VII. We Must Withstand!

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.

Benito Mussolini

The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great
political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate
power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting
corporate power against democracy.

Alex Carey

Only in a society like ours the question of torture can be easily answered. We have one sole motivation: 'greed'. We all are subjugated by one master: 'I'. There's nothing else left and worse: after the deterioration of the 'I' there's nothing to provide for or care about...You can have it – you can have it only once – you can have it only now – go and get it.

Only in a society like ours you will find misers, shysters and apologist who can calculate and will the price of a human life. And consequently will tell you many lives are worth more than one. And only on an assumption like that you can seriously consider something like Dershovitzes 'torture warrant'. If we don't raise above the quagmire of corporatism we will not be able to detect the damage that is done to our wounded society even just by considering torture as a means of interrogation.

That something has the potential to be widely abused - and has been and is being widely misused - should not inevitably lead to its utter, universal, and unconditional proscription. Guns, cars, knives, and books have always been put to vile ends. Nowhere did this lead to their complete interdiction.

Sam Vaknin

Sounds nice – is bullshit. The American reluctance to restrict access to fire arms cannot be considered as the pure example of a successful policy. From a non-American perspective one might very well argue that the US-government is negligently omitting a ban on fire arms although they have proven to cause endless pain and suffering on human beings.

The damage legalized torture will inflict on our 'open' society need not be waited for. Will it be misused? Will it be grossly misused?

Until 1999 'mild physical pressure' was allowed in Israel to gain information from a suspect in order to safe lives, well actually hundreds of lives. In real life this turned out to widespread misuse.

We've got the answer.
We must withstand.

Per