Intervention

Glenn Greenwald writes about the case of Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian man who was tortured on behalf of the Cheney/Bush maladministration, in a case of mistaken identity.

Via Andrew Sullivan, here is a video about the case.

Here is Patrick Leahy examining the war criminal Alberto Gonzales (audio only).

As CNN reports,

Canada’s prime minister apologized to Maher Arar on Friday and announced the government would compensate him C$10.5 million (US$8.9 million) for its role in his deportation from the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured while held in prison for nearly a year. . . .

“On behalf of the government of Canada, I want to extend a full apology to you and Monia as well as your family for the role played by Canadian officials in the terrible ordeal that you experienced in 2002 and 2003,” Harper said. Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh, and their young son and daughter now live in Kamloops, British Columbia.

“I sincerely hope that these words and actions will assist you and your family in your efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in your lives,” Harper said, adding the compensation package would also pay for his estimated $1 million in legal fees.

When your friends have to apologize for your bad behavior, it’s time.

Someone knows what it’s like to be the sad man

Doctor Biobrain remains the greatest psychoanalyst of the neoconservative mind anywhere on the net. Dick Cheney serves as his model psychopath, as examined by interviewer Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Here’s the video.

He looks to me like a man on the edge of a breakdown, he will have to cry soon. Thank you Mary.

“Please don’t sue me. I’m just a fan.”

Music is language.

“Just relax, and enjoy this pleasant adventure. Here you are, secure and protected, in this, your special place, letting my voice flow into your mind. There’s no need to concentrate. Just gently as you go. Suggestions are going into your unconscious mind. Open yourself up to the greater wisdom and understanding. So, now, letting the sound of my voice reach the inner, healthy, receptive centre of yourself. See yourself now in your imagination; and you are being transformed in a positive healthy way, so you are programming your unconscious mind, gaining new insight into your directions, in the future. Allow yourself to be more aware of your pathway through this life. Enjoy all that you can. As the days go by, you are programming your mind, and you are allowing this to happen. These things are happening day by day, just as I tell you they are happening, wherever you are. See this happening. Allow it to become part of you; more and more happily, more and more surely, more and more powerfully, each day. When it is necessary, you can program yourself, be able to dream the information you require. This awareness will come back to you at your own rate. It will never be more than you can cope with. This guidance will help show you the way. This will only happen if you choose it will be so. Ready, now…”

Listen here.

1969 in the sunshine

Blogging isn’t a bad life

Lee Rosenberg (thehim) is looking for a way to blog while keeping his bills paid. Our situation is similar, but in our case the insurance and everything are in place and we have just enough to pay our bills and tread water now. It would be nice if we could plan to have a family but we cannot even imagine it financially now. I cannot complain; we are not starving unless we try to live beyond our means. Once in a blue moon we might even go out to see a movie. (I highly recommend Pan’s Labyrinth.)

Oh, also I blog semi-anonymously. It’s not hard for people to figure out who I am if they care enough, but I have no desire for personal publicity outside those who know me by introduction. I’d love to have a larger readership but I don’t want to write for hire. I wouldn’t mind it if I could find a way to support myself on donations but it would have to be done in a way that would be kept away from me, lest I be corrupted by seeing what I can say that brings in more dollars.

I want to speak from my heart and tell you what seems right to me, so that if I make a mistake it was one not made with a gain in mind. I could choose to become wealthy, it would be easy enough if I had the will to subjugate myself to that end, to put aside my childish blogging. I could be a capitalist like the Goldman family, and I love them very much.

But to do this I would have to turn my back on injustice, to stop looking in the dark corners where people are being tortured in our names. To let the problems of the world be someone else’s problem, I cannot do this. To the extent I can integrate what I do with helping people, I will do it. While the current crisis is ongoing, the most helpful thing I can do is communicate a way that I see through the danger. I could be non-essential, maybe my own thoughts are not as good as someone else’s, but I don’t know that. For the want of a nail, the horse, the battle and finally the war were lost.