We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Imported Torture Haunts Poland

Click here to access article by Robert Stefanicki from Inter Press Service

It has been a decade since the CIA airport that was used to import prisoners to their nearby dungeon has been closed, but Poles are still troubled by the use of their country for such purposes and are still trying to bring charges against collaborating members of their government. The same situation applies to many other known countries, but their ruling classes have been able to shut down such efforts. 
According to a U.S. intelligence source quoted by The New York Times, the prison in Poland was the most important of the CIA’s black sites, where terror suspects were subjected to interrogation techniques that would not be legal in the United States. The source claimed that Poland was picked mostly because “Polish intelligence officials were eager to cooperate.”