Pressure from the Public
Well the thing is, as Rosa Luxemburg wrote to Lenin in 1918, all regimes have the temptation to take what they will always call "emergency measures", and then let these short-term hysterias harden into permanent laws, and then into routine practices.
I noticed this when I was a part of the ACLU suit against warrantless wiretapping. Probably very few people would NOT have demanded to know, on 12 September 2001, who was calling whom on US territory, from US territory, to US territory and so forth. A government that didn't also demand to know might have been impeachable for other reasons, and would certainly have been kicked to death by public opinion as it then stood. But then the urgent and the contingent become bureaucratic everyday reality, and it turns out that Congress and the courts didn't - ahem - actually know about any of or most of that.
I forget the percentage that Cheney is supposed to have assigned to the margin of error but I think it was about one. I repeat what I keep drearily saying: most voters would have said then that one per cent was too fucking generous. The real pressure behind a lot of this law-breaking comes from, or is derived from, public opinion. After all, the ever-popular 9/11 Commission cheerily accepts and recycles evidence that was produced by torture, often using the results to criticize the Administration itself. Populism is our problem just as much as oligarchy and official secrecy. This is why a pardon might not ignite a protest or a reaction, whereas a prosecution well might. Who thinks the Dems don't know this in their guts?
I haven't been following the Book Club too closely this week -- bailout bill, ya know -- but are people talking about eavesdropping or torture?
It seems to me that Hitchens does a bit of a soft-shoe slide from Americans, post-9/11, probably approved monitoring communications to his implied claim that they approved torture, also.
By the way does anyone else recall an ABC Nightline town hall type show broadcast in late 2001 or early 2002 which debated torture? I think Dershowitz was, at the time, doing his "torture tour" thing and Koppel moderated. I haven't had any luck searching for it on Google.
It would be interesting to watch it to recover folks' feelings at the time.
October 1, 2008 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
It sure would. Chardonnay proletarians like Hitchens are so quick to blame fearsome oppression on the Great Unwashed, but legal frameworks authorizing torture and scattershot surveillance were the products of some of the best - and best paid - minds in the nation, an exclusive elite infesting and directing American media, academic and political cultures. Dershowitz began advocating torture as an investigative/judicial tool as early as the mid-'90s, looong before 9/11. The public's rattled confusion in the aftermath of the 9/11 and anthrax attacks allowed these outrages to be furtively incorporated in official procedure; there were no "populist" marches pressing for waterboard interrogations.
Flexible, progressive democracy, as well as properity, are components of societies containing large middle classes. As our own middle class evaporates, we will see more of the dungeon justice and boot-heel police tactics so treasured in banana republics and Marxist shangri la's.
October 2, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
What you're trying to say is that most Americans are not civil libertarians. But that is always true, not just after 9/11, and I would imagine is has been true of the masses worldwide throughout history. Majorities are only rarely concerned about the rights of minorities. In spite of this, though, rights do get written into constitutions and are often acknowledged by judges.
And sometimes, when a leader is strong and self-confident enough (Lincoln, LBJ), right-wing populist authoritarianism can be overcome.
October 1, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well the other thing is, all regimes do not succumb to all temptations they face. Just as all commenters don't succumb to the "Blame-Americans-First" rationalization, by projecting onto "most voters" their own -- or worse, Dick Cheney's -- peculiar form of paranoia and/or blood lust.
The reality is that what people would or would not have "demanded to know, on 12 September 2001" is entirely speculative. And any real or imagined polling about it could be reliably flipped with the simple phrase "or should they get a lawful warrant." And not even under the full effect of being terrorized by the bomb-threat of "mushroom clouds!" would many more than the hardcore 20%ers see cheney squandering 99% of resources goose-chasing 1% possibilities as anything other than a form of tin-foil-hat mental illness.
But sadly, strains of this illness run epidemic inside the DC beltway and its euphemedia annex in NY. The ongoing torture that sufferers become blind to is just its most horrific side effect.
The current strain is impeachophobia. Left undiagnosed and untreated, it will continue to drain the life blood out of our once-great nation.
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October 1, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is this the rise of an anti-counterintuitive apologist class or has cynicism donned a new and heretofore unrecognized new mask?
Unlike your stance on imaginary deities and superstitious beliefs in same, above you seem to be working toward opposite ends from the middle resulting in a confusing argument that seems to override the desire of most of us to experience with our eyes...justice delivered for past heinous deeds done.
October 1, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
(Note: The following is a response I made earlier to a Cafe entry on this subject (ie, torture). Forgive me for transplanting it here verbatim, but the traffic moves so quickly and there are so many different recent entries on this subject, that I fear I may have been lost in the shuffle. I think the point I'm TRYING to make is that most of us are conflicted on this issue: We have the dualistic nature common to most Americans - we want to be the "good guys" for sure, but at the same time we're hardheaded, aggressive, and practical - above all else, we want to WIN, one way or the other. That might sometimes require subtle compromises with our better nature).
It is difficult to strike a balance here, but we must try. At the risk of being labeled as "for" torture (I'm actually very much "against" it in ordinary human terms: I can't personally tolerate mistreating a dog, for example), let me suggest that as a matter of fact, atrocities of all sorts happen in ALL wars.
Much of what happens is calculated to obtain a certain result (ie, get info) or to (even more brutally) establish a climate of terror to your "advantage". The rest lacks even those vaguely utilitarian excuses: It is simply an eruption of meanness or of fear, given free reign by the inherently chaotic and atrocious atmosphere of ANY war.
As such, my quarrel is NOT with anonymous soldiers or field agents who may go over the norms of ordinary human conduct in the stress of an active operation (I KNOW the argument that "It doesn't work!", but that is simply not 100% true. It "works" just often enough that it may sometimes appear to be worth a try in a desperate situation with many lives at stake). Excepting the most egregious and gratuitous situations, leave those people alone to sort-out these difficult moral dilemmas as best they can. They are taking a great deal onto their consciences, in what are (for the most part) sincere efforts to protect the mission, or their comrades, or the country. They have no time to consult lawyers beforehand, and they have every right to wonder what "law" has to do with the active battlefield in the first place.
My quarrel is with the political types who TALK constantly about all this. Not content with the REAL toughness required to silently accept the fact (and the responsibilty) of Black Ops (in ANY war), they insist on getting us ALL in on it. Instead of quietly doing their duty as they see fit and everything else be damned, they layer themselves in political and legal "cover", and fan the public into opposing camps by too much extraneous posturing. We elect leaders (among other reasons) to sometimes spare us, and take difficult matters onto themselves. We KNOW the American ideal of fair play and humane treatment is sometimes violated, but we still enjoy believing in it. Don't ask us to PARTICIPATE in publicly dismantling it - that is a bridge too far, and puts everything at risk.
October 1, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
NPR did a story on Bloomberg wanting another bite of the "Big Apple" today, third term and all. Troubled times let's wave the rules, so Bloomberg can save us.
They used a the Super Hero template to tell the story, I kept thinking of Rome.
October 2, 2008 4:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once, when lost in London, I took the emergency measure" of accepting directions from a drunken Englishman. I'll neve make that mistake again.
Go home, Hitch.
October 2, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hitchens is wrong: When did torture ever come up for a vote? Why didn't Bush and Co. campaign on it in 2004, instead of covering it up? Why do they still lie and hdie to this day??
Because Americans, while wanting to be aggressive against terrorists, are also sickened and disturbed by the practice. There is a sense of common decency, even amongst conservatives.
The proof? Bush lied and covered up the torture, because they knew it was repulsive. Bush never lied about keeping "enemy combatants" at Gitmo, but he is self-evidently not proud of the so-called "enahnced interrogation techniques".
More proof? Witness the public, bi-partisan REVULSION about Abu Ghraib.
I would continue, but I've demolished your wafer-thin pretense here, and don't wish to humiliate you any further.
October 2, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I honestly don't think on 9/12 Americans were thinking "torture them" - I think we were all thinking "catch them", "imprison them" or even "electrocute them" (as is done in many states with criminals). I honestly don't think torture immediately came to mind as a way to "deal" with terrorists. Yes, Jack Bower has a lot to do with popularizing the idea, but sicko Chaney was right there, baby. HE was on the torture tip - and he made it happen. Don't pawn this off on the American people. We wanted justice, no sickness in our name.
October 2, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
. You are exactly right. Ends-justify-the-means thinking was what bin Laden had engaged in when he planned the 9/11 attacks. Torture is another manifestation of this thinking, and so is using bin Laden as a billboard for the construction of a new empire in Mesopotamia.
After 9/11, we were consoling ourselves for the disaster that we had suffered with the thought that it was a transparent society and not a Fortress America (complete with dungeons) that we lived in. Now, our society is just transparent enough to peer into the abyss beneath it. (What frightens me is that soon even that ability to peer into the depths will be lost.)
October 2, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink