{"id":675,"date":"2007-11-07T16:10:49","date_gmt":"2007-11-07T15:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=675"},"modified":"2007-11-04T16:11:07","modified_gmt":"2007-11-04T15:11:07","slug":"on-the-aged-and-distinguished-pointlessness-of-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/11\/07\/on-the-aged-and-distinguished-pointlessness-of-torture\/","title":{"rendered":"On the aged and distinguished pointlessness of torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rendition\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nwithall affirming that the Divel can take any shape, and speake plaine English
\n     — from the trial of Rebecca West\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of our activities when Dori was visiting two weeks ago was to visit Colchester castle, which I’d never been to. Like many such castles, it was used for much of its life as a prison, with the sort of horrid conditions typical of such places. One of the many unpleasant uses of this prison was for torture during witch trials. This included the torture of Rebecca West, a 15 year old girl that eventually confessed to having been “married” to the devil by the elder witches, and gave up her mother and numerous others, most of which were hanged. (There’s a transcript of the trial<\/a> on-line, which includes the quote above.) <\/p>\n

All quite creepy, especially since the U.S. government still believes that torture is a reasonable way to acquire meaningful information.<\/p>\n

A few days ago WeatherGirl and I saw Eastern Promises<\/em> and Rendition<\/em> in a single night of light entertainment. (Plus all three of us saw an excellent stage production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus<\/em> on Friday, so light and fluffies all around!) Eastern Promises<\/em> was certificate 18 in the UK, while Rendition<\/em> was 15. I understand those ratings and they make a fair amount of sense, but I personally found Rendition<\/em> more disturbing, mostly because of the awful and futile torture. It’s so clear that the character in question, and very nearly any of us, would soon say whatever our examiners wanted to hear in a desperate effort to bring an end to the abuse. Under such circumstances, any information gathered is clearly valueless, making the whole process nothing more than a horrid exercise in the molestation of our fellow humans.<\/p>\n

It was also tough because WeatherGirl’s not a U.S. citizen; her status is almost identical to that of the man that is kidnapped and tortured in the film. The two important differences are that she’s not African\/Middle Eastern, and she’s female, but from a legal perspective she’s no more or less protected than he was. Sadly, though, when the rule of law breaks down almost entirely (as Our Fearless Leader has allowed to happen in many ways), questions of legal protection become irrelevant in the face of this cackling rush to the shackles and truncheon.<\/p>\nNo tag for this post.\n\t

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