One can only hope that 40 years later we won’t have a need to revisit the torture report as literally as one might revisit the Kerner Report in the wake of Ferguson.

In my teenage house in the 60’s there was a copy of the Warren Commission Report too, but it was in paperback and dog-eared. Alongside it, equally dog eared, was the Kerner Report on the inner city riots of the time.

I think it may be worthwhile to add this report to the historical perspective you are beginning to develop here. Like The Torture Report, the Kerner Report was criticized for starting with a conclusion (“there is white racism” and “the US tortured”) and working from there. In both cases focusing on these “unsupported assumptions” provided a distraction to the main points.

Certainly if we had the concept of memes back then, commentators might have employed it to describe the role of popular narratives about race. The Kerner Report in fact does have a section on the subject.

Finally, there is the question of the future. Will in 40 years people look back on the Torture Report and say how relevant it still is? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-meyerson/what-is-the-kerner-commis_b_5686572.html