Some of the people who have been held and interrogated as suspected terrorists by the US in detainment centers have been released. I have heard interviews and read about some of these people. In the ACLU newsletter there was a story about a German Muslim who was held so long that his family moved, thinking he had desserted them. He was an innocent man. We detained and tormented him when he tried to go on a vacation to the Middle East. Other innocents have been held and tortured by US. According to one man interviewed on This American Life we have offered a bounty to people turning in terror suspects, and a great number of the people who were turned in for a bounty were innocent. Too many people have died on our watch, and we will never know their real stories.

There is something very sick about all this torture. Only the most warped people actually enjoy inflicting pain. Healthy and respectful people prefer to alleviate pain than to cause it. Children who torture pets are more likely to hurt other people later on. Violence inflicted breeds the desire to inflict. A sticker on my truck says "we are creating enemies faster than we can kill them" and I believe it. Our president and his cronies fought tooth and nail to stop McCain's anti-torture resolution----until it was evident that they couldn't stop it, and then they pretended to agree with the principle. Liars. These men who claim to be Christian espouse values that are the very evil that they cast on others. What is one more lie to a pack of murderers?

Tonight over dinner friends spoke of the wonders of modern anesthesiology. For a procedure as routine as a vasectomy a person can be drugged such that he is completely conscious and functional, but remembers nothing. Dan said it is as if a door shuts--the door to memory and perhaps pain---and then when the drug wears off the door opens and one remembers up to the door shutting but no more. He couldn't help but to contemplate what information might be extracted from a person while they were in some such mentally disconnected state.

Modern drugs could be used to extract the truth from a criminal without having to physically torture them. If we can drug people to get at their truth, then why all the torture? If we could find out everything just by shooting them full of chemicals, do we really need to "stress" them? Why are we torturing people? Beyond the possible explanation of simple sadism, it occurred to me: it takes a lot more than drugs to get a person to admit to something that they did not do. It takes torture, to get an innocent man to admit to crimes, just to stop the pain. This seems to be what we are doing. The US is out there in the world forcing innocents to admit to crimes in order to justify our sick domination. And the ones that refuse to admit to anything sometimes get released and sometimes speak up about their experiences. In spite of their fear.

The US is detaining internationals just because somebody fingered them for a bounty. It is only one very tiny step from here to the "detainment" (what a euphemism), torture, and assasination of citizens here in the states who politically oppose Shrub. And though there are a lot of us, most people are keeping their mouths shut because they are afraid. How long before people start disappearing right here in my home town? Do you remember what happened under the Nazis? Do you remember what happened in Chile under Pinochet? People who openly opposed the government simply vanished. Remember that old saying about "first they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up", and on through the unwanted populations. The gays. Whoever. Well they're taking the Muslims. Already. From anywhere. They're busting down the doors to people's houses and taking them away. Not in my home town yet, but anywhere on this planet is too close for comfort. Unwarranted spying is a done deal. Our government has to be stopped and our voting system is already rigged in their favor. What now?

I recently read that Shrub wants to model the revision of our Social Security system on the federal retirement plan in Chile that has been a huge flop there. The retirement scheme that is making Chilean banks ridiculously wealthy while the common man is ripped off and without help in his old age. Our government is taking a page out of every book that shafts the people and benefits big biz. Shrub should be impeached.

If this remains the land of the free, I will be permitted to write all this and not be taken away. I am afraid. I do not trust my own government. I believe that they are propagating terror for profit. I pray that my legal and actual freedom of speech and religion and thought and belief are sustainable. I hope that our congress and supreme court buck up and stop the outrageous overstepping of legal bounds so routine for this administration. I pray that real Christian values (which are remarkably similar to the core values of every major religion) prevail over and conquer the sickening hollow immitation proffered by our executive branch. I want you to know that I will not stop writing here without saying goodbye unless 1) I die or 2) they take me away.

There is no amount of placation from the mouth of Shrub that can undo the facts that are already out there on the loose....eventually people will have to see, eventually I will not feel so alone...this is what I tell myself. And I am utterly stunned to see how far it has already gone. We live in UNBELIEVABLE times.