Torture (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques) and Corruption (20081210)

Janeway says she'll turn over her impersonator to a species that tortures its prisoners (rendition) unless the prisoner tells what is asked of her.

Star Trek Voyager (STV)
Live Fast and Prosper
Season 6, Episode 21

Janeway threatens prisoner with death.

Star Trek Voyager
Equinox
Seasons 5 & 6, Episodes 26 & 1 respectively

Janeway attacks the Borg to steal a transwarp coil.

Star Trek Voyager
Dark Frontier
Season 5, Episodes 15 & 16

Doctor poisons patient to secure compliance.

Star Trek Voyager
Critical Care
Season 7, Episode 5

Dealing with workers and prisoners is a test of civility/humanity/morality and torture is a test of this civility/humanity/morality. The relations of production established by the dominant class play out in a society's culture. In capitalist countries, workers/employees are consumed/exploited in the production of value. The whole superstructure built upon capitalist production relations is played out in politics, economy, art, religion, family life, workplaces, culture; capitalist production relations influence how we relate to each other, what we're willing to do to insure profit/exploitation, or in this case what Janeway and the Doctor are willing to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Number of incidents of torture on prime-time TV networks TV shows from 2002 to 2007: 897.
RICK MacARTHUR: But the one that goes with it—it’s gone up tremendously, because there was one—the one above it, if you can find it, is lower. But the point is, is that torture has become mainstream. It’s become a mainstream cultural item in America.

Democracy Now
December 23, 2008
25 Years of Harper's Index
Amy Goodman interviews Rick MacArthur

The capitalist ruling class considers workers to be dangerous when they're organized into trade unions or other communist-inspired or progressive/left organizations. To dampen this threat, the ruling class and their allies use certain techniques of torture or "enhanced interrogation techniques" especially in their colonies or in countries they have invaded. (There are war situations when one does not have the facilities to hold prisoners and letting the go would pose a threat. If your war is a just one, then you could justify executing such prisoners. But still you would not be justified in torturing them.) In the Star Trek Voyager episodes above we see the capitalist class subtly promoting torture against the working class. When Harry expresses remorse for the total anihilation of a Borg ship and its crew (see Star Trek Voyager, Dark Frontier, Season 5, Episodes 15 & 16), Tom responds, "They were drones, Harry. Mindless automatons! We did them a favor." Although Seven overhears and chides Tom, the message stands: workers are expendable/exploitable "mindless automatons" who must be controlled at all cost by multinational corporations (the capitalist class). The hundreds of thousands of children who died because of the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure by G. H. W. Bush or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed since George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq are workers who are expendable because it's a matter of the U. S. A. ruling class controlling Iraqi oil. Furthermore, here is the current list of countries considered by the USA to be sponsors of state terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria. They all, in one way or another, have connections to socialist countries where former workers have turned the tables; they have taken control of their states and their means of production (mainly by nationalization of major industries); they run their countries themselves and typically have high-approval rating by their people. Cuba is a socialist country; Iran has friendly relations with socialist countries (e.g. Venezuela, China) ("In 1953 Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Iran. Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, 80% [of the ] companies based in Iran have been nationalized, and so far only 15% of the 80% of all companies have been privatized, the rest are still nationalized." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization#Iran ; Sudan: "The People's Republic of China, a socialist country, is its biggest trade partner. China imports oil, from Sudan, and Sudan imports armaments from China....(However, SIPRI reports that only 8 percent of Sudanese arms are Chinese, and that Russian arms actually make up the majority, at 87 percent.") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino%E2%80%93Sudanese_relations As far as Syria is concerned the ruling political parties are socialist:
Political parties in Syria: the Arab Socialist Resurrection (Baath) Party (Baath Party) it's the main party which controls the other parties, Arab Socialist Movement, Arab Socialist Union, Syrian Communist Party, Arab Socialist Union, Democratic Socialist Unionist Party, and around 15 very small tolerated political parties and there are 14 kurdish political parties which are not allowed by the law but they exist and are active. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria#Politics