Friday, May 15, 2009

Mr. Cheney


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One of the latest headlines, from UPI, on the Internet is "Strategists Stymied by Cheney's Stature."
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Mr. Cheney selects interviewers who won't press him on the most basic, insoluble contradictions. He cheerfully admits that the U.S. used water-boarding, and just as cheerfully asserts that the U.S. doesn't torture. How is water-boarding not torture? According to Cheney and the "legal" memos, it isn't torture because they said so. I think I'll rely on my eyes and ears, which have witnessed the videotape of water-boarding, and on someone like Jesse Ventura, who has been water-boarded. Interviewers shouldn't let Mr. Cheney even get to the question of whether torture "works." They should just keep asking how water-boarding isn't torture. And keep asking. And keep asking. Until and unless he walks off the set--or resolves the basic contradiction.
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Mr. Cheney
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How do you unplug a former Vice President
of the U.S.A.? You don't. He is like a large
refrigerator with nothing good to offer from
inside. He turns lies into ice-cubes:
We used "enhanced interrogation techniques"
like water-boarding, which isn't torture because
we don't torture, unless you count near-drowning
as torture, along with sleep-deprivation, beatings,
and other "enhanced techniques," which is the
language of those who order torture, which saved
us from being attacked, after-torture-because-of-
torture being the logic--the logic, I tell you, so
shut up! The refrigerator opens its doors. Words
come out. The former Vice President is
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an American appliance. He runs on American power.
Hear the ice-cubes tumble from his brain to his mouth?
An ice-cube melts into a lie. The interviewer laps it up
like a dog. The refrigerator watches the dog. People
watch the refrigerator and the dog. It is a TV show.
It is a former Vice President of the U.S.A. "Children,
can you say 'above the law'?"
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

1 comment:

Hartshorns said...

Hi Hans,
I keep meaning to write to you to ask if you're familiar with Leonard Cohen and, if so, what you think of him. Do you know of his work? We went to his concert a couple weeks ago (AMAZING) and are pretty infatuated with the album that has come from the tour (Live in London). Have you heard his music/poetry?
-anya