Just setting aside for a second the fairly unexceptional notion that 'left' and 'right' are terms beyond their use-by date, given the extent to which policy positions on either side have coalesced in recent decades (yes, I know that's a gross simplification but to go into a further explanation is not the purpose here), here are two stories that are equally chilling:
to 'the left', there is nothing that cannot be achieved through a centrally-dictated, mechanistic approach to contolling what institutions do - this story about the (probably, one hopes) unintended consequences of targets and performance measurement in UK schools and hospitals gives a fabulous insight into what happens when governments can't clearly articulate what results they want from their spending;
to 'the right', there's nothing that cannot be achieved through brutality - the unintended consequence here is to one's own people who have to administer "the programme".
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Both articles are more than just a little scary - but I find it utterly staggering that a debate needs to rage on what defines 'torture' - we have universally accepted definitions under The Convention Against Torture, Article 1(http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm#art11)
The US ratified this treaty in 1994, so it really does escape me as to how it can continue to label its treatment of detainees as anything other than torture, as Article 1 clearly covers each aspect of its current regime of practice.
Good God - I think I must be a lefty after all!!!
depends who you mean by 'we', paleface...apparently there is an imperial presidency, from all I read, so he is beyond the constraints of mere conventions..
you have a very wry sensa uma, if nothing else...
"you must have a wry sensa uma if nothing else..."
And self deprecating at that - I've just spent the last five minutes surfing the net for latin, spanish and even indonesian definitions of 'sensa uma' - and suddenly an article using the same term in relation to castrating a philandering husband revealed the play of words....context is everything!
And yes, point taken on the imperial one - this is after all, the genius who tried to take the US signature off of the Kyoto Protocol (which raises an interesting point - how long before Califorina sues the US federal government for breach of contract????)
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