Frank Rich swats another one out of the park with his essay '
The Good Germans'. How much longer will it take Americans to figure out how dangerously close we find our selves to being '
Good Americans'?
By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.”
Still, the drill remains the same. The administration gives its alibi (Abu Ghraib was just a few bad apples). A few members of Congress squawk. The debate is labeled “politics.” We turn the page.
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Frank Rich swats another one out of the park with his essay 'The Good Germans'. How much longer will it take Americans to figure out how dangerously close we find our selves to being 'Good Americans'?
9 comments:
Another historic term, 'the final solution', increasingly seems what is intended in Iraq and in Darfur. The war criminals occupying the White House would appear to think they can keep their hands clean by enabling others to accomplish this end. I don't think so.
from Ruth
Not unlike the SS and the Gestapo. I hope Americans don't let this happen.
Thanks for your comment Ruth.
Frank Rich himself is in the forefront of "the Good Americans," the way he facilitated Cheney's evil plan by rah-rahing in the runup to invasion, and vilified war opponents. Too little, too late. Hold a grudge much? Yes, I do.
Nothing wrong with calling 'em as you see Op. I'm also a bit of a grudge carrier, but as badly as we need to get the message out there and wake up the American People, I am willing to let certain bygones be bygones. As far as the criminals in the Bush administration, not so much.
I look forward to the newest incarnations of the Nuremberg trials.
I'm with op. Rich complains about how no-one is opposing the administration, but he threw a hissy fit last month when MoveOn did exactly that.
Plus he completely ignores the fact that the American people largely take their cues from the media, and the fact that when it comes to talking about Democratic candidates, he tends to turn into Maureen Dowd...
Rich may be a progressive, but he's a very pro-establishment, anti-netroots progressive.
Well, Hope, I guess if I ever hope to expand beyond the enlightened minority I've been in my whole life, I'll have to make room for my former enemies. But I'll do it with a sneer, dammit.
Wow, a real time conversation - Hope has arrived!
LOL Op... I'd wear a pager to be real time with you...Thanks Eli for your comments. I feel forgiving toward Frank because when he say something good, he says it really well and it tends to make an impact larger than a ripple. I'm trying to bite my tongue about so much in regards to most of the democrats spinelessness and pandering and trying to focus on how egregious and deeply mean the right so consistently acts out. I have no progressive radio here and when I'm in the car I listen to rush limpass. It keeps me mad at them.
Modern torture seeks to break the mind. This is Verschaerfte Vernehmung.
As for Frank Rich, in his defense, he has an editor. The NYT was told to make its writers "play ball" in the run-up to the war. I'm glad no employer told me to do that. Because I would've had to tell them to fuck off, and would've lost my job.
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