The Marquis De Sade Said It Was Okay

Watching the back-and-forth torture recriminations gestate into flames which are doused and weakly gutter up again, I've been wondering who will finally come out and state the obvious: "enhanced interrogation" is ritual sadism. It was prescribed to place captives and interrogators into a negative power-pain exchange system, trading information for political gratification. The safe words are defined by the whip-hand. Words like "I traveled to Iraq and recruited terrorists."

Similar methods were employed in the past by religious inquisitors blessed and protected by their system. Cardinal Richeliu sent one to Loudon to tease the Devils out of an outspoken priest critical of corruption, who legally condemned and burned the critic, unconfessed, at the stake. Earlier, Torquemada strongly supported the use of torture on suspected crypto-Jews, Muslims, and witches in Spain, but strictly limited the allowable extent. It could only be amplified click by click in response to stages of denial.

Cardinal Dickeliu (a.k.a. Richard Cheney) and his Guantanamo Inquisition have failed. Having tired with impoverished and impudent shepherds they turn their sights to a fat heretical Congress. The next inquisition will be "Democrats Torture Too," and if the magistrates try to hold hearings they will be brought to private rooms where they will confess, oh yes, to whatever misdemeanors are proffered. Few can withstand. I live a fairly clean life but would not want to endure that scrutiny. We're all guilty of something, most of all elected representatives who have to take money from merchants to finance election campaigns.

The Democrats were complicit, and they are. It was politically popular to kick ass, even gratifying to subject captives to the lash. They knew all along and deserve every bit of what's contained in the Cheney Files. Now their mouths are frozen, their wills stemmed rather than have their sins shouted from the rooftops. The truth will still out if it takes 25 years or 50, but if it does not do so soon, a good traditional form of governance will give way like a breached dike. Another form more honest and brutal grows in many nations across the globe as it does here, its proto-brand is Don't Tread On Me, and it offers to pick up the toxins strewn by capitalism. It can embrace both democracy and religion and collect the garbage on time. I am theocratic, and I vote.

I empathize with Dick Cheney and am from the same place. I would love to go back to the A&W with my best baton-throwing blond with Jesus on the dashboard looking down on her great gams and the nicest ass in three counties. We would order cheeseburgers and root beer floats, roll the driver-side window halfway down and wait for the waitress in short-shorts to roll over on skates and hang the tray off it. We would ratchet the seats back as far as they would go and bask in the scents of rendered fats while we shared ketchup packets planned our futures and made out on Friday night. When we were finished I fired up my fuel-injected 327 Corvette and laid rubber 50 yards past the stop light, all the way into third gear. God was great.

No matter how many confessions are suffocated out, no matter how many resistant asses are kicked or suspicious wedding parties are bombed, those blessed days aren't coming back. Our desires yearn for easy paths leading back to where everything is right again, we can put it straight again, insulate it against space and time so we can be the way we used to be. Sadism is pardoned by racism and xenophobia and I understand what Cardinal Dickeliu is trying to do: have our cake and eat it too. If the President said it was okay, it was legal, but globalization happened and they were the ones who made it so. There are fewer and fewer places for them to go. Do you remember hot fudge sundaes?