TORTURE! TORTURE! TORTURE!

TORTURE! TORTURE! TORTURE!
9/29/06
Many Americans seem to have a strange and obsessive infatuation with torture. A simple glance at the television promotions for the latest horror flicks validates my statement. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is coming out with a sequel and other forgettable gore movies are constantly being promoted. For some reason adolescents are the target market for these films serving to breed generations of mass murdering Dahmers, Caseys and Bundys. Has anyone watched a WWF match lately? What was the great fascination with the Christian Right and THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST? I wouldn’t debase my spirit by seeing this movie. What kind of a twisted mind would rush to see a Hollywood version of the barbaric, excruciating punishment and crucifixion of any man much less the Son of God? This vast crowd of mad, Paleolithic, sadistic, masochistic, hypocrites, oohed and awed and some went into convulsions, as their primitive bloodlusts were over satiated by the brutal, graphic depiction of an innocent man of Middle East decent, being humiliated, tortured and murdered.

Maybe the majority of Americans are descendents of a race of cannibals from another planet. Maybe the majority of Americans have an unquenchable bloodlust; that compels them to watch CSI or murder mysteries or serial murder documentaries or other gore ridden television series. That would explain why so many Americans are willing to pay ten dollars for a ticket to watch The Chainsaw Massacre or some other blood filled screening of human debauchery. Maybe that is why so few Americans are outraged at the Bush Torture Bill and the recent approval of that bill by the Senate and the House.

Almost everyone has seen the Abu Gharib pictures of American soldiers torturing Iraqis. Everyone has heard of the secret renditions and sending innocent people to Uzbekistan and other countries to be boiled in oil or castrated or raped and dismembered by their interrogators. Does this serve to excite Americans? Do horrid tales of human debauchery in the name of Christian virtues excite Americans into some barbaric chanting of worship to a demon god who demands human sacrifice? It would appear that way since no American congregations Catholic or Protestant have made any loud objections to the Bush Torture Bill or the American genocide of Iraqis and other Muslims. It appears that the Republican, fundamentalist Christian Base of G.W Bush is far more outraged by stem cell research, abortion rights and God Forbid, gay marriage than allowing the torture, brutal rape and slayings of innocent men, women and children in Iraq , Afghanistan and other Islamic countries. What kind of monsters are these good “Christian” people? What kind of horrible, criminal, creatures have we bred in this country?

There is a serious and terminal illness sweeping the United States. That illness I am sure has some technical medical term, but for the layman like myself who has recognized the disease in millions of Americans, I identify the illness as Aggressive Apathy combined with obsessive self indulgence. We are the only industrialized country in the world to still have capital punishment. We were founded on the economic ideals of Slavery, mass theft of land and resources and the complete genocide of its indigenous people. White Racism is the underlying philosophic principal of American public policies. The hatred of all other races has been apparent throughout our short history. Civil Rights were only allotted to Black and Minority Americans less than 40 years ago, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the American Civil War. Almost 200 years after the Declaration of Independence and the statement it made to the world that “All Men Are Created Equal”. We still haven’t lived up to that statement and are in peril of losing the rights that have been gained. I feel great shame. I feel a sense of great shame and disgust at the recent actions of my government and those who support the torture and mass killing of other peoples around the world by our military. I know no other term to explain my feelings other than shame. Perhaps American citizenship is not what it appears and never was? To be a” good” American we are told that we must not question Bush’s policies. We must not question the character of the men and women we elect to office. We must not question the election process; we must not question the media. We must look towards all other nations as expedient to our colonial and imperialist ambitions. We must support the genocide of all people who would stand in the way of our corporations reaping gluttonous profits. We must accept the indignity and harsh treatment of workers around the world and in our own country so that a few of our citizens may enjoy their lives of majesty and excessive wealth. We must accept the death and sacrifice of those who we conquer as a sacrifice for democracy. We must accept incompetence and criminality in our government as part of doing business. We must accept world hatred towards us and the rise in threats against our security. We must accept that we are to have no voice in our government and so those who are “good” Americans do exactly all the above. They do nothing but ravenously consume and keep themselves totally ignorant of their government’s involvements. They grumble only when the price of gas becomes too expensive or they can’t afford to get medical attention or Bush meddles with Medicare and Social Security. But war is fine, torture is fine, capital punishment is fine, because my priest and pastor and president say it is. That’s good enough for most Americans.

The United States of America has become the enemy of the world. We have become the mindless monster “God”-Zillah who wrecks havoc on all countries including our own as we smash cities and infrastructures of other nations and devour the defenseless populations around the world. We strike them from the sea, air and land and steal and destroy everything in our blind rage, fueled by our greed and sociopathic corporate – fascist nihilism , driven by ignorance , avarice and the basest traits of our primeval human character; all masked beneath the cancerous hypocrisy of democratic Christian virtue.

“America, America God shun his eyes from thee. Receive thy goods through torture, war and falsehood, from oil rich countries to oil polluted seas.”

L.A. STEEL