To me the saddest part about this hot mess is that we pretty much all knew all of this all along. We knew what was going on, or, at least, that something fairly awful was going on, and didn't care enough to make a fuss about knowing the details or care enough to stop it.
And make no mistake; without punishment there is no reason to assume that this won't happen again. There's always a good reason for breaking the laws. Smoking guns become mushroom clouds. Not fighting them there means fighting them here. They hate our freedoms. They're coming to kill us.
But then you find that if you cut down the laws to get at the devil, when you catch him you'll find that there is nowhere for you to shelter from the broad highway of evil you've opened up, the laws all being flat.
Update: The always-eloquent Charlie Pierce has more. And worse. And much, much more and much, much worse.
"I no longer take seriously anyone, in or out of government, who talks about "the debate" over whether the United States tortured people. The only debate left is the debate over whether or not it will remain the policy of this nation to torture people, or to outsource the job of torturing people, or to otherwise commit moral and national suicide by euphemism.
Anyone who still believes there's a "debate" over whether or not the United States, using techniques previously used by the Japanese Imperial Army, the Gestapo, the North Korean People's Army, and the KGB, tortured people is an idiot and a coward and I have no time for them. Not any more. Debate's over. We became what they think we are. And worse. This is not debatable and, alas, it is anything but a surprise."
3 comments:
I literally spat and threw things at my television last night when they played George Tennant's 2007 "We do not torture" bit. It infuriated me past words -- even the blue variety.
Godwin's Law or not, taking Hitlers advice to tell a big lie, tell it often and loud and it will be believed is NOT what we should be accepting.
The worst part is that I know - KNOW - that nothing good will come of this.
No one will be tried. No one will be fired. No law will be passed.
The Public, that Ass, will stare blankly at the TeeVee Screen for about ten minutes and then start channel-surfing for something with a Kardashian in it.
And the caissons will go rolling merrily along. In a dozen years, when some event - let's say a Zeta attack in Brownsville - causes the feds to pull in, say, Mexican immigrants...and a bunch of American citizens are tortured, the Public will blink and gasp; "How could that happen?!
THIS is how, dumbfucks. This.
::::hangs head:::: Yeah, and knowing that and knowing I still won't anesthetize myself with vodka in spite of the temptation makes me think I need a break from the news and the world.
I remember thinking as I read about it, how the shitty assholean (what Hypocratic Oath?!) psychologists aimed to make people feel 'helpless' under their torturers, "Wow, isn't that how all the "reality shows" have been training the populace for some time now?"
Yeah, I need to step away and make like holiday stuff and eat my own weight in sugar cookies ---or something.
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