Jacqueline Marcus: If Cheney Prevails to Make Torture Acceptable, The Erosion of a Civil Society

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus

"…Another, supposing himself above others, will have a license to do what he wishes, and challenges respect and honor as due to him before others -- which is an argument of a fiery spirit. This man's will to hurt arises from vainglory and the false esteem he has of his own strength."

—Thomas Hobbes, Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society

What kind of society do we live in when a Vice-President of the United States authorizes torture techniques on detainees with the conviction that he is absolutely right and that the laws of the land are -- wrong? What kind of society do we live in when media networks promote Dick Cheney's view that the implementation of torture is not only acceptable, it should be legalized? What kind of society do we live in when the highest members of the United States Government turn a blind eye to perhaps the worst war crimes committed by a White House Administration in this country's history?

One would have to conclude that a society that promotes and defends the practice of torture can no longer recognize the meaning of goodness and justice.

I've always been interested in the question of the good life. It became my study of interest in college, earning my degrees in philosophy and humanities; the question was thoroughly examined from the time humans began to contemplate the meaning of values. Socrates argued that the moral life is inseparable from the happy life. He had his work cut out for him. It wasn't an easy argument to make because humans by nature are selfish. Socrates confronted that basic instinct by saying that we have the moral fortitude to rise above our selfishness for the Higher Good of the community.

In any event, I've thought about this question -- what does it mean to live a good life -- for a long time, but despite all the philosophical and religious books on the subject, I could never quite grasp the essential meaning until I witnessed, with utter horror and shame, what St. Augustine called "the absence of Good," during the Bush years 2001-2009.

What I had learned and taught at college on the subject of political and moral justice, the Bush Administration's war and anti-environmental criminal policies defied every logical idea I had read on what constitutes a civil society from Plato to Camus; the Bush White House's actions represented the exact opposite of my studies, the teachings that have come down from the centuries regarding humane ideas of goodness.

I'm not naïve; there have always been ambitious, violent men who've sought absolute power, control and wealth throughout the ages. This is nothing new. The Bush White House was no different from any other Machiavellian dictatorship that gained military power in the book of world history.

Indeed, Shakespeare's villains repeat the story of cruel power-seekers and the ripple-effect consequences that followed. But there were always a certain number of individuals who still recognized some semblance of goodness to guide and instruct the community at large. History has taught us that eventually selfish, totalitarian rulers fall from their own consumption of greed, but before doing so, the majority of people pay the highest price for the dictators' "to the victor belong the spoils" campaign of invasions, wars, pillage, and mass destruction.

During the Bush years, however, the voices of sanity, of reason, of goodness were censored from the mainstream media. White House crimes were sanctified by the corporate media from the get-go. There were investments, after all, to protect: oil and poppy fields, more corporate control in the Middle East. There were resources available to U.S. oil and drug companies, but corporate investors, for example, Halliburton, didn't want to pay for those resources. It's more profitable to steal it (occupy the region) off the backs of the American taxpayers, ($10 billion a month for seven years), and worse, off the exploitation of soldiers, who are there primarily to protect oil fields and pipelines for U.S. oil companies.

The invasion of Iraq, bombing homes, schools, roads, electrical and sewer facilities became one, long media advertisement for war. The annihilation of Iraq, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the September 11th attack, was promoted into a festive celebration on the mainstream networks as "shock and awe".

I'll never forget Tom Brokaw, for instance, on NBC's Nightly News -- the way he gleefully spoke about the explosions, the campaign of "shock and awe" as if he were a salesman instead of a journalist, selling the attack on Iraq like a defense contractor, a lobbyist for General Electric.

It was more than shocking. It was the very definition of the absence of good. It was nihilism at its worst -- and that was only the beginning.

Restoring a Civil Society

The consequences of allowing Dick Cheney to brag about his torture program will define this nation. Cheney not only violated international and national laws, but also he's boasting about how torture solves national security problems. It's one thing to hear this sort of insane persuasion from a mafia thug or from a rapist or from a demented and violent criminal, but from a former U.S. Vice President to boast about orders to inflict the most vile, heinous act of torturing prisoners, including children -- represents a God-less universe and total erosion of a civil society.

If Cheney is not prosecuted, it means that we, as a nation, have no moral compass on what constitutes a good and just society. It means that Americans will find it hard to distinguish between violent criminals and leaders in our government: both use torture to protect their own power and control, both labor under the illusion that it's a means to an end for safety and protection. It represents the moral and political decay of a civil society and the beginning of anarchy.

The right-wingers and their leaders in Congress are in fact promoting anarchy by encouraging angry hot-heads to bring guns to town hall meetings. Should this surprise us? When former Vice President Dick Cheney admits that torturing prisoners is a good thing, much worse is bound to follow.

For the sake of preserving some semblance of civility, justice, and goodness, the Obama Justice Department must prosecute Dick Cheney; the man is actually bragging about breaking and desecrating meaningful laws that define who we are as a civilized nation. If Cheney prevails, then our civil laws are meaningless, and they cannot be expected to be enforced on anyone if a criminal is allowed to boast about his war crimes on television in the eyes of the world.

I'm not sure if President Obama realizes the "urgency of the times" and his critical role in history right now? We know that this is our last chance to regulate out-of-control corporations, to end an indefensible occupation in Afghanistan, and to enforce the laws of the land regarding the Bush White House war crimes. Torture is torture. When the U.S. Government authorizes the evil practice of torture, it represents a God-less universe, the absence of Good, the darkest and most vile aspect of human beings.

Is that the kind of society we stand for? In a civil society, a law-abiding society, Dick Cheney would have been arrested on the spot. Evidently, our country is not a civil society.

Perhaps President Obama and his Justice Department will have the fortitude to rise above self-interest politics for the Higher Good of the community? We will stand behind him. He needs to remember that we put him in office, not the insurance, defense, and oil corporations. We did -- with our small contributions that added up to millions and millions of dollars for his campaign. And we'll do it again if he acts boldly.

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Jacqueline Marcus' poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Ohio Review, The Antioch Review, The Journal, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry International, Hotel Amerika. Her book of poems, Close to the Shore, was published by Michigan State University Press. Her political essays have been published at CommonDreams.org and BuzzFlash.com. She taught philosophy at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, California, and is the editor of http://www.ForPoetry.com. She is currently promoting green technologies (solar & wind) on the island of Maui. www.GoSolarMaui.com This is an excerpt from a work-in-progress, The Search for the Good Life in America: Persecuted for teaching philosophy during the Bush Years.