Sunday, December 11, 2005

Torture on my Mind

Image from a Yule card I received last year. My thanks to the artist for gracing us with such beauty as I write on what is not.

Torture on my Mind

Torture and confessions... what wouldn't you say if pain is being, has been, mercilessly inflicted? Humans are not meant to feel pain except as a safety mechanism to initiate a flight response.

Who are the torturers? What evil have they survived to be able to inflict wounds, degradation, misery, and pain in unrelenting, methodical, and organized ways on another human being?
Who are the people that order the torture?
Who authorizes the use of torture?

It is criminal to abuse a child, so, how can it be morally justifiable to abuse an adult? Even the worst person does not deserve to be tortured. No justice is served and the debasment of Humanity is perpetuated. We do ourselves injustice when we allow there to be people in our sphere of influence who we will say deserve treatment other than we ask for ourselves. Have we forgotten The Golden Rule?

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

How do torturers resolve this?
How do their confessors?
How do those who support torture in any instance resolve this?

Do we not remember what it is like to be a child, innocent and accepting?
Perhaps we could agree to display The Golden Rule in public places. And especially in all the secret, non-existing government "facilities", and military intelligence gathering training manuals, and police protocols, and... how about high school bathrooms? I invite you to offer your ideas for more good places to have the Golden Rule posted as a reminder to all who call themselves human.

To call on God to Bless any "mission" that uses "whatever means are necessary" to achieve suspect ends is an abomination. How can we stand for a president to call for our laws to give him torture as a way to "get the job done"?

~A Nightmare:

The final act: evil metal devices worn on my torturer's thumbs... his right thumb pressing into my left temple, causing pressure... no doubt damaging pressure on my brain, my balance? My thinking? Torture on my mind, my brain, literally. How deeply will my torturer press? What must I say to make it stop?

I broke the dream to stop the damage.

The prayer of all tortured was granted me,
"Please let this be only a nightmare that I'll wake up from".
~Blessedly, for me, it was just that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Though we won't stop it, we must continue to say no at every opportunity. Feel nothing but appalled. Applaud Republican McCain for having the cajones to remain steadfast in his "NO". And tell you, yes, I agree.