Wednesday, January 12, 2005

"THE NORMALIZATION OF HORROR" by Ted Rall

CLICK HERE : (Ted Rall via Yahoo! News) THE NORMALIZATION OF HORROR
<< Look at what we're talking about. Consider the breezy way we Americans--Americans!--are debating the pros and cons of torture. Marvel at our moral bankruptcy. The liberal argument against torture used to be that it was wrong. Now it's that it doesn't work.>>
Please read the whole column, as hard as it is to face the facts about what is being done in our names. Even Abu Ghraib in all its horror is only a small piece of, and ultimately a distraction from, all the larger systemic issues at work here. Are we really talking about locking people up FOR LIFE with no trial? We'll be paying them, or their survivors, reparations in ten years. And we'll be bemoaning the fact that so many of us became "good Germans". Remember the concern about good Germans? Maybe I'm aware of it because I'm a middle-aged tall blondish white male American with 1 wife, 1 child, 2 cars and a big house. I could be mistaken for a Republican, or worse. At six am this morning at the local kwik-e-mart across from my train station, the local nut walked past me (you have a local nut, don't you?), glanced up and sang "In Heaven there is no Beer" vit a Cherman akzent and gave me a Sieg Heil salute, with a smile on his face. But I'm aware that's my outward appearance and I smiled back. But it's also the reason that I will NOT fly or display a flag, or go to work without a peace symbol and "No To Empire" pins on my bag, and why the Kerry bumpersticker will not come off my car in the Bush era, and why I started this small on-line drive to take back the word liberal and display it with pride
right after election day. I am still shocked that the American people, the "Good Americans", gave these murderers and torturers their vote of confidence on November 2.

Accept the results with good humor and go along with the flow?
Never.
- True Blue Liberal

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