Actually, Stephen
CBC reported on a report from the Pentagon this past week that actually
excused all the upper levels, & basically said there was no such top
down culture accepting torture (which is pretty surprising when you
have the words of some of those people themselves out there in the
public realm). There's no doubt that the whiteash has been spread on
pretty thickly (or is it something a bit browner).
But the demand to shut up, to self-censor, is there, & in the nation
supposedly 'leading' the rest of the world to 'democracy' it is rather
frightening. I'm thinking of that Leonard Cohen song now....
Doug
On 12-Mar-05, at 2:12 PM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
> Yes, Doug, I agree. This week I have occasionally peeked in on the
> Senate
> Committee hearings on military, CIA uses of torture - a second or third
> Official Report on same. It's explicit that the command structure in
> Rumsfeld's Defense Department lied through their teeth during the first
> Congressional hearings - that the torture was top down, etc. None of
> these
> figures have been cited for contempt of Congress, nor suspended or
> arrested
> for criminal violations of the Geneva accords against the use of
> torture.
> Has any of the Congress or Justice or the Press (right or left) gone
> after
> them in any manner similar to these folks now hounding Churchill? And
> drove
> them out of Office and into the arms of the Law? (Churchill has not
> broken
> any laws, yelled fire in a crowded theater or tortured anybody as far
> as I
> know).
> As other people have suggesedt - instead of being ignored as a loony, a
> suicidal lefty - Ward Churchill will be the means the right uses to
> silent
> (or self-censor) dissent from within the academy. Ironically, the
> Right
> within the Pentagon and other agencies, uses silence to essentially
> hood the
> truth of its own apparently criminal practice of torture, transfer of
> prisoners to other countries, etc.
>
> Stephen V
>
>
>
>
>> When I read the Ward Churchill piece, I had to agree, especially about
>> the question period, that the man came across as a bit of a rhetorical
>> tyrant himself. And he didn't offer any apology for the Eichmann
>> comparison, nor a real explanation. Off-putting, indeed. But also in
>> comparison with the Bush gang, why is he so awful? They lie & lie &
>> the
>> American people, on the whole, go along with it all. I note that
>> Condoleesa Rice has just sent a letter to the UN rejecting the UN
>> protocol on appeal rights, the latest in a long list of refusals
>> there.
>> So I agree with Alison & Ann that there's trouble right here in....
>>
>> And the real danger is not a silly hothead like him but the ever more
>> massed power of a right wing media launched against not only him but
>> anyone who dares to think outside the very small box they have erected
>> of 'patriotism' etc. Just look at who's been nominated to run Homeland
>> Security, the Patriot Act, etc. Sitting just a little North, weith an
>> administration pissed off at our refusal to get in line & do what they
>> want, is not very comfortable (you can imagine how many 'thinkers' are
>> telling us & our government that we should kiss ass if we want the
>> 'good relationship' of trade etc to continue, & that, sadly, is a
>> powerful argument...
>>
>> Ward Churchills don't help.
>>
>> But of course, under the ideals on which the US was founded (do any of
>> these people remember those?) he should be allowed to speak.
>>
>> Doug
>>
>> Doug
>> Douglas Barbour
>> Department of English
>> University of Alberta
>> Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
>> (780) 436 3320
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>>
>> Speech
>> is a mouth.
>>
>> Robert Creeley
>
>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Speech
is a mouth.
Robert Creeley
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