2 posts tagged “rant”

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Hey, Ecuador!

Mar 10, 2009
3 comments

I want my coins back.

Disappearing Children

Jun 13, 2007
1 comment

Hilzoy notices one of the more dismaying aspects of contemporary life as a United States citizen.

Our government is disappearing children.

That is, by the way, what Rumsfeld meant by "taking the gloves off" all those years ago. Not only will we snatch you off the street, disappear your ass to some secret prison in Poland or Romania, torture you for the sheer psychopathic fun of it and never even consider the possibility that this might make us into war criminals— no, that's not enough. We'll also kidnap your family. Yes, we'll even take your children who are still too young to have all their adult teeth, and we'll keep them detained forever.

It boggles my mind that Americans continue to permit— in many cases encourage— this plainly repellent abuse of state power. Greenwald writes today about a closely related topic, the political aftermath of the recent al-Marri decision. If you've been watching the newslike product sequence events in the Global War On Terror like I have for the last several years, then you've probably noticed that we're continuing, as a nation, to slouch into tyranny.

As Hilzoy says, "If you had told me, six years ago, that I would find myself seriously entertaining the possibility that my own government had detained children more or less the same age [seven and nine years old], I would have thought you were insane." I'm pretty sure he was blind-sided by the Charles Graner and Lynndie England horror show too. I wish I could say I didn't see it coming. Unfortunately, I did.

For my own part, my suspicions that something had gone terribly Wrong with my country began to take hold when I started seeing the reports about atrocities committed against prisoners in Afghanistan— reports that were not refuted, but were often confirmed by American sources. The number of prisoners whose autopsies have conclusively shown they died as a result of a homicide while in U.S. military custody is stupefying. Many more have died under a cloud of suspicion. Reports of these deaths have been available on wire services for years, but have never received much public attention. When I started seeing them years ago, I knew what they implied, what Rumsfeld meant when he said we would be "taking the gloves off"— I can't honestly say I'm surprised by Abu Ghraib or the kidnapping of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's children.

I'm not surprised. Dismayed is more like it. Actually, that word isn't adequate. Unfortunately, I have a hard time choosing adequate words without descending well beyond vulgarity and profanity. I have to reach deep into obscenity and blasphemy to express my discomposure in all candidness. Forgive me for sparing you that now.

Children. My government is kidnapping children and demanding that I salute them for it.

Well, this is just a reminder to say what I've been saying for a while now: no. No, ye gods of the void, no no no. I may not be in a position to stop you from committing these atrocities, but I will not smile and pretend to love you for committing them in my name. I won't do it. You can make me pay the taxes that fund your perverted little police state games, but you can't make me love you. You can snatch me and my own family out of our home in the middle of the night and torture us in your secret B&D parlors in Soviet Redneckistan, but you can't make me love you. I won't do it. No. A billion times, no.