http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/01/noam-chomsky-killed...

All going triumphant with a score to back it, round a corner, cannons in your face. Wha' happened to the score?*

Current POTUS and especially the Vice aren't huge fans of torture like before icydka, maybe, just maybe that might have something to do with Unqualified Reservation's lack of hearing about the US' role in torture.

So why was that writer hearing so much less about torture after its favorite fans were out of office and very possibly not replaced by different fans of torture?

*a hobbit free pop culture version of the pompous stream-of-consciousness/Kafka writer quoted above (apartment probably has a 10,000+ page collection of hundreds of novellas set in the same fictional universe)

the worst part was a very stupid gloss on power and civil disobedience.

There is so much Conspiracy Posting, surprising really, over at IMDB on the Zero Dark Thirty Board, that from time to time, I have to respond to the idea that Osama bin Laden wasn't killed in the raid on the Abbattban Copound...But@!

It works here too because, I have a 4th reason now that I'll add on as a PS here:

Raised Eyebrows, but the Conspiracy Theorists have a Point....I don't believe this for an instant, but this is how it would work:

1. Maya confirms OBL's death because she is compelled too from internal forces at work within her own psyche; (10 years of her life, obsession, finally she, unlike Ahab upon whom she is modeled, has her kill, etc, etc)

2. DNA does Not match, but CIA confirms OBL's death because nobody wants a war with Pakistan, (seriously nobody wants to go into the question of the US violating sovereign territory and killing some random guy...btw, Pakistan knows but also agrees with the no war scenario);

3. Al Queda confirms the death of Osama bin Laden, because OBL instructed them to do so, in that he does, with full sincerity, want the CIA to stop searching for him.

The Conspiracy Theorists may be nuts, but there is a logic behind their musings.

Lastly, and most importantly, Ms. Bigelow filmed the ending exactly in this fashion to leave open this possibility. This is how art is made, with side glances that look to be full on, with ambiguity shrouded in mystery.

Great Movie (Oh, a final lastly, the burial at sea and quickly were both entirely legitimate...you want no place to be worshiped, and the quicker and more respectfully done, the better. So this part of any conspiracy does not work)

Best Wishes, Traveller

PS: OBL wasn't killed at Abbattban. This was covered up so that Mr. Obama could claim credit, American's could celebrate in the streets across this great nation and, Democrats forever more could shuck off the sniveling-at-war-reputation that has been unfairly, albatross-like, strung round their necks, be seen as sufficiently martial in the testicle department, and finally so Barak Hussein Obama could be elected to a second term as the President of  the most powerful nation on earth!

A Win-Win-Win!   

have accepted from Obama what they militantly denounced under Bush. 

The piece you linked states that the true believers are very few and far between and most of Obama's activist base simply wants power and doesn't care about policy as long as it's on the winning team. 

My experience at least among the rank and file has been different, and you might be more familiar with this if you read discussions on the site, for example between myself, Hank P, wagster, and Jordan.

First, the Obama admin has been masterful at shifting the blame for policies it supports or is indifferent to onto Republicans in Congress.

Second, it's been masterful at depressing expectations in general, often claiming that it can't do everything it once.

Third and also related, it's been masterful at sowing confusion about its policies, where torture is a paradigmatic example.

Fourth, the Obama admin. has given a lot of its supporters enough of what it wants for them to forgive civil rights abuses, financial fraud indifference, Afghanistan escalation, record deportations, etc.

Finally, there is the person of Obama himself who is from a disadvantaged group and very likable and hard for many to picture as a component of the US's corrupt and unjust political structure. There's a natural tendency to assume based on his charming personality that he is likely struggling against the undesirable aspects of the system vs. promulgating those aspects.

These factors are all at least as important as the alleged desire for power that your quoted piece highlights.

I recall a popular form of rationalization among Democrats in Obama's first term when Obama hired insiders who had a history of advancing monied interests over the public's interests. For example, when Obama put Geithner in at Treasury, I remember a few people here saying "Geithner knows where the bodies are buried," suggesting that he was going to help root out and reverse financial misconduct rather than whitewash it. 

That kind of thing seems to have died down a bit, but we'll see with Obama's new nomination to head the SEC whether the base is still in denial about Obama participating in the capture of the federal government by the finance sector. This nominee's experience in finance is mostly as a defense attorney representing Wall Street:

As a defense attorney, White has been involved in some high-profile SEC and Justice Department cases. She represented healthcare provider HCA Holdings in an insider-trading investigation, according to her online biography.

She has also represented JPMorgan Chase & Co in its portion of the $25 billion multi-bank settlement to resolve allegations of mortgage servicing abuses, as well as former Bank of America CEO Lewis over a civil lawsuit in connection with Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

"I have met Mary Jo White, and anyone who knows her at all - extremely capable, competent, bright, tough, and a perfect choice," JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview on Thursday with Fox Business News from Davos.

Of course it's possible that White will suddenly turn tough on her former clients and that "she knows where the bodies are buried" or whatever, but the simpler explanation is that this nomination is an act of rank corruption in order to court Wall Street influence and money rather than regulate it with the public's interests in mind. And this kind of nomination would've been roundly denounced by Democrats if it came in the years under Bush II.

because this guy is a clown of the first order. From the pseudo archaic name to the (extremely) long winded defense of anti-democracy, the shallow thinking and excessively prolix explanations, he would only be interesting if he's been trolling.

Got one!

In October, Mr. Kiriakou plead guilty to one charge of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, when he disclosed to a reporter the name of a former agency operative who had been involved in the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation of detainees. The plea was the first time someone had been successfully prosecuted under the law in 27 years.

 

 

Mr. Kiriakou, who had worked as a C.I.A. operative from 1990 to 2004, had played a significant role in some of the C.I.A.'s major achievements after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In March of 2002, he led a group of agency and Pakistani security officers in a raid that captured Abu Zubaydah, who was suspected of being a high-level facilitator for Al Qaeda.

 

In 2007, three years after he left the C.I.A., Mr. Kiriakou discussed in an interview on ABC News the suffocation technique that was used in the interrogations known as waterboarding. He said it was torture and should no longer be used by the United States, but he defended the C.I.A. for using it in the effort to prevent attacks.

I'd like to know...

I think we're seeing the work of a deeply committed and talented artist in this diary. I applaud you Vinteuil, for creating works such as these.