Have things really gotten that bad? → U.S. government is cruel, despotic, a threat to people → U.S. torture policy → roots in U.S. prison system

Oh yeah, that torture thing.

It might seem at first that the rules for the treatment of Iraqi prisoners were founded on standards of political legitimacy suited to war or emergencies; based on what Carl Schmitt called the urgency of the “exception,” they were meant to remain secret as necessary “war measures” and to be exempt from traditional legal ideals and the courts associated with them. But the ominous discretionary powers used to justify this conduct are entirely familiar to those who follow the everyday treatment of prisoners in the United States — not only their treatment by prison guards but their treatment by the courts in sentencing, corrections, and prisoners’ rights. The torture memoranda, as unprecedented as they appear in presenting “legal doctrines… that could render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful,” refer to U.S. prison cases in that have turned on the legal meaning of the Eighth Amendment’s language prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Some links that have caught my eye recently:

For years now, a class action suit has been trudging through the court system filed on behalf of prisoners of the State of California asking for relief from conditions of imprisonment that fall below Constitutional standards.

They have good evidence for this, and so the highest court to yet hear their case agreed with them — saying, for instance, that California provides such an inadequate level of health care for those it imprisons that this is killing a prisoner every month and causing others to suffer needlessly from preventable and curable diseases.

The court ordered California to fix things, California agreed, but then dragged its heels instead. So four years (and you do the math on how many preventable deaths) later, over California’s strenuous objections, the court appointed a receiver with substantial power to oversee the prison health system and enforce the court’s orders. The receiver quickly reported that things were even worse than the court knew — “Almost every necessary element of a working medical care system either does not exist or functions in a state of abject disrepair” — and that it would take years to make things right.

California continued to drag its heels, and so finally the court ordered the state to reduce its prison population by 55,000 people within three years in order to reduce prison overcrowding to the extent that prisoner health issues might in theory be managable by the existing infrastructure. California continued to delay, appealing this ruling multiple times in multiple ways to the same court, losing each time, and finally vowing to ask the Supreme Court to rule that the Federal Court of Appeals doesn’t have the power to micromanage how a state corrects a constitutional violation (which might be more credible if the state were taking any independent steps on its own).

Why is the state so reluctant? Two reasons: 1) no politician wants to run against Willie Horton ads in the next election, and 2) the California prison guards union is very, very politically powerful, and has an interest in shaping state policy so as to increase the number of prisoners, thus the number of prisons and prison guards, thus the power of the union.

As you may be aware, the state of California is in dire financial straits, for a number of reasons. The court pointed out, hopefully, that reducing the prison population as demanded in the court order might also trim nearly a billion dollars from the state’s prison budget. But the state had a better idea: the latest California state budget cuts $811 million — 40% — from the prison health care system!

But I told you that story so I could tell you this one:

Cocktails are mixed with great sincerity at Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco. Take the Clermont Affair, a marriage of pear-infused Old Overholt whiskey, a liqueur called Amaro Nonino, barrel-aged bitters and a house-made tincture of cloves.

But for state liquor license regulators, the concoction itself is flawed. On a recent Friday night, they entered the speakeasy-themed Tenderloin tavern and warned bartenders they were breaking California law by altering alcohol — infusing it with the flavors of fruits, vegetables and spices.

Mixing elaborate drinks — say, muddling mint leaves in mojitos — and serving them immediately is OK. But, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control agents said, Bourbon and Branch was changing the character of the booze by allowing it to mature on the shelf — “rectification” that is illegal without a special license.

You may remember , when a NATO helicopter crew in Afghanistan attacked ten children, ages 9 to 15, who were out collecting firewood, and successfully killed all but one of them.

Or you may not have heard of it. It made the Times, but from my friends and relations I heard nothing about it but plenty of allusions to something or other that Charlie Sheen said.

The gunners mistook the children for Taliban belligerents, which was easy for them to do while following the modern superpower modus operandi of killing people from as far away as possible — continents away if need be — so that you don’t have to take any unnecessary risks yourself, but you instead can pass the unnecessary risks on to children collecting firewood and other such unimportant people. This is the sort of courageous warrior virtue we have in mind when we “support the troops.”

The incident didn’t much put a dent into the public chatter in the United States, though it did interfere a bit with General Petraeus’s attempt in Afghanistan to downplay the many other examples of butchery of the innocent by those under his command (, he’d dismissed one such report by saying “that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties.”)

Not all NATO troops are bad. One of them, Bradley Manning, reformed and took a serious turn for the good. He thought that maybe it was because the American public was unaware of the repulsive acts of its government’s military that they permit it to continue. So he leaked the Collateral Murder video, which was taken from an Apache helicopter while its crew were killing children and journalists, and, if reports are true, also leaked many diplomatic cables detailing shenanigans of the U.S. government and various foreign officials it has rented.

Manning may have been too optimistic about the possibility that sunlight would prove a potent disinfectant of the American soul, but his heart was in the right place, and he showed admirable courage and initiative — no drone pilot he.

The powers that be are furious, and they have decided to hit him with the full force of American justice, which, if you have been paying attention these last several years, you will know means taking someone captive and tormenting them heartlessly and ruthlessly in the hopes of utterly breaking them, while saving anything like a “trial” in the formal sense for some far off future when the damage has already been done.

Certainly some of this is just from a sadistic desire to hurt Manning, and to break him and turn him against those who helped him get the word out. But much of it is also a tactic designed to discourage other whistleblowers and dissenters: Screw with us and we’ll make your life a living hell and no law or lawyer or code of honor or sense of decency will stand between you and our wrath.

Fortunately, there are some people who have Manning’s back and are able to let him know of the thousands of people who know he’s a hero and want to encourage others to follow his example. You can help.