Bookmarks... 08/27/2009

• The Politics of Twitter | techPresident

  tags: twitter, web2.0, Politics

• The Mysterious Eleventh Torture Technique: Prolonged Diapering?

  tags: CIA, Interrogations, US, Human rights, Tenet, Torture

  • The 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on torture says clearly that in 2002, the CIA proposed to the Justice Department the use of eleven “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Ten of them got the approval of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002 in the infamous Jay Bybee/John Yoo memo declassified by the Obama administration in April: the attention grasp; walling; the facial hold; the facial or insult slap; cramped confinement; insects; wall standing; stress positions; sleep deprivation; the waterboard
  • But what happened to the eleventh?

  • Take a look at Appendix E, Tenet’s January 28, 2003 memorandum on guidelines for both “standard” and “enhanced” interrogations. Tenet’s list of “enhanced” techniques, you’ll notice, number eleven:

    
    

    These techniques are, [sic] the attention grasp, walling, the facial hold, the facial slap (insult slap), the abdominal slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation beyond 72 hours, the use of diapers for prolonged periods, the use of harmless insects, the water board

  • Tenet considered “the use of diapers for limited periods (generally not to exceed 72 hours)” to be a “standard” technique
  • In the Draft Guidelines issued September 4, 2003 by the CIA’s Office of Medical Services, there’s another list of both “standard” and “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

• When workers run the state | SocialistWorker.org

  tags: Socialism, Socialists, socialistworker.org, State, Marxism, Class, Classics

  • required to abolish the capitalist mode of production
  • a state is necessary to maintain this society with its relations of production, in these cases to establish and preserve the dominance of the exploiting class over the exploited
  • And since the majority of people itself suppresses its oppressors, a "special force" for suppression is no longer necessary!
  • semi-state
  • Extensive measures are taken by the mass of workers to prevent the rise of a privileged, entrenched bureaucracy and to ensure that these institutions are truly accountable to the will of the majority: the replacement of the standing army and police, elected representatives subject to instant recall and paid average workers' wages, etc.
  • The institutions of working class rule, the rule of the exploited majority, have a primary aim: the abolition of exploitation

• Tanta Flax Workers Demonstrate In Tanta

  tags: Tanta, Flax, Egypt, workers, طنطا, الكتان, مصر, عمال

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.