I'm not really proud of my last two or three diaries; when I go back and read my comments later, I think if I were able to be present in someone else's body while watching or reading me, I'd be pretty disgusted with my attitude.
But nonetheless, I defend myself, and tonight I hope to explain why my rage seems to have no restraint and my mouth seems to have never tasted soap.
Ideas have consequences, words have consequences; so to write everything so polite and measured is to invite the opportunity to be ignored. Kevin Spacey, playing the serial killer in the movie "Se7en" had a great line:
"Wanting to get people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder. If you hit them with a sledgehammer, then you'll notice that you have their strict attention".
So I swing a rhetorical sledgehammer, and on a blog, my profanity is a measure of how hard I'm hoping to hit you.
More below; some words heard tonight from my neighbor have left me solemn.
I write at this blog, by the way, as an outreach. I'm in a community where both my political affiliation as a Democrat and my religious lack of affiliation as an atheist amongst a nearly uniform body of Catholics leaves me with few who share my views.
Tonight my neighbor came to visit me; only the second time in the six years we have been speaking that he ventured first to my house unprovoked. He's in chemo and radiation simultaneously to battle what was bladder cancer that has metasticized to his colon, hoping to shrink things before they operate.
He is convinced that in any other country he'd be dead, because any government run program would have let him die, or that without the innovation that our free-market system inspires, doctors and inventors would stop coming up with cures.
But the one argument that really shocks me; the one that leaves me cold and feeling very....the right words escape me....it's a cross between betrayal, suspicion, and fear. He is full-on in support of torture. He once said ot me that the only problem with Gitmo is that it's not big enough.
And I said in another diary, "In order to claim that you have taken the high road, that means at some point and time you have to wind up driving on it". My neighbor's argument is that since our enemies are so much worse, our torture is less evil than their torture. That was right after he accused me of "relativism" by comparing Clinton's lie to Bush/Cheney.
(I went after Nixon, and he defended him because his lies had no consequence; but Clinton's lie proved his impeachment was the right thing for the country.)
He just feels safer.
He's battling cancer, but he feels safer knowing we were willing to torture.
He just feels safer. I can't get the thought of him saying that out of my head. So does he feel less safe knowing Obama will not torture?
Yes. And we can't bring prisoners to American prisons, either. Timothy McVeigh could be contained by our prisons, but not Al Queda. And then we had to go around again that Al Queda was not in Iraq on 9/11, which he still argues that Saddam played a role in 9/11.
He just feels safer.
He says the torture works, after all since we have never been attacked since 9/11.
His exact words, which literally left me standing jaw agape with a deliberately exaggerated bewildered expression on my face were
"I feel safer knowing that we've done these things".
When I mentioned that Terry Gross just had an episode of FreshAir with one of our interrogators who testified that torture does not work; it' gets bogus information if any at all, he was non plussed, and said, "Well we haven't been attacked".
He said that a dozen times.
I told him that I have a candle in my basement that burns all the time in order to ward off dragons. I know it works because we haven't had any dragons in the neighborhood since I've kept it lit.
"Well, I still feel safer."
The one class in High School that changed my life was "Logic"; taught by the same pedantic professor who taught "Mass Media". That man, Dr. Abraham Yagod, and the two semesters he was part of my life, have left an indelible mark on me for almost 25 years. I admire the man as a teacher; he's one of the few I made real connections with on a personal basis, but what leaves me so broken is how utterly fundamental the precepts of those two classes were on nearly every facet of my life.
What staggers me is how so many people have no idea of or use for logic; they would rather just believe what they want to believe and don't you challenge them. And the same people who are crying about media bias are themselves the most vulnerable and gullible to being swayed by their own bias and inability to recognize when they're being snowed.
My neighbor can say with complete sincerity and utter conviction that the media is biased to the left, but Rush Limbaugh is merely an "entertainer".
All politicians are rotten, he says, and yet he still finds cause to consistently and inevitably defend one party at all times.
And he talks of "those people" - the ones who accept the assistance of social programs (entitlements) -
well, what do you say to someone who knows all about "those people".
The same "them" that can universally describe why it's OK to have the torture as a form of sentence before there are even charges read or a trial - why? - well, because "they" deserve no better.
Remember, all men are created equal, but we know who really deserves what this country has to offer, and "they" aren't it.
I explained to him that we have no right to be proud of this country unless we actually live up to the ideals that make us better than everyone else, and that merely by saying "we're scared, it's a war" we have sold ourselves out if we sink to the level of our enemies.
He left me with a rhetorical question "Well, you don't like it when I say that we haven't had an attack. Would you rather have an attack?".
I said,
"If we hold true to our ideals, and there is an attack, that would give me more pride in my country and peace in my mind to know we didn't sell out the very ideals that were supposed to set us apart from everyone else and make us great. I would rather have an attack and a government that follows the treaties it signed and the Constitution it is so proud of, yes."
And he finally said that such a thought really disgusted him. That was the second time I'd seen him really look angry.
So we'll call it even.
No, we won't.
That's why I've been so enraged of late; if these ideas - that we don't torture (or need to) to be a great country - are not upheld, then what we are in fact telling the world is that as great as we once claimed we were, we could be bought with fear.
You should all watch the "Dark Knight" a few dozen times over the course of a month, and realize how that movie parallels the Bush years. I thought it was disgusting that some columnist claimed that GWB (Cheney) was Batman - because Bush only crossed the line/broke the rules to catch the most evil of enemies.
And I wanted to ask that author if he watched the whole movie -
Because at the end of "Dark Knight" Batman takes off into the dark night with the words of Comissioner Gordon, "We can hunt him to save the reputation of a hero we needed to believe in." (Harvey Dent)
Get it?
After breaking the rules, Batman relied on his wits and his skills and the knowledge that the end may or may not bring him out on the right side of the law, but he was willing to admit he deserved the pursuit.
I surely don't see that from Bush or Cheney - they want us to believe that they get credit for keeping us safe because they were the "decider" and "going to the dark side" worked; but when it comes to facing the truth of what was done in their names? They're willing to cut loose all the underlings who had their blessing and encouragement; they're willing to blame anyone who questions their methods as inviting any other method to condemn us to horrors just around the corner.
My neighbor says he just feels better, he just feels safer, having taken the road we have under Bush/Cheney.
I needed you to know how that breaks my spirit.
And my outbursts, my rage, my admittedly obnoxious tenacity is a reaction to the idea that Obama is somehow rationalizing that Gerald Ford had a great idea: This country really doesn't want to know what was done in our name. Somehow, by not following all the evidence and not prosecuting all involved to the fullest extent of our capacity to do so, we'll be better off.
No.
We.
Won't.
Ignoring what was done in our name; what was done with the blessings and encouragement of many of our citizens will have perhaps greater consequences to our future than Bush/Cheney's reign of fear itself.
One more thing, there's a blogger here at Kos who I know I would not be able to be polite to if we were in person; he's about on par with my neighbor, but I'll give my neighbor points for civility. This clown (we're not supposed to call anyone out) left the following comment in one of my last diaries: (hold on to something, this one will make your head spin)
It doesn't matter how we are treated by the world (0+ / 0-)
This nation is what it is, and the Bush regime is not and never was a part of that. You say we could have stopped them, and I agree - so say that "we" are lazy in defense of others when our own interests are not directly threatened, not that "we" are guilty of the crimes of the Bush regime. Yes, "we" do say things like "we won WW2," because those things actually sprang from our country - and the same is true of bad things, as "we" did indeed allow slavery as part of a necessary compromise so that our nation could form. But "we" did not choose George W. Bush, "we" did not invade Iraq, and "we" don't torture people.
Now there's cognitive dissonance to be proud of; if you just say loud enough that Bush was not our president, then somehow all those things just never happened, and there are no consequences from them.
The denial in this statement really blows my mind:
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have never led any nation of which I am a part. They were treasonous usurpers and enemy combatants running their own private syndicate/dictatorship.
If you wish to say you were led by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, that is your prerogative. But your attitude is part of what is making it so difficult to bring them to justice.
(Emphasis mine)
Think about this - I'm ranting and swearing and coming absolutely unhinged because I say that we must prosecute Bush/Cheney et al or we all shoulder the burden of what was done in our name, and this person - a member of Daily Kos - thinks that all we really need to do is put our fingers in our ears and scream "I can't hear you" and therefore Bush/Cheney never were our leaders.
It's the citizens I worry about - this last blogger was so obsessed with our own delusions of grandeur that even they now think they can just say it never happened, and on the other hand my neighbor, who thinks that the worst parts of it were the only parts that worked.
Maybe now you can forgive my unbridled angst and rage. Because with people this blind and stupid, not only are we never going to reconcile with what we've done wrong, we're plowing headfirst at mach 5 into making sure we'll do it again.
I miss Dr. Yagod.