When Was Your First
Chuckle … At Yourself?

Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) was perhaps the most accomplished actress of her generation. It was Ms. Barrymore who said, "You grow up the day you have the first real laugh - at yourself."

Do you remember your first real laugh at yourself? Mine came when I was about thirty years old.

Anyway, my maturing came after reading Gary Allen's, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, and finally realizing there was no substantial difference, in practice, between the Democratic and Republican political parties.

My laugh at myself was less of a side-splitter, and more of a panic. Had I been lost in a dark cloud of systematic propagation disseminated by the highly paid proselytizers of the corporate media, who had constantly convinced me of the validity of the "Left/Right paradigm"?

What a joke! And the joke was on me. Today, it's a joke on practically every registered voter in America.

And while there are no great differences between our two major political parties, there are - at least - two distinct classes of people: those who serve themselves at the expense of others ­the Predators; and those who serve themselves by first serving others - the Givers.

In the general US population, it is estimated that only twenty percent are Givers, while in the top echelons of government ninety-nine percent are Predators.

Predators elect Predators.

Predators come in all sizes and assortments, with varying abilities and aptitudes to take from others what is not rightfully theirs. The most cunning of the Predators naturally gravitate to where they can most easily take the most, which is into high-level governmental positions.

And if such Democratic and Republican Predators could become satiated with their vast sums of money, fame, drugs, adulation, and all the gratuitous and perverted sex they could possibly bear, our national plight might not be so severe; but unfortunately, that is not the case. Predators of both political parties are not so easily sated.

Part of the psychopathy of these bipartisan Predators is strange, in deed: the more they take, the more they are driven to take, until the grief and agony of others so excites the Predators, that it exceeds their ecstasy from sexual culmination, their love of money, or their lust for power. In fact, advanced Predators must see or know of the suffering of others, or they become quite mad to all observers, when usually their madness is cleverly hidden.

To the psychopathic Democratic and Republican politicians and bureaucrats in government taking your job, your savings, your home soon becomes not fulfilling enough, especially if you are still, somehow, happy.

Ultimately, Predators degrade themselves until only the severe suffering of others will satiate them. Thus we have a very fast growing wave of physical abuse from the police constabulary sweeping America, and a seriously expanding pandemic of torture taking place in many of the US military bases around the world.

And perhaps, no where does the collusion between Democratic and Republican Predators prove itself more than in their tacit agreements for domestic police brutality, and the torture of human beings, even children, in military bases on foreign shores.

How long will it be before masses of Americans are daily tortured? Already the huge prison/industrial complex has isolated over 80,000 inmates in solitary confinement. Denying human beings any socialized interactions or sensory stimulations for days, weeks, months, or years can only be described as torture of the cruel and insane variety.

If the establishment is now torturing our own citizens in this fashion, how much longer will it be before they are engaging in even crueler torture methods of many more Americans.

And while there is absolutely no excuse for police abuse at home, the Predators tell us they must torture human beings abroad (and at home) in order to gain the intelligence data that will keep America safe. The truth is none of us will ever be safe with psychopathic Predators in charge of our country.

The 17th century, English philosopher John Locke wrote, "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil which they set out to destroy."

Presidential candidate Barack Obama touted through out his first campaign for the presidency on how he would eradicate the evils of the preceding eight years of a Republican administration. But once he gained the presidency, Democrat Barack Obama refused to investigate the torture crimes of the preceding Bush administration, or to even release a damning series of photographs depicting outrageous US tortures of thousands of Iraqis, that had been stuffed into the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

These photos show Iraqi men, women, and children being raped and sodomized by US soldiers. Some eye witnesses told of not only seeing strangulation, but brutal beatings, and the cramming of lit cigarettes into the ear canals of defenseless prisoners.

Harper's Magazine writer Scott Horton states he "has obtained specific corroboration from a highly credible senior military officer with firsthand knowledge, of the suppressed photos," which is surely the very tip of a hell we cannot even imagine.

Keep in mind, that the above tortures were photographed, and took place in front of witnesses; but, there seems to be a number of secret prisons where special torture techniques are carried out by the CIA, without any witnesses allowed, as reported by the Washington Post.

And by special order of President Bush, and not repealed by President Obama, the CIA does not have to reveal to anyone who these prisoners are, or what happens to them behind the solid and impenetrable walls of over 100 US prisons around the world. Not satisfied with torturing detainees, American officials seem to also want to leave relatives of the "detainees" in a constant state of misery, wondering what happened to their loved ones.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, the US Army, since March of 2003, has imprisoned about 2,400 children in Iraq, alone. Some of these children were as young as ten years old when they were taken captive, without charges or trials, all in violation of the Coalition Provisional Authority memorandum on criminal procedures.

Married Iraqi men are segregated from their wives in prison, and children from their parents, unless children are being tortured in front of mothers and fathers.

Do these tortured children know of complicated terrorist plots that can be tortured out of them? No, the rational - or justification - for torturing children ­ is that the parents will break down and tell what they know about terrorists plots, in order to stop the torturing of their children.

If the parents know nothing, are such children tortured endlessly, until the parents divine something to tell? And, I suppose that imprisoned children without parents are simply tortured for good measure.

Amnesty Human Rights Watch, and all other oversight agencies, have even been denied permission to see these children or to know where they are imprisoned in Iraq.

In an article entitled "US and Allies Torture Children in Iraqi Prisons," Sherwood Ross writes, "Iraqi lawyer, Sahar Yasiri, representing the Federation of Prisoners and Political Prisoners, said in a published interview there are more than 400,000 detainees in Iraq being held in 36 prisons and camps, and that 95 percent of the 10,000 women among them have been raped." "Children," he said, "suffer from torture, rape [and] starvation, and do not know why they have been arrested." He added, "The children have been victims of random arrests, not based on any legal text."

Still there are some Americans who do not think we torture human beings. But even former President Jimmy Carter has confirmed that we are, in deed, torturing detainees.

"I don't think it, I know it," snapped Carter to CNN's Wolf Blitzer's inane question, "What makes you think we torture ...?".

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," continued Carter. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Guntanamo and the Abu Ghraid prison, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they have been accused." Meaning our prison detainees do not have to be guilty of anything in order to be imprisoned and then tortured.

Even American psychologists have gotten in on the "fun" of torturing innocent human beings. With a membership of about 150,000 members, the American Psychological Association (APA) condones the practice of psychologists tutoring CIA operatives with torture methods that are used in the vast networks of secret, black operative sites around the world.

APA president Gerald Koocher, clearly highly placed in the Department of Defense, is an enabler of US torture, insisting that psychologists play a valuable and ethical role with the interrogation [torture] of US prisoners.

Psychologists have long functioned as "The CIAs torture teachers," as proven by articles in both magazines of Vanity Fair and Salon.co

Reporter Mark Benjamin writes, "And with a [Bush] White House utterly convinced that abuse is an effective interrogation tactic - and equally committed to protecting those who traffic in it - few experts think justice will be served. That goes for the psychologists who set up the diabolical program, and those who gave them the authority to carry it out."

Ah ... Mr. Benjamin … the psychologists, CIA operatives, and anyone else who carries out torture on innocent human beings aren't looking for intelligence data, they torture for kicks. Much, much higher up in the control grid, torture is part of a war for men's souls: Those who authorize torture, condone it, carry it out, make excuses for it or supported it in any way, will lose their souls to the dark side, unless they make some major reconsiderations.

But the brilliant gad-fly and TV personality Max Kaiser reminds us that Hannibel Lecter was a psychologist, and anyone who'd take advice from a common garden variety psychologist might as well have a dinner-date with Hannibal Lecter, at his home.

But then, Obama dismissed this most heinous chapter in American history with his, "We're moving on."

Moving on where, Mr Obama, to even more torture of more women and their children?

Obama’s, “We’re moving on,” has worn very thin, as his administration has been all but indistinguishable from Little Bush’s tribe of war-mongers … except Obama has advocated more war, more torture than Bush did. What’s more is Obama has gotten his wishes with an expansion of mercenaries in Iraq, an expansion of US troops in Afghanistan, and new wars in Libya, Syria, and Pakistan As Bush was the dark prince of neo-conservatism, Obama has become the dark knight of neo-liberalism. And while Obama doesn’t look like Bush, talk like Bush, politically Obama is Bush’s twin brother.

Obama's only excuse for continuing Bush's torture policies was he didn't want to offend the American military/intelligence establishment. Who's running your administration, Mr. Obama, you or the psychos from the intelligence institutions?

And Obama’s torture is of people convicted of nothing. Allow me to tell you about it, if you can stomach reading about the delight some take in deliberate cruelty.

Largely unknown to the American public, thanks to the corporate media, once in office Obama quickly out-matched the insane torture policies of Bush, the Younger, with his doctrine called Prolonged Detention.

Under Obama's unconstitutional doctrine of Prolonged Detention, America is officially imprisoning people, not for any crimes they have committed, but for "crimes" they may commit in the future. Prolonged Detention, sometimes called "Preventive Detention" is the Obama power to keep people in prison, indefinitely, without any proof of guilt, without any formal charges being brought against them, and without any legal defense, convictions, or any sentencing. And torture? It’s optional. This is not the Rule of Law, it is the Rule of Obama.

Yes, that's right. We are now officially imprisoning people who cannot be found guilty of any crimes, but who may commit crimes in the future. This is George Orwell's concept of "Thought Police" taken to unfathomable heights, and only "kindly" Obama could openly get away with it.

After condemning Republican Bush Junior for his ad hoc legal strategy, of making up laws as he went, our Democratic president had the gall to say he would do the very same thing: Obama said, "We'll develop an appropriate legal regime [outside the US court system to make illegal detention legal] so our efforts are consistent with our values and Constitution."

Consistent with our Constitution? Did you really teach Constitutional Law, Mr. Obama? One doesn't have to teach or even study Constitutional Law to understand that you as a sitting president cannot legally make-up laws, whether they are consistent with the Constitution or defy it, as do your ad hoc Prolonged (Preventive) Detention scheme proposes.

Prolonged detention? How long is "prolonged," Mr. Obama?

A 28 day imprisonment is the longest period of preventive detention allowed, under law, in any civilized country any where in the world, except the United states under Obama. How long is your Preventive Detention, Mr. Obama?

Obama spoke of ten years, but didn't limit his Preventive Detention to a mere decade.

Will those suffering under Obama's Preventive Detention be tortured until they confess to the crimes they had planned to commit in the future?

If such tortured detainees do confess to crimes they have not committed, but planned to commit, what then? Ten more years of detention until they confess to more crimes they are not guilty of having committed?

What's the ultimate solution? More detention? More torture? More what, Mr. Ex-Constitutional Law professor turned full-time tele-prompter reader? Have you even thought that far ahead, Mr. Obama? Can you think that far ahead?

If you have to torture life, Mr. Obama, go find a house plant to abuse.

Even leftist Reporter Rachel Maddow said, [Obama's Prolonged Detention decrees] are one of the most radical proposals for defying the Constitution that we have ever heard made to the American people."

Ah ... Ms. Maddow these are not proposals, these are current orders to US military/intelligence officers, which are being carried out, that are resulting in the torturing hundreds or thousands of innocent people and children as I type these words.

Vincent Warren, the Black Executive Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights had plenty to say (after Obama spoke of his intentions for Prolonged Detention).

"I was really stunned when I heard those words come out of his mouth. This has never been done before.

“It is completely outside the realm of what is constitutionally permissible. It is deeply shocking that he'd even go there, when George Bush didn't even go there. This was really something that was beyond the pale [well outside the bounds of morality]."

Author Yvonne Ridley wrote, "This president [Obama] has gone from charming to harming and few have noticed."

Nothing - not even mass killings - demonstrates what one's moral and ethical values really are more than how one feels about the torturing of life; and, Mr. Obama, along with almost every other Washington politician, bureaucrat, and judge, of both parties, have all clearly told us how they feel about torturing human life by not noisily denouncing Obama's Prolonged Detention program of infamy.

The fact that our country now officially engages in torture, under the auspices of the American people, is the worse immorality in our country's history; even greater than the atomic bombing of innocent Japanese children, women, and men, as torturing people, indefinitely, is more inhuman than killing them outright.

Clearly Obama is breaking the law, but where are the angry voices from Congress or the Supreme Court? There are none, for junior Predatorss always bow to senior Predators, especially in matters of torture. The only fights that occur in Washington are of the World Wrestling Federation variety, all intended for public consumption.

The US mass media, however, is keeping this particular piece of Obama insanity under wraps, ostensibly so as to not overly shock the Obamanoids, who have long been struck dumb with paralytic political naivete. But, you may still be able to see and hear Obama, himself, confessing his guilt on YouTube (Search - Rachel Maddow: Indefinite detention? Shame on you, President Obama).

The same dark Predators who controlled the previous republican administration now control the current democratic administration.

We have been told that the people we detain and torture are the “worst of the worst” terrorists, which is another gross lie to gain support of the American people for torture, and implicate them in this unspeakable crime against humanity. In reality, the US military and intelligence services merely gather up stray non-combatants, living near battlefields, or they pay local warlords to provide them with innocent men, women and children to torture.

In Afghanistan, according to Human Rights Watch, "Anti-Taliban forces regularly cast a wide net, sweeping up non-combatants, and many of those they captured are delivered to U.S. officials, and in at least some cases in exchange for bounty payments. Some sent to Guantanamo were simply farmers, taxi drivers or labors with no meaningful ties to the Taliban or al Qaeda. Our military is also jailing an undisclosed number of children."

Search the 2007 video-documentary entitled, Taxi to the Dark Side, directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney and produced by Eva Omer and Susannah Shipman, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (source Wikipedia).

The video focuses on the murder of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilwar, who was beaten to death by American soldiers, while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base.

It is doubtful that such drivers of taxis, tillers of soil, or labors digging ditches have any real data to give to their torturers, but they must have one overriding question: "Why are you Americans here in our country torturing and killing us, and destroying every thing we had?" Good question, the answer to which will not come from our corporately owned media.

Highly paid propagandist, Rush Limbaugh, long effective in locking good Americans into the phony left/right paradigm, has gone as far as justifying US torture of human beings.

"You ever heard of emotional release? asked Limbaugh on one of his radio shows. "You ever heard of the need to blow off some steam?" continued Limbaugh.

You ever heard of war mongering, Rush? Ever heard of psychopathy? Ever heard of the criminally insane? Which group do you belong to, Rushbo? All of them?

A national policy of torture will certainly increase anti-American sentiments, abroad, and will likely create torturous retaliations. And, unless we voice our objections to a policy of torture, would we not inherit the national karma sure to befall a nation that torturers its prisoners?

Moreover, when interrogators resort to torture methods, they are admitting their ineptitude as interrogators. We don't need more vicious torture methods, we obviously need better interrogators to interrogate actual terrorists.

In the future, without a public outcry, there will be more planned leaks of our torture methods, with official denials; never too much information released too quickly; until at last, it will become an accepted fact that our government has the power, intention, and "right" to torture even you and me.

The dark Controllers of all Predators know torture doesn't produce the results their interrogators claim; but, they torture, and will soon make it widely known for two main reasons: It will produce wide-spread fear of being tortured, which will cause some people to turn in their neighbors to avoid torture themselves, and still some will continue to support torture in a belief it will provide them some sort of protection, all at the expense of their very souls.

The gestalt of torture, and its threat, is configured on physical and psychological phenomena, meant to reduce human kind into such a fearful state, man will be prohibited from the spiritual progress that could lift him out of the dark realms now enshrouding Earth. Torture, and the threat of it, is the supreme weapon in the war for men's souls.

Fear has long been the ultimate weapon used by the Controllers, commencing with anxiety of being thought a kook for believing in conspiracy theories, then ultimately giving away to fearing the every thing which so many have long and arrogantly dismissed ­ themselves being imprisoned and tortured.

Your first sign of growing up may have been the first time you really laughed at yourself; but, recognizing and shunning the psychopathic behavior of the Predator is proof of one's spiritual maturational process.

And as a nation's government is a reflection of her people, it is easily seen there are far more Predators than Givers in our country; and, Predators do not qualify for even the lowest levels of public service, nor are they really qualified as voters.

We have enough undertakers of the American Dream in government as it is.

The first step in changing our government begins by changing ourselves; which may begin by first fully realizing most Republicans and Democrats in our nation’s capitol are united in the dark Brotherhood of Predators.

J. Speer-Williams

Jsw4@mac.com