I was sent this article by a commenter on October 29, 2007 and re-published it on my own blog.

After reading some of the comments in the past day or so to Big Tent Democrat's post CNN: Torture As The Punchline, I am re-posting the article here because I think it is an important enough subject, and I think that the experiences of Rev. Fred Morris are things that need to be known, and the responsive actions of Foreign Service officer Richard Brown are valuable educationally.

My own opinion of torture is that it is an utterly indefensible and unquestionable evil, and my own opinion of people who excuse or support or condone torture or attempt to obfuscate and confuse definitions of torture is that they are beyond debating with. Torture is morally, ethically, and legally wrong, and it is a travesty that it is now being "debated" in mainstream media as if to condone it is "just another opinion as valid as any other".

To those people I ask "What would the child you once were think of the adult you have become?". Perhaps they should ask themselves that question.

Please read Rev. Fred Morris' article.

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"As we are now facing the horrifying spectacle of our president, vice president, Secretaries of State and Defense and Attorney General all making torture a "legitimate" weapon in our arsenal against international terrorism, I ask, Where is Richard Brown when we really need him?"


In 1963, Fred Morris became a missionary of the United Methodist Church to Brazil, where he spent eleven years. As the result of his journalistic activities and his close association with Archbishop Câmara, who was the leading opponent of the Brazilian military, who had overthrown the democratically-elected government in 1964, he was kidnapped by the Brazilian army in 1974 and spent 17 days in their torture chambers in Recife before being expelled by presidential decree as a person "prejudicial to national interests." On his return to the United States, Time published a two-page first-person account of his experiences entitled     Torture, Brazilian Style (Nov. 18, 1974). He subsequently appeared on the  Today Show  and more than 25 other TV talk shows in the U.S. and Canada. He testified before the U.S. Congress and lobbied for human rights in Latin America in Washington for nearly two years, and published another story in  Harper's  (October, 1975  'In the presence of mine enemies')

"Where is Richard Brown when we really need him?"
By Rev. Fred Morris

10/26/07 "ICH" -- -- The story of a young Foreign Service officer who risked his budding career to defend a principle and the honor of the United States

Intro: In the fall of 1974, I was being tortured by members of the Brazilian army in Recife, Brazil, led by officers who bragged about having been trained at the School of the Americas (then in Panama). When I was kidnapped from my home in Recife, (Time, November 18, 1974 and Harpers's, October, 1975) on September 30, 1974, I did not expect to survive. Since the CIA-sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected president of Brazil, João Goulart, in April of 1964, hundreds of Brazilians had been "disappeared" by the military security forces in their ongoing war against "international Communism" and its alleged collaborators within Brazil.

CNN:

The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered that Genarlow Wilson be released from prison, ruling 4-3 that his sentence for a teen sex conviction was cruel and unusual punishment.

Wilson was imprisoned on a 10-year sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year-old when he was 17.

This article by Ginger Thompson in Wednesday's New York Times gets to the heart of why Bush's newly announced policy towards Cuba  - which is really more of the same and nothing new - is essentially dead on arrival:

Act Blue has gotten into state races in the last year, but they hadn't come to Colorado yet for one simple reason.  Legally, Act Blue can't operate on a state level in Colorado as current law prohibits an intermediary transfer of funds.  So, I created what's known in Colorado as a Small Donor Committee.  In the works for almost a year, finally the i's are all dotted; the t's are all crossed.  The SquareState Small Donor Committee is here.

We've done pontificating, pointed out the failed policies of the extreme right wing, mobilized voters, coordinated grassroots action, and even fundraised for federal races.  It's time to help those local candidates we want to see in office in our somewhat square state.  Let's show (current CO-GOP chair)Dick Wadhams that this isn't the same state the last time he was here.  All the progress made in the last few years, we're just getting started.

"All that god-king Xerxes requires is this: a simple offering of earth and water." (from the movie 300)

"Xerxes betrays a fatal flaw: Hubris. Easy to taunt, easy to trick." - Dilios (from the movie 300)

You may have seen this story in the USA Today, `Most fake bombs missed by screeners`.

Despite 9/11, nothing has changed.  Those in the field of EOD and bomb investigation have known this since, well, forever.

You know what really bothers me about this?

In the real world, if one cannot make a living doing one line of work, one finds a different line of work. One shouldn't expect the government to prop up your desire to continue to do business in this fashion as this man appears to believe:

I originally wrote this Mar 22, 2007, as a DailyKos diary, but, thought given how out-of-control law enforcement has become, it deserved a reprint and update here as well.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. - First Amendment of the Constitution.

So, if the First Amendment gives all American citizen's the right to assemble peaceably, how are anti-war protester's being arrested?

I love City of God, Fernando Meirelles' brilliant look at life in the eponymous favela. One thing that it it paid little attention to, however, was the role of the police. Just released in Brazil is a new film titled Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) and as Alexei Barrionuevo notes, it confronts this issue directly.

Alexei Barrionuevo has an article in Saturday's New York Times about a potential energy crisis facing Argentina, Chile and Brazil. What is notable about the article is the utter failure of the leaders cited in the article to look aggressively at alternative methods of generating energy, some of which are under their noses.

How low has law enforcement fallen?  So low, that an officer who was fired for indecent exposure was recently rehired by the same department he was fired from.

The State newspaper in South Carolina has this article on it.

This is truly unbelievable.