- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Some have commented that a truth commission may work. I don't think so. For politicians to tell the truth, they have to have immunity from prosecution (=pardon) which will happen anyway, but the motivation to tell the truth when given immunity is, in my opinion, only when that person knows his/her goose is cooked, and that is impossible without the truth, hence a catch 22. It only worked in South Africa because those were very special and exceptional circumstances where there were two equal visionaries who both wanted to avoid a bloodbath from an overwhelming majority of blacks.
That is why it would never work currently in Israel's apartheid with the Palestinians, where there is no equal footing and the Palestinians don't overwhelm the Israelis in numbers (yet).
Another point is the anticipated protracted position of the power enacted by Bush with an Obama presidency.We have now a clear demonstration of the one fatal flaw of a democracy, namely that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.It is debatable that a better system of government would be what's called a "benevolent dictatorship", as in Singapore, where, I am told, there is no corruption.Just thinking aloud.
