Thursday, April 23, 2009

No-Man's-Land and Knowing Man's Land

Obviously our minds exist in a kind of "space," although this space cannot be like physical space (at least Newtonian space; quantum space is a different matter -- pun both intended and unintended).

As we have discussed in the past, the "space" of our conscious mind has some analogies with the Newtonian space of everyday life, whereas unconscious (or supraconscious) space is quite different (ultimately we are not just "in" this space but of it). However, we can only make an artificial distinction between conscious and unconscious minds, since each is always implicated in the other -- like the horizontal divide between right and left brain, or the vertical divide between neo-cortex and limbic system.

You might say that we are three (or more!) beings in one person. Somehow we have this unproblematic experience of a unified self (at least in mental health), despite the fact that it is constituted of so many innumerable parts.

In fact, as I outlined somewhere in my book, we can only have this unified sense of an individual self because we are intrinsically intersubjective -- just like the godhead.

So either the early church fathers who worked out trinitarian theology were proto-psychoanalytic developmental theorists, or modern psychoanalysis has unwittingly confirmed the intersubjective godhead. I obviously vote for the latter. The extraordinary implications of this have yet to be fully outlined by anyone -- i.e., the deep analogy between our intersubjective life and God's intersubjective life. Might as well start today.

What do we experience when we awaken to the world? For we never experience the world as such, only images of the world, like a multitude of snapshots. And yet, we again experience these images as a unity we call "the world." But we could never experience that unity unless we were first unified on an interior level.

In a certain very real sense, psychopathology consists in any breakdown of this interior unity. In extreme cases -- e.g., schizophrenia or real autism -- there is no longer any exterior unity, just one experience after another, with no way to synthesize them.

Ever had a panic attack? (You would remember.) Suddenly the world and/or the self are reduced to a blizzard of calamitous novelty. What happened to the unity? The containment? The coherence? The meaning? The future? The past? The depth? The surface? The other? For these are all aspects of one another.

In panic, there is no longer anything to cling to, no center, no axis. That's when you find out what it would mean if human beings weren't actually the center of the universe, because the alternative is too horrifying to conceive and tolerate, at least for very long. Suicide would probably be preferable for most people, because in such a hellish condition, death remains the only merciful boundary in the cosmos. At least it is an end.

Indeed, I recently evaluated a schizophrenic patient with just this problem. Although heavily medicated, he would nevertheless randomly cycle into periods of agitated depression for which the only solution was immediate suicide (he would have to be hospitalized on each occasion). You have to imagine yourself as utterly and irredeemably worthless, a complete burden on existence itself, an insult to the cosmos, a spit in the eye of God.

Thus, you can also see that a primitive form of justice remains: you shall die for this sin of existing! But that is all that remains: the sadistically omnipotent judge and the perverse satisfaction of executing oneself, either symbolically or literally.

As you can see, such a person is still "Three," but in an inside-out, upside-down manner, i.e., judge, criminal, and the unholy ghost of sadistic joy. You might think that this is an "extreme case," and it is. However, one thing I learned during my internship at a state mental hospital is that similar processes exist in the "normal" person, only in more subtle form.

To take an example that is readily at hand, Perez Hilton took perverse joy in executing the bitch/c*nt from California because she does not share his peculiar ideas about redefining marriage. Burn her! Death to the witch! He says that if he could have, he would have made her "the 51st runner up," i.e., a non-person symbolically outside the psychological bounds of the fifty United States.

Likewise, Obama and the insane left want to symbolically execute people who traded belly slaps and caterpillars for thousands of saved American lives. Madness. The secret psychotic madness of everyday life. Or "the left" for short.

Back to the images that confront us, through which we somehow intuit a cosmos, i.e., a coherent totality. Obviously, this is a kind of magic that the "raw stuff" of experience cannot pull off on its own. For example, Coondog knows nothing about any "cosmos." While she can judge, after her own fashion, she cannot judge her judgment, and that makes all the difference. She does not think to herself, "Hmm, that was a bit of an over-the-top reaction when the UPS man came to the door, wasn't it? Must check this tendency to bark first and ask questions later. I look as stupid as freaking Perez Hilton."

HvB writes that the image-world simulates "something that they themselves are not: a world. They suggest the idea of essence and existence, but they are neither. They have no essence, because they are nothing but surface with no depth. They are mere appearance and are thus incapable of displaying any interiority at all.... They are what they are, nothing more, this sweetness, this noisiness, this quickness, this colorfulness," etc.

A moment's introspection will inform you that this is how we come into the world (remama?), for HvB has just described the world of the infant, the inner coherence of which will only become apparent through the adventure of bonding and attachment with a sensitive and empathic other.

When you are consciously aware of this process, it makes parenting all the more fascinating, for you are not just watching a self come into being, but a -- the -- cosmos as well. No coherent interior self, no cosmos.

Again, one cannot help thinking of the intersubjective Word through which God eternally creates the cosmos. This "loving bond" between the two is prior to any creation -- just as it is with the human being. Or, one might say that it is creation. The great psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott wrote many papers on how the infant "creates" the world through the feedback loop of sensitive parenting.

The discovery of the interior cosmos is also the discovery of law, both the laws of matter and the laws of the heart. Conversely, for the schizophrenic person referenced above, his is a lawless universe, with no consistency or coherence. He can "assemble" a cosmos, so to speak, but he cannot access its a priori interior unity. He will desperately search for patterns and regularities, and cling to them for survival, but it is as if he must live in exile from being.

Here again, there is something eerily similar going on with the atheistic materialist, who clings to the surface at the expense of the real depth. Why does he do it? Is it some sort of genetic defect? Childhood trauma? Stupidity? Conformity? Pride? Resentment? Who knows. I don't think there's any general rule.

Everything happens in the transitional space between subject and object, or what we might call the "intersubjective third." Without something like this, "the images float without fixity between being and nothingness, just as they float with no fixed residence in a no-man's land between subject and object" (HvB).

But this is hardly a "no-man's land." Rather, it is "man's land" -- or knowing man's land -- precisely.

Long day ahead. To be continued....

129 comments:

julie said...

What do we experience when we awaken to the world? For we never experience the world as such, only images of the world, like a multitude of snapshots. And yet, we again experience these images as a unity we call "the world." But we could never experience that unity unless we were first unified on an interior level.See also today's Froth.

Back to reading...

Warren said...

Glad to see you've got David Bentley Hart on your reading list - another big fan of HvB. You two should get along well. "Atheist Delusions" is a marvellous book, though it gets a bit dry whenever Hart begins merely reciting historical facts.

Hope the Mrs. is enjoying her complicity in the International Papist Conspiracy For Global Domination (TM).

Anonymous said...

Good post today, Bob. I've always been curious about schizophrenia. What happens to the soul that gets stashed into the body which carries the disordered brain?

At some level in the schizophrenic person exists a connection with God via the psychic being or whatever term you want to use.

This element is immutable and eternal and therefore cannot be addled by schizophrenia like other elements of the being.

The question is, what is the psychic being's reason for partaking in such an unholy ride in a matter-body? What does it gain from it?

The assumption is all experiences are gathered and utilized by the psychic element (the reason to be here), with partial or full consent of the psychic element.

My being is quite untidy and disordered, for example. I have multiple poorly controlled mental conditions. Yet these very conditions seem to be fertile ground for advancement; they can be used to grow more faithful, more surrendered, more peaceful, more unified, and more sincere, etc.

But schizophrenia I don't grok. I just can't see how it can be turned to good account. What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Bob, on the use of the term "intersubjective"--

I was taught that intersubjectivity meant a sort of verification between separate interiorities, as when two persons regard a coffee mug in the break room.

One person says "I see a yellow coffee mug in front of me."

The other person then replies, "Yes, I see it too."

We then say that these persons have had an intersubjective experience because their thought content was roughly identical.

To plumb the depths of one's own interiority, without any reference to another, we we use the term "intrasubjective."

Djadja said...

Anonymous, on the use of the term "intersubjective," I think Bob has it right, because as he is using it, there is “reference to another.” When he says we and the godhead are intersubjective, it is with reference to the different, seemingly independent aspects of ourselves (conscious/subconscious) and the independent aspects of the godhead (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). So it is indeed a “verification between separate interiorities” out of which we can have depth in our oneness.

mtraven said...

Here's Bob's description of US government torture techniques: "caterpillars and belly slaps". What follows is excerpted from the report of the International Committe of the Red Cross. I know you folks here are big on Truth with a capital T. Clearly we have a choice of truths to make.

I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face....

I was then put into the tall black box for what I think was about one and a half to two hours. The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside.... They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury...

After the beating I was then placed in the small box. They placed a cloth or cover over the box to cut out all light and restrict my air supply. As it was not high enough even to sit upright, I had to crouch down. It was very difficult because of my wounds. The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in the leg and stomach became very painful. I think this occurred about 3 months after my last operation. It was always cold in the room, but when the cover was placed over the box it made it hot and sweaty inside. The wound on my leg began to open and started to bleed. I don't know how long I remained in the small box, I think I may have slept or maybe fainted.

I was then dragged from the small box, unable to walk properly and put on what looked like a hospital bed, and strapped down very tightly with belts. A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds was very painful. I vomited. The bed was then again lowered to horizontal position and the same torture carried out again with the black cloth over my face and water poured on from a bottle. On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless. I thought I was going to die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine when under stress.

On arrival at the place of detention in Afghanistan I was stripped naked. I remained naked for the next two weeks. I was put in a cell measuring approximately [3 1/2 by 6 1/2 feet]. I was kept in a standing position, feet flat on the floor, but with my arms above my head and fixed with handcuffs and a chain to a metal bar running across the width of the cell. The cell was dark with no light, artificial or natural.

During the first two weeks I did not receive any food. I was only given Ensure and water to drink. A guard would come and hold the bottle for me while I drank.... The toilet consisted of a bucket in the cell.... I was not allowed to clean myself after using the bucket. Loud music was playing twenty-four hours each day throughout the three weeks I was there.

This "forced standing," with arms shackled above the head, a favorite Soviet technique ( stoika ) that seems to have become standard procedure after Abu Zubaydah, proved especially painful for Bin Attash, who had lost a leg fighting in Afghanistan:

After some time being held in this position my stump began to hurt so I removed my artificial leg to relieve the pain. Of course my good leg then began to ache and soon started to give way so that I was left hanging with all my weight on my wrists. I shouted for help but at first nobody came. Finally, after about one hour a guard came and my artificial leg was given back to me and I was again placed in the standing position with my hands above my head. After that the interrogators sometimes deliberately removed my artificial leg in order to add extra stress to the position....

I do not remember for exactly how many days I was kept standing, but I think it was about ten days.... During the standing I was made to wear a diaper. However, on some occasions the diaper was not replaced and so I had to urinate and defecate over myself. I was washed down with cold water everyday.

Van Harvey said...

mtcraven said "I know you folks here are big on Truth with a capital T. Clearly we have a choice of truths to make."

No, because you assume there are 'truths' to choose from, you have no grasp of what is True, and what is merely what you want to accept.

Case in point,
"I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face...."

Use your awesome google-fu skills, and find out what the purpose of what was wrapped around his neck, and the actual status of 'the hard walls'.

Really, you are like a garbage ingestall.

Van Harvey said...

I suspect that by your standards of what passes for torture, any newbie aclu attorney would be able to build a case that you are torturing us with your torturous comments....

You fiend.

julie said...

Perspective.

I was going to say more, but really, this illustrates the point far better than mere words could ever hope to do.

julie said...

Or better yet, here. Scroll through.

There is no comparison.

Anonymous said...

Van,

Wow

vibrabl Theofilia

Anonymous said...

Djajda:

No, I don't think Bob is implying that the Godhead and we are separate interiorities. I think he implies they are permeable and we can inhabit the Godhead and it us; there are some internal barriers but its essentially one big room.

You can't do that with another person, as they are a truly separate interiority. You can't get into their heads.

So, intersubjectivity would refer to agreement between persons, and intrasubjectivity would apply to all inner exploration that overlaps with Godhead, etc.

Bob, if you even care, weigh in on this little quibble and lay it to rest.

Anonymous said...

What would believers be without a nonbelievers?

Van Harvey said...

"What would believers be without a nonbelievers?"

Less amused.

Anonymous said...

I think you folks greatly simplify what Obama is doing by releasing these memos. Remember, no one is to be prosecuted. Basically, he is decriminalizing it, as innoculating the American people so that they will tolerate his future plans to use it on future terrorists.
You all forgot that Bush and Obama work for the same family.

Anonymous said...

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9454

Rick said...

Bob, have you see the movie, “The Three Faces of Eve”? (I think) I stumbled on it recently via Netflix after having watched 12 Angry Men. One of the actors is in both movies, plays the psychologist in “Eve”… Joanne Woodward I thought did an amazing job switching from personality to personality on-the-fly..

JWM said...

So terrorists were humiliated, slapped around, and made uncomfortable.
Big. Fucking. Deal.
Tell you what, empty headed raven-
go ask Daniel Pearl about torture.
Or three thousand Americans who went to work on Spetember 11, 2001.

Oh, yeah. You can't.

But that doesn't matter to those of your infantile mindset. You have a death grip on your little torture meme, and you cling to it like a two year old with a blanket and a pacifier.

I told you from the first post: declare your obnoxious little self victorious, and go the hell away. You win. No one here can convince you of anything, and no one wants to try. Go tell everyone in the cafeteria that you won. Have yourself a victory party with hats and noisemakers. Just go. And take your bumpersticker comprehension of life, the world, and everything with you. No one here gives a rat's ass about anything you have to say. Why not go back and annoy Mencius Moldbug and his fans? Try LGF. Their registration is frequently open these days. You can have no end of fun annoying the lizards. Go troll away at Gateway Pundit. You've made an ass out of yourself here long enough.

JWM

Anonymous said...

Truth be told I don't click on most linkies.

Truth is, I was going to actually comment to what Bob wrote, but not gona happen after Van's 10:08 comment - hence, "wow" - as in "not impressed, not investing my time in this athmosphere."

And, by the way Van, if you think you'll never die, you are wrong. No duh, eh?

What do you think will happen to your "warrior" energy then? Like it or not, that is the part you that will take you to "like atracts like" energy domain after death of the matter-body.

I wrote a bit on this ("astral body") in my blog this day. Dare to read it;)
(spiritspeaks-theofilia.blogspot.)
If not, because of a thing you harbor towards me then ohwell. Free Will an' all, right?

*

Ok since I'm gabbing anyway I will comment on "What would believers be without a nonebelievers?"

What's a believer in the first place? The kind which uses Jesus' words to sound oh-so-cleverly superior before the nonebeliever? Or .... ? Maybe humbly, through kind words and proper action will show - demonstrate the ACTUAL Love of Christ flowing through him/her?
Maybe then the Disbeliver may think "hmm, maybe there is something to this..?" and becomes curious an' all.

When The Passion of Christ was playing back in the day, my daughter's non-believer friend saw it and was amazed . . . "And decided to read the bible. Decided to find out more who Jesus was ..."

Years ago I heard a Catholic Mass (in my native lingo on the radio -something I did now and then) and heard the priest talk about how he/church felt that if ever Jesus returned to live among us in flesh "He would suffer much more severly then before by the hands of those who call themselves Christians."

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

JWM,

Wow

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

JWM had a veritable tantrum there. The comment is "total hate," the verbal equivalent of "total war." Not pretty. The kind of emotion that burns everything to the ground and shoots all prisoners.

Waterboarding is wrong. If a couple of Taliban do it to a captured GI, it would be wrong. Turn it around, still wrong.

No matter how many dead, wrong is still wrong. Find another way.

A clean kill in combat is not wrong. Finito. Plenty of honor to go around. So, to slay terrorists in a hail of bombs or bullets is for the best.

If we capture a combatant or terrorist, we can just put them under our standard rule of law. Since when has that not been good enough? Its good enough for our domestic felons, and it gets the job done.

Jesus probably would ixnay the waterboarding. He is our highest available guidance, so why don't we go with it?
Are we so scared to die as all that?

I don't think the average American is that scared. Obama represents our courage, so his movements are right.

julie said...

Obama represents our courage

Speak for yourself there, champ. There is only One who represents my courage, or rather what I would like my courage to be.

(same comment, properly formatted. stupid line issues...)

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse said "And, by the way Van, if you think you'll never die, you are wrong. No duh, eh?

What do you think will happen to your "warrior" energy then?"
Never Die? "Warrior energy"? Where have I ever said anything remotely resembling that? WTF are you talking about?

Van Harvey said...

Sorry folks, should have read down to check and see if it was theobufoolia or not, before reading any of it.

Anonymous said...

Van,

Too chocked up to call me theofilia? Go figure, eh?

Theofilia

JWM said...

The comment is "total hate," the verbal equivalent of "total war." Not pretty.No, lamebrain. The comment is total annoyance with trolling idiots. It's total annoyance with fools who go out of their way to pick fights on line, and then react with faux hippier than thou astonishment when someone pitches a flameball at them. So spare us your sanctimonious tongue clucking. If I pitch a "Total Hate" flameball you will know it.

JWM

Anonymous said...

Julie,

Representing the Cause of Christ is done in words AND action. How many people lite up like a Christmas tree in Your Presence?

Theofilia

Gagdad Bob said...

To whoever it was who asked about it -- intersubjectivity is a term of art in psychoanalysis. That is how I am using it.

Rick said...

I wish I had a nickel for every time I told myself I wouldn’t respond – jokingly or otherwise – to the anons, impostors and weirdoes -- mostly because I can’t tell who the hell is who around here lately (besides we Raccoons, of course).

The guy with the “Jesus probably would say”-policy was pretty tempting.

But I did it. I think..

JWM said...

No matter how many dead, wrong is still wrong. Find another way.
And this comment says it all.
You would not pour water on a terrorist's head to prevent thousands of deaths. Because pouring water isn't nice, and those people would die sooner or later anyway.

Fool.

JWM

Anonymous said...

JWM,

In other words, the flame ball you threw already was only the tip of the iceberg? heh, I'll duck next time:)
Emotional releases are cool. It most likely means you kinda sorta may even trust on some level that you will not get 'shot down', eh?
xo;)

Theofilia

Van Harvey said...

...nags ... nags... nags....

Anonymous said...

And if we love, our love is neither from us nor is it for us.
If we rejoice, our joy is not in us, but in Life itself.
If we suffer, our pain lies not in our wounds, but in the very heart of Nature.

Kahlil Gibran from: Secrets of the Heart

Theofilia

lame duck said...

I believe coercion is necessary on some level for convicted terrorists in order to save lives, but we always have to be careful about the ethical lines. I personally don't think bugs in a cold room is torture, but it's only right to have any procedures done internally examined by the proper officials. However, it is extremely dangerous to have released the memos like that to the public. The head and former heads in the CIA have warned Pres. Obama as much. It will only strengthen and embolden the enemy.

That being said, I'm kind of miffed, too, at certain vitriol here on BOTH sides. What gives? I clearly see the trolls try to poke and prod for whatever the hell their reasons, but why lash out with such abusive language? There are forceful ways in dealing with these issues and the people (or trolls) with whom with we strongly disagree without it, aren't there?

I'll probably be lambasted for this, but I have to agree with Theofilia's sentiments today. There may be, just may be, someone in here reading, maybe someone who never even comments, that may get much knowledge and enlightenment from Bob's post and the rest of the Racoon's mostly insightful comments and opinions. But lashing out in some of these abusive ways could turn someone right off altogether. I love OC and the dialogue here, but I have to come right out and say that I'm turned off by that kind of thing, too. I'm not saying that you should be fluffy in your responses or sugar coat anything by any means, but Pete's sake guys, have some self respect and self control.

You guys are above that.


Sincerely.

JWM said...

Theo:
Generally, I'm an easy going sort. I would much rather take in the substance of the post of the day, and, if I had something to add to the discussion, add it. But it strikes me as preternaturally rude to show up here for the sake of yammering on about political talking points that have nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion at hand. And then to put on the condescending, faux indignance bit when their rudeness is returned measure for measure just adds insult to annoyance.
And to display such utter moral bankruptcy as anon at 1:16, and then try to claim the WWJD? highground is just more inversion that I can handle for one day.
So I uncork a little.
For what it's worth, I get a kick out the stuff you post.

JWM

Rick said...

Or…you could say we’re pretty sensitive to the whole torture thing. Unlike, well..you know..

Van Harvey said...

Lame Duck said "That being said, I'm kind of miffed, too, at certain vitriol here on BOTH sides. What gives?"

With the last few weeks of random typings which pass for comments from thefoolah, to go from, personally, I don't see any reasonable positions to disagree with. Assuming that you held to a position I disagreed with, I'd be more than willing, eager even, to discuss it out, and obviously 'abusive language' would have no place, nor would I have any interest in using it. I've disagree with some fellow raccoons on issues before, and I that has been the case.

Someone who merely blurts and prods and trolls... sorry, but, I'm not going to sweat over what some may wish to comment to them.

Btw, I don't think what I wrote was 'abusive language'... it was 'what the heck is this about?' language. That and personal embarrassment at having read one of its comments. I usually check for the asterisks, or scroll to the bottom... if thefoolya is there, I keep on scrollin'... but my name caught my eye, and I poked myself with it.

wv:woopole
Probably significant, but I've gotta go....

will said...

>>You [schizophrenic with breakdown of interior unity] have to imagine yourself as utterly and irredeemably worthless, a complete burden on existence itself, an insult to the cosmos, a spit in the eye of God.<<

I think this kind of massive psychological dysfunction is macro-manifested in much of today's eco-movements - that is, the notion that humans are no more than plundering interlopers on the earth, that the flowering of human civilization is actually a blight on the pristine Eden that was nature.

Reading some of these eco-priests, I come away with the feeling that they are actually hoping for the eco-apocalypse they predict, you know, the extinction of the human species. Talk about self-loathing and feeling that you're a burden to existence itself.

Anonymous said...

JWM,

Hey, you didn't feel so well the other day and couldn't go for your 6 mile walk. . . Take it easy on the exposing yourself to stuff which upsets you, eh?

The old ticker will be glad for it. And, double hey, you sure live in a beautiful part of California:) so close to the ocean siiiigh...

THis red bikini beach baby once upon, would have looooved to worship the sun by the Pacific:)

siiighing still, Theofilia:(

Anonymous said...

Van,

Yep, I was right about you. This "it" "thefoolah" person knows you dispise me.

But guess what? I'm not at all plugged in into the archetype of Devouring Mother. So relax, eh?

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

Van,

thefoolya has another suggestion.

If you really, really want to hate someone, check out the blog of
www.robertMasters.com

Theofilia

Rick said...

“If you really, really want to hate someone”

Way to rise above it, Theo. Eh?

Rick said...

I’m with you, Will. Not to mention they are some of the most rigid, uptight people I’ve ever met. They are their own projected impression of conservatives. At least the ones I’ve know(n). Don’t want to paint too wide a stroke :-)

julie said...

Will,
Talk about self-loathing and feeling that you're a burden to existence itself.

There is certainly that element, though I've often had the impression that what many of them really want is to get rid of everybody else, generally with themselves envisioned as the enlightened future of harmonious humanity. Eden would be so much more achievable without all the excess masses, but the garden will need tenders, doncha know.

In any disaster story, very few people identify with the canon fodder; they are incidental.

julie said...

(And since it apparently needs to be said today, of course the above observation is a gross generalization. Of course there are people who genuinely care about the environment but don't also hope for the regression and/ or destruction of humanity.

*sigh*)

Van Harvey said...

thefoolyah said “If you really, really want to hate someone….”

Not interested in hating, thanks anyway. Wish you’d go back to your extended comments, they’re easier to spot and scroll by, these short ones I can’t help but read in the first glance.

“…person knows you dispise me…”

Despise… no… doesn’t rise to that level either… annoyed about covers it. I think I made that clear early on, and from that point, I try to just collapse your comments and scroll on by. Just my preference, others are entitled to theirs of course, just as I’m sure many folks collapse mine and scroll on by.

No biggee.

But if you’re going to direct a comment at me, especially one that is, IMHO, foolish, I’ll reply, tweak, taunt or retort as I see fit. And no, quoting Gibran at me, or Shakespeare for that matter, isn’t going to change the quality of your own foolish, IMHO, comment.

Scrolling on…

Van Harvey said...

Julie, I wasn’t able to view those links earlier… horrifying.

What really rankles, is to suggest any equivalence between a gov’t such as ours, which goes to such lengths to examine, consider, struggle over whether or not the interrogations methods that were used, could be used… the limitations that were put upon them… requiring the approval of the President of the United States of America in order to, after considered review, ok it, not to mention the huge outcry and debate which is raised among We The People once we heard what was happening – to equate that … with the monstrous actions eagerly indulged in by the islambies (and I might mention, by many of those ‘appalled’ world leaders so loudly criticizing our actions, who routinely indulge in as much by their local police dept’s, not to mention what their secret police do to their own people, at their own discretion and pleasure )… is … just… asstounding.

Anonymous said...

Van,

Can you give a complete computer illiterate some suggestion on how to collapse comments? Sounds like going through the wormhole or some such eh?
It would be nice though to collapse you whenever I scroll by Lol.

theofilia

Anonymous said...

Theofilia,

Just curious, is Robert Masters an old boyfriend?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

As Mtraven, Obama and troll(s), and indeed, very many on the left and a few on the right have made clear:

They would rather see their loved ones, friends and fellow countrymen (and women) murdered by terrorists, than to see terrororists waterboarded or slapped around or made to feel uncomfortable or scared in any way.

Now, it's no secret I'm not partial to lefties, but I would (and have) put my life on the line for them (because there's still hope for them, although far less with idiots like Obama as President).

And, I would not hesitate to waterboard (or worse) any terrorist if I knew they had (or possibly had) information about future terrorist attacks (even on San Francisco or Hollywood!).

And I wouldn't feel guilty about it. Yeah, I know trolls, I'm so evil. Well guess what? People like you wouldn't survive for long if it weren't for people that didn't share your love for terrorists.
Do you think those monsters would keep you around for long? And make no mistake, they are not human they are monsters. And they would be giddy to show you what real torture is, firsthand.

mtraven said...

Apparently the best defense for torture you people can muster is that al Qaeda practices worse forms of it than we do. Their techniques are medieval, while ours are closer to the more sophisticated practices developed by the NKVD and other totalitarian regimes. So, let's pat ourselves on the back for being at the moral level of Stalin's secret police.

Rick said...

Van,
You said it.

Here’s what bugs me since we’re scraping things off our breast. (That’s a duck l’orange joke – see the smiley face? :-)

Do people actually think that people, scrape that, Americans soldiers would go through the daily, physical and mental abuse (and I’m just talking about what comes from the anti-war crowd) for years, and for little pay, life on the line, just to get the rare chance at maybe some brief kicks torturing helpless captives?

We all know what real torture is. And to say this water business is torture, to claim it, is wrong. For it is either to desensitize us to the truly, horrible, very real acts against innocent people, or it is to make the real thing so unthinkable for some they prefer to live as if it hasn’t happened –- like not showing the WTC towers coming down anymore, or the people jumping from it, or beheadings, or Bob’s abortion metaphor yesterday -- because it’s too shocking. We couldn’t stand it, or take it. That’s the point.

But how much more evidence does a reasonably intelligent person need than to see people like M/T and the anons come here day after day and never come to the defense of someone in or related to the American military, nor have anything good to say about this great country. I’m talking about meaning it. This is easy to do. There is so much good here.

But the likes of them are predictable: a bad guy is caught, and they fall all over themselves to be first in line to defend him at the expense of anything truly good the bad guy was trying to destroy. Don’t they think the bad guys have enough people worrying about them? How about the good guys for a change? Don’t they do anything right?
They fool themselves.

We are more than justified in the degree of our lashing out: What is being debated here shouldn’t even be debated. As if all this were some type of sport.

Van Harvey said...

Welll in the interests of keeping you from reading me... glad to help.

Here, in the comments section (where you type them in), look at the upper left, to the right of 'Show Original Post', there's a link that says 'Collapse comments' (toggles to 'Show all comments' after clicking it).

Once they're collapsed, you just click on 'said...' to toggle that names comment open or closed.

Ahhh... I feel better already.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"(*Sigh*)"

Yeah Julie, I know. For all the nuancy those on the left imagine themselves to have, they can keep you busy all day qualifying the obvious (well, obvious to those of us who aren't unhinged anyway). :^)

Rick said...

Ben,
You are a sight for sore eyes.
:-)

Skully said...

mtraven said...
Apparently the best defense for torture you people can muster is that al Qaeda practices worse forms of it than we do.

So...the defense of your dopey life don't count?

Van Harvey said...

mtcraven said "Apparently the best defense for torture you people can muster ..."

How would you know? Please, do not pretend that you even comprehend the words you use, let alone the arguments we have made.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hey Rick! How ya doin'? Good to see you! How was Mexico?

Van Harvey said...

Hey Ben! What Ricky said!

Rick said...

Hey Ben, good, my friend.
Mexico was good. The light was right where I left it 2 years ago: everywhere. Hard to take a bad picture there.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hi Van! Nice takedown, btw! LOL!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Rick-
I hope we get to see some of your pics. I've only been to Tijuana, but that's hardly representative of Mexico.

Anonymous said...

Van,

Waaaayyyy tooo complicated for lil' me.
Could you bring it down a couple notches where a red bikini babe can understand?

Theofilia

Skully said...

"But we could never experience that unity unless we were first unified on an interior level."

Our trolls, disliking the t standing there (perhaps it looks too much like a cross to them, I dunno) have replaced it with an f, thus the trolls are unified on an inferior level.

Rick said...

Thanks, Van.

Ben, I was way over on the other end – Yucatan peninsula. I’ll post some pics.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

We are more than justified in the degree of our lashing out: What is being debated here shouldn’t even be debated. As if all this were some type of sport."

Well said, Rick!

"But the likes of them are predictable: a bad guy is caught, and they fall all over themselves to be first in line to defend him at the expense of anything truly good the bad guy was trying to destroy."

Yep. Where was the lefties when Murtha called seven of our Marines "cold blooded killers," BEFORE their court martial?
And where were those lefties (and Murtha) when those Marines were exonerated?
Oh yeah, that's right, busy lookin' out for those poor terrorists.

Anonymous said...

Ricky 4:40

"Way to rise above it?" - for suggesting Van may read someone he may actualy like after all, because Robert Masters is a certified doc. of mental health medicine?

Theofilia

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

JWM said-

"It's total annoyance with fools who go out of their way to pick fights on line, and then react with faux hippier than thou astonishment when someone pitches a flameball at them. So spare us your sanctimonious tongue clucking. If I pitch a "Total Hate" flameball you will know it."

You got me on the edge of my seat, John! Bravo! :^)

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:40

Is curious if I know "if Robert Masters an old boyfriend."

Whose old boyfriend? I don't know a thing about his previous relationships other than his lovely wife of about 3/4 ish? years.

Theofilia

Skully said...

While she can judge, after her own fashion, she cannot judge her judgment, and that makes all the difference. She does not think to herself, "Hmm, that was a bit of an over-the-top reaction when the UPS man came to the door, wasn't it? Must check this tendency to bark first and ask questions later. I look as stupid as freaking Perez Hilton."

At least coondog can learn. To a greater degree than Perez Hilton I would wager.

Rick said...

Theo,

“If you really, really want to hate someone”

If I’m wrong, and I could be, I think you were implying Van really, really, is just looking to hate someone. That’s a little hypocritical.
But I could be wrong. As I said.
And mentioning the red bikini babe thing twice today is a little stalker-ish. That’s a friendly ‘tip’. Not saying you are, just that you may want to consider how it sounds.

Rick said...

My sensitivity training’s going pretty well, I think.

(No offense people of planet earth)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

It seems that since those on the left (primarily but not limited to) are so insulated from Reality, they can't comprehend the concept of sub-human, which is what terrorists and serial killers are.

In fact, many leftists would more likely label us as sub-human before they would an actual sub-human like a terrorist or serial killer.

It truly is a bizarro world where they live. That's probably why they are so shocked when Reality does mug them. I know I was. My entire world view, everything, God, how I viewed my self and others, my wife, my kids, everything was jarringly "out of place" and yet in the right place, or rather in their Real place when Reality mugged me. Instantly! I could see!

That's what the OC does everytime I read here.
Brings a dose of Reality to mug me. Of course, now it's a joy and not such a shock.

Thanks Bob! :^)

Anonymous said...

Ricky 7:50

I mentioned my red bikini-thang ONCE only for your info. If someone feels like digging ditches for me - by all means.

*

"The awakened defend nothing about themselves or anything in terms of the interpretive values of others."

Garwin Redman quote, from How To Save The World thread-topic posted this morn' by Jana (Heartmind.us)

Theofilia

Rick said...

Please forgive me.

RE the bikini incidents, please check 3:57 and 7:19.

“If someone feels like digging ditches for me - by all means.”

I don’t know what that means.

JWM said...

So, let's pat ourselves on the back for being at the moral level of Stalin's secret police.


So we are no better than Stalinist Russia? How about a fisking without a flameball. Let's try MTraven's position with a hypothetical.

We would agree that there are some evil people out there, would we not? And I mean Charlie Manson style evil. Or worse. Those who maim, rape, and torture women and children, because they get off on seeing others suffer.

Suppose one of those monsters had hold of your wife, MTraven. Or your three year old daughter. And suppose the police had the monster's partner in custody. How intense would you want the interrogation, MT? Perhaps you'd be willing to wait. Take some time, and allow the power of persuasion to work its gentle way- let the monster enjoy the use of your loved ones for a while because you don't want to be cruel to his accomplice. If, by some miracle, they got the guy, and your wife or daughter escaped alive, you could explain to her how important it was that you retained the moral high ground by allowing her to be raped and tortured for a couple or three extra days while everyone made sure that the accomplice wasn't being harshly treated.
Point is- there are gradations of evil. And sometimes the higher good is served by means that are less than perfect, or even less than good. Paradoxically, it's the moral relativist who puts all evil on a flat plane, who pretends to see no shades of gray in his black and white world. And equating America's tactics in this war with the daily practices of Stalinist Russia shows us that you are incredibly naive, breathtakingly ignorant, or that for some perverse reason, you willfully believe this stuff. Or, just as likely, you're just dangling that foolishness as flame bait, and hoping someone will bite.

JWM

Anonymous said...

Ricky,

Thanx . . .

The only time I mentioned my red bikini was in the post to JWM.

You don't understand my weird speak? no problem just ask. My 'digging ditches for me' translated means: If someone wants to make me sound like a bimbo, by all means knock yourself out.

*

Whilst at it, a word on the miss California comment on man/woman marriage because of her biblical corectness.
Now, if she's so into biblical corectness an' all, why did she choose to flaunt-display herself in such unbiblical manner in the pagent?

Theofilia

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Whilst at it, a word on the miss California comment on man/woman marriage because of her biblical corectness.
Now, if she's so into biblical corectness an' all, why did she choose to flaunt-display herself in such unbiblical manner in the pagent?

Theofilia

That ain't even wrong. Note: deflections don't work here.

Rick said...

I’m certain that what you say does not make me responsible for you looking like a bimbo.
…and I didn’t say bimbo.
…and I have no problems with bikinis. It was the strangeness of the appearance. Twice.
…and it was just a ‘tip’. You give suggestions. I’ve seen them.
…and you win.

Gutfeld said...

That is what happens when you take interrogation techniques off the table. Because all you have left is a group shrug, followed by tragedy.

Anonymous said...

Ben,

My comment on miss California's unbiblical display of herself is unbiblical. Read Jesus' words for verification.

Theofilia

Rick said...

Ben’s busy burning his red bikini.

mtraven said...

A few points which ought to be obvious, but obviously aren't:

- To be opposed to torture is not to be on the side of the terrorists. It is to be on the side of civilization and law.

- It is not only deranged leftists who describe US torture as torture. There is, for instance, former Army Major General Taguba.

- Even if you believe terrorists are sub-humans who deserve to be tortured, there is no guarantee that all of the people we have tortured were guilty of terrorism. There were no trials, no judicial review, no due process, no checks and balances. Even when the law is being followed scrupulously, innocent people get convicted and set to prision. How likely is it then, under the lawless conditions of the Bush/Cheney war on terror, that innocents were swept up and tortured? Here's one who was tortured to death, and there are a great many more like him.

- It is doubtful that any useful intelligence has been produced by torture in the War on Terror. It is, however, a very good tool for extracting false confessions to justify government policies. That appears to have been its chief purpose:

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration...There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said...The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that Chalabi and others had told them were there." - Torture is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. While naturally it is more important to bring to justice the higher officials who ordered these illegal acts, the Nuremburg Tribunals established the principle that following orders is not a valid defense for war crimes, so the soliders on the ground have to answer as well. I have some sympathy for soldiers in the very difficult position of having to choose between following their orders and following their consciences, but to deny them culpability is to deny their status as moral actors, which is a grave insult. Here's a story about one who was apparently driven to suicide over the choice.

ximeze said...

lame duck-

I lurked on this site for at least 6 months before making my first comment. Part of what I loved about OC was that the comments were real, not manicured to be nice ie: Meat, not Milk. Meat is not for everyone, but if I'd found Milk here, as can be found on so many sites, I would likely have moved on.

So altho some may be turned off by what bothered you, some as well may take Heart that here they may be able to articulate Meat & not be socially groomed into producing Milk.

Me, I'm a carnivore. And lactose intolerant.

Just say'n

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Rick-

Splork!

julie said...

:D
Nice musical selection tonight, Bob.

Rick said...

Sorry, Ben. It had to be done.

:-D

Anonymous said...

Lil Ricky,

For your info... I could have been Mz California had I been less of a prude and followed that path AND I added the Mmasters link because I'd previously spent time in a comune with his NOW wifey and thought Van could use the help eh?

Theofilia

julie said...

Okay, I have to ask the obvious: Is Frankie Yankovic related to Al? That would explain so much...

Rick said...

“To be opposed to torture is not to be on the side of the terrorists.”

We agree. Because the water business wasn’t torture.

And who said anything about deserving to be tortured?
We just want the information. I think we deserve the information. Because we don’t crash their planes into them.

“Here's a story about one who was apparently driven to suicide over the choice.”

Apparently?
Well, I’m convinced. Let’s pack it up boys.

hoarhey said...

mtraven,

In your last post you left out Haliburton.

Rick said...

“under the lawless conditions of the Bush/Cheney war on terror”

That’s a little waterboard…I mean overboard, don’t you think?

I’ll tell you, it’s a miracle you were never swept up, MT. A miracle. I mean, no laws? I’m always the last to find out. All those taxes I paid the last 8 years. For nuthin.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Rick-
I understand. I think it's lost on Miss (Ms?) Loonyverse though.

Gagdad Bob said...

Now you folks know why I always refer paranoid patients out.

Rick said...

Yeah…
I’m glad you got it though, Ben.
If it helps, I burned my bikini years ago. There. I said it.

julie said...

Just tell me you aren't one of those dudes who wear a thong, Ricky, and it's all good.

Question for Mrs. G - duck or sharks?

Skully said...

Bob-

But they really are after me!

robinstarfish said...

I just received a nice letter and thought I should share it with you [caution: spew alert]:

***

You vulgar little maggot.

You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a slug than be seen with you. You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beast who sired you and then killed himself in recognition of what he had done. Your daddy was a bastard, your mamma was a whore, and you wouldn't be here if the rubber hadn't tore. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you.

You have all the appeal of a booger. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood.

May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs. You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Sheep won't have sex with you––only trash such as yourself.

You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.
And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile, one-handed, slack-jawed, drooling, meatslapper. On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool.

You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of a used condom. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go. You smarmy lagerlout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oik artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have toe jam. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away forever.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid, so stupid it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me.

After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left.

***

That about covers the full range of insults, don't you think? If you need one, feel free to steal it. I did - this soliloquy from "the best of craigslist"...

'Nighty night, coondom! ;-)

Rick said...

It’s all good.
There. I said it.

:-D

Anonymous said...

I sometimes wear a thong Julie? I guess it helps me live vicariously since I followed the pious healer route rather than becoming the beautyqueen.
How bout' you Jules. you a thonger?

;)
Theofilia

Skully said...

Dojo-

LOLOL! Reminds me of me dear mother. Course, she said it with a smile. All in jest, y'know.

Brazentide said...

Here again, there is something eerily similar going on with the atheistic materialist, who clings to the surface at the expense of the real depth. Why does he do it? Is it some sort of genetic defect? Childhood trauma? Stupidity? Conformity? Pride? Resentment? Who knows. I don't think there's any general rule.The following may not directly answer your question, but it clearly explains much of the insanity today.

"... it is the property of sin to entangle him who commits it in the most glaring contradictions so that he is at variance not only with God, but also with good sense and sound reason."

- Fr. James Groenings, 1908

Van Harvey said...

Robin... wow... that must have been one horrific haiku to prompt that!

I kind of like the British & astronomical themes though....

Magnus Itland said...

THIS is what the current crop of guests (or would that be "party crashers") take away from the latest foray?

So the rest - the entire context, actually - is not only beyond their reach but actually so far away as to be invisible?

To quote a much younger online friend:
OMGWTFBBQ!

WV: kingses

JWM said...

Robin:
I just clicked on and as I scrolled down, caught the insult post somewhere in the middle. I actually thought for a moment that it was one of the trolls hitting my flame ball out of the park.
Funny stuff.
wv: soily. Was that on the list?
JWM

julie said...

Magnus, exactly.

Anonymous said...

Theofilia 10:08

Hey if your'e gona write-do me, at least git yer facts straight, eh? No matter, I like your spunk:)

Fact is, this babe does . . .

Nah, not going to spell it out instead will tell you my 'undies' story.

I was babysitting my 2ish grangrrrl. She was a proud undies-wearer by then, so at peepee time she asked me to sit her up on a "big toilet". . .
When all done, she said "Now you do it you don't have to take your undies off."

That was the toilet training system at home - mommy and her taking turns to pee.

I said "I don't have to do peepee what is the color of my undies?"

"Do it! you don't have undies"

"But I don't have to. What color are your undies?"

"Do peepee now. My undies are pink."

"What color are my undies?"

"You don't have undies do peepee!"

The bossy lil' thing:)
And I know for certain, her mommy wears pretty undies and everytning matches.
Psychic child? Ohyah

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

ximeze 9:10

She, who says is "lactose intolerant"

Here's what Thoreau has to say to on this very topic in one of his letters to Emerson:

"The world is a cow that is hard to milk -- life does not come so easy -- and, oh how thinly it is watered ere we get it!"

Just so happened I was given 'lines' this night to hook up with Thoreau (subtler mind thang) and on my blog wrote bunch of his wisdom nuggets. Care to see/hear? (spiritspeaks-theofilia.blogspot.com)

Theofilia

Mike O'Malley said...

Let’s see if MTraven has the moral integrity to extend his moralistic preening … ahhemm … moral critique of “torture” to a specific power figure on the Progressive Left: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D).


From the well known RNC front organization, the Washington Post, in 2007.


Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A01
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement." …

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

Anonymous said...

Mike,

Please pardon my off topic intrusion, but I recal reading that you are history-versed in early Roman Catholic Church. Ever since then I've been itching to ask you something - to ask you a strange question. Did you, and if, in your study-work come accross source-material about early Christains wearing blue ribbons for identification purposes, because of the blood-thirsty Romans.

I heard once only on CBC radio years ago, talk-interview with a Christian scholar who very casually mentioned the above. Mentioned, that the early believers in Christ "wore blue ribbons"

I was floored - as the saying goes - because years earlier I saw in mirror-image-reflection my "blue ribbon" of light (next to the skin.)
I coined that term "blue ribbon" because it looks exactly as it sounds. About a finger wide blue 'ribbon' of light.

From short journal-entry quote from May/94' "Saw my Etheric aura!!! Electric blue!" ("Electric", as in 'neon' light)

Couple of weeks later I asked my then 9 year old twin sons to take their shirts off to look-see, if they also could see theirs (In certain lighting. It was a tot. fluke that I happened to see that.)

One kept pocking his finger into it with "Oh cool! oh cool!"

The other, after a longish moment got all teary-eye and said "What is it?"

I'm thinking, they, or some one back then must have seen such blue ribbon also?
Coincidence, or not I find this fascinating . . .

Thank you for responding (nay, or yey) in advance if you see-read
this i.e.!

Theofilia

Mike O'Malley said...

Hmmm, I can't say I've ever heard of it. I've read much of pretty much every Biblical Archaeology Review and Bible Review ever published by the Biblical Archaeology Society along with other likely information resources where it might have turned up. I spend such time as I can on the period of "the partings of the ways" between Christians and Jews, the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD. But I might have missed it, or it might have been a local short lived practice. There is a lot of scholarship on the period that a non-amateur might know of.


You might want to try contacting that scholar on CBC.

mtraven said...

M-O-M: Yes, Democrats have an imperfect record on opposing torture. Obama isn't doing enough, and apparently neither is Pelosi. So what? Both of them are mainstream politicans and can only be counted as part of the "Progressive Left" by the debased standards of the right. Many of Obama's actions, such as futzing around with the issue of torture prosecutions are deeply disappointing for the left (but not surprising, at least to me). Greenwald has been doing a good job critiquing Democrats and he covers this particular tempest in a teacup today.

You seem to spend an awful lot of energy making no discernable point whatsoever, like your last posting about the Molly Maguires, which I could not be bothered to untangle -- you seem to say the Catholic Church excommunicated a group that didn't exist.

Anonymous said...

Mike,

Thanx so much for responding:)

As per suggestion I contact the guest-scholar from CBC interview is out of the question!
Why? I don't recal how many years ago I listened to that, (nameless now program,) but many . . . 8 or 9? More?

I didn't back then care one way or the other to get that verification, since I never - not in the million years - thought, "one day I will share this with the world and expect it to take my word for it."

No, not even close. . . But one of my students (also) saw this blue light one day - with eyes open in a sun lit room - during her hands-on practice session on me. She saw the blue light above my "right knee" .

Anyway, I suspect it could have been just a short- duration practice thing, more than likely in the more 'esoteric' circles. . . or something.

Thank you for responding again Mike!

Theofilia

Skully said...

"I'm thinking, they, or some one back then must have seen such blue ribbon also?"

Well, they did drink Pabst Blue Ribbon so maybe thats it.

Mike O'Malley said...

So MTraven, as it is clear that Nancy Pelosi knew and approved of this purported "torture" in her capacity of a Congressional leader under the War Powers Act etc., do you demand that Nancy Pelosi immediately:

1) resign from all and any public office,

2) resign from the Speaker's position (2nd in line for the Presidency during war time) and

3) recruse herself from any discussion, consideration and deliberation in regard to anything to do with adjudicating issues regarding "torture" and the War on Terror,

4) resign from or be expelled from the Democratic Party.

(Please recall that you yourself on your blog have already condemned Douglas Feith or these crimes. Feith acted only in a advisory capacity. Pelosi was one of a handful or two of the most important decision makers for this matter.)

*

As a matter of historical fact, the man you MTraven have already condemned argued and advised that GWoT prisoners be afforded protections under the Geneva Conventions. Speaker Pelosi as a decision maker and Congressional authority and officer approved of the purported "torture".


*

Regarding the excommunication of the Molly Maguires, you MTraven then concede the obvious that Bishop Woods did not excommunicate the strikers?

We can discuss later how Papes and Celts can be so much smarter than Rads in as much as the "excommunication" was both a tactical device to protect the Irish poor and laborers from their own justified anger and more immediately to protect them from the rage of the bigots.

Rick said...

“…do you demand that Nancy Pelosi immediately: 1) resign from all and any public office, yada yada..

Mr. O’Malley,

Allow me to translate MT’s future response.

Answer: No. She hasn’t completed her mission. She has much more damage to do to the scourge America right where she is.

Cousin Dupree said...

It would definitely require enhanced techniques to extract an honest statement from mtraven.

mtraven said...

M-O-M: If Pelosi knew about torture then she bears some culpability. The exact level of culpability is unclear to me; it's not clear exactly what she was told, how much she could act on the knowledge (since they were classified intelligence briefings) and how much responsibility she has relative to the executive branch who planned and carried out the program. What needs to be done is to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these crimes; this prosecutor should be just as willing to investigate and charge Democrats as Republicans. I hope this satisfies you; if not, tough.

I still have absolutely no idea what you are getting on about with regards to the labor disputes 19th century Pennsylvania, so maybe you can pull yourself together and coherently try to make a point.

Anonymous said...

Skully 12:54

sheesh, are ya like flirtin' with me or somtn'?

Theofilia

Cousin Dupree said...

Mtraven would make Madame Defarge proud.

Mike O'Malley said...

If Pelosi (D) knew!

Some responsibility! Some responsibility!

The exact level of culpability is unclear to you, MTraven!

How could she act on the knowledge?!

Pelosi (D) KNEW

Pelosi (D) APPROVED

Speaker Pelosi (D) is a CONSITUTIONAL OFFICER IN THE LINE OF SUCCESSION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Did you ever think of reading the United States Constitution to recall just how Representative/Speaker Pelosi (D) could act?

How about conflict of interest? Speaker Pelosi (D) has been wiping up the lynch mob into a frenzy for months and months!

Yet you CONDEMNED Douglas Feith (R), and you CONDEMNED Dr. Godwin and his guests! YET you don’t know the exact level of Speaker Pelosi’s (D) culpability!

Should we go to your blog MTraven and see again how you presumptively condemned an innocence Bush administration official? Or how you most uncharitably condemned Catholics who opposed killing children by burning their all of their skin off with acid until the children die; murdering a baby by sticking a pair of scissor in the back of a baby’s head!

Yet the exact level of Speaker Pelosi’s (D) culpability is unclear to you!

.

And if I don’t like it “tough” you say, during war time when a genocidal enemy intends to kill us all ... kill or enslave my family!!! “tough” you say!


Sir, how on earth can you face yourself in the mirror each morning?!

Cousin Dupree said...

Love it: "President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney."

Serves him right for trying to appease the matraven kook fringe.

mtraven said...

M-O-M, you sound completely deranged. I know it's tough to try to string thoughts together in a logical sequence, but maybe you could put a little more effort into it for the sake of dialog.

M-O-M said...

Yes my little darling. Here, take one of these.

Anonymous said...

mtraven,

You must be one of those coool west coast anarchists.

Skully said...

Cousin Dupree said...
Love it: "President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney."

Especially when Obambi don't even have a pair.

julie said...

Heh - I wonder, will there be another "produce the documents" tally on Opinion Journal?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I like the cut of Gerald Warner's jib.

Mike O'Malley said...

Sans my rhetorical drama, I'll reiterate for you MTraven.

.

Pelosi (D) KNEW

Pelosi (D) APPROVED

Speaker Pelosi (D) is a CONSITUTIONAL OFFICER IN THE LINE OF SUCCESSION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Did you ever think of reading the United States Constitution to recall just how Representative/Speaker Pelosi (D) could act?

How about conflict of interest? Speaker Pelosi (D) has been wiping up the lynch mob into a frenzy for months and months!

Yet you CONDEMNED Douglas Feith (R), and you CONDEMNED Dr. Godwin and his guests! YET you don’t know the exact level of Speaker Pelosi’s (D) culpability!

Should we go to your blog MTraven and see again how you presumptively condemned an innocence Bush administration official? Or how you most uncharitably condemned Catholics who opposed killing children by burning their all of their skin off with acid until the children die; murdering a baby by sticking a pair of scissor in the back of a baby’s head!

Yet the exact level of Speaker Pelosi’s (D) culpability is unclear to you!

.

And if I don’t like it “tough” you say, during war time when a genocidal enemy intends to kill us all ... kill or enslave my family!!! “tough” you say!


Sir, how on earth can you face yourself in the mirror each morning?!

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