Torture & Surveillance

I found an interesting site the other day called Fake Rush Limbaugh.

He discusses some interesting topics in there such as torture camps, animal rights abuses, pesticides in our food and others.

What do you folks that live in the US feel about being in a country that runs torture camps, has sweatshops in third-world countries, and spies on it's own citizens? How about the poisons in the food at the grocery store?

I was deeply affected by the articles at the site above, and wanted to see if maybe some of you have similar views, or if you see anything wrong with what is there...

Thanks,
James J.

 

that site could be made by anyone. No sources, not legit. Even though those things may be true that site is BS
yes, we torture people for information. THE REAL WORLD IS NOT ALL FUN AND GAMES!

 

At least most of us prefer not to eat toxic waste. But the question was ambiguous when linking it to food. Food technology has advanced down good roads and rather lame ones. Sure, it'd be nice to grow strictly organic, free range and net free, but it would not be enough for the population of the planet. We demand the wealthy countries feed the world's hungry and then lament them when they use energy resources to do it.

On the issue of torture, if a guy has a bomb in a school and won't tell where it is, only that an evacuation will set it off, he should be hooked up to a generator till he reveals the location. Also, he should be on top of the school strapped to a hand truck. Sorry folks, but if it means protecting innocent lives, I'm all for getting primitive with the SOB.

As to wire tapping. The government has been listening to electronic communications from the very beginning and nothing is going to stop it. Internet communications are available to anyone on the planet who can decode them. I suggest you folks learn some clever codes if you want to feel secure in your "private" communications.

I'm sick of hearing about low prices. Most of the time it equals low quality and we have become a race of wasteful consumers. I want to see $5 a gallon gas in America to motivate all the people commuting in 2.5 ton Duallys and Hummers to get a freakin clue. Wasting a finite resource just because you can "afford" it is pure insanity. Your great grandchildren's lives WILL be impacted by your present waste.

Have a nice day!

CF

 

Personally, I hate it all. But right now, at this moment, I feel powerless. But soon in the near future, I will be able to join the fight to correct these matters.

 

Lack of fun and games is no excuse for evil.

 

What good roads has food technology advanced down? I see the rich eating poison and the poor starving while they produce poison for the rich. I personally don't demand that wealthy nations feed the world's hungry -- just that there are no wealthy nations to make people hungry in the first place. If the world's hungry had access to land to grow their own food, I'm sure they would. They problem is that multinational corporations like Conagra, Archer Daniels Midland, and Monsanto own it all.

That's a nice story and all. But how many people have they tortured that had bombs in schools? In reality they torture people who they suspect of resisting their overseas military conquests. They are just defending themselves and their families from the rape, shootings, gassings, and bombings that have become commonplace in most of the less "priveleged" (as in having the privelege to not get bombed and gassed? privelege to eat? privelege to have yachts and restaraunts?) nations. You are not getting primitive on the SOB's, you are just torturing people who are fighting against a military dictatorship. Hitler's troops were all for torturing the SOBs that resisted his rule as well...

Yes. I know they've been doing it from the very beginning. That's the problem. How can you pretend like you have "freedoms" when federal agents have been violating your privacy from the "very beginning"? There is something that could stop it. What about getting rid of national intelligence agencies? But to do that you'd have to get rid of governments. Because without secret police to crush political dissidents, you can't maintain control over people's lives.

At least we agree on one thing... Not only will your great grandchildrens lives be affected by it though. Yours is. As the person who wrote that site said, one third of you will die of cancer because of it. And half of the world's population is starving to death. A few million people will die from warfare each year for it. And tens of thousands of species will go extinct. It's happening right now.

There are sources in several of the articles. I noticed several links to the stuff he was talking about, and the stuff that I didn't was easy to find on Google. Just because he didn't write a Bibliography doesn't make it illegitimate. It doesn't look like a term paper to me. You say it's "not legit", yet you just said yourself that people are being tortured...

The real world is not fun and games. I agree. It is a fascist police state controlled by a highly advanced military using propaganda, torture, and warfare. Sounds like hell to me. I wonder when people will start to do something about it....

--James J.

 

What the fuck is so newsworthy about Torture Detention and Survielence?

American Stoners have endured this type of treatment since the 80's
Without anybody raising the issue or our wonderful Civil Liberties crowd doing anything about it.

Perhaps of the Civil Liberties crowd had raised itself to make some noise about protecting Americans, it would have set some markers, and prevented the wholesale rights abuse we see today.

While our Activists were fighting for Whales and Baby Seals The drug warriors and MADD were imposing newer and stricter regulations on American life, without a challenge, without questioning.

They got away with it and then took it to the next step.

Its unfortunate that Marajjuana cant be seen through the prevailing Race-Gender-Class perspective that gets our Activits and newspaper editorialists blood flowing.

You would think by reading the news that detention and survielence just got invented recently.

You would think that detention and survielence of Marajuana users would interest people. It seems not.

:troll:

 

Sorry cupcake, but smoking pot is not a serious issue. I'm talking about torture. Not the torturous experience of being able to smoke your little pipe. Torture like having a pipe rammed into your anus and smashed into your head. Torture like what happens at Guantanamo Bay, where you disappear for a few years and have people beat you up and waterboard you.


No, torture isn't new. But for some reason, nobody seems to be doing anything about it. They'd rather fight for the right to smoke a bowl than worry about issues like people being bombed or tortured to death. That doesn't seem very sensible does it.

Dead children, torture camp, secret police or right to get fucked up.

Weigh them out and see which ones really matter. I'm sure you've got it in you.

 

so let me analyze the above survey for bias before I respond. Hah, I love statistics class.

Anyways,
James, I sort of agreed with you, though in a less angry/extreme way, up until that last post. But when you say smoking pot isn't a serious issue you toss all your credibility down the drain. By saying that, you're endorsing the detainment tens if not hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug offenders being held in jails/prisons all over the United States. You're looking at 2 MILLION people being incarcerated with over half locked up for drug offenses. It's a BIG and EXPENSIVE problem, which as Piney pointed out is largely ignored by most activists.

And how exactly do you think these police state measures are going to get introduced. The govt isn't just going to say "We will be using this new law to monitor and repress the American People." They'll get the measures in place by using the war on drugs as an excuse. Want an example? The warrentless tracking of American Citizens using the 911 tracker on their cell phones was first started to pursue drug dealers. Now the FBI uses it freely in all sorts of situations.

So yeah, think again.

 

if you voted for the last one you can seriously just fuck off and die

 

Habeus Corpus=the right to have a lawyer and defend yourself against LEGAL charges----gone. Posse Comitatus=no use of the military against our own citizens.gone.--Right to privacy in our homes and conversations we may have=gone.The right of the (so called ) president to disappear you for as long as he wants--HERE!---Family farms=mostly gone.------------And Mr Jackson is right on the money.

 

Perhaps Jamsey, you are one of those Whales and Baby Seals activists

who just started worrying about detention torture and survielence since say 2003?

Where were you when John Gotti was railroaded? Perhaps if some markers had been left then we wouldnt find ourselves under such an assault today?

 

No I tend to look for the root causes of problems rather than focusing on side issues like whales, seals, or marijuana smoking. Clever joke though. Congratulations.

I understand that millions of drug offenders have been held in jails and prisons. That sucks and I'm definitely not endorsing it. But fighting for the right to smoke pot isn't going to make prisons and surveillance go away. There are hundreds of people who are unjustly imprisoned for all kinds of reasons besides drug offenses. And they don't need drugs as an excuse. They've got "terrorists" to justify it all for them not. It would be nice and all if people weren't going to jail for smoking weed.

But imagine that tomorrow our gracious leaders spoke from the propoganda ministry and informed us that everyone was legally allowed to smoke, transport, purchase, sell, and grow marijuana. And not only that, but the same for crack, methamphetimine, heroin, acid, and any other chemical you please. Fantastic. So now everyone with extra money to spend can get fucked up.

The problem is that people in third-world countries don't have money to buy drugs with. They don't have enough to buy food. Are you going to smoke a bowl to make them feel better? Millions of acres of forest are getting cut down each year. Is that going to stop when you plunge the needle into your arm? B-52 bombers drop bombs on children on Afghanistan won't stop flying, supercomputers at Fort Meade won't stop reading your emails, and women won't stop getting gang-raped by US soldiers in Iraq.

The "battle" for the right to smoke pot is a sideshow. It's an unimportant issue kept going to drain the energy and resources of an enormous group of people who otherwise might dedicate themselves to something effective or meaningful. It is one of many symptoms that all arise from the same disease. You could fight against abortions, or raise money for cancer, or fight against genetically modified foods. But the fact of the matter is that after you have spent years fighting against it (maybe even with a bit of success), you will just find that ten more serious issues have popped up in the meantime. And it will never stop until you cut it out at the roots.

Until the corrupt businessmen who dominate your lives are dead and displaced from their seats of power, none of it will ever stop.

 

This is not a proper survey, you have set it up to represent only your point of view. Re-read your questions and ask yourself, are there other options? Are these questions fair to the other point of view? To support the use of torture does not mean you support torture to death. The jury is still out on pesticides, why not ask, do you feel pesticides are a potential danger to your health? Do you prefer organically grown foods over GMO's and non-organic foods? I eat both and I certainly would not say that I like my foods to be of toxic waste and flavored with carcinogens.
By misrepresenting the other side of the arguments you have acted no better than those you wish to topple........think about it.

 

james, so basically you're advocating overthrowing the government and starting from scratch? Solving what? Sure the military would leave Iraq and Afghanistan, but without any stability they would just degenerate into chaos within a couple of months leading to far more deaths. And everyone would still be starving, because it's not like they'd suddenly have food when Nike and Wal-Mart shutdown their sweatshops. And then you'd have a civil war here in the United States leading to more suffering/death.

So yeah, I don't think a civil uprising would really do much good at all. In fact one could speculate that the following market crash would actually make the world much worse.

But if you do want to do something, stop eating beef. If all the cattle fields in the US were converted to growing grains then there would be enough food to feed everyone in the world. Also, 50% of the water to the east of the mississippi goes to watering cattle. And boycotting beef is easy(I've been doing it for 6 months) and the more people you get, the more effective it will be. That is something you CAN do right now.

 

Yes. I am advocating overthrowing the government.

No, I am not talking about starting over from scratch. I am talking about ending it. I am talking about not having a government at all. No Gods, no masters, no bosses or presidents or kings. No rulers.

This is called anarchism, and is how humans have lived throughout most of their existence, prior to the rise of "civilization" 15,000 years ago.

Here is some reading on anarchist thought:

Anarchist FAQ
Insurgent Desire
Green Anarchist Infoshop

I can't say that I agree with everything there, but it's a good start. Anarchism means something different to each person -- the only thing that all anarchists have in common, is that they all believe that nobody should be allowed to tell them how to live. I.e. they believe that the person who is most qualified to decide what they should do is themselves -- not some pig in Washington.

You say it will degenerate into chaos? You live in a world where half of the population is starving, millions die each year from warfare, the leading cause of death for teenagers is suicide, there are thousands of spy satellites overhead watching you, your phone calls and emails are monitored by intelligence agencies, thousands of people are in torture camps, tens of millions are in prisons, 1/3 of all women have been raped, millions of acres of forest are getting cut down each year, the sound of machines is buzzing in the air all day long -- never silent, toxic waste from our industries have made cancers commonplace.

If you call this order, what exactly will chaos look like? There is no order here. The illusion of order has been created for you by the corporate media (which is owned and operated by the same people who have created all of the chaos here).

All of the world's land is owned by rich individuals and corporations. Governments use their militaries and police forces to protect the property of these corporations. Get rid of the governments, and nobody will be there to protect corporate interests. Then the people can take the land back and use it to grow food. Food doesn't come originate from a grocery store. It originates from land. The rich own all of the land, and don't allow people to use it to grow food (unless they are trying to sell the food to other rich people).

Kill the rich, take the land and everyone can eat.

 

The mere fact that the anarchists have web links that could never exist in a state of anarchy is bloody hilarious. Yeah anarchy, great idea! It is always the weak who benifit in such situations isn't it? I can't believe I have to explain to someone above the age of twenty why anarchy would not work, but here is a few questions for you to ponder, feel free to ignore them as you did my last post.
What is to stop warlords from taking over? Do you have any desire to go anywhere in the world? How would you get there on the plane made at the Boening factory? Who would run all communications? Who would monitor natural resources, clean water, forrests etc? What's stopping a gang from killing your family and moving into your house/shack? So if a farmer grew wheat is that all he could eat or would he trade at a market? If a farmer grew lots of wheat because he wanted more to trade with he would be rich is that bad? ETC, ETC, ETC.
Who is this faceless businesman that we should murder? Is it the guy working at the bank for $16.75 per hour? Is it the guy that built a family business up from scratch to become a millionaire? Is it Ted Turner of TBS who donated one billion dollars to charity? I guess you probably know all of the bad ones and good ones though don't you?

 

I admit I used to have the same ideals. Anarchism, rule by rule of self and the like. Then I learned about infrastructure and supply chains when Y2K seemed like it would launch us back to the 19th century (although I didn't buy a generator, I bought a few guns and LOTS of ammo). I was living in upstate NY on 9/11 and went to K-Mart on 9/12 where the line to purchase ammunition was wrapped through the store.

When things break down, people arm up and hunker down. My wife's family is from Louisiana and make a regular habit of stocking months worth of food. As a result our home is well stocked, well armed and well fueled. I'm working on ways to become as self sufficient as possible while living in the real world. See, I had to know I could afford to be wrong, unlike the people who bought a ton of wheat in December of 1999. Working toward self sufficiency can be a very individual goal, but if you think about it you may find the kind of peace I have. I find that if I can reduce my impact, I may inspire others to follow. Ultimately it would be better than living under the daily uncertainties of anarchism. With bureaucracies you have time to breathe while you collect your own life.

Like it or not, without the present governmental systems in place, flawed as they are, we would be living a tribal and feudal existence with even more fighting about the globe than we have now. Instead of being concentrated it would be widespread. Only the rule of law tames the animal in man but it's a very precarious leash.

On the issue of the government, in America we have some flexibility. Lincoln himself said "the people have the constitutional right to amend our government, or the revolutionary right to overthrow it". Life in America is so often what YOU make of it. But there is always Uncle Sam looming, particularly for men since we have to register for the draft when we turn 18 but we can't legally drink till we are 21!!! Who makes these bullshit rules? Oh yea, the assholes who get voted into office.

CF

 

John Gotti was railroaded???WTF?

 

He was aquitted twice, convicted on the third trial in like 5 years time.

His picture was on the front page of the tabloids three times a week, he sold copy and the press, with the right leaks from LEO insiders presented him as an all-but -convicted criminal.

His conviction was won with jurors listening to hundreds of hours of recorded guido-speak. A sort of self-incrimination by tape recorder.

The amount of LEO resources and personel thrown against this man was impressive and a bit scary. The RICO statutes: draconian.
He was tailed, photographed and recorded constantly. At his trial, he said to a dective " You spend so much time listening to me that when you wake up in the morning you say: Good Morning John to your wife"

Everybody figured he was up to no good, should have been cause for a high standard of proof. Instead he was convicted by speaking into a microphone.

The loathing was apparant at conviction and incarration where he was put in solitary and not allowed furlogh for his fathers funeral.

Mafia soldiers might be warring with each other over turf, but the average man on the street had absolutely nothing to worry about from the wiseguys who wanted as little attention from the law as poossible.

The total lack of interest in this persecution by the Civil Liberties Community is stunning and puzzling