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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
All this time, I have always assumed that it was officials in Government and the Military who were pushing for more, better wars and that the role of the press was that of enabler. As more time passes, It's becoming clearer that the press itself is actually a full participant and driving force in the logic of hatred and that the government is actually motivated by the coverage instead of the other way around.
http://www.humboldt.edu/~jcb10/spanwar.shtml
I read about this sort of thing--coercing victims to vindicate their oppressors, and similar moral atrocities--and just couldn't understand how people in power could get away with it, or how other people would let them.
At one level, I still don't understand.
I've heard of kids referring to adults as "the petrified forest," an apt reflection on the difference between how adults walk vs. how kids run around. But I think of it in another sense--how adults' sense of simple, straight-forward sense of right and wrong, that we've all experienced as kids, becomes petrified, even though (because?) we become much more adept at talking about right and wrong.
I guess I just never grew up.
And if, as heralded after the 2000 election, the Bush crew reperesents the grownups being in charge, then I'm certain I never grew up.
Because I see two of them that look exactly alike. Am I missing something?
Glenn, on Saturday, June 16, I was privileged to hear a presentation by Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a young lawyer acting pro bono for several Bahraini captives in Guantánamo. He spoke at several cities in Arizona, to fairly large audiences, considering the subject of his talk. There were about 200 in my town.
Everything you've ever said about this monstrous stain on our national character was confirmed by this young man, who is, as it happens, a remarkably good public speaker, totally devoid of histrionics and with a genuine genius for dispassionate clarity. Even so, many had tears in their eyes at his story, and the questions afterwards lasted over an hour.
Thanks to you and other bloggers, I already knew much of the story, but the personal details, the daily offenses against our common humanity enraged me. It was very, very difficult to listen to. Just to give you one example, one of his clients attempted suicide in front of him, and has, to-date, made four attempts on his own life. Mr. Colangelo is not allowed personal custody of his own notes, and must travel from New York, where his firm is located, to Washington D.C. to view them in a secure room. On occasions they simply don't arrive from Guantánamo. No explanations are ever offered.
I could go on and on, but what's the point? The main thing I wanted to convey here is that this story is slowly reaching even the people who don't read blogs. We may have to do it the way dissidents in the Old Soviet Union had to do it, but it is getting done.
For the other commenters here, I should say that I found it encouraging to listen to this young attorney, who appeared to be in his early to mid-thirties. He reminded me a great deal of Glenn, in fact, in his determination to do the job right, to assert nothing for which he had no evidence, and to be patient with his audience. That was what encouraged me. If I thought Glenn were a unique phenomenon, I would still be grateful. To encounter someone else with his skill, and his decency was comforting, despite the horrific nature of the news he brought with him.
I do give thanks every day that such people still exist, and devote such skill and effort to help us defend a justice which actually is just, and to see that it's applied equally to everyone.
The Times implicates itself by publishing blatant government propaganda. There are not two "sides" to this issue. There are no facts in dispute as to whether the stipulation was coerced. And yet they publish a piece blandly asserting that it was not.
Orewellian doesn't begin to describe this.
I was privileged to hear a presentation by Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a young lawyer acting pro bono for several Bahraini captives in Guantánamo. He spoke at several cities in Arizona, to fairly large audiences, considering the subject of his talk.
You raise a great and important point. I've been thinking for awhile about writing an article on all of the people who have done such extraordinary work in attempting to impose limits and checks on the Bush presidency in the absence of the institutions that are supposed to do that -- the Congress, the courts, the press, etc.
If you click on the link on my blogroll to Wired's 27B Stroke 6 blog, you'll find numerous reports about how various Wired reporters, working in conjunction with groups like EPIC, have been working tirelessly over several years to force the Bush administration, AT&T and others to disclose documents revealing what they have been doing with regard to illegal surveillance of Americans' telephone conversations and Internet communications.
And there are many lawyers who have worked countless hours, for years, on behalf of Guantanamo detainees, or against administration lawbreaking, to preserve basic rights and expose government conduct.
While Tim Russert preens around giving confidential confessionals to our high government leaders and the rest of them chat about John Edwards' hair and Fred Thompson's smells, it really is true that there is a small army of mostly unseen and unrewarded individuals who are devoted to the country's political values and freedoms trying -- in all sorts of capacities -- to do the job which our political and media institutions have so profoundly failed to do.
It's worth remembering that periodically and focusing on it.
Where the government actually claimed he wasn't fit to stand trial, so his claims of abuse wouldn't be heard, which one wag dubbed it: "You can't believe him when he says we tortured him because he's crazy from all the things we did to him"
It really is the era of Kafka and Heller.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
