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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Please Explain 24 Hour Post...

The posting to which I refer is the previous post; it is just beneath this one. Such is the Blogic of the case, the logic of the Blog puts the most recent on top, directly subjacent to the title and the older ones further down. Hence, my explanation of something already posted will precede the explained post in one's sight, and yet be subsequent to it in time.

Someone asked me about my post on the TV show 24 Hours, wondering about how a story may be a basis for a logical argument? Perhaps I am being fanciful in my analysis? Going back to the sequence of events as propounded by Mr. Dershowitz as an instance of the justice and efficacy of the establishment of our own Torture Tribunal, we observe:
1) the bomber is known to be a bomber, and that so absolutely, something not usually so clear and precise in the real world, but which is very clear and precise in Die Hard, where the first 15 minutes or so are spent demonstrating that Allan Rickman is (a) Germanic, (b) insane, (c) a terrorist, (d) fond of shooting old security guys fer laffs;
 2) it is known that there are other bombs, or at least there is an very high probability that there are other bombs, and they are scattered in regions of dense population, something that assumes we already have a great deal of information from some other source, but we killed that particular golden goose before we educed the info as to 'where, pray tell?';
3) the bombs will go off in such a future time that the good guys still have a chance to disable them, detonation not being so imminent that all efforts would come to naught; a bomb set to explode in five minutes, say, yet in a city whose name and location we still do not know,is narratively impossible, because if the bombs go off, game over and Bruce Willis is sitting around with nothing to do for the next 90 minutes at 24 frames per second.

We could go on. What I wanted to do was demonstrate that Mr. Dershowitz's torture warrant case was constructed to compel to torture in the exact same manner as Die Hard was constructed to compel the viewers' continuing interest and approval of all mayhem wrought by Bruce Willis to attain his goal.
We watch the film and we feel anxious, wanting Bruce Willis to conquer Allan Rickman and his evil cohorts. We feel that Good has triumphed when he does so. We have been enmeshed within the web of a finely spun fabric of a story. We watch reality and we feel anxious. We wait for good to triumph. We have been enmeshed within the web, yet we do not see that some people wish to make us prisoners, and not merely to make our suffering yet more poignant. America, take control of your own Story!  

(addendum: the members of the Greybeards Round Table whose political views are more right wing- the ones who like that young sprat John McCain- say that my disdain for torture is typical liberal softness. I tell them I have lived a long time and have seen the monsters, in the nation, in the government, in my own life. I know monsters. I have sat at the same table with them. The CIA used its Flyer Miles to fly people all over the globe to torture them with no warrants of torture. Mr. Dershowitz, you offered a gun to someone who was already using the cannon. People will do what they must do. We do not need to ENSHRINE it into law.) p.s. I am told the name of the show is 24, not 24 Hours. I could have sworn it was 24 Hours when it first came out. If there is ambiguity and you constantly mix it up with "This Hour Has 20 Minutes..." ( for my Canadian friends), call me at that 800 number on bumper stickers asking whether you approve of my driving.

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