Geez Steve,
If people were to adopt your perspective, they'd be led to believe that the US created the "art of torture" and that all of these "innocents" were coming here to receive their education.
The reality is that torture against one's fellow man has been around since our earliest days on this planet. Participants in the "school of the Americas" program were well versed in coersive interrogative techniques well before they were sent on their "working vacation" here to the US, where they could don the cloak of US trained professional officers.
As for the authoritarian/totalitarian debate, one point I thought about in clarifying the issue is that under a dictatorship there exist individual owners of property. These include businessmen, bankers, and property owners. A dictator can only "control" indirectly the actions of these people through coersive means or winning their loyalty through doling out political and economic favors.
With a totalitarian regime one lives, works, travels, or exercises political expression only through the political apparatus. It is the political machine that owns all means of production and finance, not individuals. It is a system where all national resources are mustered to preserve that political machine and to preserve the rights of the priviledged few who are in control.
Dictators exist solely because they are able to control the loyalties of the national populace and business sector, voluntarily or coercively.
With totalitarians, the party decides what you can and can do, who you are, where you work, and how high you will rise to power in the party, since they claim sole ownership of the means of production and finance, and total control over the political franchise.
Regards,
Ron
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