Groovymarlin.com

During the Bush Administration (it almost makes me vomit to even type that), we were told “America does not torture.” Except, well, that was a lie. Now we can say it, and it’s true. And we can be proud of our country, knowing that we are no longer held captive by a hypocritical bunch of chickenhawk neo-conservative douchebags.

More memos detailing the abominable practices of the previous administration were released today. Here’s a short summary of what they contain, courtesy of the Daily Beast. Most of the practices described and “justified” in the memos were actually put to use, which we know from a report by the Red Cross which details the actual experiences of more than a dozen detainees. You can download the full Red Cross memo here (warning: PDF). It’s pretty gruesome, sickening stuff.

I’ve been thinking about this whole thing a lot lately, definitely more than I want to. I have thought back to how we all felt after 9/11; how many of us might have been a little more open to the idea of torturing suspects, especially if they knew things (and would tell them) that would prevent a similar tragedy. Or, if we knew a person was guilty of horrible crimes, would we perhaps be comfortable with that person being tortured in ways such as those described? Sometimes, in our worst moments, yes; we might wish to see people suffer torture. But that doesn’t make it right.

Here’s the problem, or actually, problems.

1. Even if a person has committed horrible crimes, we cannot then commit horrible crimes against him or her, because that makes us no better than the criminal. Torture has no place as punishment in a just and moral society. Our duty is to try, convict, and incarcerate criminals. To punish them by the loss of their freedom, perhaps to make them perform community service, and even to find ways in which they might be redeemed some day.

2. It has been proven time and time again that torture is not an effective way to elicit information. As far back as the Inquisition it was recognized that a man will say nearly anything while being tortured. He will admit to anything in order to make the torture stop. True to this historical example, it has been reported that no intelligence of real value was obtained through the torture that was perpetrated on behalf of this country.

3. Here’s the one that bothers me the most. The people being tortured in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and CIA black sites were not tried or proven guilty. They were suspects. In some cases, they were turned over by various warlords and militias through a bounty system. We do not know if some of these men were guilty of anything at all. In fact, there is a very high likelihood that many of them were innocent of any wrongdoing, and were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that is what will give me nightmares until I die: this country tortured innocent people. Were all of them innocent? Probably not. Did some of them deserve to be punished or treated badly? Possibly. Did any of them deserve to be treated as less than human and tortured? Never.

Andrew Sullivan has a long, th0ughtful post about all of this, which is very good. Read the whole thing. I agree with him that “those who pay the legal price should be, first and foremost, those who authorized this at the highest levels.” That means Yoo, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and ultimately, Bush, among others. I don’t know how I feel about prosecuting any individual interrogator. On one hand, their consciences should have told them that what they were doing was unacceptable. On the other – they were told it was legal, right, and allowed. Perhaps some of them were even ordered to do it. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would willingly and unquestioningly follow such orders, but that’s why I’m not in that line of work, I suppose. I just wish no one else was, either.

It’s all over the news that AIG is planning to pay tens of millions of dollars in bonuses this week, despite receiving a bailout from the government and being exposed as a house of cards in an already-flimsy financial services market. (AIG, which should have been a relatively safe business, decided to get cocky and do a bunch of risky investment thingies, using their AAA credit rating to get away with shit that nobody should really be able to get away with – and as a result, nearly went out of business.) I won’t even link to all the stories, they’re everywhere. Just go to the Washington Post or the Huffington Post or the Daily Kos or whatever.

People continue to act shocked and surprised that companies like AIG think that their employees still deserve bonuses. AIG told Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, that they simply had to pay these bonuses, for two reasons:

1. They were agreed to before the bailout and the firm would risk being sued for violating employment contracts if they were not paid.

2. AIG needs to be able to pay these bonuses so they can “attract and retain the best and brightest” to ensure the company’s success.

Yeah. Choke on that for a minute.

So, “best and brightest,” huh? Is that what you call the douchebags that almost drove AIG out of business in the first place? The brilliant minds that okayed the risky investment strategies and crazy financial manipulation that necessitated their eventual government bailout? And those same tools won’t stay with AIG if they don’t get their bonuses?

LET. THEM. LEAVE.

Of course that won’t happen, and that’s not really what I wanted to address anyway. My point is, why do people think they’re entitled to bonuses in a year when their company nearly went out of business? And not just at AIG, but at Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo and all the other banks and brokerages teetering on the brink?

OK, it’s a trick question. I actually know why. It’s called entitlement. All those people think they’re entitled to a bonus, simply for doing their jobs. Bonuses have kind of lost their meaning, especially in financial services, but to some degree in all fields. It used to be that you got a bonus when you did something extraordinary, somehow went above and beyond expectations, or exhibited leadership or effort that set you apart from your fellow employees. In other words, a bonus used to be a reward, but that’s changed. At a certain level in the company hierarchy, bonuses are expected, no matter how the company performs. It’s like, hey, I showed up most of the time this year, now give me my bonus!

It’s not just confined to middle and upper management, though. This is the same pervasive attitude that explains why most employees expect a generous raise every year, no matter what. At every company where I’ve worked, even the weakest (some might say most useless) employees expected an annual increase well above cost-of-living adjustments, simply for showing up every day. This is why performance management is, in most cases, a complete joke, at least in my industry (IT). Mediocrity reigns supreme.

And those twatwaffles at AIG, that are counting on their precious bonuses? They should just be happy to have jobs right now. If Geithner called me up and put me in charge of AIG, I’d fire all their lame asses, and start over again. And he wouldn’t need to pay me a bonus to do it.

I’m also going to cross-post this at my Mommy Blog.

Today on Mother Talkers, Elisa answered this list of questions about pregnancy/motherhood. Oh goody, one of my favorite subjects! Here are my answers.

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? Yes, and it took almost two years to make it happen.
2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes.
3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? Thrilled and so relieved.
4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? No.
5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 37!
6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? After taking many tests I had kind of given up, but this one week I went to a workout with my friend Kim, and for days afterwards I felt horrible – achey all over, tired, like I had the flu. That’s when I suddenly noticed my period was about a week late. The rest is history!
7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? My husband, who didn’t believe me!
8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? Yes.
9. DUE DATE? Oh hmm…I’d have to look this up. I think it was something like July 3, 2006?
10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? The first trimester I was nauseated all the time, though I actually threw up very rarely (thank God).
11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Salads and milkshakes.
12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? I don’t remember being too irritated by anything in particular, except my husband kept procrastinating about the bed that I kept falling through (there was something wrong with the slats and they kept slipping). That got real old, especially while pregnant.
13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD’S SEX? Girl.
14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? At first, we wanted a boy, but we were just thrilled to have a girl.
15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? Something like 40. It was freaking scary!
16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes, thank you friends!
17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? No surprises. Mommy doesn’t like to be surprised.
18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? Near the end I had some elevated protein levels in my urine and I suddenly gained a chunk of weight, which made the docs kind of concerned. So they had me get a second ultrasound, which was how I found out I was breach and needed a c-section!
19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Inova Fairfax Hospital, which is insanely far from where we live, but Kaiser forced us to do it there.
20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? Thank the good Lord I never went into labor, just had my scheduled c-section (albeit about 10 hours later than it was scheduled).
21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? My husband and my father.
22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? My husband. He was FREAKED OUT.
23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? C-section, which was fascinating.
24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? Oh they give you the block with a C-section. It was freaky.
25. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? I’m ashamed that I can’t remember offhand and had to look it up (via a picture on my Flickr): 7 pounds, 2.6 ounces.
26. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ? June 26, 2006.
27. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Veronica Jean.
28. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? 2 years and almost 7 months.

“P.S. Want to hear something funny? I also ordered Mr. Bush to clear all that brush. He had no idea why he was doing it and cursed every second of it. Still mad at me?”

– A letter from God (aka Gladys) to America, on Daily KOS.

It’s now been just over a week since Election Day. Hard to believe it’s been that long already, because it seems like yesterday, all the things that happened on November 4, 2008 and in the days leading up to that date. I don’t want to say I’ve felt numb since then, exactly, but I’ve certainly been astonished and amazed and sort of incapable of even talking about it.

Between June and November of this year, I thought a lot about how I would feel if Obama lost: heartbroken. Depressed. Miserable. Despondent. Desirous of a move to Canada or elsewhere? But what I didn’t ever really think about was how I’d feel if he won, so when he won, even though it was everything I wanted to happen, I wasn’t really prepared emotionally. Of course I cried like everyone else, watching him give a sober, dignified acceptance speech that night. I felt elation and hope and the sense that something I wanted to happen was finally happening, that maybe, just maybe, things were going to change a little bit.

Now a week has gone by, and I’m still happy, and still a little confused, but incredibly optimistic. Every little thing hits me with new joy. When I read news stories about the team that’s been analyzing all of Bush’s executive orders from the past eight years to see which ones could quicly be overturned, I felt a rush of euphoria. You mean, the US might actually start giving aid again to family planning and health agencies in poor countries that do more than provide “abstinence-only” education? Like, suddenly rational thought has taken over again, and we recognize that birth control is not only okay, but it’s absolutely essential in some of these places. Hallelujah! And maybe we can regain some of the moral authority we lost when the crooks soon leaving office authorized, encouraged, and implemented torture, by immediately outlawing it again – completely, totally, and forever. Perhaps we can start getting serious about the environment again, instead of pretending it’s not a problem.

I could go on and on, and in my head I do, and it makes me so, so happy.