"24" is morally reprehensible "entertainment" which Dick Cheney pulls out his floppy pud and attempts to jerk off to.
It is to be shunned. Denounced. Loathed. Eradicated from the national consciousness. Through brainwashing and torturous aversion therapy, if necessary.
Even if Kiefer is a hot drunken mess.
Rab
· 10 months ago
Fox load of crap, simplistic fantasy to complex problems. Never watched it and never will.
KerrynowCampau
· 10 months ago
I gave it a shot but couldn't make it through the first season
One of the unintended purposes of 24 is to acclimate the public to make torture acceptable. John, it worked on you!
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
Thanks, but my political views aren't generally based on TV shows. :-)
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 10 months ago
Right--YOU have the sophistication to distance yourself from the show's vicious ideology; unfortunately, Dick Cheney and 70% of the American people do not. (I think that was the figure in one poll that OK'd torture for "ragheads").
Diogenes
· 10 months ago
So you're okay with a gay-bashing show too? I mean hey, it's just a show!
These problems are easy to resolve when you replace the target minority with one of your own. All of a sudden, it's not entertainment but indoctrination.
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
I tend to find a difference between fantasies about killing terrorists and fantasies about killing minorities. But that's just me :-)
Diogenes
· 10 months ago
Wouldn't you say that viewing dramatized torture as entertainment is a pretty clear indication of mental illness, or at least of a pretty antisocial mindset? You need to step back from this and give it a full re-think. I don't think it's something you'll want to advocate upon reflection.
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 10 months ago
For your consideration: Mark Dybul, Bush's Global AIDS Coordinator, is staying on in the job. Despite being am abstinence advocate in Africa and a Warren-lover.
Obama to the gays (and the Africans): you're WAY down the list of my priorities.
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 10 months ago
"24" so disgusting, even West Point had to approach the producers of this vile revenge fantasy and caution them about how much it was warping the fragile minds of the cadets.
Sally in Maine
· 10 months ago
Bad guy? Not necessarily. Just dumb.
This show is such blatant FOX "war on muslim terrorists' propaganda.
No wonder you can make excuses for Obama backtracking on torture & Guantanamo.
Once again, your Republican roots are showing.
Jinchi
· 10 months ago
Does anyone ever ask the question from the terrorist's point of view?
"You want a nuclear bomb to go off in Manhattan, you're about to be tortured, what do you do?"
The terrorist simply lies of course.
The torture stops while the good guys are chasing down the bomb at the wrong location.
If torture is your only option in a ticking timebomb scenario, the terrorist has already won.
scytherius
· 10 months ago
Funny . . . my wife and I discussed this last night after I read an article entitled something like "Can 24 survive in the Obama years". Our conclusion was immediate and the same. Guys . . . it's a goddamned TV program. It is NOT real. I rooted for Charles Bronson, in the Death Wish movies, to just wander the street and execute the bad guys. Does that mean I wish someone would walk the streets executing "bad guys"? Of course not.
Repeat after me . . . it's only a TV show.
Let's not make the simple complicated.
postdamnit
· 10 months ago
I think, in the end, the 24-watcher's love of show/objection to torture can be reconciled. 24 is television.
To be Right, Proper and Justified. Those are the three elements needed to validate an action. And we humans are so damn good at doing it.
paulbot5
· 10 months ago
I love 24, the torture may seem like a good idea in the show, but I doubt those scenarios happen in real life
Moon Dragon
· 10 months ago
If you knew that hand guns in private homes would invariably end up being used either for murders or cause accidental deaths would you invade homes to stop it from happening.
Dumb, but about as realistic as the third rate straw man arguments of the 24 fans.
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
I've never seen "24" -- honestly. I've just seen the chatter, like this, about it.
And in my 67 years, I've seen a lot of "fantasy" evolve into reality, too.
don
· 10 months ago
the point of the show and why its dangerous .... its PROPAGANDA pure and simple... to make people believe that torture works.... and that if we torture ""THE BAD GUY"" we will save the world... ITS fox PROPAGANDA at its best and a shame..
peace
don
artnoize
· 10 months ago
Get rid of your TV. They are called TV programs because you are being programmed.
Chilisize
· 10 months ago
While I agree with those who identify movie torture as the fantasy it is, I also have to say: 24 just plain sucks as a TV show, and it's not for the politics.
The first season was enough for me. Maybe it got better after that?
I started watching intrigued by the idea of an action show in real time -- but the look of the show -- blah So Cal studio back lot -- and the script, only two parts 007 to seven parts 90210, made for some dull viewing. When TV characters do stupid things, they should be stupid things that real people actually do the way real people actually do them. Or when stupid things happen to them, it should be the kinds of stupid things that actually happens to real people. But, jeez, on 24, the characters did the most implausible stupid things and had the most implausible stupid things happen to them again and again, all within a single day that was alleged to be suspenseful and action packed and stuff. Truly one of the dumbest TV series ever to last more than one season.
russ
· 10 months ago
Given that so many people in the US DO in fact believe the fantasy that torture works and is perfectly justifiable etc (just read some comments at various political blogs), it sounds like the show is irresponsibly blurring the edges between fantasy and reality, and making torture seem OK at some level in people's psyches.
Before you laugh off that idea, consider this: Would you be so quick to laughingly dismiss concerns about a TV show about gay-bashers (with people commenting after episodes "Even worse, I kind of wanted the straight guy to kill the gay guy - does that make me a bad liberal?") and would you say "In the end, it can be reconciled, because it's just fiction. Fantasies aren't necessarily a bad thing." Probably not - so why not? What's different?
Sure, in theory there can be good artistic stories about torturing prisoners and about gay-bashing, but the problem is when you confuse that with exploitive thrills that are calculated to appeal to the worse instincts in people.
Steve_in_CNJ
· 10 months ago
I tried watching last night. After a few minutes i thought i was listening to a John Yoo memo. Had I kept watching, i wouldn't have my TV or my right shoe.
A dangerous fantasy is precisely that. Dangerous.
evie
· 10 months ago
Love 24. Love it. And am unambiguously against torture. (Unless , of course, Jack is forced to do it.)
caphillprof
· 10 months ago
Torture has nothing to do with preventing harm and everything to do with sexual development and personal fetishes. We tortured in Guantanamo and Bahgram and Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan because it made some of us feel good in our groins.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 10 months ago
the one exception to the rule would be using the music of Celine Dion.
I consider it torture, and I don't see anything sexual about it at all.
Kev
· 10 months ago
Hey John I'm with you. Its a show!
I mean Janeane Garofalo just joined the cast of "24" and she is really liberal. So if it is "PROPAGANDA" well then she must be a republican.
Rufus
· 10 months ago
Janeane probably needed a pay check. Actors have a high rate of unemployment.
johnbpt
· 10 months ago
Or just willing to sell her soul for money --- oh, right, a Republican.
hit_escape
· 10 months ago
In the early seasons of 24, it seemed that Bauer's torture didn't seem to help or work most of the time. It seemed somewhat realistic in that respect. This season, the message is clearly "torture works". I feel guilty for watching it. Even if it didn't have the torture theme, the plot of last nights show was pretty lame. Perhaps if I mock it some more, my wife will stop insisting on watching it.
J Davis
· 10 months ago
How would you feel if the show glorified other atrocities - genocide for example? Or what if Jack Bauer was running around committing hate crimes against gays and lesbians? Would that be o.k. because it's fiction? Obviously not. So why is it acceptable to display torture in a positive light? See this Human Rights First video on prime-time torture:
I disagree. We have a choice in life: Love or Fear. 24 perpetuates the fear cycle in a way that fits in lockstep with Bush's policies over the last 8 years. The producer has pretty much said he agrees with Bush and thinks there's nothing wrong with torture. I'm torn, because I'm a big fan of Carly Pope, another fine Canadian actor the Sutherland has brought in. She plays the President's dead son's mysterious ex. To boycott the show and miss her, or ignore the underlying message that the ends always justify the means and see Carly's acting............
GustavMahler
· 10 months ago
I am a liberal and I love the show. It has had 2 black presidents and now a woman. It is fiction, it is a story. I laughed out loud last nite about the pen in the eye trick. Jeanne is a scared nerd now, lol. How can this show be worse than Morning Joe? or Hannity? I like all kinds of mysteries, Monk, NCIS, etc. I don't get my politics from fiction shows. I enjoyed last nites show, all the sub plots made me laugh to, but so what, I get enjoyment from it and no one can tell me what I can watch. And yes, I am keeping my television.
Steve_in_CNJ
· 10 months ago
LOL. Hannity is now the standard for prime-time dramas? at least he's funny.
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
Yeah, Janeane Garofolo is amazing - she was exceptional on West Wing in the final year, and I love how she's now gone from scary-power-woman to nerd. Excellent actress. I guess she's a bad liberal now too :-)
Dannycobbb
· 10 months ago
Wow, how sad to hear this from Mr. Aravosis. John, the producer of 24 has expressly stated that he believes torture works. He is clearly trying to get Americans comfortable with torture. Last night's show was nothing more than a polemic in support of torture. It wasn't even thinly veiled! It's a horrible show. The writing reads like a political indoctrination class. If we as a nation succumb to the will of a vengeful and brutal minority (those who support torture) we will have left the realm of civilized nations and joined nations like Egypt, Iran, China and Zimbabwe. It's shocking and sad to hear someone who is otherwise progressive, supporting a show that expressly seeks to garner support for brutality, torture and devolution. The best way to stop terrorists from wanting to attack America is to stop imposing brutal dictators on other nations in order to gain dominion over the natural resources of these countries. It is the brutality of our economic hegemony that has made us a target for terrorists.
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
It's a great TV show. I'm sorry that I've now destroyed your opinion of me because I enjoy a fictional TV show. Geez. Reminds me of people criticizing Chris for posting pictures from his trip to Tunisia, and for even going on the trip, because it's a "bad" country. Good Lord, do people really run their lives like this? Where is it correct to go on vacation? The US is obviously out. Iceland?
tbhull
· 10 months ago
Fuck 24 and fuck FOX 24/7.
OT -
Israel is as much as demoncracy as the US was before slavery was abolished and before women's sufferage. Can we spend a few more billions in defense of this?
I feel the same way! Obviously torture is wrong, but 24 has that way of making you feel like it's justified in that instance. I'm 100% pro-Bauer
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
Finally someone :-)
Dannycobbb
· 10 months ago
What is it about mono-dimensional characters that anyone could find interesting about this show. It is little more than a bad cartoon! Ugh. My spouse LOVES the show. EVERYTHING is either good or bad.... EVERYTHING is either black or white.... so mono-dimensional.... so uninteresting. SO LAME!
edwalla
· 10 months ago
I think torture should only be used AFTER you have convicted the terrorist and their appeals have run out. Then it can safely be used for what it really is - revenge lust.
woodroad34
· 10 months ago
I watched the show last night and I was slightly offended with the "Congressional hearing" when they were trying to indict Jack. Surnow made them look so backasswards and Jack so perfect, I wanted to wretch. Yeah, I know it's only TV, but Surnow was better with La Femme Nikita than this show. BTW, isn't Surnow a major Republican? My ultra-conservative acquaintance loves him and says he's given money to RNC and conservative candidates.
KerrynowCampau
· 10 months ago
I did not watch it last night but I did notice it took the place of the Simpsons. I would hate to think that children watched a show that depicted torture. I have noticed that many of the "teen scream" movies have torture in them. It is becoming disturbing titillation for viewers.
Polly_Tics
· 10 months ago
For goodness sakes John, TORTURE is not only morally wrong, but it does NOT get accurate results. Which part of this is hard to grasp?
By you saying that;
"I suspect a lot of people don't object to torturing "bad people," if there's a massive and imminent threat and you know the guy can stop it. The problem is, define "bad," and just as important, how do you know you've got the right guy?"
This merely gives credence to the concept of TORTURE IS ACCEPTABLE.
By you trying to discern who is or isn't "BAD", is making the subject of torture totally SUBJECTIVE and once we have a bunch of momo's trying to decide who does and doesn't deserve to be tortured, well then is when we all should buy a ticket to Canada (if they will have us).
I know you like 24 and I did too before they began their hard right turn on including torture as part of their regular nights viewing, but to actual condone this is truly upsetting.
Indigo
· 10 months ago
There is no such thing as a bad liberal.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 10 months ago
someone who voted for mccain because Hillary didn't get the nomination??
BAD! BAD liberal!
;-)
Sally in Maine
· 10 months ago
Anyone who could have voted for Hillary is a bad liberal already!
TheNeedle
· 10 months ago
I have no objection to the torture of fictional bad people. It's when you start doing it to real ones that it gets tricky.
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
Okay that made me laugh.
TheNeedle
· 10 months ago
*bows* Glad to be of service, padrone.
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
Speaking of Fux TV (from TPM)
Fox's McCarver, Buck, Aikman Got US Marshals Escort From Games By Zachary Roth - January 12, 2009, 12:52PM Baseball may be our national pastime -- and football our real national game -- but that doesn't mean taxpayers should be paying to make it easier for Fox Sports' announcer team to get away from the stadium more easily.
A new report by the Justice Department's inspector general finds that a lawyer for the U.S. Marshals Service arranged for the Marshals Service to provide a private escort for the limousines of Fox's star broadcasters, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, after two World Series games at Fenway Park in 2007.
The report also found that the lawyer, Joseph Band, had arranged for a US Marshals escort for Buck and colleague Troy Aikman, the former Cowboys star, after a January 2008 NFL playoff game in Tampa.
Band was working as a paid statistician for Fox Sports at the time.
See? Fux TV is in like Flynn with the Bush regime...
budpaul
· 10 months ago
I'm sort of the same way with 24; more often than not, it's a winger's wet dream, but it is mostly fun entertainment. It's not always consistent; I've missed a couple of seasons because the show just didn't grab me in the first few hours. And really, just how many ways can you tell the story of some radical Muslim/Eastern European group blowing up this or that. It gets old after a while. After two hours this season, I'm enjoying it and am very much looking forward to tonight's two hours. And speaking of wet dreams, you just know that the wingnuts were absolutely wetting themselves with joy when Jack was telling the senator off at the beginning.
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
And I've killed innocent people in my computer games, just for the fun of it too. There's more to this than just saying "TV show bad, you're going to hell."
KLG
· 10 months ago
"Does it make me a bad liberal that I've been waiting two years for 24 to come back on TV?"
Yeah, pretty much.
This has been another edition of "Simple Answers to Simple Questions."
Dave
· 10 months ago
"Thanks, but my political views aren't generally based on TV shows. :-)"
John, you just showed that they are! You have somehow accepted that it is even a valid scenario. It's not. I'm glad you brought it up, because I think that there are a lot of people who have fallen into the same trap. By presenting this as a valid situation, we are then told that these situations do in fact occur, and this must be the reason we are torturing people, right?
So thank you for being honest enough to let everyone know that they got you too, but please send out an update when you've thought it through.
John Aravosis
· 10 months ago
Uh, no :-) As mentioned, I started thinking about these things in law school at the age of 21. I said that watching the show got me thinking about why it is that I like a show that is in larger part based on a lead character who conducts torture, when I don't like the way our govt has used torture. That contradiction fascinates me. I didn't say that Jack Bauer educated me about torture. Nuance, baby, nuance :-)
hn^3
· 10 months ago
One thing people lose in the 24/torture discussion is that Jack has made it explicit that what he has done is wrong at several levels. He has tortured others because he felt that was the only way to achieve results (find the bomb, etc). At the Senate hearing at the beginning of this season and when he was being held in the car while the FBI was looking for the sniper, he was direct in his answer that torture had basically destroyed him as a person and that the country was too happy to to be ignorant of what was being done 'in their name' (two worlds, a pretty one and a horrible bloody one and Jack wishes the first world would finally pay attention to the 2nd).
Unfortunately, the wing nuts are all too happy to ignore this and just see the bad guy get hurt. Bad guy is not part of their pretty world so it doesn't matter what happens to him.
katymine
· 10 months ago
I completely disagree with having shows like 24, the Unit and others in TeeVee.
Since Vietnam there has been an increasing number of TV military shows, movies and other types with increasing violence, torture which has moved into video games. What that has done is desensitize our society to the violence and allowed torture to become accepted in police work, military and other situations. Now we have police forces that are better equipped than some National Guard units as a resident of Phoenix where our county sheriff has TWO Tanks and both the city and county force all look like swat teams.
The militarization of our society has been planned, by who..... was the defense industry or somewhere else I don't know but I don't like it and it really doesn't fight crime. The days when there were community police, the people in the neighborhood knew there policeman. There was also community which is a great crime fighter.
Chris
· 10 months ago
24 takes things to the worst of law school hypotheticals. If the courts do their job right though, the consequences of using torture should dissuade the government from torture in most cases. If the courts really stand behind their rulings that someone cannot be held indefinately without being tried and convicted, torture is a problem for the government. Coercing a confession through torture would screw up just about any chance the government could get a conviction, so that should provide some sort of detterence for the government in most cases. There may be 24-style scenarios where the government will take the risk of jeopardizing a prosecution to try to stop some sort of terrorist incident through torture, but they would be rare. The courts' unfortunate failure to hold the government's feet to the fire and either promptly provide the accused with speedy trials or let them go free is the problem. The government has no concern about torture screwing up a prosecution and letting a suspect go free because it doesn't expect someone it chooses to detain will ever get that fair trial anyway.
monopole
· 10 months ago
Go over to you tube and make pennance by watching MacGuyver. Jack Bauer idiotically uses methods that don't work in situations that don't occur. What we need is heros who think their way out of situations while retaining their humanity.
Chris From Maine
· 10 months ago
I saw 24 last night, and its a decent show, but its so obviously right wing propoganda, its hard to watch sometimes. It is very pro-torture, anti-civil rights, which is where the Republican/ Right wing is right now.
Zorba
· 10 months ago
I'll watch 24 when they arrest Jack Bauer for his illegal methods, try him, and send him to prison for a long, long time. Chance of that happening on TV? Oh, about the same as the chance in real life that Bush and Cheney will be hauled to the Hague to face a trial for war crimes.
Rufus
· 10 months ago
Haven't read the comments, so this may have been covered: The Fox TV show "24" came on air soon after 9/11. It was not casual entertainment, but instead designed as propaganda to "educate" our citizens on how torture is acceptable. Q: Is torture evil, shameful, and ineffective? A: Hey, Jack Bauer last week tortured the hell out of a guy and got the information he needed to save the United States. So obvious that torture works, so I support George W. Bush in his efforts to prevent another attack. Simply, "24" is propaganda so effective it would please the Nazis in the 30s & 40s.
AdmNaismith
· 10 months ago
'24' was in production well before 9/11 happened. In fact, the producers were a bit worried about airing so soon after 9/11, considering the content. Jack Bauer has done what he has done to clean up the mess of craven politicians and businessmen who put their own craven needs before the safety of the general public.
john
· 10 months ago
Joel Surnow says that the goal of 24 is to justify torture, to show that it works and is justifiable.
I can't believe so many on the left would take so much delight in right wing propaganda. No wonder I have come to distrust the left almost as much as the right. I suppose I am done with americablog.com.
Ecosse770055
· 10 months ago
As an alternative to 24 try watching Prison Break.
It's probably as juvenile but they dont feed the middle eastern paranoia.
But all this violence MUST be having an effect on us.
AdmNaismith
· 10 months ago
'24' is a bi-partisan fantasy. Their own producers define it as science fiction.
The only reason Jack Bauer has done what he has done is to clean up the messes of people even more demented and ruthless than he is (that would be the politicians and businessmen who give him his orders). for anyone worried about 'ticking time bombs', look at the response to 9/11 (about the only ticking time bomb scenario in our nation's history). All the time that was happening NO ONE in the govt DID ANYTHING, except run away. All the torture in the world won't do a thing when the people in power are more craven than the 'evil-doers'.
Pinwiz
· 10 months ago
I'm a serious Liberal and I LOVE 24.
Sometimes it's just about having fun, and I'm sick of the people on our side who cant take the stick out of their asses for a little bit.
Polly_Tics
· 10 months ago
You "have fun" while watching some "terrorist" take a spinning drill with sandpaper on it and tear away at what is left of a human being?
Well, maybe this is why I sometimes have to reconsider having a TV...
An_American_Karol
· 10 months ago
I'm wondering if this is the same argument parents have when their wacked out kids kill other kids? I't the video game's fault. It's entertainment folks, nothing more.
Harry R. Sohl
· 10 months ago
Well, most "terrorists" are willing to die for their cause, so what's to stop them from lying about where it is, then blowing up with everyone else as Jack goes on a wild goose chase?
Or, if they aren't in proximity, why wouldn't they lie and say "it's in Boston", and while Phoenix blows up, they could commit suicide in their cell in a relatively painless way?
Harry R. Sohl
· 10 months ago
Another example (from Wiki):
Batman "interrogates" the Joker, who reveals that their police escorts were on Maroni's payroll, and have placed them in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city — far enough apart so that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Rachel, while Gordon and the police head after Dent.
With the aid of a smuggled bomb, the Joker escapes police custody with Lau. Batman arrives to save Rachel but instead finds Dent. Batman successfully saves Dent, but the ensuing explosion disfigures Dent's face. Gordon arrives at Rachel's location too late, and she is killed when the bomb detonates.
In the hospital, Dent's grief drives him to madness....
Now Batman's double-fucked because he's got a dead girlfriend and Two-Face!!
Torture doesn't work and it's unAmerican (and unGotham) to pretend it does. Will you people never learn?
James Guglielmino
· 10 months ago
Yeah, actually it...well, no, it DOESN't make you a bad liberal. It makes you a bad person in some ways. First, the show is for idiots...I'm not necessarily opposed to a violent show and always like Clint Eastwood's shows...and I like westerns. Maybe it is that the violence isn't so real in those shows. 24 is premised upon torturing. That should enough. Getting vicarious thrills from watching it seems...sick. But that's not all. The present administration got some of its ideas, so we were all told, from watching 24. I wouldn't watch it on a bet...I guess you get props for admitting that you *waited* two years for it to come back. That really took courage...It's OK. You are among the guests on your blog. I don't have to read it but I do and won't stop over this. I am, however somewhat disappointed.
Wayne
· 10 months ago
No...it doesn't make you a bad liberal. In fact, it makes you a good gay. Cherry Jones as President?!?! HELL YEAH!
ModDem
· 10 months ago
The problem is fiction has a way of seeping into our collection consciousness. So if torture is okay on one of the most popular TV shows in America then it ultimately can become okay. But it doesn't make you a bad liberal to enjoy 24 though. I hate when entertainment is supposed to divide people between left and right. We can want gun control but enjoy a Scorsese film.
SUEC716
· 10 months ago
24 started out a a guilty-pleasure. It's entertainment and those who imbue it with political significance are looking at the wrong place for the wrong messages. The problem with this season is that so far 24 is SO BORING! It is stale and derivative of it's own past writing. They are retreading the same now tired plots and bringing back "DEAD' characters because they are out of fresh ideas, plot or characters! Tell me one new thing: OH! Wait...it's about AFRICAN terrorists--WOW! How different? And whether it is the White House, CTU, the FBI etc. they clearly have the WORST security systems ever since they are infiltrated with 100% EASE!
THEY HAVE JUMPED THE SHARK!
sandav
· 10 months ago
Thanks John! Now I can come "out of the closet" and admit I'm a 24 fan!!
Robert Waldmann
· 10 months ago
There is one important reason that the law school example has nothing to do with any real world torture in the recent past -- in the example it is possible to verify the statement of the tortured person in real time. It would do that person little good to lie about the location of the A-bomb as, when it turned out not to be there, the torture would resume. This is the reason that torture doesn't work.
The people the US tortured managed to get the pain to stop indefinitely by telling their torturers things that the torturers wanted to hear which couldn't be checked for years and which were false.
In some cases, the torturers made it clear which words would make the pain stop -- Ibn Al Sheik al Libbi said he was asked by his Egyptian torturers whether Iraq was assisting al Qaeda. he said no and was told "wong answer" and locked in a box the size of a coffin and told he would be let out when he was prepared to give the right answer. So he said Saddam Hussein's regime was training al Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons. The US public was told this, without mention of the box the size of a coffin.
Did you enjoy all those orange alerts ? Just think, your inconvenience saved Abu Zubaydah from torture. Makes it easier to wait even longer at the metal detector thinking that this is the price to pay to keep someone from being tortured doesn't it ? Only the most selfish and petty would count our inconvenience as adding anything significant to his agony, but they were both the fruits of the same depraved idiocy.
alcatraz
· 10 months ago
OMG! Where have you been the last 8 years? Please read Jane Mayer's "Whatever It Takes" in the New Yorker, Feb. 19, 2007. Also, anything by David Luban. And look back at the arguments made in Argentina about why officers who tortured should go free--because the torture and the attitudes toward the "subversives" had been so normalized, that the moral baseline in society had shifted. The officers didn't know they were doing wrong. The same arguments are being made in the US today.
Enjoying 24 doesn't make you a bad liberal. But it does turn you into a collaborator with the Bush admin and its justifications for torture. Of course it's only bad guys who are tortured, and torture always works. Well at least that's what our armed forces have learned--from watching 24 and using its practices. And that's what Bush, Cheney, et al thought, from watching 24. So we'd better not have any serious prosecutions, because we were all under the collective consciousness of 24.
john
· 10 months ago
I object to torturing "bad people"....because I object to torturing ANYbody. Torture is wrong in any situation.
Joel Surnow says that the goal of 24 is to justify torture, to show that it works and is justifiable. It is disturbing that some on the left find some sort of misplaced comfort in propaganda from the right.
Pelkyi Dorje
· 10 months ago
The people that don't object to torturing "bad people," are the bad people.
All Comments
"24" is morally reprehensible "entertainment" which Dick Cheney pulls out his floppy pud and attempts to jerk off to.
It is to be shunned. Denounced. Loathed. Eradicated from the national consciousness. Through brainwashing and torturous aversion therapy, if necessary.
Even if Kiefer is a hot drunken mess.
Rice still cannot get it!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/pl_afp/mid...
These problems are easy to resolve when you replace the target minority with one of your own. All of a sudden, it's not entertainment but indoctrination.
Obama to the gays (and the Africans): you're WAY down the list of my priorities.
This show is such blatant FOX "war on muslim terrorists' propaganda.
No wonder you can make excuses for Obama backtracking on torture & Guantanamo.
Once again, your Republican roots are showing.
"You want a nuclear bomb to go off in Manhattan, you're about to be tortured, what do you do?"
The terrorist simply lies of course.
The torture stops while the good guys are chasing down the bomb at the wrong location.
If torture is your only option in a ticking timebomb scenario, the terrorist has already won.
Repeat after me . . . it's only a TV show.
Let's not make the simple complicated.
To be Right, Proper and Justified. Those are the three elements needed to validate an action. And we humans are so damn good at doing it.
Dumb, but about as realistic as the third rate straw man arguments of the 24 fans.
And in my 67 years, I've seen a lot of "fantasy" evolve into reality, too.
peace
don
They are called TV programs because you are being programmed.
The first season was enough for me. Maybe it got better after that?
I started watching intrigued by the idea of an action show in real time -- but the look of the show -- blah So Cal studio back lot -- and the script, only two parts 007 to seven parts 90210, made for some dull viewing. When TV characters do stupid things, they should be stupid things that real people actually do the way real people actually do them. Or when stupid things happen to them, it should be the kinds of stupid things that actually happens to real people. But, jeez, on 24, the characters did the most implausible stupid things and had the most implausible stupid things happen to them again and again, all within a single day that was alleged to be suspenseful and action packed and stuff. Truly one of the dumbest TV series ever to last more than one season.
Before you laugh off that idea, consider this: Would you be so quick to laughingly dismiss concerns about a TV show about gay-bashers (with people commenting after episodes "Even worse, I kind of wanted the straight guy to kill the gay guy - does that make me a bad liberal?") and would you say "In the end, it can be reconciled, because it's just fiction. Fantasies aren't necessarily a bad thing." Probably not - so why not? What's different?
Sure, in theory there can be good artistic stories about torturing prisoners and about gay-bashing, but the problem is when you confuse that with exploitive thrills that are calculated to appeal to the worse instincts in people.
A dangerous fantasy is precisely that. Dangerous.
I consider it torture, and I don't see anything sexual about it at all.
I mean Janeane Garofalo just joined the cast of "24" and she is really liberal. So if it is "PROPAGANDA" well then she must be a republican.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/prim...
The best way to stop terrorists from wanting to attack America is to stop imposing brutal dictators on other nations in order to gain dominion over the natural resources of these countries. It is the brutality of our economic hegemony that has made us a target for terrorists.
OT -
Israel is as much as demoncracy as the US was before slavery was abolished and before women's sufferage. Can we spend a few more billions in defense of this?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/01/i...
BTW, isn't Surnow a major Republican? My ultra-conservative acquaintance loves him and says he's given money to RNC and conservative candidates.
I have noticed that many of the "teen scream" movies have torture in them. It is becoming disturbing titillation for viewers.
By you saying that;
This merely gives credence to the concept of TORTURE IS ACCEPTABLE.
By you trying to discern who is or isn't "BAD", is making the subject of torture totally SUBJECTIVE and once we have a bunch of momo's trying to decide who does and doesn't deserve to be tortured, well then is when we all should buy a ticket to Canada (if they will have us).
I know you like 24 and I did too before they began their hard right turn on including torture as part of their regular nights viewing, but to actual condone this is truly upsetting.
BAD! BAD liberal!
;-)
Fox's McCarver, Buck, Aikman Got US Marshals Escort From Games
By Zachary Roth - January 12, 2009, 12:52PM
Baseball may be our national pastime -- and football our real national game -- but that doesn't mean taxpayers should be paying to make it easier for Fox Sports' announcer team to get away from the stadium more easily.
A new report by the Justice Department's inspector general finds that a lawyer for the U.S. Marshals Service arranged for the Marshals Service to provide a private escort for the limousines of Fox's star broadcasters, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, after two World Series games at Fenway Park in 2007.
The report also found that the lawyer, Joseph Band, had arranged for a US Marshals escort for Buck and colleague Troy Aikman, the former Cowboys star, after a January 2008 NFL playoff game in Tampa.
Band was working as a paid statistician for Fox Sports at the time.
See? Fux TV is in like Flynn with the Bush regime...
After two hours this season, I'm enjoying it and am very much looking forward to tonight's two hours.
And speaking of wet dreams, you just know that the wingnuts were absolutely wetting themselves with joy when Jack was telling the senator off at the beginning.
Yeah, pretty much.
This has been another edition of "Simple Answers to Simple Questions."
John, you just showed that they are! You have somehow accepted that it is even a valid scenario. It's not. I'm glad you brought it up, because I think that there are a lot of people who have fallen into the same trap. By presenting this as a valid situation, we are then told that these situations do in fact occur, and this must be the reason we are torturing people, right?
So thank you for being honest enough to let everyone know that they got you too, but please send out an update when you've thought it through.
Unfortunately, the wing nuts are all too happy to ignore this and just see the bad guy get hurt. Bad guy is not part of their pretty world so it doesn't matter what happens to him.
Since Vietnam there has been an increasing number of TV military shows, movies and other types with increasing violence, torture which has moved into video games. What that has done is desensitize our society to the violence and allowed torture to become accepted in police work, military and other situations. Now we have police forces that are better equipped than some National Guard units as a resident of Phoenix where our county sheriff has TWO Tanks and both the city and county force all look like swat teams.
The militarization of our society has been planned, by who..... was the defense industry or somewhere else I don't know but I don't like it and it really doesn't fight crime. The days when there were community police, the people in the neighborhood knew there policeman. There was also community which is a great crime fighter.
Jack Bauer has done what he has done to clean up the mess of craven politicians and businessmen who put their own craven needs before the safety of the general public.
I can't believe so many on the left would take so much delight in right wing propaganda. No wonder I have come to distrust the left almost as much as the right. I suppose I am done with americablog.com.
It's probably as juvenile but they dont feed the middle eastern paranoia.
But all this violence MUST be having an effect on us.
Their own producers define it as science fiction.
The only reason Jack Bauer has done what he has done is to clean up the messes of people even more demented and ruthless than he is (that would be the politicians and businessmen who give him his orders).
for anyone worried about 'ticking time bombs', look at the response to 9/11 (about the only ticking time bomb scenario in our nation's history). All the time that was happening NO ONE in the govt DID ANYTHING, except run away.
All the torture in the world won't do a thing when the people in power are more craven than the 'evil-doers'.
Sometimes it's just about having fun, and I'm sick of the people on our side who cant take the stick out of their asses for a little bit.
Well, maybe this is why I sometimes have to reconsider having a TV...
It's entertainment folks, nothing more.
Or, if they aren't in proximity, why wouldn't they lie and say "it's in Boston", and while Phoenix blows up, they could commit suicide in their cell in a relatively painless way?
Batman "interrogates" the Joker, who reveals that their police escorts were on Maroni's payroll, and have placed them in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city — far enough apart so that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Rachel, while Gordon and the police head after Dent.
With the aid of a smuggled bomb, the Joker escapes police custody with Lau. Batman arrives to save Rachel but instead finds Dent. Batman successfully saves Dent, but the ensuing explosion disfigures Dent's face. Gordon arrives at Rachel's location too late, and she is killed when the bomb detonates.
In the hospital, Dent's grief drives him to madness....
Now Batman's double-fucked because he's got a dead girlfriend and Two-Face!!
Torture doesn't work and it's unAmerican (and unGotham) to pretend it does. Will you people never learn?
I hate when entertainment is supposed to divide people between left and right. We can want gun control but enjoy a Scorsese film.
It is stale and derivative of it's own past writing. They are retreading the same now tired plots and bringing back "DEAD' characters because they are out of fresh ideas, plot or characters! Tell me one new thing: OH! Wait...it's about AFRICAN terrorists--WOW! How different? And whether it is the White House, CTU, the FBI etc. they clearly have the WORST security systems ever since they are infiltrated with 100% EASE!
THEY HAVE JUMPED THE SHARK!
The people the US tortured managed to get the pain to stop indefinitely by telling their torturers things that the torturers wanted to hear which couldn't be checked for years and which were false.
In some cases, the torturers made it clear which words would make the pain stop -- Ibn Al Sheik al Libbi said he was asked by his Egyptian torturers whether Iraq was assisting al Qaeda. he said no and was told "wong answer" and locked in a box the size of a coffin and told he would be let out when he was prepared to give the right answer. So he said Saddam Hussein's regime was training al Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons. The US public was told this, without mention of the box the size of a coffin.
Did you enjoy all those orange alerts ? Just think, your inconvenience saved Abu Zubaydah from torture. Makes it easier to wait even longer at the metal detector thinking that this is the price to pay to keep someone from being tortured doesn't it ? Only the most selfish and petty would count our inconvenience as adding anything significant to his agony, but they were both the fruits of the same depraved idiocy.
Enjoying 24 doesn't make you a bad liberal. But it does turn you into a collaborator with the Bush admin and its justifications for torture. Of course it's only bad guys who are tortured, and torture always works. Well at least that's what our armed forces have learned--from watching 24 and using its practices. And that's what Bush, Cheney, et al thought, from watching 24. So we'd better not have any serious prosecutions, because we were all under the collective consciousness of 24.
Joel Surnow says that the goal of 24 is to justify torture, to show that it works and is justifiable. It is disturbing that some on the left find some sort of misplaced comfort in propaganda from the right.