Twisted Movie Monday: Torture and Hope

First, as you know, I let Friday slip by. On Saturday, I seemed to be nursing an MSG buzz (I am so allergic to that stuff.) And then there was Sunday and I picked up on President Obama’s reported statement that his administration would not pursue prosecuting those responsible for creating and implementing the torture policies of the Bush II administration.

Liberals and progressives are debating this policy in the comments at The Huffington Post online. This one put it succinctly: If this Congress and President Obama don't begin thorough investigations into these war crimes -- then they are complicit and become war criminals themselves. I love Barack -- but I will not tolerate this nonsense.

They water boarded one guy 183 times in one month! That’s 6 times a day! The mind boggles.

Torture is wrong. It shouldn’t be done by sick individuals; it shouldn't be done by a government. And please, no straw dog of: Well, if you could get information about your loved one by torture....

It’s wrong. It’s not about whether your adversary is a villain; it’s about you not become a villain also. Period. I would like to say it makes the human doing it into an animal but I think that’s insulting animals.

So I guess I was feeling pretty low by Sunday night: bailed out banks are cutting their lending; pictures of shoppers at the malls with captions of Confidence Returns; clips of the "tea parties" from last Wednesday and watching and listening to the hatred, the racism, the meanness always alive in this country and always finding a camera to play to.

And then I stumbled on Bill Moyers’ Journal. Truth be told, I watch Moyers planning to get depressed. He interviews the people who seldom make the “popular” shows for in-depth interviews because they are the thinkers, not the showboats. And thinking about this country could only make you depressed.

Moyers was interviewing David Simon, creator of The Wire, probably one of the best series ever on HBO and the best series depicting inner city life and all its trappings.

He’s definitely an angry, bright, articulate man. When he said, to paraphrase: Unless you use capitalism for social needs, you get a Ponzi scheme; he had me. This guy gets it.

Then he went on to talk about the fact that without a manufacturing base there is no need for lower level decently paid jobs and therefore no need for the poor. They become throw-away people and we do throw them away into privately run for profit prison systems or onto the mean streets to be corralled and controlled by the “guys with the guns” to live in poverty and drugs.

It bothers him; he’s not optimistic that we can change; but he cares. By his writing, by The Wire, he shows the American people the cancers within.

Go read his Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Rent, buy or use your library to get The Wire. You may squirm but knowledge should move you beyond your comfort zone.

As you know, I’m wary of heroes but I’m beginning this week with hope. It’s good to know Simon is here and writing.