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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (286514)	5/3/2006 7:16:44 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1575087

re: America will be in decline when people born their immigrate en masse to other better places to live. In the America I grew up in you never read stories like this. Stories like this were from the USSR and other uncivilized, amoral countries. Torture "widespread" under U.S. custody: Amnesty By Richard Waddington Wed May 3, 1:07 AM ET Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons. "Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody," Amnesty said in its 47-page report. It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight," much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques. "The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish," said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering. The U.N. committee, whose experts carry out periodic reviews of countries signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture, is scheduled to begin consideration of the United States on Friday. The last U.S. review was in 2000. It said in November it was seeking U.S. answers to questions including whether Washington operated secret detention centers abroad and whether President George W. Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases. The committee also wanted to know whether a December 2004 memorandum from the U.S. Attorney General's office, reserving torture for "extreme" acts of cruelty, was compatible with the global convention barring all forms of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. UNTIL THE END In its own submission to the committee, published late last year, Washington justified the holding of thousands of foreign terrorism suspects in detention centers abroad, including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, on the grounds that it was fighting a war that was still not over. "Like other wars, when they start, we do not know when they will end. Still, we may detain combatants until the end of the war," it said. The U.S. human rights image has taken a battering abroad over a string of scandals involving the sexual and physical abuse of detainees held by American forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. In its submission, Washington did not mention alleged secret detention centers. Amnesty listed a series of incidents in recent years involving torture of detainees in U.S. custody, noting the heaviest sentence given to perpetrators was five months in jail. This was the same punishment you could get for stealing a bicycle in the United States, it added. "Although the U.S. government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Goering, referring to the testimony of torture victims in the report.

To: Elroy who wrote (286514)	5/5/2006 6:09:40 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575087

Things are different here. I am not sure I can give the specifics that will make it clear to you. I think you have to be here to understand. Recently, I've begun to realize that given where you are located, you are only getting some of what's happening here. Living overseas (which I have done for extended periods three times in my lifetime) what I have learned is how great a place is America is, even if the grammar in that sentence isn't quite spot on. Yes, I had similar reactions when I would go overseas....even when I went to Europe. I think part of it is simple nostalgia particularly when your stay turns into months and years. Plus, its not unusual to convince yourself that the way your country does things is much better than the one you currently are visiting. You may have issues with the USA compared to some idealized fantasyland, but compared to most other countries on the planet it is a fantastic place to live, full of opportunity. The US values individuals based on their own merit instead of their family/wealth/connections. I have issues with the US involving itself in the affairs of other nations that have nothing to do with it or its defense, or in taking sides with people who are tyrants and torture their own people. No matter how many good works we do within the US, they do offset the bad America has done all over the world during the past 50 years. And while I know there are worse countries, I have always believed that they did not set the standard for the US. Rather, I would prefer to follow the standards of countries that are not manipulative and that do not side with dishonest, dangerous and corrupt leaders because it serves their purposes. Isn't Bill Clinton exactly the rags to riches story that you are saying no longer exists? Didn't his father either leave or die before he was 12, his brother was a semi-alcoholic, his mother was by no means wealthy, he's from freakin' ARKANSAS, and he ends up President of the USA twice simply because he's brilliant? Yes, there is always the example of someone who has made the rags to riches journey, and so the myth is perpetuated. And the way Clintons made it was working as government 'servants' for 30 years and then writing books about their experience. While many doubt the rags to richers was ever true, it is definitely not true now. Here is one of several studies on the subject: "The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent, according to "Understanding Mobility in America," a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University. By contrast, a child born rich had a 22 percent chance of being rich as an adult, he said." news.yahoo.com Here is another excerpt from the actual study: "By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States." americanprogress.org What's sad is that the American rags to riches dream should be true. You have to ask yourself why it isn't. America will be in decline when people born their immigrate en masse to other better places to live. I'm the extreme oddball these days, a native northern Californian that lives outside the US instead of inside the San Francisco Bay Area. I think being outside the US I have a much better perspective on the US position relative to the rest of the world than you do. Not necessarily. I go back to what I said up above........its been my experience that wherever I've gone in the world, the US always looks better. And if you believe the myth of the large and growing American middle class, and the rags to riches myth and also believe that the wealth of the affluent is confined, and then throw in a few Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Georgy Clooney movies with some incredible shots of say SF or NYC, how can you not believe America is the best in the world. Unfortunately, the facts don't agree with your premise. You would probably go to Disneyworld and see it as an entertainment complex which is past its prime and in decline.... Interesting.......your defense is mostly anecdotal so you look for a way to put down what I am saying. Before you can make things better, you have to deal with what the reality is. Pretending America is one thing when its another is the nutritional equivalent of eating cotton candy for dinner and thinking it will make you healthy.