A video experience, water-boarding

So, over this past weekend, we shot a music video for our current single, "Sacred Cows". The song is kind of a call to arms to people to wake up and start living their life with intent, as opposed to drudging through. So, the director (who is a good friend of mine) had the idea of having people doing "normal" activities (eating, sitting, watching tv), while intense things happen around them that they don't respond to. There's more, but I'll save it for the video itself.

A number of the things they are watching, though, involved me getting tortured. Different stuff, again I'll wait, but the thing I really wanted to talk about was that one of the scenes involves me getting water-boarded.

And we all agreed that it would be best if I actually got water-boarded for the experience.
I've talked about this since with a few friends, and we all remarked that, even though we've heard of water-boarding, heard it described as torture, and heard that they do it in Guantanamo, none of us were completely sure what it was. It's amazing to me that, in spite of all the coverage of the controversy over water-boarding that has gone on, very little of it actually includes a description of what it is.

This seems to me a good example of how we are just getting played by the news. This whole debate has been created over water-boarding- is it torture, isn't it, can America do it and retains its credibility, blahblah. It's certainly something that has been brought to people to discuss- should America do it? But how can we reasonably be asked to come to our own conclusion if we don't even know what it is. Then, like in a lot of other circumstances, our responses fall down pre-conceived lines (those who agree with the status quo and those who are against it). The people I expected to said, "We have to do it, the government needs to get answers by whatever means necessary from the terrorists!" And the people I expected said, "This is a violation of human rights! The US cannot condone torture in any context!"
But no one I know said, "This is what water-boarding is, this is what it makes someone feel like, this is why I think we either should or shouldn't do it, understand really what happens."

I can't believe how fucking duped we are. See, if we are allowed to debate as much as we want, but we can only do it in the subjects that someone else picks and with the information someone else provides, that's not much of a free dialogue, now is it?

And we all fall in line- conservatives back the war and the government, liberals rail against the lack of ethics of our actions, and no one really looks at each situation in terms of itself. Because we are encouraged not to.

So, then, this is what water-boarding is- the victim is lain on a downward slope, feet up. A gag is placed in their mouth so that they can't close it. A blindfold is placed over the eyes so that the victim does not know when the water is coming. And then water is poured over the mouth and nose. For usual 5-10 seconds at a time. That's about it.

The thing is, on that downward slope, the water goes right up the wrong direction, both up your mouth and up your nose. Basically, it makes you feel, instantly, like you're drowning. You are immediately gasping for air, and water is going in to whatever you open to get the air from. So you just keep getting more water. And you can't hold your breathe. The water just comes in and comes in.

It's frightening. It's shocking how quickly the basic primal fear of drowning kicks in. I don't think you actually can die from it (unless they kept going long enough that you couldn't hold your breathe and really drowned), but it certainly feels like you can.

And I did it with friends, in about as safe an environment as possible. Everyone else, in fact, was much more flipped out about it than I was. The idea of doing that with an unknown torturer, not knowing how long it would go on, if it would ever stop- well, you get the idea. It was bad enough done safely.

If you don't have the information, you have nothing- you're just a puppet playing a role for or a role against. You want to do something- go out and make sure you've got the information about what you're talking about. And find out what you really think, not what you're supposed to think.