U.S. UNDER BUSH/CHENEY ORDERED CRUEL, HARSH METHODS BEYOND WATERBOARDING

Last night on PBS, Bill Moyers Journal featured excerpts from Torturing Democracy, a film from producer Sherry Jones, that takes a close look at various forms of torture and cruel punishment meted out by the U.S. military and by the CIA.

We saw depictions of prisoners being shackled to the ceiling or to the floor, being blasted by non-stop high decibel music, being deprived of sleep for days, being held in complete darkness for months at a time, being stuffed into small containers and/or cages. And all of this inhumane treatment was over and above being subject to the trial by water, where water is poured into one's mouth and nose, causing the fear and sensation of drowning.

When I was watching the program, it was hard to reconcile that these methods of torture were American methods of interrogating prisoners, many of whom were ordinary sheepherders and farmers, picked up in Afghanistan and sold to the Americans. Yet it was Bush himself who signed off on these cruel and harsh methods, and it was Dick Cheney who followed up and made sure that the military and the CIA were enforcing them.

BILL MOYERS' GUEST IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE OBAMA'S AD ON MCCAIN'S PLAN FOR PRIVATE ACCOUNTS

I saw and heard Kathleen Hall Jamieson's analysis of various campaign ads last night on Bill Moyers Journal. Jamieson said that Obama's ad on McCain's proposal to create private accounts in lieu of Social Security retirement income was "dirty politics." I strongly disagree with Jamieson.

I found Obama's take right on, contrary to Ms. Jamieson's description. Those private accounts favored by Bush and McCain would divert contributions of younger workers to their own private accounts, thus depriving older retirees of monies necessary to pay for their SS retirement benefits. While it would take some time for this to affect current SS recipients, it still would occur sometime in the future. Furthermore, in today's market meltdown, all types of assets have been decimated. That includes bonds as well as stocks. So 1) Jamieson is not correct in saying that certain types of accounts would protect against market melt-down, or 2) that McCain/Bush SS privatization would not have an effect on retirees or future retirees.