The ditch they have chosen to die in: The Right backs the prison abuse

[Faygo Kid]

So they think this is our America. Rush today characterized the abuse as "fun" to which the guards are entitled. Hannity, while not that crass, said it is OK because the Arabs cheered about 9/11. This is not my America. This is not the America of Jefferson, Lincoln, King. We are at a defining moment in our history. They have chosen to define our nation by the lowest common denominator. Whatever our many faults, I choose to fight for it differently, and put my faith in the people. I think they have overreached. Is it Bush's America, one of privileges for a select few and a relative morality that says a decent respect for the opinions of mankind is no longer in play, or is it, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" I never knew "all men" to mean only GOP contributors, or only Americans, or everybody else but Muslims or women (of course). We have come to this turning point now. All men (and women)either means what it says, or it means what Bush and Limbaugh's corrupt and ignorant vision says. I will not give up our country, and our ideals, without fighting back. What say you?

[salinen]

1. I'll hold them

while you punch them in the stomach.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Time will come when these guys will be viewed as an abboration

They are part of the ANGRY CROWD of which Bush is the Leader of the Pack.

[DougieZero]

4. yeah

I just read some threads over at a covservative message board and they almost borderline enjoy it. It appears to be o.k. because of "...9-11".

/Yikes

[July]

34. Thank RW radio, fundy leaders, Coulter, GOP tricksters.

Mainstreamers of hate.

[juajen]

21. Please don't be mad. It's abberation.

I anal-retentive, I know.

[opihimoimoi]

24. LOL, I forgot the spell check as usual.

[treepig]

35. since you started it, it's really "aberration"

n/t

[jonnyblitz]

3. they are pretty damn vile.

I can't imagine what mental acrobatics one has to perform to justify evil.

[Faygo Kid]

8. Good call. That's it: Simply evil.

This is what our country has come to? What a crossroads. How tough is it to say we don't torture, torment or humiliate prisoners? Have none of these people heard of Nuremburg? I am stunned that this has been defended, even by the loathsome Right. At long last, have they no shame?

[Michael_UK]

40. It's so ironic when * talks of good and evil

He say's there's no middle ground between good and evil. If that were the case, it's pretty clear what side he's on.

[Cerval]

42. They are not evil...

...they are simply riddled with fear. These people are so afraid of what they don't understand that they retreat to an alternate reality. They are like people with Multiple Personality Disorder, only the trauma they suffer is not as severe so the resulting psychosis is not as severe.

I would like to think that Republicans are not human but, they are. They are just particularly cowardly human beings and they should be pitied. Liberals do not advance their cause by hating these people. Hate is always unproductive.

I have a hard time remembering this as well.

[alcuno]

5. Remember the names of the camps: Pennsylvania, NY, Washington.

In Kuwait prior to the war. This administration created a frenzy about Iraq and then unleashed our military on the Iraqi people. The buck stops at the top.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

6. Wow... They aren't even THAT crass on the freeper board.

WHERE is the outrage?

[mopaul]

7. i really think they are getting dangerously unstable

torture apologists, and bushco shills, support his every atrocity and act of treason. i think they are on the verge of meltdown.

[Generic Other]

17. Mo Paul, that picture will give me nightmares!

My goodness Granny B. What pearly white teeth you have...<shudder>

[HuskerDem]

22. MoPaul, just think what the world would have been spared

if someone would have sown that bitch shut 60 years ago. :smoke:

[Frances]

9. I remember the men on horses beating

the marchers on the Selma bridge in the 60s. I remember the men and women jeering at kids integrating a school in Little Rock in the 50s. I've seen pictures of lynchings in the 30s and 40s.

I had hoped that the country, prodded by Martin Luther King, had moved past that stage of violence and cruelty. It seems I was wrong.

[Faygo Kid]

12. Please share those memories, here:

www.voicesofcivilrights.org. I am involved with collecting this. Please check it out, and post. It is vitally important, especially given what we face today, to recall those memories for generations to come. You are not wrong yet.

[Frances]

19. Thanks for the link

I did not do anything really brave during the Civil Rights Movement, but I will try to write a few paragraphs about what is was like to witness segregation from the point of view of a white person born in Alabama in 1941.

[MO_Dem]

10. The GOP has come a long way

in such a short time! Gee, just a few years ago, they thought a fib about a bj was so despicable that it justified trying to bring down the US govt. Now, look at their attitude!

[Castor Troy]

37. I agree, that whole BJ fiasco was....

definatly a lowpoint for the Repubs. It helped the dems in the long run though.

I know that this is not a current topic, but what Hypocracy for Net Gingrich to lead the charge against Clinton, while at the same time having an affair himself.

Think about it this way, even if the Republican politicians really believed that Clinton lying was a great offense, did they really think it would be good for the country to IMPEACH him. I doubt it.

[Skittles]

43. welcome to the DU, Castro Troy

:hi:

[charlie]

11. It doesn't seem to have occurred to those jingoistic fuckwads

that the hooligans they're excusing are endangering their fellow soldiers. Enraging the citizenry in a country you're trying to "pacify" is about the most goddamn dumb, self-defeating thing you can do.

[opihimoimoi]

14. Billie Holiday sig song was STRANGE FRUIT

all about black people lynched during the night of the white sheets.

We have it still present among us, hidden but here....on both sides too.

Solution: get those Bongs out, take some hits, mellow out, fuck ANGER, it does shit for you, get the Munchies and enjoy.

[TruthIsAll]

27. Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit

Iraqi prisons bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the floor and blood on the roof
Bodies entwined in desert heat,
Strange fruit growing in retreat.

Horrible scene of the invader's rout,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of palm trees, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the sand to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter cry.

[HuskerDem]

29. Bong made my husband STUPID................... STUPID

I'm all for peace but if you have to fuck off your short term memory and your family to get to that space............. get a freakin' therapist.

I left my first husband because he was STUPID enough to choose weed over me and his first child.


20 years later I have 2 businesses, a plan for retirement and a beautiful (scholarshipped) daughter in college.

He has a fat bitch looking to become his fourth wife and a soon-to -be step son named.................. DAMIEN.

fuck anger
fuck stupidity
fuck bongs

[ShaneGR]

30. Wow, you really don't like that guy

[charlie]

31. Opi was just proffering

well wishes and some genial advice. Sometimes it's sweets, sometimes flowers, sometimes a walk under the starlight. This time it was weed, a benign indulgence if you're not someone like your Ex. Opi's a good-natured soul and doesn't deserve a visit from the Temperance Union Vigilante. Lighten up.

[iamjoy]

13. Source or Link?

"Rush today characterized the abuse as 'fun' to which the guards are entitled"

link or source for this quote?

I went to Rush's website and found another very interesting quote from him
“If this program offends you, turn it off; but don't meddle and try to change it so it doesn't offend you. It's not your privilege, power or right to do that; and yet the offended engage in this kind of control."

[wabeewoman]

26. Right!

But that only applies to him and not Howard Stern?? Arrogant hypocritical assholes!

[DBoon]

15. Does the Arab/Islamic world know about this?

Do these nutcases get any heed at all in the Arabic press?

Do their statements get carried in the international media?

Do people in North Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Asia hear the rhetoric coming from right wing US commentators?

Is it understood in the rest of the world that we are talking about major media figures, not just some provincial nutcase? That Hannity, Rush, etc. have audiences int he tens of millions, with large American media corporations standing behind them.

If so, we are in for something that will make 9/11 look like a minor traffic accident.

[DieboldMustDie]

16. Al Franken played this clip today.

Limbaugh likened the guards' behavior to fraternity pranks. Glad I never joined a fraternity. :puke:

[Democat]

18. Can someone post a link to the clip?

Of Rush?

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. Try here for Limbaugh

MP3 file

Text here

[burrowowl]

32. Not only that

he said Murikans shouldn't try to ask why they hate us, that sort of introspection leads to loss of self-esteem and shows 'those people' we are weak. I listened a few minutes like hynotized by a snake (a human kind not an animal kind) and could not believe the racism, the meglomaniaism, the shear Goeringism (Goering would be proud of Rush) of it all.
I was askance and had dry heaves since I hadn't eaten anthing so my smilie will puke for me :puke:

[knight_of_the_star]

20. 9/11 doesn't change human dignity

Period. End of discussion. Just because we "are at war" and "were attacked" does NOT make torture of prisoners ok EVER. In fact, I would think that all events considered we should be treating the prisoners BETTER than we normally would just to prove that we are NOT bad people and hold ourselves to a higher standard of decency and dignity, not wallow in the gutter with the slime that we claim to be better than.

[Octafish]

23. Sure separates the Americans from the NAZIs.

And I know which side good DUers like faygokid are on. They believe all men are created free and equal and enjoy the same rights. Bush, as should be plentifully clear by now, believes in a Master Race that is endowed by the Almighty to rob, kill and enslave whoever gets in the way. Now THAT's un-American.

[rumguy]

28. Rush is truly a strange bizzare clown of a man

He's a one man freak show.

[iamjoy]

33. How Sick!

CLIP:
CALLER: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men --

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

CLIP:
LIMBAUGH: You know, if you look at -- if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don't know if it's just me, but it looks just like anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage.

link - http://mediamatters.org/items/200405050003

Has Rush ever BEEN to a Madonna or Britney concert? Besides he is missing the point. We have nudists who believe in living without clothes, but that is their choice. We even had an off-Broadway show "Oh, Calcutta" where the cast performed nude, and the cast had to compete for the roles. And, yes, lots of people willingly have sex and find it great fun, But when you do have sex with some one without their consent that is called rape, and that is a crime.

Besides, hazing is illegal and can get a fraternity or sorority kicked off of a college campus.

Rush is just wrong on so many levels.

[RandomKoolzip]

41. So does this mean Clinton's off the hook for getting a hummer, Rush?

n/t

[catmandu57]

36. Those people are going to come home someday

not all of them are going to be caught and punished for their reprehensible behavior. Just like the snipers enjoying wounding people to draw others out, this is sick, if we survive as a society we're going to have these people among us.

That's truly worrisome, we're creating some fucked up people, and the right is encouraging them on with some sick, sick logic. History is repeating itself it's the war between the roundheads and cavaliers all over again.

[msmcghee]

38. The greatest damage will be . .

. . to any Americans who are now held as POW's by the insurgents or who may be captured in the future.

The reason for the Geneva Convention is to protect one's own troops who may get captured. Because of this, there will be no restraint shown by any Arab enemies who capture our troops from now on.

[mainer]

39. They're blaming LESBIANS!

over on the boards at Soldiers for the Truth. Interesting how the rightwing can look at that photo of the woman soldier peeking over the pyramid of naked Iraqi men and say, "see, this happened because we let lesbians into the military!" They completely ignore the male American soldier standing in the background.

[Cerval]

45. That woman...

...was sent back to the States because she got pregnant while she was in Iraq.

Ironic, isn't it?

[Kukesa]

44. Tremble for our country.

Yep, that's what Thomas Jefferson said; it was a warning then and it stands as a warning now:

"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just".

(Thos. Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia" )

[TNOE]

47. No truer words have been spoken

yes, there is no doubt we are all going to have to reap the collective karma of this pResident and what he has done to the world.

[TNOE]

46. Guest on Hardball summed it up nicely

can't remember who he was - except he was a Republican senator, governer - can't remember but when Matthews asked him how his constituants were reacting - he said a very small miniority said "big deal, they are the enemy, its what they deserve, etc." - and he said my response to them was - what if this was YOUR mother, father, brother, son.... then it would be quite another story. That seemed to really put a human face on it. There was another news program in which the guest said that the West is run by "guilt" - we feel guilty over everything and that is what motivates us - but the Iraqi's are run by "shame" - I'm sure most of them would just as soon died as to be so humiliated. There is ZERO excuse to put a saddle on an old woman and ride her - just as there is ZERO excuse for raping young men and boys. I also read where the women in prison were sending letters out to their family members begging that they kill them as they could not live with their shame, and many were pregnant. The letters said - either kill us or get us contraception.

The only upside to this situation I can think of is - this is war, the world gets to see first hand what it can be like and what happens - maybe the good news is that we will be humane enough and smart enough to never let another supposed "leader" start another one.