This might sound like a really dumb question but… Why is torture used at all? It can’t get information or cooperation out of the victim, if anything it breeds resistance, it’s time and effort consuming, it’s exhausting even for the torturer, so why is it still used around the globe? What’s usually in it for the torturer(s)????

Posted on by Koko2018

scripttorture:

scripttorture:

Essentially? People can
be dicks.

It’s all…for much the
same reason things like rape, spousal abuse and child neglect continue: in the
short term it makes abusers feel good. It makes them feel powerful. It makes
them feel like they matter.

As you’ve probably
gathered by now I really strongly believe that fiction matters. That it helps us to make sense of and articulate what is
right and what is wrong in the world around us.

So I’m going to reach
for Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan
for a moment here and ask you to join me and Spider Jerusalem on a roof looking
down over a riot-

‘It’s a show of power. How dare anybody ignore the authority of Civic
Center? How dare a bunch of freaks try and think for themselves? So let’s go
out and stomp on children, lunatics and incompetents, because by damn it makes
our balls feel big.

 

I can see a blatantly unarmed Transient man with half his
face hanging off, and three cops working him over anyway. One of them is
groping his own erection.

 

I’m sorry. Is that too harsh an observation for you? Does
that sound too much like the Truth?

 

Fuck you.

 

If anyone in this shithole city gave two tugs of a dead dog’s
cock about Truth, this wouldn’t be happening.’

That right there?

That’s why.

Because some people in
positions of authority are made to feel powerful
in the short term and because society in
general is prepared to look the other way.

Because we tolerate it.

Because we allow our politicians and our newspapers
and our stories to parrot lies about torture’s effectiveness and tell ourselves
that victims deserve it.

This isn’t really
something I talk about on the blog very often and by now (less than 300 words
in) you can probably see why.

This makes me fucking
furious.

And it is on us.

We do this. With our
rhetoric about being tough, with our
disparaging of human rights, with our apathy.

We allow this to
continue. By looking the other way. By pretending some people and some parts of
the world don’t matter. By telling each other that some people are just so
horrible they deserve it.

We support it with our
votes to ‘clean up the streets’ and our inability to believe that victims might
be telling the truth.

Because politicians and generals and police chiefs
know that having a bunch of people from the margins of society beaten up plays
well with voters and because popular culture sends out a constant message that
torture ‘works’, that it’s edgy and cool and what real heroes do when
bureaucracy gets in the way. That message reaches
people with no experience, no training, no effective oversight and tells them
what they ‘should’ be doing.

And their bosses look
the other way or actively encourage it because kicking the shit out of
‘terrorists’/druggies/’agitators’/’heretics’/’any racial, sexual or gendered
slur you wish to imagine’, sure makes it look like they’re doing something
productive.

It’s ‘enhanced
interrogation’ honest and they’re pretty sure they’ve got the right person this
time.

Information is not the
point.

Cooperation is not the
point.

Public safety is not
the point.

Justice is not the point.

The point is power. The
point is that when we’re angry and afraid and feel helpless or threatened we
tend to want to lash out. Little things like right and wrong or effectiveness don’t come into it.

Angry yet? I’m so
furious I could go out and hit someone.

See what I mean?

And the flipside of
that is the apathy. Because wherever you are in the world this is happening around you.

I have close to 3,000
followers at the time of writing. That’s amazing. It’s astonishing and humbling
that I’ve reached so many people from all over the world.

Let me take a quick
little over view of the news I’ve collected this year.

Taser
use in the USA . Systematic
mistreatment of immigrants in Britain. Rape of a black man by
police officers in France (that was ahead of the election I believe). An Indian minister
advocating the torture of rape suspects. The systematic
torture of a lawyer in custody in China. Another murder over
‘blasphemy’ in Pakistan. A queer tailor killed in a
Saudi jail. The
South African ‘coffin case’.

I haven’t actually been
paying particular attention to the news this year and that’s nowhere near my
full list of relevant news reports.

How many of these cases
or studies do you think most people are aware of? How many would they click and
read? How many would they throw their time and energy behind as something to
address and change in their society?

This isn’t intended to
shame anybody or call them out. It’s part of the answer.

We’re responsible for
this. It continues around the world because we vote for it, we pay for it, we
justify it and we look the other way.

Disclaimer

Reblogging for the other time zones.