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

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

The CIA torture report and the crisis of legitimacy in the United States

Click here to access article by Tom Carter from The Greanville Post.

(This posting actually contains two articles, one by Carter who usually writes for World Socialist Web Site and the other by Ackerman who writes for The Guardian. I much prefer Carter's because it deals with much wider political implications, while Ackerman's writing for The Guardian is understandably much narrower.)

The long delayed "torture report" by the Senate Intelligence committee chaired by Feinstein was released today. To be clear, it is not the entire report of 6200 pages, but a 500 page heavily redacted summary of it. Although it was completed in December 2012, it was delayed obviously because of the threat it poses for the legitimacy of the ruling class government. While the rough details have leaked out long ago and are widely known about CIA torture, this is an official recognition that is likely to have even more of an impact on those who like to believe in fairy tale governments and believe everything they read or see in mainstream media. Of course, this is the main concern of our ruling masters. They still depend on the gullible to support their fake democracy; however if they lose this support, they will not hesitate to bring their well developed police state apparatus into operation--or at least, they will attempt to do so.

Enough of my comments--please read Carter's outstanding essay.

The implications for American imperialist foreign policy are obvious. The government of the United States asserts the power to invade, bomb and carry out “humanitarian intervention” and “regime-change” anywhere in the world in the name of protecting “human rights.” Meanwhile, top military, civilian and intelligence officials of that same country are implicated in the gravest violations of human rights, as well as in conspiracies to cover up those crimes—and nobody has been held accountable. 
 
And, I must add, nobody will be held accountable. No enforcers of class rule is ever held accountable as we have recently seen domestically with the murder and assaults on African-Americans.