My permanent blog will now be at http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/. However, allisonkilkenny.com is still the permanent link to my blog, and will now forward to the True/Slant website.

Amity Shlaes

Bloomberg.org’s Amity Shlaes recently grouped me together with two other “left-leaning” bloggers in an article about the nefarious world of the Internets. In this murky underworld, faceless bloggers exist only to baselessly attack innocent politicians post-election as part of a dastardly plan to undermine “gentlemanly” newspapers. My qualms with Shlaes article are threefold, but I first want to offer a little background about the article and my initial response.

I am “Exhibit B” in Shlaes’s example. “Exhibit A” is Talking Point Memo’s Eric Kleefeld, and “Exhibit C” is Think Progress’s Matthew Yglesias. In a truly bizarre turn, Shlaes links to a video I cross-posted from TPM of Bobby Jindal retelling the fictitious encounter he had with Sheriff Lee in post-Katrina New Orleans. She cites the headline I gave the post: “Bobby Jindal: Chronically Stupid.” Other than the title, that blog post came entirely from TPM. So Shlaes actually presents TPM as two of three examples of the supposedly dishonest bloggers trolling the Internet.

I am sort of disappointed that Shlaes linked to one of my cross-posted blogs because she would no doubt also enjoy my original Conservative-bashing blogs where I write that Peggy Noonan is a terrible columnist, who “practically shouts that she wants a penis inside of her” at the slightest hint of an impending conflict, Davis Brooks is “elite and clueless”, and that Douglas Feith (among other former Bush officials) are war criminals. Shlaes failed to find these other, better examples of “character assassination” either because the Jindal post really pissed her off, and she was seized by the desire to use it as example of nutty bloggers gone wild, or she was too lazy to properly search my blog for an original work. The blog post is clearly marked “Talking Points Memo” with a link to the original work at the top of the page, so I have to assume the latter is true.

Keep reading…

Shlaes alludes to the opinion that bloggers are cowardly deviants, who are too timid to debate in real life by channeling Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor at the Washington Post. Referring to the attacks made by bloggers against columnist George Will, Hiatt stated,“I would think folks would be eager to engage in the debate, given how sure they are of their case, rather than trying to shut him down.” Meaning, bloggers are all talk on the Internet, but would cower at a chance to debate the individuals they criticize.

That’s quite a bold statement, and yet Shlaes did not contact myself, Kleefeld, or Yglesias for a comment on the accusation. Of course, we are only lowly bloggers (insert eye roll here). We never leave the house. Our families haven’t seen us for years. Why should a “serious” “journalist” have to contact us if she includes our pieces in her diatribe about our immoral behavior?

I contacted Matthew Yglesias about the drama. Yglesias is an Associate Editor of The Atlantic Monthly,a staff writer at The American Prospect and an Associate Editor at TPM Media. His work has appeared in several publications, including The Guardian, Slate, The New Republic, and The Washington Monthly. It’s ironic that Yglesias is himself an editor since Shlaes uses the attack that “bloggers lack editors” as part of her scheme to totally discredit our work. Again, this must be attributed to journalistic laziness, since I learned that Yglesias is himself an editor on his easily accessible web bio.

Unsurprisingly, Yglesias had not been notified by Shlaes about being included in her article, though he told me he had appeared with Shlaes at an Economic Blogger Forum back in February. Unless Shlaes is so unaware of her surroundings that she failed to remember a man with whom she appeared on a economic forum barely four months ago, I must assume she deliberately left out Yglesias’s name. She may have also failed to credit Yglesias because of laziness, or she felt including his name was incidental, which means Shlaes believes bloggers are interchangeable, and easily grouped under the heading of “People Ruining Journalism.”

I did contact Shlaes for a response. This is the email I sent:

Hello, Amity. My name is Allison Kilkenny and I’m one of three “left-leaning bloggers” you referenced in your latest Bloomberg.org article. I’m the one who called Bobby Jindal “chronically stupid.”  

In the first paragraph of your piece, you referenced Fred Hiatt, who recently wrote “I would think folks would be eager to engage in the debate, given how sure they are of their case, rather than trying to shut him down.” I assume you concur with Mr. Hiatt’s opinion, since you included it in your article, and you are alluding to the assumption that bloggers are too cowardly to debate the issues we publish on the internet in real life. I find it curious that you published that opinion without contacting us to see if we would like to publicly debate. I’m not sure what topic we’re being accused of being too afraid to debate, but I want you to know that I always look forward to discussing controversial issues, and I would love to be invited to any future debates.  

However, as I’m sure you can imagine, we bloggers are frequently dismissed with an eye roll by the mainstream media, so we aren’t usually invited to debate with individuals like Bobby Jindal and Michele Bachmann. Thus, we are left to articulate our cases on the internet and wait for a public response.  

Since your piece is about trashing individuals without giving them a chance to defend themselves, I thought you would like to know that this individual is very much open to the possibility of speaking face-to-face with the Republicans and Democrats I reference when I am afforded that opportunity.  

Thank you for your time,  

Allison Kilkenny

My first problem with Shlaes’s article is the claim that bloggers are cowardly and baselessly attack politicians, and yet Shlaes baselessly attacked us by failing to contact any of us to see if we are willing to debate in public forums. I can’t speak (or write) for Kleefeld, but Yglesias has spoken at public forums in the past, and I am willing to debate, as well.

My second problem with this truly bizarre and weird article is that Shlaes pines for a world where critical thinking stops after elections. “Years ago, out of a sense of civics, gentle and gentlemanly newspaper editors used to allow a certain honeymoon period post-election. Winners got to bask, and losers sulk. Internet scribes are not into civics.” So let me get this straight: we’re not allowed to criticize politicians once the election is over? What a strange, totalitarian world Shlaes lives in where First Amendment rights don’t follow citizens out of the voting booth.

Of course, Shlaes applies this standard of “let bygones by bygones” only to the Democrats, and not the Republicans, whose smear machines run 24/7 without furloughs. Another point lost entirely on Shlaes is that many bloggers are bipartisan in their attacks against politicians. I, for one, criticize both Democrats and Republicans on this blog, and I have repeatedly called out Barack Obama on his shady practices both in writing and on my show, Citizen Radio. By again lumping all dissident bloggers into the category of “Democrat,” Shlaes is being intellectually dishonest and lazy.

My third problem with Shlaes’s article is she seems indignant that bloggers corrected Michelle Bachmann when she erroneously referred to the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff as “Hoot-Smalley.” Admittedly, this is a minor thing to harp on, considering Bachmann is the same woman who wanted McCarthy-like witch hunts for Anti-Americans in Congress.  ”Another force at work is the relevance of history,” Shlaes writes. Well…yeah. Historical accuracy is important. Unless, of course, you’re a historical revisionist like Shlaes, who makes a living making up things as she goes along.

Shlaes’s most recent book, The Forgotten Man, has drawn a slew of controversy because of its revisionist treatment of the Great Depression. John Updike called the book “a revisionist history of the Depression,” and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman accused Shlaes in the New York Times of using “misleading statistics” to make her point. Further criticism came from adjunct professor and historian, Matthew Dallek, who called Shlaes a “revisionist” with a “blind view of the New Deal,” and historian Eric Rauchway, who claimed Shlaes ignores historical GDP easily available in the Historical Statistics of the United States. The International Herald Tribune review by David Leonhardt endorsed Rauchway’s criticism that “Shlaes exaggerates joblessness in the 1930s by counting many people who worked in temporary relief programs as unemployed.” Additionally, the New Republic’s Jonathan Chait, called The Forgotten Man ”self-contradictory, misleading, and inaccurate, notwithstanding its enormous popularity among conservatives.” 

When an author with those kinds of reviews lectures about the relevance of history, it should inspire only chuckles. Shlaes’s weird mental contortionist act extends from her intellectually dishonest book to her smears against bloggers. Her assumptions that all bloggers must remain silent post-election, can be filed under Diehard Democrat, and fear debating are dishonest and out of touch, much like her work in The Forgotten Man.

Shlaes closes her article by writing, “by smearing others, rather than putting forward ideas, the scribblers smear themselves instead.” This is again a strange criticism considering no one ever asks the journalists or columnists at the New York Times or Washington Post to “advance ideas” rather than critique the performances of politicians, and report journalistic findings. Putting aside the very good (and occasionally award-winning) journalistic work done by individuals from Salon, Huffington Post, and Talking Points Memo, the charge that bloggers are constantly cutting down politicians is again intellectually dishonest. Of course, bloggers do tend to play a defensive rather than offensive role.  That’s the role we have been forced into because of the eye-rolling mainstream media that uses every opportunity to dismiss and belittle the blogosphere as a bunch of nutty leftists who complain about everything. However, there are many bloggers who do propose comprehensive policy changes, and would jump at the chance to constructively brainstorm with policy wonks about the progressive changes needed in this country. Bloggers are rarely invited into the mainstream to productively chat in this manner, and so we revert back to a defensive strategy where we analyze what has already been decided.

But the role of journalist isn’t the same as the role of the politician, and it’s unfair to saddle bloggers with accusations of being buzzkills. Bloggers are like sentinels with OCD. The mainstream media pumps a ton of information into the blogosphere, and bloggers comb through it, occasionally finding an overlooked piece of valuable information that we then analyze and critique until everyone’s eyes are bleeding. 

To accuse all bloggers of being bias radicals, who baselessly smear politicians is simply a lie. Many bloggers are being recognized for their valuable contribution to journalism. Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com (who frequently debates, most recently about drug legalization) just won the Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalist. PBS’s Bill Moyers just called Greenwald the most important journalist in America. 

Another example of excellent journalistic work done by a lowly blogger came when Obama caused a huge uproar in the press corps by calling on Sam Stein, a blogger from Huffpost, during his first press conference. Can you imagine? The horror! A blogger! They flipped out. And Stein asked a really great question about prosecuting Bush officials, an issue the mainstream media really didn’t want to touch at the time. Another example is Marcy Wheeler from Empty Wheel. She’s the lady who spotted an unredacted footnote at the bottom of one of the torture memos that revealed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month. The New York Times cited her as the journalist that spotted the footnote, and who then raised the obvious question: if waterboarding works, why did they have to do it 183 times? That’s the New York Times citing a common blogger. That’s huge. That means bloggers can potentially investigate as well as journalists on the staff of the most respected newspaper in the country. No one would have believed that a few years ago, or even last year.

But people like Shlaes, who remain ignorant about the valuable contributions made on some blogs, continue to lump all bloggers into a category of basement-dwelling cowards. That’s an unfair stereotype, and by utilizing that corrupt branding, Shlaes reveals herself as the very smearist she accuses others of being.

I’m available for contact on Twitter and Facebook.

Listen here: http:​/​/​www.​breakthruradio.​com/​index.​php?​show=​6811.

Citizen Radio’s last episode from Australia!

This week, Allison and Jamie discuss Arlen Specter switching to the Democratic party, and why that means the Republican and Democratic parties are more similar than you may think. Also, find out what Arlen Specter has to do with bears and monkeys!

Jamie falls in love with bad television…agai​n!​ Marvel at his ability to take a show about Greek sororities and fraternities seriously.

Next up: Jamie’s possibly life threatening upcoming gig in Boston, tea-baggers, and what Janeane Garofalo said to anger Republicans.

Citizen Radio will be interviewing Noam Chomsky again this month, so stay tuned for more wise words from the man the New York Times calls the most important intellectual alive. Listen to Citizen Radio’s first interview with Mr. Chomsky here. 

Citizen Radio airs every Wednesday on BTR. Archived episodes are here. Join us on Facebook!

Barbara Herbert, a course director at Tufts University School of Medicine, made a short, but compelling plea in today’s New York Times. Herbert argued that the United States government should convene a truth and reconciliation commission, using the one in South Africa as a model, to investigate into possible crimes committed by the Bush administration. 

Such a commission would allow a nation to (a) find the truth of what happened from multiple perspectives, (b) develop an understanding of how it happened and (c) heal.

A commission isn’t some kind of partisan booby trap thrown together in a frenzied quest for retribution as Harry Reid suggested last week. The formation of a nonpartisan commission also wouldn’t  act as a nefarious tool to dismantle the foundation of The American Way (corrupting the sweet “mysteries” of life,) as Bush apologists like Peggy Noonan claim. 

A truth commission would use the law as a compass, and its only goal would be to restore order in America. As Herbert wrote, “We need a chance for secular redemption and healing.”

On Tuesday, Jeremy Scahill reported that Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder officially requesting  the appointment of an independent Special Prosecutor to “to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute torture committed against detainees during the Bush administration.” In order to restore credibility to the Justice Department, Holder must adhere to the rule of law, and not partisan demands. He must investigate into possible crimes committed under the Bush administration.

The law is not a fringe issue. Progressives may be the ones demanding an investigative commission, but the issue at stake here is the law itself. That’s not a partisan issue. The law should be sacred to all Americans: Republicans and Democrats. And if Democrats are proven to have been complicit in torture, then they too must be punished according to the law. 

Otherwise, Americans will learn only one lesson: the law does not apply to our leaders. What a terrible lesson to teach young Americans.

Listen here: http://www.breakthruradio.com/index.php?show=6753

Citizen Radio discusses the human disaster known as Peggy Noonan, and her comments about not investigating Bush administration war crimes because life needs to remain “mysterious.” Wow.

Jamie talks about getting screamed at by a New Yorker at one of his Australia shows, and why Americans think they’re exceptional.

Jane Harman got busted trying to do AIPAC spies a solid, and she got caught by the very same wiretapping program she championed. Irony with a capital “I.”

Shepard Smith went crazy on FOX again, and Citizen Radio thinks that’s super!

Citizen Radio airs every Wednesday over on BTR, and episodes play 24/7 all week. Archived episodes here. Join us on Facebook!

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel, Congressman Jim Matheson said he has many problems with the global warming bill currently in committee. The bill is Henry Waxman’s creation, and is already under fire from his fellow Democrats.

But it’s no shocker that Matheson is one of the first suits to screech at the bill, since he receives over 20% of his campaign donations from energy, natural resource, transportation, construction, and agribusiness industries. Such industries normally aren’t on the forefront of asking Congress to cap their own emissions.

During opening statements, the Utah Democrat detailed 14 big problems he had with the bill, and told me later that if he hadn’t been limited to five minutes, “I might have had more.” 

I’ll bet. Matheson is one of 10 moderate Democrats (see: Blue Dog Democrats, or what they call themselves so people stop confusing them with Republicans) who are all worked up over Waxman’s bill. Strassel calls the bill “liberal overreach.” 

Really. Strassel doesn’t bother to then explain why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest climate report states the following:

• “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.”
• Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to human activities has increased by 70% between 1970 and 2004. 
• Continued GHG emissions “at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century.”

Considering a bill that would stem these awful trends is “overreaching,” according to Ms. Strassel. Of course, she doesn’t mean “overreaching” in the sense that caring for the planet isn’t important. She means “overreaching” in the sense that it could cost politicians like Mr. Matheson their donors. Strassel writes:

Design a bill that socks it to all those manufacturing, oil-producing, coal-producing, coal-using states, and say goodbye to the very Democrats necessary to pass that bill.

Yes, it could cost poor Mr. Matheson over 20% of his donations. But on the upside, it could save the planet. Strassel taps into a very important issue here. Obviously, most politicians aren’t going to bite the hands of their donors. We’ve seen this trend extend from debate over the financial bailout, which was ripe with cronyism and corruption, to the debate over how to deal with our warming environment.

Corporate money corrupts, absolutely. During the bailout, politicians with close ties to the financial industries were put in charge of the bailouts, including the Senate Banking committee Chairman, Chris Dodd. Dodd receives most of his campaign contributions from the securities and investment industry, and two of his biggest donors are Citigroup and AIG. The problem is systemic as we see in the environment debate with “Democrats” like Mr. Matheson. He won’t be voting against his corporate donors anytime soon. Daddy needs his sweet, sweet corporate cash, or as Strassel puts it, Matheson is “championing energy diversity and his state’s fossil fuels” i.e. tearing up and selling everything that isn’t nailed down.

Other Democrats standing in the way of Waxman’s bill are Baron Hill (IN), Rick Bouche (VA), Gene Green (TX), Charles Gonzalez (TX), Charlie Melancon (LA), Mike Doyle (PA,) many of whom are quite publicly in the pocket of the oil industry.  This isn’t some kind of scandalous secret. Most of their corporate donors are visible on public websites like OpenSecrets.org.

The scandal is that writing about such things is considered a platitude, an utterly banal thing to point out. The future of the planet is at stake, and pointing out the dirty money pouring from Washington  politicians’ pockets evokes an eye roll from the mainstream press. Journalists like Strassel write about dirty donations as though she were reporting on the weather.

Politicians, who are reliant upon donations from industries that poison the environment, cannot be trusted to then form legislation to protect the planet. At the risk of publishing more liberal “overreach,” such conflicts of interest (the financial bailouts, and now the energy/environment debate,) are both excellent examples of why publicly financed elections are so important. If corporate money isn’t permitted to infect politics, then bills that could potentially save the planet may have a fair chance of surviving committee.

Strassel, Matheson, and company will surely roll their eyes at such a naive statement, but that’s to be expected. If you spend your life swimming in pig shit, after a while, you’ll swear it doesn’t smell.

The American media has a shockingly short attention span and is prone to bouts of hysteria. Just as September 11th was a game changer that was the Event to Change All Events, so the media tells us that the economic downturn is the new Event to Change All Events. These are unprecedented times. The law must be cast aside in the name of our collective panic attack. Torture be damned! There’s no time for rules! 

We’ve been here before. We even have the same cheerleaders leading the frenzy. I wish I could dismiss people like Peggy Noonan as a silly blogger, but unfortunately she’s considered a “serious” political expert who frequently makes the rounds on Sunday morning panels. So her words are fair game for analysis. Here we go!

Peggy Noonan is a terrible columnist whose first response to tragic events is to rip open her shirt and throw herself at burly men who claim to have a “plan.” When there’s the slightest hint of an impending conflict, Noons practically shouts that she wants a penis inside of her. During the critical weeks after 9/11, she freely expressed her longing for John Wayne because he fits her image of one of those “burly men,” even though Wayne was a draft-dodging, woman-abusing drug addict. 

Now, the Noons chastises Democrats for not thinking critically enough, and falling victim to the “Leader Knows Best” syndrome under Obama’s reign. Fair enough, but Peggy Noonan can’t seriously be lecturing from a pedestal. This is the woman, who just said we shouldn’t investigate into possible war crimes because “some of life has to be mysterious,” and it’s important to “just keep walking.”

Noons opens her column citing the agenda-setter, Matt Drudge, who has sarcastically labeled Obama’s First One Hundred Days, the “Best President Ever Campaign,” something Noons describes being (my emphasis) “marked by an abandonment of critical thinking among otherwise thoughtful men and women who comprise, roughly speaking, the grown-ups of journalism, the old hands of the MSM who have been through many presidents and should know better.”

Sometimes, I wonder how Peggy Noonan doesn’t experience constant brain aneurisms from all of the cognitive dissonance rattling around in her head. Yes, Noons. We need critical thinking. We need investigations into the Bush torture memos. Bush officials need to be held accountable. We can’t just “keep walking.” You’re one of the grown-ups you’re writing about. Except, you’ve regressed to a childlike state (again,) and you’re trembling behind poppy’s legs. Grow up.

Suddenly, the Bush apologist is summarizing those glorious years of Bushie’s war as something that “angered major allies. For seven years there was constant agitation, and the world was allowed to make a caricature of U.S. leadership.” But wait, I thought the Noons loved caricatures. At least, she did in the wake of 9/11. She masturbates writes:

I missed John Wayne.

But now I think . . . he’s back. I think he returned on Sept. 11. I think he ran up the stairs, threw the kid over his back like a sack of potatoes, came back down and shoveled rubble. I think he’s in Afghanistan now, saying, with his slow swagger and simmering silence, “Yer in a whole lotta trouble now, Osama-boy.”

Make sure John doesn’t crack you across the face during one of his drunken stupors, Noons. You wouldn’t believe how fast the romance of saving you from a fictional burning building wears off. Now, Noons performs mental gymnastics to explain why we need critical thinking, but we mustn’t stir up too much trouble will any silly investigations. 

A problem with the release of the [torture memos] is that it opens the way—it probably forces the way—to congressional hearings, or a commission, or an independent prosecutor. It is hard at this point to imagine that what will follow will not prove destructive to—old-fashioned phrase coming—the good of the country.

Here we stare into the eyes of the beast. Yes, Noons. This very well could lead to independent prosecutions, and all kinds of truth-telling, and it could besmirch the names of men you’ve been shamelessly defending for close to a decade. And wouldn’t that be terrible for the country you?

It’s time all parties grow up and pay penance.

“Some things in life need to be mysterious,” Peggy Noonan explained. Americans needed the Noon’s guidance. You see, the unenlightened herd needs political elites to explain complicated and seemingly contradictory lessons in morality. Why is it okay if America tortures? Didn’t we sign that Geneva Conventions thingy? 

Nevermind. Aunt Peggy is here to explain away the bad thoughts. ”Sometimes you need to just keep walking.” Indeed. 

Roger Cohen agrees, and as usual, wrote a succinct summation that would have made Hemingway blush at his own rambling oeuvre: “In a thicket of words lies plausible deniability when the time for horror’s accounting arrives.” Cohen translates a few paragraphs down: “I’m wary of the clamor for retribution.” Oh.

Senate Democratic leaders, teaming with the Obama White House, rushed to support the study of Noonology, and said they would resist efforts to investigate the harsh interrogation methods used on detainees. (Emphasis mine).

Mr. Reid, who repeatedly denounced the use of harsh interrogation techniques when Mr. Bush was president, suggested that naming a special panel would signal an intent to exact “retribution” and he sought to paper over the disagreement with members of his own caucus, like Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who want a commission.

Apparently, upholding the law is now a fringe issue. Those on the “hard left ” want accountability, and the serious beltway “journalists” want to “keep walking” away from “retribution” so as to maintain life’s sweet “mystery.”

Sweeping away the government’s crimes is no longer the behavior of apologist sycophants. It’s called Noonology, and now you can try it at home!

Got some unpaid parking tickets? Not a problem. You march right into your local courthouse, look that mean ole’ judge right in his beady eyes, and say, “I’m not paying these tickets! I’m moving forward!”

Just lost your job? Never fear! Go rob a convenient store. When the cops try to arrest you, explain they’re shattering life’s sweet mysteries by prosecuting you under the law.

Neighbor playing loud music? Shoot him!** If society, or “the man,” starts harassing you about murdering a human being, explain that retribution is pointless, and by trying to hold you accountable for your deeds, the cops are tearing at society’s very fabric.

Noonology (n): 

Main Entry: noon·o·lo·gy

Pronunciation: \ˈnün-ä-lə-jē\

Function: noun

Etymology: English, creation of a smartass blogger

Date: 2008

** I’m kidding. You’ll totally go to jail because you don’t work for the government and so the law applies to you.

Listen here: http://www.breakthruradio.com/index.php?show=6692.

Mumia Abu Jamal

After the Unfunny But Totally Real Headlines, Citizen Radio discusses Australia, the cursed liberal media, torture memos, miseducation, prison, and Mumia Abu Jamal.

What’s more gross than grown adults pleasuring themselves to the thought of the U.S. military? When the press does it! Citizen Radio discusses the mainstream media, and how they’re miseducating America.

Next, Jamie talks about dropping out of high school and Allison comments on Noam Chomsky’s “On Miseducation,” a book that explores how institutionalized education encourages ideological domestication.

Upcoming guests include: Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Janeane Garofalo, and Jeremy Scahill.

Citizen Radio aids every Wednesday on BTR. Listen to our archives here. Join us on Facebook!

“There is no such thing as a little torture.” — Alfred M. McCoy, author of A Question of Torture

The Bush administration is really an impressive force of nature. Whenever I was absolutely certain that their dastardly deeds couldn’t possibly get any more nefarious, Dick Cheney shot a family friend in the face, or George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to invade another country. When they finally left office, I assumed they couldn’t harm America’s reputation ever again.

I was wrong. The Justice Department finally made the infamous memos that sanctioned torture public this week. The details are horrific. Not only are barbaric measures like “walling” (slamming a person into a wall,) and stress positions deemed acceptable by legal experts, but also more inventive interrogation methods like placing live bugs in a confinement box (and telling the prisoner they’ll sting him). 

Politicians repeatedly regurgitate the fairy tale that America is a Nation of Laws. Except, the laws get broken all the time, and the archetypes of anarchy usually aren’t held accountable. Barack Obama has sought to reassure CIA operates, who participated in torture, that they can use the same defense Nazis could not use during Nuremberg. Namely, that they were just “following orders.”

This doesn’t bode well for justice enthusiasts, who hoped that maybe (just maybe) the Big Guys would be help accountable this time. That maybe John Yoo, Douglas Feith, Jay Bybee, Dick Cheney, David Addington, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and William Haynes would have to stand before the American people and explain why they thought sanctioning torture was acceptable.

That maybe they would finally have to explain why a little torture was okay.

We are a nation of laws only if the people in charge get to benefit from the rulings. We are a nation of laws only up until Lynndie England, but justice stops short of Donald Rumsfeld. We are a nation of laws for thieves and crooks, but justice can’t touch Goldman Sachs CEOs. The hypocrisy is rampant. It infests every facet of the justice system, and has left us with a broken two-tier system of justice.

The debate over torture is frequently aimed at Guantanamo. However, the problem is also domestic, although the victims are still the unprivileged. While the United States is home to just five percent of the world’s population, it contains 25% of the world’s prisoners. More than one in 100 adults are in prison. Most of those prisoners aren’t homicidal sociopaths. They’re nonviolent drug offenders. America is the only western industrialized country to still use the death penalty, but apparently injecting someone will a chemical that paralyzes their organs doesn’t constitute torture, even though the Nazis used the same method. Those that live inside our prison-industrial complex experience a form of torture every day. Prisoners face the threat of rape and are more likely to contract H.I.V., hepatitis and tuberculosis. 

This kind of domestic torture is frequently overlooked because it’s the “right people” suffering. Bad guys. Bottom-tier justice types: poor people, immigrants, people of color. And after all, it’s only a little torture. Terrorists and criminals deserve whatever happens to them. Waterboarding doesn’t even count as torture! It’s just a light spritz in the face! (Of course, even Bush’s own legal team knew it was torture and expressed their concern in footnote form.)

This cartoonish, simplified scope of reality would be laughable had it not been the ideologies held by the Bush administration for eight years. Innocent people are accused of crimes all the time. That’s why our smart ancestors put in place that whole “justice system” in the first place. Ya’ know, that thing about being able to face one’s accusers and present evidence to defend one’s self.

If justice is to come to Guantanamo (and it should,) it must also come to the United State’s domestic prisons where draconian drug laws continue case overcrowding and strain stark resources, which then breeds inhumane conditions. If justice is to come to torture victims, it must mean than the archetypes of the torture memos will stand beside the CIA agents that carried out the orders.

The American two-tier justice system must end, and a good start would be for the Obama administration to recognize that a little torture is never okay, no matter who is doing it.