Friday, October 15, 2010

The black jail

So, with midterm elections in full swing, it's hard to find any news about the rest of the world, even tucked in dark corners of the internet or small boxes in the newspaper. That's why I read international news. Funny that I have to go to international news sites in order to find news about what my own damn country is doing. Meanwhile, over here, it's a constant barrage of "he said, she said, this guy, that guy," random polls, pointless arguments and media malarchy aimed at forcing people to pay attention to the didactic dance of politics while completely ignoring the surrounding issues.
Well, here's an issue we shouldn't be ignoring. Since reports from Gitmo and Abu Ghraib years ago, it has been a definite blot on our international face that our soldiers and our "private contractors" are stunningly inhumane to political prisoners.
However, being the arrogant shits that we are, with shovel in hand, we continue on the same path to digging our own graves by maintaining unwelcome overseas presence, bullying middle eastern snake pit politics and keeping open or even opening new "detention centers" in the thick of it all.
Yep, that's right. According to several investigations, the BBC along with the Open Society Foundation has found evidence of a secret prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, as a part of the US military airbase. Ex-detainees claim they were sleep deprived, kept in cold rooms with harsh lights on constantly, not allowed to practice their religion, stripped naked for supposed medical exams, beaten and threatened with dogs.
The US response? "The Department of Defense does not operate any secret prisons” -Captain Pamela Kunze, US military spokeswoman. Simultaneously other members of the US military claim that all their detention centers comply with US and international laws.
Are you fucking kidding me?! It is un-fucking-believable that they can give these kind of responses and not at least get a punch in the face from a civilian standing by. Of course, the inherent issue with their response is more of an inherent issue with our level of apathy and education. They know they can get away with these not even clever or well thought out lies and evasions. The US military doesn't run secret prisons? We comply with all US and international laws? Since fucking when? These responses smack of a learned arrogance, a cold, calculating nonchalant attitude to the repercussions associated with lying and being a fucking idiot. After many years of US citizens' lack of involvement in political affairs, the corporate and governmental branches of our ruling classes have learned that we don't need to know or want to know jack dick. Again, why the fuck am I looking on a British website for US news? Why the hell do I care what Palin is going to wear at the Tea Party Express kick off? Isn't it a wee bit more important to know that we are continuing our brash raping of middle eastern countries, poking at a destructive fate, seeing how far we can push that envelope before too many people hate us for us to buy, bomb or bargain our way out of our deserved violent end? Apparently not. And sorry to say it, that's all our fault. If you are the laissez-fare, uninvolved parent of a troubled teen, don't expect them to come to you for advice or answers when they fuck up. And when they find out they can fuck up and all you do is scratch your balls and continue watching football, they'll keep fucking up, they'll keep spiraling out of control until one day you get a knock on the door saying that your credit card was tied to underground blood money dealings, your house has been foreclosed, some foreign family has kidnapped teenager due to raping, robbing and killing, your money's all gone, your teenager drained your savings, stole your car and set the woods behind your house on fire. Your reaction? Curse the day that teenager came into the world. But in reality, if you would've paid attention, if you would've given a shit, that teenager would be on the couch doing their homework, asking for your help and support while you read up on their schooling, extracurricular activities and teach them how to balance a damn check book.
Seems almost too good to be true doesn't it? Well, until we do something about it, it is too good to be true...and that's blood on our hands.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

It would be interesting to see how much of US media are in Murdoch´s hands – how many small radio stations? I feel an overwhelming part of our so called news are propaganda and stupid stuff like what Palin is wearing – the only papers I trust are the NY Times, Vanity Fair and the NewYorker – How many people read the news?

Unknown said...

It would be interesting to see how much of US media are in Murdoch´s hands – how many small radio stations? I feel an overwhelming part of our so called news are propaganda and stupid stuff like what Palin is wearing – the only papers I trust are the NY Times, Vanity Fair and the NewYorker – How many people read the news?

Rooftop Revolutionary said...

all media these days is propaganda. the thing is that even people like murdoch can't control something as vast as the internet. if people wanted to educate themselves, they could. for example, the speech rumsfeld gave on september 10th, 2001 announcing the privatization of most of the pentagon's business, in effect firing most of our governments defense system. that speech is on a government website! all you have to do is google it and it pops right up. they don't even try to hide it. if we wanted to, we could find out what's going on in our country. but again, as i say many times, it's the people's fault that our country is where it is. you can only blame the people you voted for up to a point and then you have to ask yourself why the fuck you a) voted for them and b) why the fuck you don't do something to edit this corrupt system that fucks you and yours over repeatedly...

David Klein said...

Murdoch doesn't need to control the entire Internet. Americans are so lazy, it's a shock when they pay attention to one major media outlet, let alone research the issues affecting them and try to juxtapose different ideas and positions.

Real "news" outlets will always be underground to Americans. Not because they are forced to listen to just one person, but because they choose to listen to just one person. Fucking horrifying.

David Klein said...

Nothing groundbreaking I know....we all are aware of this...but it frustrates me.