Something upsetting I read this morning

Here is a link to a rather sprawling, but interesting (and disturbing) article from ZNET called "American Gothic: Self Portrait with Shackles for the year 2005."

I can't summarize, neatly, all that it explores, but among them is the American government's methods of imprisonment and torture.

"Offshore, torture as a way of life spreads, it seems, with a startling rapidity. It begins with a sense of impunity at the top and soon infects the most distant nooks and crannies, the farthest outposts, fire bases and holding cells of distant lands like Afghanistan. It moves like quicksilver all the way down to those "bad apples" manning the night shift and taking digital photos for future screen-savers in the Abu Ghraibs of our world. It has already become an American way of life and, having been initiated at home, it will certainly return to the Homeland." (Tom Engelhardt, from above linked article.)