theory -- that CRPS is all about Ischemia-reperfusion injury. Unfortunately, one can say the same thing about *that* that one can say about the SNS Party Line:  It is about IRI, except and unless when it isn't...

Julia Kristeva: 10th World Day Against the Death Penalty

I used to use Michel Foucault as the password for every one of my internet accounts.  Then, probably the doing of that wily crazy lady over at drphil.com -- you know the one, I got hacked to pieces.  So I switched to Julia Kristeva.

I'm going to blame it on the drugs.  I thought she was dead.  But she's looking awfully chic, with adequate blood flow, and is only in her 70s.  She is one of my favorite people but I had put my "connaissance" in stasis, just sort of stopped reading her, stopped learning.

This represents one of the more wonderful, even if humiliating, aspects of Twitter.  An artist that I "follow" retweeted something from Kristeva's account.  "Harrumph," I snorted.  [In case you did not know the organic steps necessary to the creation of a/an harrumph -- "a/an" depending on whether you choose the "'h'-aspiré" or not.  Think back to French One and "un homme" vis-à-vis "un héros."]

That harrumph-snort came from my certitude that she was dead.  Duh.

Anyway, she has done a nice piece on the death penalty.  If you are a regular Dear Reader, you know that I am a longtime death penalty abolitionist, and consider the USA as yet uncivilized, at the very least, for not yet having done away with it.  I also no longer fight with people about it, rarely going beyond stating my opinion. But that doesn't preclude forwarding to you a work with which I agree (mostly -- I am considerably more intense and clear in my opinions than Kristeva) by someone whom I greatly admire. Well, more clear.  She might have me beat in the intensity department.

[What the heck.  I toss this out into the info-sphere and remind you that there will be a fourth vote at the UN General Assembly this December on the imposition of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.  I know, I know, don't even bother me with the comebacks.  Just don't.  Just check out THIS WEBSITE, maybe sign a petition and be quiet:  The last vote garnered this result: 109 votes in favour, 41 voted against and 35 abstained. The first attempt, in 2007? 104 UN members states voted in favor, while 54 voted against and 29 abstained.  Change, like peace, "comes dropping slow." Apologies to Yeats.]

Even if I thought she was dead.  If you don't speak French, take a few minutes and learn some, or use one of the wunnerful, wunnerful translators available on the web.  At least watch the video!  There was a time I'd not hesitate to translate the piece... but this is Kristeva, folks.  I'm not going to risk screwing up something by her!

Aw, man.  She's giving a doctoral seminar on Colette at Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, open to the public. I guess it is probably over, as it began in January.  But shoot, you know?

You know, I think these meds are working.  Even though I'm seeing double and am somnolent to the tune of Rip Van Winkle, I have developed the itch, the urge, the longing to... stroll the Boulevard Saint Germain, taking a right onto the Rue des Fossés Saint Bernard, for a late morning of "La révolte intime : Colette."



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So here she is, all my ado aside, her work stolen in its entirety from her "site officiel," but with so much respect that I hope not to be sued, simper-simper-respect-awe-simper:



De l’inviolabilité de la vie humaine

10 octobre 2012 : dixième journée mondiale  pour l’abolition  de la peine de mort. Mobilisation, ignorance, hostilité, incompréhension, solennité et gravité suspendent le temps de la crise mondiale, de l’accélération hyperconnectée et des diverses menaces de destruction. Et appellent au recueillement, invitent à la méditation, au questionnement : quel est le sens d’un projet d’abolition universelle de la peine de mort?

I.

Je ne suis ni juriste ni spécialiste de l’abolitionnisme. Je n’ai jamais assisté à une exécution, et aucun de mes proches ne fut victime de meurtres, d’abus sexuels, de tortures ou de violences dégradantes. Je ne vous lirai pas ces rapports médicaux détaillant les supplices de la guillotine, que Camus lui-même recopiait pour nous communiquer sa nausée.  Je n’ai pas non plus ressenti cette empathie romantique qui emporte Hugo,  comparant sa douleur d’exilé à celle  du proscrit.  J’estime que les douleurs sont incommensurables, plutôt incommunicables, et  que la pulsion de mort qui nous habite nous  menace tous... au singulier.

J’entends mes analysants me confier les souffrances qu’ils ont endurées aux mains des bourreaux dans les prisons d’Amérique Latine, ou leur inconsolable douleur après l’extermination de leurs parents dans les camps de concentration.  Je me défais avec eux,  et je ne m’aventurerai pas à dire que le mal est sans pourquoi, comme le mystique affirme que la rose n’en a pas.  Car je cherche pour eux, avec eux : pourquoi ? Afin que le sens revienne, car le sens nous fait reprendre vie. 

Abolir la peine de mort : quel vœu, quel projet portons-nous ici ? Et quel en est donc le sens?

Abolir la peine de mort signifie que nous  posons comme fondement de l’humanisme du XXIe siècle ce que Victor Hugo appelait il y a plus de cent cinquante ans  déjà (en 1854) : « l’inviolabilité de la vie humaine ».

Depuis toujours, les hommes ont peur de la mort, ils la donnent pourtant, pour mieux sauvegarder la vie, et tentent de sauver le bien en infligeant le mal suprême.  Pour la première fois dans l’histoire, cependant, nous réalisons qu’il ne suffit pas de remplacer les anciennes valeurs par de nouvelles, car celles-ci se figent à leur tour en dogmes et impasses, potentiellement totalitaires. Et que la vie n’est pas une « valeur»  comme les autres, ni même LA valeur. Plus encore, depuis deux siècles, et  particulièrement aujourd’hui, elle est  non seulement une interrogation : qu’est-ce qu’une vie ? a-t-elle un sens ? si oui lequel ? Mais la vie est désormais une exigence : il faut la préserver, et empêcher sa destruction – car la destruction de la vie est le mal radical. Alors que tout semble s’écrouler et que les guerres, la menace de désastre écologique, l’emballement  de la finance virtuelle et la société de consommation, nous rappellent en permanence à notre fragilité et à notre vanité, c’est  l’inviolabilité de la vie humaine  qui nous invite à penser le sens de notre existence : elle est la pierre angulaire de l’humanisme.

Tête coupée de Louis XVI

De quelle VIE parle-t-on ? L’abolitionniste répond : TOUTE VIE, quelle qu’elle  soit, jusqu’à « assumer la vie de ceux qui  font horreur » - les déments, les criminels -, proclamait Robert Badinter en déposant en 1981 devant le Parlement français, un Projet de Loi pour l’abolition de la peine de mort. L’humanité actuelle peut-elle s’éprouver, et se prouver,  jusqu’au point d’« assumer la vie de ceux qui font horreur » ?  Abolitionnistes, nous disons : oui.  Bien que, même si  141 pays sur 192 membres de l’ONU ont déjà aboli la peine de mort, 60 pour cent de la population humaine vive dans un pays où elle s’applique encore ( puisqu’elle est en vigueur dans 4 des pays les plus peuplés de la planète : Chine, Inde, États-Unis, Indonésie).

Forte de son héritage pluriel – grec, juif et chrétien - l’Europe fit le choix de la sécularisation, opérant ainsi une mutation émancipatrice unique au monde ; mais son histoire fut aussi marquée par son trop long cortège d’horreurs - guerres, exterminations, colonialisme, totalitarismes. Cette philosophie et cette  histoire nous imposent une conviction politique et morale selon laquelle aucun État, aucun pouvoir, aucun homme ne peut disposer d’un autre homme et n’a le droit de lui retirer la vie. Quel que soit l’homme ou la femme que nous condamnons, aucune justice ne doit être une justice qui tue.

Plaider pour l’abolition de la peine de mort  au nom du principe de l’inviolabilité de la vie humaine  ne relève donc ni de la naïveté, ni d’un idéalisme béat et irresponsable, il ne s’agit pas non plus d’oublier les victimes et la douleur de leurs proches. NON. Je ne crois ni à la perfection humaine ni même à la perfectibilité absolue, par la grâce de la compassion ou de l’éducation.  Je parie seulement  sur notre capacité à mieux connaître les passions humaines, et à les accompagner jusqu’à leurs limites, car l’expérience nous apprend qu’il est impossible (impensable) de répondre au crime par le crime.

Je le répète : l’humain n’a pas de plus grande peur que celle de se voir retirer la vie, et cette peur fonde le pacte social. Les plus anciens traités de jurisprudence que  nous possédons en témoignent. Prenez le code babylonien Hammurabi (1792-1750 avant notre ère), ou encore la philosophie grecque de  Platon et d’Aristote, mais aussi chez les Romains,  et aussi  les livres sacrés des juifs et des chrétiens : toutes les sociétés ont plaidé et pratiqué la mise à mort du criminel afin de défendre, protéger et dissuader.

Des voix se sont cependant élevées contre la mise à mort : les abolitionnistes actuels les retrouvent et les entendent pour étayer leur combat.  Ainsi, déjà, Ezéchiel : « Je ne prends point plaisir à la mort du méchant, mais à ce que le méchant se détourne  de sa vie et qu’il vive » (Ez, 33:11) ;  mais surtout Saint Paul : « Mort, où est ta victoire? Où est-il, ô mort, ton dard venimeux ? La mort a été engloutie dans la victoire ! » (de la Résurrection) (I Ep.Cor.).  Ou encore, à leur suite, Maïmonide : « Il est plus satisfaisant d’acquitter des milliers de coupables, que de mettre à mort un seul vivant».

Rarement, les religions ou les politiques se sont prononcés contre la peine capitale: le bouddhisme  tibétain l’interdit au VIIe siècle; et en 747, une première abolition fut proclamée en Chine, Montesquieu la signalera d’ailleurs,  louant ces auteurs chinois selon lesquels « plus on augmente les supplices, plus la révolution était prochaine ; c’est qu’on augmentait les supplices à mesure qu’on manquait de mœurs ». Ne faudrait-il pas le rappeler aux autorités chinoises, aujourd’hui la Chine a supprimé la peine de mort en 2011 pour 13 crimes non violents, mais les exécutions se poursuivent et se multiplient pour corruption. Quant à l’Islam, il n’y est guère question de remettre en cause la peine de mort.

En France,  le mouvement abolitionniste s’amorce après la torture de Damiens, qui avait tenté d’assassiner Louis XV. Alors que Diderot  préconise la peine de mort  pour son efficacité dissuasive, Voltaire est l’un des rares à soutenir l’œuvre de Cesare Beccaria qui, dès 1764, s’interroge : « En vertu de quel droit les hommes peuvent-ils se permettre de tuer leurs semblables ? ».  Dans l’esprit des Lumières et celui de l’humanisme libertaire, l’abolitionnisme se développe tout au long du XIXe siècle  - je pense à Clémenceau, Gambetta, et à ces lucides paroles de  Jean Jaurès,  proclamant que la peine de mort « est contraire à la fois à l’esprit du christianisme et à l’esprit de la République ». Ou, plus près de nous, à Camus qui constate que « de la peine capitale on n’écrit qu’à voix basse », car «  le nouveau meurtre, loin de réparer l’offense faite au corps social, ajoute une nouvelle souillure à la première (…). « Le jugement capital rompt la seule solidarité humaine indispensable, la solidarité contre la mort. »

Victor Hugo, Justitia

II.

  Les abolitionnistes avancent trois arguments principaux contre la peine de mort : l’inefficacité de la vengeance et de la dissuasion ; la faillibilité de la justice ; la douleur piégée par l’élimination. 

En premier lieu, rien ne prouve l’efficacité de la peine de mort contre la destructivité humaine : n’y a pas de corrélation entre le maintien de la peine de mort dans une législation et la courbe de la criminalité. De surcroît,  la perspective de la mort, loin d’annihiler la passion criminelle, l’exalte au contraire. Celui qui sème la terreur et la transcende par sa propre mort, ne recherche pas l’expiation. La stigmatisation de ses actes et son sacrifice même n’ont en réalité d’autre fin qu’enflammer les martyrs prêts à mourir à leur tour. Loin d’être dissuasive, la peur devient tentation, et nourrit dès lors le désir d’infliger la mort en s’infligeant la mort.   La peine de mort comme loi du talion s’avère donc inefficace aussi bien comme vengeance que comme dissuasion.

Le second argument  renvoie à ce que Victor Hugo appelle la «brièveté chétive de la justice humaine » : la loterie judiciaire, sa  faillibilité.  Au nom de quoi, une institution, un homme ou une femme s’octroient-ils le droit de prononcer et faire appliquer une condamnation mortelle ?

Le  troisième argument ne se dit qu’en murmure, car il s’adresse à la douleur des victimes et de leurs proches.  D’aucuns estiment que même si la mise à mort du criminel ne venge pas son crime ni ne dissuade ceux qui lui succéderont, elle en supprime au moins l’auteur. La peine de mort comme élimination atténuerait  par conséquent l’insoutenable, et apaiserait.

Mais l’image du criminel dans sa tombe soulage-t-elle vraiment la douleur de ceux qui ont perdu un proche, victime des pires atrocités? Cette douleur en quête d’apaisement est aussi inexprimable, impartageable que légitime et respectable: qui oserait l’ignorer? Personne, et surtout pas ceux et celles qui, indignés par la mort d’innocentes victimes, souhaitent également défendre et protéger la vie au nom de son inviolabilité.  Car ils savent que la mort comme ultime et unique recours est un leurre.

Quand cesserons-nous en effet de faire du tombeau notre sauveur? Détachons-nous  donc de la jouissance  que provoque l’acte vengeur. Le verbe haut  de Victor  Hugo nous alertait déjà sur cette religion de la mort salvatrice : « N’ouvrez pas de vos propres mains une tombe au milieu de nous », écrit-il de Guernesey. «Hommes qui savez si peu de choses et qui ne pouvez rien, vous êtes toujours face à face avec  l’infini et avec l’inconnu!  L’Infini et l’inconnu, c’est la tombe».  J’entends : N’espérer pas  trouver  « l’inconnu ou l’infini » dans le sacrifice du condamné. Et j’ajoute : il n’y a d’autre inconnu, ni d’autre infini que ceux des passions humaines, dont nous ne cessons d’approfondir l’expérience, et d’établir la connaissance.

 En abolissant  la peine de mort, nous ne crions pas victoire sur la mort, comme le voulait Paul de Tarse qui appelle à croire à la résurrection.  Nous invitons à mieux connaître et accompagner les passions, et parmi elles, la plus terrible : la pulsion de mort.

                       

III.

 

La psychanalyse  découvre que l’Homo sapiens , qui est à la fois Homo Religiosuset Homo Economicus, est un Homo Eroticus non seulement habité par une pulsion de vie, mais  aussi par une pulsion de mort. Celle que Freud - comme s’il pressentait la Shoah - explora à la fin de sa vie, et que la recherche contemporaine continue aujourd’hui à élucider.

L’être humain est un être fondamentalement binaire : digérant le bon et  expulsant  le mauvais, oscillant entre le dedans le dehors,  plaisir et réalité,  interdit et transgression, son moi et l’autre, le corps et l’esprit… Le langage lui-même est binaire (fait de consonnes et de voyelles, et autres formes duelles qui ont fait le bonheur du structuralisme…). Ainsi l’enfant accède-t-il à la différence entre le bien et le mal au moment  même où il apprend la langue maternelle : l’univers du sens invite à distinguer le bien du mal, avant d’en affiner les  nuances, d’en percevoir les polyphonies, les excès, les transgressions, ou d’en créer les œuvres d’arts.

Nos désirs se révèlent plus ou moins compatibles avec les désirs d’autrui. Ils nous tirent vers l’autre,  jusque l’amour, mais un amour qui porte en lui l’agressivité : je t’aime, moi non plus, haine et culpabilité : telle est l’alchimie du verbe. C’est précisément sur ces intérêts libidinaux convergents et divergents, sous-tendus par nos conceptions du bienet du mal, que se construisent des valeurs plus élevées qui entrent alors en concurrence ou en conflit.  Désirs et valeurs édictent les religions, les philosophies, les idéologies qui en vivent, s’entretuent, ou tentent de s’expliquer et de s’entendre.  

Souvent, les « valeurs », comme on dit,  capturent la destructivité. Celle-ci  prend alors la forme d’une fascination pour le mal, un mal qui est à rechercher chez l’autre : il ne reste dès lors plus qu’à traquer le bouc émissaire pour l’exterminer sans remords, au profit du Souverain Bien, mon Bien à moi, ma religion.  Telle est la logique de l’intégrisme, qui mène une guerre sans merci  au nom d’un idéal absolu érigé contre celui d’en face. Qu’il soit individuel ou collectif,  cet intégrisme se nourrit d’une foi totale et aveugle qui ne souffre aucun questionnement. Comme je l’affirmais préalablement, la condamnation à mort de l’intégriste, n’élimine pas l’intégrisme lui-même, bien au contraire, elle fait de son agent un martyre et exalte sa logique. Une logique qui  a des racines économiques et sociales ;  mais aussi  une nervure  psycho-sexuelle, par la structure même de sa passion, et elle reste imprenable si elle n’est pas désamorcée de l’intérieur.

Il ne s’agit pourtant ici que des couches superficielles du mal radical.  Il existe également une pulsion de mort pure, dissociée de tout désir (on dira: désintriquée du désir). Cette pulsion de mort balaie la distinction entre le bien et le mal, entre  moi et l’autre, elle abolit le sens et la dignité de l’autre et de soi. La destructivité que je viens de pointer cède ici à la déliaison.  Ces états extrêmes de déliaison quasi-totale de la pulsion de mort touchent aux limites de l’Homo Sapiens comme être parlant et capable de valeurs (à commencer par le bien et le mal). La personne en proie à cette déliaison s’exprime dans un langage qui n’est plus que simple mécanique, instrument de destruction, sans code ni communication : sans pourquoi, sans remords, ni expiation ni rédemption.

De tels états limites ne se réfugient pas uniquement dans les hôpitaux ou sur les divans, ils ne  sévissent pas uniquement  chez les tueurs en séries, ni n’explosent brutalement que dans les chaos d’une adolescence  vouée à l’indifférence et à l’insensibilité  face à l’étranger à supprimer. Les états limites de la pulsion de mort déferlent aussi  dans les crises et catastrophes sociopolitiques. Abjects, ces états peuvent conduire jusqu’à l’extermination froide et planifiée d’autres êtres humains : ce fut le cas avec la Shoah et autres génocides.

Anonyme, Acte de justice du 9 au 10 Thermidor

IV.

 J’entends votre question dont je partage l’indignation: et alors,  les abolitionnistes veulent épargner la mort à ces criminels-là ?

Si j’ai conduit cette réflexion jusqu’à la déshumanisation, ce n’est que pour mieux démontrer que l’humanisme que revendiquent les partisans d’une abolition de la peine de mort est un pari contre l’horreur.  La connaissance des passions humaines nous permet d’aborder ces états limites et de les accompagner sur un plan clinique,  même si elle ne nous rend ni tout puissants ni capables d’annuler cette pathologie quand  toute une société en souffre. Mais  après Ezéchiel, Paul de Tarse et Maïmonide, après  Beccaria, Voltaire,  Hugo, Jaurès, Camus, Badinter et tant d’autres, il apparaît qu’une meilleure connaissance du spectre des passions humaines est le seul moyen de déceler et d’affronter les multiples visages de ce mal radical. Quand la compassion et le pardon abdiquent, car ils n’ont plus prise sur ce mal, il devient néanmoins possible de le sonder jusque dans ses profondeurs. Comment ?

En relayant  l’émotion horrifiée par un diagnostic plus précis des ressorts complexes du mal  radical. La vigilance, l’analyse objective, les soins et l’éducation  n’effacent rien de la culpabilité des criminels : mais ils nous mobilisent dès les premiers symptômes;

En remplaçant  la peine de mort par de rigoureuses peines de sûreté qui empêchent la récidive

Et enfin, en organisant  l’indispensable accompagnement de  ces personnes, condamnées de droit pénal ou criminels politiques, afin de  les conduisant le plus loin possible dans leurs possibilités de restructuration,  et tenter de mieux  d’élucider les ressorts de la destructivité et de la déliaison génératrice du crime.

La philosophe et journaliste politique Hannah Arendt dénonçait l’horreur nazie comme un mal radical sans précédent, en soutenant cependant que ce n’est pas le mal, mais le bien qui est radical. Car le bien n’est pas un envers symétrique au mal,  il  réside dans les capacités infinies de la pensée humaine à trouver les causes et les moyens de combattre lemal-être et la malignité du mal.

Andy Warhol, Chaise éléctrique, 1971

V.

Permettez-moi de finir sur un ton plus personnel.

Enfant en Bulgarie, mon pays natal, j’entendais mes parents évoquer les peines de mort que le régime communiste avait infligées au parlement précédent, mais aussi les procès et les purges staliniennes. J’apprenais déjà le français, quand mon père, homme de foi, m’expliquait que si la terreur révolutionnaire avait été inévitable, la langue, comme la culture française portaient aussi en elles la lumière.  J’étais déjà en France quand il fut hospitalisé pour une opération bénigne, et assassiné dans un hôpital bulgare en 1989, quelques mois avant la chute du Mur de Berlin – on y faisait alors des expérimentations  sur les personnes âgées. La peine de mort a été abolie en Bulgarie en 1998, bien qu’aujourd’hui encore, 52 pour cent des personnes interrogées dans ce pays se disent favorables à son application.

Il n’est pas question de sauver la société,  qui ne se perpétue qu’en se verrouillant  contre l’infinie complexité des passions.  Mais de mettre nos connaissances des passions au service de l’humain, pour mieux nous protéger contre nous-mêmes. Le nouvel humanisme doit être en mesure de défendre le principe de l’inviolabilité de la vie humaine  et de l’appliquer à tous, sans exception ; aussi bien qu’à d’autres situations extrêmes de l’expérience vitale: l’eugénisme,  l’euthanasie… Loin de moi l’idée d’idéaliser l’être humain, ou de nier le mal dont il est capable. Nous pouvons toutefois  le soigner et, en abolissant la peine de mort – qui est un crime, rappelons-le  – nous nous battons contre la mort et contre le crime. À ce titre, l’abolition de la peine de mort est une révolte lucide, la seule qui vaille contre la pulsion de mort, et en définitive contre la mort: elle est la version sécularisée de la résurrection.

Vous savez sans doute que les Italiens illuminent le Colisée, sanglante mémoire d’innombrables gladiateurs et martyrs chrétiens mis à mort, à chaque fois qu’un pays abolit la peine de  mort ou édicte un moratoire des exécutions.

Je propose que chaque nuit, où un pays renonce à la peine de mort, son nom s’inscrive sur un écran géant  installé pour la circonstance  sur  la Place de la Concorde (ancienne place de la Révolution) et de l’Hôtel de Ville (ancienne Place de  Grève), en souvenir de  Madame Roland, de Madame du Barry, de  Charlotte Corday, des tricoteuses, de la guillotine, de Fouquier-Tinville, d’André Chénier… Cette dépense supplémentaire risque-t-elle d’aggraver l’état de nos finances? Les optimistes prévoient que le monde  dans sa quasi-totalité aura aboli la peine de mort en 2050.  À nous de faire en sorte que cette abolition emporte l’adhésion de la majorité.

Julia Kristeva

3.10.2012