Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Human Rights Law Blogs -> Never In Our Names

Human Rights Law

: Never In Our Names

News From The Torture-Endangered Society

By Alexa

The torture-endangered society is no invention of mine; rather, it's a description by medical ethicist Dr. Steven Miles from an interview in 2006.

A torturing society is a society that is abraded by the process of dehumanization. In that process, we essentially create our own mirrored netherworlds. We posit a secret omnipresent anarchist non-Christian entity against which we put up the people of the true faith,and thats one reason torture is so dangerous to societies, because torturing societies do have these epiphenomenon that spill out into the broader society and result in less discriminating thinking and less understanding.

Perhaps inevitable in a nation that's become   notorious for state-sanctioned torture policies and human rights abuses over the past eight years, the same dehumanization permeates the imaginations, and increasingly, the reality, of our citizens.
Some news items from today:

In Tracy, California, a shackled and emaciated 17-year-old boy escaped a foster home on Monday. The couple entrusted by CPS to his care were booked into San Joaquin County Jail on suspicion of felony conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence, and child beating. Both are being held in lieu of nearly $1.2 million in bail.

According to police, the boy, who has not yet been identified, ran into In-Shape City gym at about 4 p.m. Monday and asked an employee to hide him. Witnesses say that the boy, who was covered in soot, urine, and feces, was carrying a chain that was padlocked to his ankle.

"He just said, 'Hide me, please, hide me. They're coming for me.' He was cowering, trying not to be seen," In-Shape Assistant Manager Lea Leonardo told Recordnet.com. "I thought he was a burn victim at first. He was so thin; I thought he was a 12 year old. I couldn't believe what was happening."

According to police, the boy was initially confused about where he was and how he got there; however, he eventually told them that he ran away from a Sacramento foster home in 2007 to look for his biological family. The boy was reported missing; and, at some point he made his way from Sacramento to Tracy, a 70-mile journey, and allegedly ended up being held captive in a tract home less than a block from the gym.

But, you may say, pero Alexa, abuse within foster care is horrible, but it isn't exactly news. And you may say, of this next story, that times are hard and there have always been thieves and thugs. I can't disagree with that.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, two men have been arrested for unlawful detainment and torture of an 83-year-old World War II veteran.

The two are accused of befriending John Pickett before Duct-taping him to a chair in the basement of his home and punching and kicking him for an hour while demanding money. The senior ultimately emptied his wallet of $70 and gave it to his attackers.

"He was in critical condition for awhile with fractures to the head and face," Thompson said, adding the victim is currently recovering in a rehabilitation facility. "He was pretty beat up."

Of course, "we" torture animals, too.

Kathy Bauck, 52, also faces charges of torture and practicing veterinary medicine without a license. She is the owner of Pick of the Litter Kennels in New York Mills.

According to court records, Smith had documentation of dogs being dipped in a chemical mixture intended for cattle and swine. He also documented a difficult birth in which some dogs were delivered dead and the mother was not treated by a veterinarian.

"A society steeped in fictional torture . . . " (Dr. Miles}

In the nineties, a great number of movies came out that expressed anxiety about the growing influence of technology--"The Matrix," "Pleasantville, "The Truman Show," almost all the Schwarzenegger futuristic features, to name a few. Then came the "Saw" series--which is still going on--and "Hostel" and other brutal torture movies, which seemed to mirror uncannily the awful news about Abu Ghraib. And now we have vampires preying on the innocent and ignorant, at the same time that corporate bloodsuckers are doing their best to avoid the light of day and scrutiny.

Seems to me that movies are, however unknowingly, projections in more ways than one. If I were to guess what might be the next such cinematic manifestation of social anxiety, it would be--in light of neuroscientific discoveries--movies that call into question what most of us believe to be free will. (Daniel Menaker, Huffington Post)

"Recreational torture" or the epiphenomenon Dr. Miles wrote of in 2006's Oath Betrayed?

In a small house on a lonely stretch of road in Harrisville, a man tortured and raped a friend of nearly 20 years and held him against his will for several weeks last winter, even tying him up in a trailer in the woods when the friend wanted to get away, according to indictments filed this week by a Providence County grand jury.

Domenic R. DiMuccio Jr., a 43-year-old truck-driver, has been indicted on 22 charges, including 5 counts of first-degree sexual assault, 11 counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, 5 counts of simple assault and 1 charge of kidnapping.

The victim, now 35, accused DiMuccio of beating him with an ax handle, a flashlight and boots, stabbing him with a fork, smashing a light over his head, slashing him with a meat cleaver and screwdriver, threatening him with a chain saw and shoving a running shower hose into his mouth. The man said that DiMuccio repeatedly sexually assaulted him over a period of several weeks and forced him to drink his urine.

I could go on and on here; there's no shortage of news stories such as these.

CHICAGO - A man whose death sentence was commuted to life in prison by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan has filed a petition to get his murder conviction overturned, claiming he was tortured into confessing.

In a petition filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, attorneys for Cortez Brown say he confessed to killing two men in 1990 only after detectives under the command of former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge beat him with their fists and a flashlight. Brown was convicted of first-degree murder in 1992 and sentenced to death.

Where does it end? How does it end? Dr. Miles:

People ask me all the time if I think I'll be killed for doing this work, which to me is an astonishing statement. I dont see a risk in getting killed. What I do see in the question is a direct indication of the degree to which living in a torturing society has damaged our larger civil society.

I read these stories and sometimes I wonder why. What is wrong with me, what compels me to read the stories of our neverending capacity for cruelty to our fellow human beings, to the elderly, to the helpless, to children, to animals? I could use a simple search filter to just read the traditional media torture headlines (Guantanamo, rendition, CIA interrogations). What in God's name compels me to not just read them but write about them?

I have no real answers to my own questions. And much of the time, the questions do feel very much like a conversation with myself because Dios mio, this isn't a topic for popular conversation and never will be. It'll never make for entertaining blog reading.

I think I have to do it because no matter who the victims were, their lives meant something to someone else. Seems like both the least I can do and all I can do is give that a little bit of my time and consideration, bear witness and hope that when President-Elect Obama spoke of "healing this nation, repairing this world," he had the lost and the suffering and the helpless in mind.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on December 02, 2008 (boomark / email).