Today Glenn Greenwald gives us the chilling story of an “adult film” producer from California who has been tried and convicted of violating obscenity laws, because the films he produced (using consensual adult actors) included scenes of violence, humiliation, and degradation:

So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal. But if government officials actually subject helpless detainees in their custody to extreme mental abuse, degradation, humiliation and even mock executions long considered “torture” in the entire civilized world, the DOJ will argue that they have acted with perfect legality and, just to be sure, Congress will hand them retroactive immunity for their conduct. That’s how we prioritize criminality and arrange our value system.

Do we really have to suffer through this administration for another fifteen weeks? I honestly wonder if anything resembling our nation will emerge on the other side of the Bush years.