Readers:
In a day in age where presidential polyps and socialites' incarcerations are the "headlines" picked by the regular news media, we at The Ranting Taint strive to provide a platform for the analysis of the newsworthy events and actions that occur everyday but do not get their deserved attention.
The subject matter covered in the Taint varies as much as your iTunes playlist, but we strive to challenge the reader to think and question with a dash of humor, slice of opinion, cupful of social consciouness blended with independent studies, and whatever else the receipe requires.
So we welcome and invite you along on this little excursion we like to call The Rainting Taint.
Enjoy!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Fingers & Elected Officials
I was using my index finger to scratch my head, wondering exactly what elected officials do. It seems that they were quick to point their index fingers and blame every Middle Eastern/Arab they could find after September 11. Next thing you know, ALL OF THEM (except Russ Feingold) got the itchy trigger finger and took away my damn civil liberties. So, today I extend a middle finger to each elected official who has yet to vote to completely repeal the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, because it seems they have too much time on their collective hands to deal with the issues of their constituency. So just what are our elected officials doing?
If you live in Memphis they could be lobbying hard to get Justin Timberlake or The World's Biggest Fish recognized (see above clip).
Or they could just be pissed that half of their favorite baseball players are struggling to make it through another hot summer with "'Roid Rage."
If baseball's not their cup of tea, maybe they're engaged in diplomatic talks with China...for a 7-foot power forward.
Then again they could be trying to protect capitalism as we know it by blocking the XM/Sirius merger...so they can pursue a more lucrative deal for the team they happen to own.
If you're a gearhead, fear not. Your elected official could just be M.I.A. because they can't figure out how to get an iPhone on their Verizon account.
If any or all of this comes as news to you, I suggest you use the index finger nearest to the right button on your mouse and do some clicking. Then you might want to use your other nine digits and shoot a letter or e-mail to your elected official. If you don't, there's a very good chance that you have your opposable finger (commonly referred to as a thumb) in your a...ahh, you get the point. In closing, I offer the index and middle finger-PEACE.
Friday, July 20, 2007
What We Don't Know Won't Hurt Us, But It Still Hurts
Torture exists. America tortures.
Americans don't want to know, because "what we don't know won't hurt us." The fact of the matter is that it still hurts...maybe not us directly.
If we don't look or attempt to "know", it will hurt America's ill-fated reputation internationally and Americans alike by association.
The revelations of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and more recently at Guantánamo were shocking to most Americans. And those who condemned the treatment of prisoners abroad have focused on U.S. military procedures and abuses of executive powers in the war on terror, or, more specifically, on the now-famous White House legal counsel memos on the acceptable limits of torture.
Vanderbilt's own Colin Dayan argues in her new book The Story of Cruel and Unusual that anyone who has followed U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment would recognize the prisoners' treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo as a natural extension of the language of our courts and practices in U.S. prisons. In fact, it was no coincidence that White House +legal counsel referred to a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s in making its case for torture.
The Eighth Amendment outlaws cruel and unusual punishment, but, as Dayan explains, a series of Supreme Court rulings has increasingly narrowed the definition of “cruel and unusual.” According to these precedents, a prisoner is protected only from an actual sentence designed to cause excessive pain, or from wanton, deliberate cruelty—from an act, that is, designed specifically to cause pain, and with the infliction of pain as its primary purpose. Any other kind of mistreatment, even if it is clearly cruel, is permitted as long as it is deemed necessary for security, confinement or the enactment of a legal punishment. It’s OK, therefore, to shackle women inmates during childbirth, subject a condemned prisoner to multiple execution attempts, or psychologically cripple offenders through perpetual solitary confinement—all practices currently permitted in the U.S. penal system.
Dayan argues that these precedents—particularly the Supreme Court’s insistence on harmful intent as a measure of culpability—created the framework for the infamous “torture memos” of 2002, in which the Bush administration sought to define the limits for lawful abuse of terror detainees. In effect, says Dayan, the memos declare that an interrogator cannot be held responsible “if he had a ‘good faith belief’ that whatever he did would not result in mutilation or death. The results—a mutilated, blind, or dead body—get defined away by the vain search for intent.” In other words, almost anything short of overt sadism or premeditated murder would not meet the legal standard for abuse. Such reasoning may be repulsive by any sensible ethical standard, but according to Dayan it is firmly grounded in American law.
I just thought you should know.
Americans don't want to know, because "what we don't know won't hurt us." The fact of the matter is that it still hurts...maybe not us directly.
If we don't look or attempt to "know", it will hurt America's ill-fated reputation internationally and Americans alike by association.
The revelations of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and more recently at Guantánamo were shocking to most Americans. And those who condemned the treatment of prisoners abroad have focused on U.S. military procedures and abuses of executive powers in the war on terror, or, more specifically, on the now-famous White House legal counsel memos on the acceptable limits of torture.
Vanderbilt's own Colin Dayan argues in her new book The Story of Cruel and Unusual that anyone who has followed U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment would recognize the prisoners' treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo as a natural extension of the language of our courts and practices in U.S. prisons. In fact, it was no coincidence that White House +legal counsel referred to a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s in making its case for torture.
The Eighth Amendment outlaws cruel and unusual punishment, but, as Dayan explains, a series of Supreme Court rulings has increasingly narrowed the definition of “cruel and unusual.” According to these precedents, a prisoner is protected only from an actual sentence designed to cause excessive pain, or from wanton, deliberate cruelty—from an act, that is, designed specifically to cause pain, and with the infliction of pain as its primary purpose. Any other kind of mistreatment, even if it is clearly cruel, is permitted as long as it is deemed necessary for security, confinement or the enactment of a legal punishment. It’s OK, therefore, to shackle women inmates during childbirth, subject a condemned prisoner to multiple execution attempts, or psychologically cripple offenders through perpetual solitary confinement—all practices currently permitted in the U.S. penal system.
Dayan argues that these precedents—particularly the Supreme Court’s insistence on harmful intent as a measure of culpability—created the framework for the infamous “torture memos” of 2002, in which the Bush administration sought to define the limits for lawful abuse of terror detainees. In effect, says Dayan, the memos declare that an interrogator cannot be held responsible “if he had a ‘good faith belief’ that whatever he did would not result in mutilation or death. The results—a mutilated, blind, or dead body—get defined away by the vain search for intent.” In other words, almost anything short of overt sadism or premeditated murder would not meet the legal standard for abuse. Such reasoning may be repulsive by any sensible ethical standard, but according to Dayan it is firmly grounded in American law.
I just thought you should know.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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