Witches Abhor Torture

Ah, another recycled topic. :)

Not the traditional meaning I was alluding to, Robin, but poetry's always nice. :)

People may say what they will imagine about Pagan morality, but I'd say there's not a whole lot of wriggle-room on the torture thing.

Tough subject for me, I think I mentioned. For most Pagans and our much-fearmongered-about 'situational ethics,' I think it's clear to us what torture does, to the victims and perpetrators. There's no justifying or redefining it.

I think our monotheist friends may have a harder time of it: really wrestling with how to justify that kind of human cruelty in the past while not being that kind of people now...

Which is how it kind of keeps happening: they'll be like, 'This isn't torture or abuse I'm doing cause I'm not that kind of people.'

It's dressed up in words and justifications and 'eternal rewards,' too often... But I think what it is is primal terrors throttled down by ideologies until it's too terrifying for those that do it to do otherwise.

Till, cognitively, somehow they're more scared of 'something worse' than they are of what it means to become a torturer.

The stories Westerners *tell* about torture still leave most of us bewildered at the behavior of all concerned, most especially when we have some particular need to believe in a legalistically-ordered universe.

I think there's a simpler way out.

Honor.

Paganplace:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/halcyon

robinlandseadel:

http://www.archive.org/details/MahlerDasLiedVonDerErde

PaganPlace: "What is it a halcyon bird *does* anyway, at the end of the day?"

The Halycon bird sings its Swansong:

Wine in the golden goblet is beckoning,
But drink not yet, first I will sing you a song!
The Song of Sorrow, let its mockery laugh itself into your soul.
When sorrow approaches, the soul's gardens lie desolate,
Joy and song wither and die.
Dark is life, is death.

Lord of this house! Thy cellar holds the fullness of golden wine!
Here, this lute I call mine own!
To play upon the lute, to empty glasses,
These are things that fit each other.
At the proper time a goblet full of wine
Is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!
Dark is life, is death!

The firmament in its eternal blue, and the earth,
These will long endure, will blossom in springtime.
But thou, O man, what is the span of thy life?
Not a hundred years art thou permitted to enjoy
The idle vanities of this earth!

Look there below! In the moonlight upon the graves
There crouches a wild, ghostly figure--
An ape it is! Hark how his howling
Shrills out into the sweet airs of this our life!

Bring on the wine! The time has come, my comrades!
Drain your golden goblets to the dregs!
Dark is life. is death!

from Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, adapted by Mahler from a poem by Chinese poet Li Bai

http://everything2.com/title/The%2520Drinking%2520Song%2520of%2520the%2520Earth%2527s%2520Sorrow

Starhawk, so refreshing to read the writings of a true acting christian. So very hard to find one these days.

Well, now. That was something of a holiday.

No, it'snot 1983, Mr. Landsfaedel..

What is it a halcyon bird *does* anyway, at the end of the day?

You kind of talk like some claim to know what was going on in 1983 means you have a clue what's going on *now.*

If I'd met you in 1989 we might have had words about you holding out like that.

But. It's *two thousand... and nine. And it feels like it's been longer since you've seen home than I.

Brer Robin.

Name like that, holiday like this, it's your job to sing the soming bright seasons.

This ear, you know, I had this rough Beltane, with bad memories, we had a good time, but I just couldn't find the song.

Really, after all the guests had gone home, I found it.

Tony Bennett.

Beltane.

'I see trees of Green,
Red Roses, too,
I see them blom,
For Me and You
and I think to myself..
What A wonderful world

I see clouds of blue
And Clouds of white,
The Brght Blessed days
The The dark sacred nights....

And I think to myself..

What a wonderful world...

The colours of the rainbow,
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by

I hear children playing
And singing, too,
They're really saying, " I love you.'

I hear babies criyng...
I watch them grow...
They'll learn much more
Than we'll ever know.

And, I think to myself..

Kids.

What a wonderful world. :)

Summer's a comin in, hey nonny. ;)

Merry Meet, and a Happy Beltane to everyone! I know it was yesterday, but since that's also me and my husband's wedding anniversary (ten years now), I was obviously a bit too busy to get online!

I'm a volunteer firefighter/EMT, so those slasher movies don't really tickle my fancy...if I want to see blood and gore, I'll just jump on the engine the next time we get a call for a car accident on the highway-those get pretty icky sometimes! That having been said, I'm trying to keep my kids away from violence like that. Threefold Law aside, that sort of thing can have a lasting impact on a sensitive kid, and it can be hard to teach them that violence in any form isn't justifiable when it's glorified in the movies like it is. Punching out a bad guy is one thing, but torture and kill-'em-all violence...no way.

I'm leery of torture period. Since when is punching the snot out of someone to get the answers to the questions you want justified? It didn't work for police officers in interrogation rooms, and it does little good for prisoners of war, either. How can we as a nation say we support dignity and the humanity of everyone when we mistreat our own prisoners in such ways that fly in the face of that statement? It's all too easy to cross that line. Like some other posters have said, torture also takes something away from the torturer as well as the torturee. No matter how you slice it, the sense of humanity is eroded away. I hope we as a nation can renouce the "need" for such actions.

The accomplishment of ANY desired end - no matter how laudable - is NEVER justified when the means employed to accomplish that end are questionable at best. I am a christian and I am sickened to learn, according to a recent Pew Research Poll, that there are many American christians who apparently deem the use of torture appropriate in some instances. It is the torturer who loses his/her own soul and it is an indictment of any society that supports its use as an instrument of public policy. This president has got it exactly right: the use of torture has a corrosive effect on the soul of a nation. Democracy is frequently a messy and inconvenient enterprise. But Lincoln was exactly right, for all time and forever, when he said: " Let us strive to learn that it is right that makes for might." God help us all, if we succumb to the temptation to take some convenient "short cuts" in the search for the "evil doers" and attempts to bring them before the bar of justice. For in the doing, we will have become just like them! The moral high ground is the only viable position for us to take as a nation, seeing as how we have been crowing about our own exceptionalism for a very long time.

Thank you for your article Starhawk... I guess we could go on and on about the inhumanity of torture. I am struck that the Native Americans are always left out of the examples. They suffered some of the worst torture/genocide ever, and are still.

I think our penal system is sanctioned torture. I've always thought that. I'm hoping that as more people open their eyes to how we are desensitizing ourselves by continuing to allow it, we will stand together to change it. Once and for all.
Mia

Uh-oh,

Just reviewed my last posts and I apologize for all the typos.

Also, Robin, thank you for the link to Holly. I really like her music. In a way is faintly reminiscent of Joan Baez, one of my favority hippy day performers.

Now I am more into the classics.

Be well!

Paganplace"

"Is that all you can see?

Probably no time to be ...."

No, PP, that is not all I see, I wish I could show you what I see...If only there was a way....then you would understand me and I would understand you!!!!

In any case, I love Starhawk and her posts.

Tomorrow I will have another day of probing and pricking at the local butcher shop. If all of you would send me a good will wish, I would sure appreaciate it!

On Saturday, I will host a party for my guture son-in-law to velebrate his graduation from college.

So I may not be around to chat....but will always be thinking of you and wishing you well.

Namaste, my Friends!!!

PaganPlace: ". . . somewhere along the line, I seem to have accumulated some recollection that Pagan thought has has some developments it appears you may have missed."

Ah yes, 1983—halcyon homeless days of yore. There's probably a few brain cells I'm missing that I'll never miss, brain cells that were dangerously overactive back in the before before.

Setting aside issues of our own spiritual bailiwicks and the expansion of the neo-pagan community as a trackable/marketable & expanding demographic, one would hope that civil rights—human rights—would have evolved by now into something more universal. What happened in our names over the last eight years was a devo-lution, a reversion into the darker potential of our national heritage. Sad to contemplate that referencing the burning times seems even more appropriate & up-to-date now than a quarter century ago. . .

" . . . There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning . . . And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave . . . So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
Hunter S. Thompson

Church of All Nerds? Where do I sign up for that one? Instead of "never thirst" do they say "never run out of bandwidth"? :D

- Athena, almost certified techno-Pagan (I get to be called Mistress...er... Master on the 19th.)

I mean, Robin, I feel it is on some level profounly unfair, hat I of all peopleshould have to be the one to tell you it is no longer 1983, but somewhere along the line, I seem to have accumulated some recollection that Pagan thought has has some developments it appears you may have missed.

Beauty of it is, we get to just sing in the May like we mean it. :)

Knowmenane, bro? :)

Well, Robin, assuredly we have a certain love of levity, but in an interfaith context, I do think someone wearing your name could do a *touch* better than the Dr. Demento show to herald Spring.

(Is that even *on* anymore? If so, where)

Reach. Like it's your *Big Moment.* :)

Anyway, .....blessed be. As I was saying earlier, it's a good day, or overnight, to embrace new beginnings....

As the Heinlein referesnces go, at one point there was (still is, actually) called 'The Church Of All Worlds, they kind of started out as Heinlein fandom and somewhere along the line found the Goddess. I dare say strangers in stranger lands than *that* have found our ways here, but some o these folk have actually had a lot to contribute to the Pagan community back when I was learning ....peace by negative example, I guess. :) )

*laugh.* OK. 'Grok' is a word, ....Well, it's from Mars. It's word from a classic sci fi novel which has in the past been used in the past to refer to the notion of 'understanding on an instinctual-conceptual level.' Maybe, 'soul-knowing.'

I'm sure there's a fancy word for it in Sanskrit. :)

Paganplace,

One more question for you...

"Can you grok".....what does that mean? "grok"...it's a term I have never heard before. Please explain.

Oh, Paganplace, no need to get prickly! Like I said I had a little black fly in my Chardoney.

You know, I hate the Nazis as much as anybody, it's just that when you are a German it gets a little unnerving (?). You automatically feel at fault, even when you had nothing to do with it.

Like a said, just a little black fly....It's already fished out....

Just keep your compassion going, because I believe that compassion for others is the only way.

I am so very tired tonight and I don't even know if I am making sense at all. One thing I can assure you of though, and that is that love makes the world go 'round, never hate or distain.

Namaste (and yes I know exactly what it means and I bow before you), my friend!

Can you grok... Not the point Gaby? Whatever you may think of me.... not the point.

There's much talk about insisting on things we can't 'prove' to the satissfaction of those looking for an excuse not to do these things anyway....

Human cruelty, for whatever reason it's cultivated, is not only 'bad,' ....

By the Goddess, it's not even anywhere near the *point.*

We do not 'abstain' from a 'desire' to torture people only in the event some God is supposed to totrure us worse than the fears induced in us by those looking to justify torture, '

...We do not even *try* to excuse it, justify it, find a reason to do it, because we know it's *horrid.* Disgusting, ...Cause we can do better.

Cause it's weakness. cause it's fear. Cause it's part of a line of BS that is wrong about *everything.*

Cause, having been tortured, the victim isn't the first to lose something important. Dig?

I hope you'll forgive us, Gaby, for not getting off on condemnation..... I'm sure it's a true statement that when Starhawk was a kid, all these badnesses were pushed off on the Nazis, and even later the USSR, as she referred to some notion of 'when she was growing up' ...as you quoted her saying.

When *I* was growing up, *I* believed that on top of all manner of other nonsense, we had an imminent commie invasion to worry about. I guess I just prepared a couple contingency plans and went on with the *rest* of my nteresting times.

This is the *stupid* thing. You show a *little* bit of insight in 1975 and suddenly the Sudan's your fault.

Great. Great.

Any suggestions?

Oh, Starhawk, how I have missed you and your compassion! You truly are one of a kind! You need to pipe in more often!

I agree with you 100% and wish more people would buy into your philosophy.

There is just one tiny black fly in my Chardoney....and that would be this statement:

"Personally, I grew up in an era when torture was the line that separated the good guys from the bad. Torture was what the Nazis did--not us"

Although I agree that the Nazi regime was horrific, how come no one ever says:

Torture was what the Japanese, Stalin, the Khmer Rouge, the Poles, the Vietnamese, Idi Amin, the Chinese, etc., did.

Why is it still the Nazis, as if no one else ever had tortured anyone? The Germans have paid a bitter price for what Hitler and his gang did. But they have learned from it!

Today's most repressive regimes are:

Belarus
Chechnya (under Russian jurisdiction)
China
Cuba
Côte d'Ivoire
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Laos
Libya
Myanmar (Burma)
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Tibet (under Chinese jurisdiction)
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Western Sahara (under Moroccan jurisdiction)
Zimbabwe

Although I am not implying that they torture people in the same way Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Mussolini and gang did, they certainly have many human rights abuses that should be addressed as well.

OK, so let me fish out that black fly in my Chardoney and tell you how much I admire and respect your compassion and wisdom!

Namaste, Starhawk!

"To be sure, the things I watched as a child were not pablum - cartoons were very violent,"

Well, I recall many complains about 'cartoon violence.' Not really sure substituting militaristic GI Joe stuff with harmless kinds of 'laser beams' was really a net improvement over Bugs Bunny.

Well, I think, Athena, that in humans, there is a need, somewhere to confront fears.

These horror movies just disgust me, though. My observation is they're 'passion plays,' not really about the subject matter, just about fear and horrific images to redirect elsewhere.

I do think it's good to face fears, but I also think these films are just exhibitions of atrocities that a lot of folks turn around and associate with tthe 'other,' ..it's like ...the 'Blair Witch' movie came out, someone stuck a big pentacle on a package of... what, 70's horror with peudo night-vision scopes?

Shows to go you, I guess... All these brave gunbunnies who think they *need* an automatic weapon to 'fight' someone...

Don't know a thing about a fight, their fears, or who or how they insist the 'fight' will come.

Pathetic, really. Just the horror shows they say are about 'someone else' ....while thy live by them.

Got enough memories of people bleeding as it is, got no need to see more in Panavision. :)

I was never much on the Elm Street/Friday 13th slasher crud. I thought Dexter was interesting the few times I saw it - but Darth Vader was also Anakin Skywalker and he is like most of us two sides of a coin. I find that when kids play Star Wars many chose Anakin over Darth.
It always amazes me that in America we would rather kids watched slash em' ups rather than 2 people making love. Somehow, the naked body is considered bad unless it is slashed all to hell and back. The one thing I noticed in the 1 Friday the 13th that I saw was that any time the kids were making out - you knew one of them or both of them were gonna die terribly.
To be sure, the things I watched as a child were not pablum - cartoons were very violent, fairy tales are pretty grim and cowboys always beat the Indians. But we had the Lone Ranger whose side kick was Tonto - and we had Bill Cosby as an actual agent! That was groundbreaking television. Somehow, we knew or were taught that those things were not real. Our parents were good at teaching us that WE were the ones responsible for our actions. I grew up pretty liberal and I can't fathom a world where torture would be seen as OK as long as its for....
I am hoping that our youth today can see a better way. May all good blessings be on you and yours no matter who you believe in or do not believe in.

Good point on the "Saw" movies, Robin. I look at the ultra-violent slasher movies and torture p**n that has come out in the past several years and shudder to think what it is saying to kids. My generation grew up on Jason, Freddy Krueger, etc. We glorify Darth Vader, Dexter, Jack Bauer, and Sayid on "Lost". How the heck can we live in a society based on love and respect when you have kids emulating Darth Vader?

"As this is Beltane I'm sure someone—you?—with the drive & possibly just enough requisite anger [don't go overboard, it will bite you on your posterior] can come up with an appropriate spell."

Anger's a pretty decent fuel and a terrible driver. ;)

Paganplace: "We're supposed to be the ones that see the Cycles, Robin. They must change somewhere, and somewhere, and it may as well be *now.* Then. All the time."

BB & all that PP, sorry if I'm a bit more Eeyore-ish than usual today. Knowing that the Bush family had Nazi connections that should have derailed them from the national stage during FDR's administration. . . . . . somehow, this never became an issue during the reign of his two sons. Curious.

It goes to show how this country has managed to ride roughshod over basic moral principles long before I was born. Maybe there's just too much inertia at the center of my being, but between the Gitmo disclosures and the continued pampering of the Plutocrats that have been running the banking system into the ground I'm not seeing near enough "change" and perp-walks. If our nation had any collective sense these things would never have happened in the first place.

As this is Beltane I'm sure someone—you?—with the drive & possibly just enough requisite anger [don't go overboard, it will bite you on your posterior] can come up with an appropriate spell. Right now I think I'll take Voltaire's advice and just focus on wrestling with local chaos.

Thanks for the dancing, way back when, btw, Starhawk. Knew you, among others, were out there. Hippie. ;)

Let's have another dance. Someone might need it. ;)

Blessed be, all. :)

""Starhawk: "I grew up in an era when torture was the line that separated the good guys from the bad. Torture was what the Nazis did--not us."

"That's the myth we were sold, "

Some myths, Robin, were bought a long while ago, and have just been on layaway a while. We Pagans, maybe we're just about the Outstanding Balance. :)

No illusions, but *sold.*

We're not those people.

We're going to live that myth. Form here on out. Cause we earned it.

This other nonsense, justifying torture in the name of what cause we're montentarily afraid of what?

We're supposed to be the ones that see the Cycles, Robin. They must change somewhere, and somewhere, and it may as well be *now.* Then. All the time.

This is Beltane coming up.

I can't say I really knew what form it would take, but when I was having some harsh times, something in me *knew* there was someone out there, dancing in the freedom that's our birthright. I have this funny tendency to cry at Maypoles, even now, but I remember what it was like when *my* time came to pick up that ribbon. (Well, without thought of looking over my shoulder, anyway)

Cause we're free, in that way. We dance for all those who didn't make it, and we dance to bring that joy and hope that... Well, you never know who might pick up on it, in some lace all our other strivings can't help.

These are different terms than some may be accustomed to... but it's also us at our truest and best. I've certainly turned around and done my best to physically-inervene for others, but for that to even mean anything, there has to be a place to escape *to.*

Where I was, there was no way of knowing the community was out there.

Somehow I knew there was *something.*

Maybe Lady said so. It was enough.

Way I've come to see it, there's a lot of 'evil' in the world, for a convenient definition. It's a bit of a trap to think it's a thing and always must be fought, when, if we're going to be all spiritual, there are in fact *positive* things that it does well to help dance into the world.

I mean, let's just say 'evil' wouldn't want to meet me in a dark alley, especially in context of messing with people's Beltane, but let's not forget the joy. It's ultimately more powerful than these 'fights' that get set up.

MMA, Starhawk. It's just *always* a cheerful topic to bring in the May with here on Newsweek, isn't it?

Gods know I think this subject needs attention, and it's not even about cultural trauma or the like to me, so much asits continued expression now, and what can be learned from it. Talk about the Burning Times just seems to invite arguments from Abrahamics in the only terms they can seem to relate to, ...as if it were some kind of competitive martyrdom or whatnot.

We're kind of dealing with certain forms of literalism, here.

Very accustomed patterns. Hard to believe that in a forum supposedly showcases the thought of *many* faith leaders that there's even room for controversy.

Then again, it's hard to believe a lot of the stuff that happened to *me* personally. Dark places. Dark enough to forget the Sun, almost. But where the Gods helped me best was just about some funny little idea there was ...and is... Someplace to come out to. The green, the light, and new summer.

This is a time when even we crusty warrior typesare best-advise to 'behold' as bidden, and dance with all our hearts for the hopes of those yet chained in the dark.

This is where a lot of the magic is, too.

Starhawk: "I grew up in an era when torture was the line that separated the good guys from the bad. Torture was what the Nazis did--not us."

That's the myth we were sold, the notion that there was something about being an "American" that set us apart from the rest of the world, a notion probably going back to those Puritan "Elect" responsible for the first big power grab in the New World. There always has been cruelty in the American mindset. We've got factory farming, football rallies, we create a slew of films that only exist as an excuse to stage bloody fights and tortures, we've got "cage matches" & the "Saw" movie series is already up to # VI. However much us professional do-gooders go on about how good and decent we Americans are [hoping to appeal to our better angels], there's the awful reality of the U.S.A.'s collective blood lust, the fact that we've got more souls in prison and more guns on the street than any other country in the world. "Team U.S.A." loves violence & retribution. If "Torture was what the Nazis did--not us" was a true statement then there would have been no Hiroshima, no Vietnam, no Iraq. Not only is torture what we do, thanks to various "intelligence" agencies, it's also what we export.

This is defining moment in our history alright. Of course, the Bush crime family already had a run-in with the law at this level of betrayal of our core principles. Prescott Bush ran plenty of U.S.A. investment money into Nazi Germany via I.G. Farben, an international cartel that also cooked up Auschwitz and Zyklon B. Prescott Bush [H.W.'s dad, W's grandad] went to trial, but essentially got away with trading with the enemy. Prescott didn't have the book thrown at him because of family ties to Standard Oil [now Mobile/Exxon] and there were plenty of other family connections to big banking interests. I hope there are international tribunals for Bushco., & like everyone else I yearn for justice but I'm not holding my breath.

GJKBEAR: "How long before Religion creeps in and starts another dark period in our history?"

Bushco was a load of Theocrats, it already happened. The only question is—how do we re-separate church & state? How do we un-break the egg?

Kind of hard to follow this up. Well said, Starhawk.
I can't fathom the line we would cross if we say that torture is OK in some instances - who gets to decide what instances and what criteria will they use? How long before Religion creeps in and starts another dark period in our history?