Lynndie England Can't Even Get a Job in Fast-Food

[Ian David]

Our New American Marianne

by Anne Laurie

We may never be allowed to call Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, William Kristol, or any of their prosperous fellows to account for their crimes during the ginning up and prosecution of our latest War Against the Iraqis. But, by the Christianists’ God, we can at least ensure that the face of America’s nightmare behavior there will be ostracized from Appalachia’s fast-food emporiums and public housing :

“Former Army reservist Lynndie England hasn’t landed a job in numerous tries: When one restaurant manager considered hiring her, other employees threatened to quit.”
...
She doesn’t like to travel: Strangers point and whisper, “That’s her!”
Her family received hate mail from all over the world because of the publicity surrounding the photographs and trial and, 5 years after the abuses were discovered, letters just keep coming.


This, despite the fact that England wasn’t actually accused (or convicted) of physical abuse of prisoners — and despite the fact that the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the direct result of Administration policies that “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”

England, by even the most sympathetic reading, failed to protest when ugly and un-American deeds were committed in her presence. She hasn’t shown much “remorse” for her crimes, if only because she doesn’t have the ability or the training to memorize the mandatory Repentance Script (and maybe leak a few tears on-camera when ‘confronted’ with the ‘evidence’). And it’s not as though she were the only undereducated PTSD-ridden veteran and single mother struggling to get by during this recession.

But should she really be the single individual who suffers most for the crimes at Abu Ghraib, just because she’s become the “face” of America’s sins?

More:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=23393


Hat-tip to: http://twitter.com/charyl/statuses/2402896075



Lynndie England auditions for a spot on a late-night penis enlargement infomercial

[BlooInBloo]

1. Good. Let her rot. Along with the others.

[NNN0LHI]

2. I would not want this person handling my food

[Ian David]

4. Worst of all, she smokes. n/t

[luvspeas]

8. fast food, no..toxic waste, maybe...

I'd let her clean out the tanks at a nuke plant.

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Try Cheney or Rumsfeld. They may need someone to torture their pets

[niceypoo]

5. She could make a fortune on the GOP lecture circuit

[patrice]

6. Tyranny meets pigheaded contraryness in LE - I don't know which frustrates me more.

She is Disadvantaged and NOT a match for the Oppressor.

[tekisui]

7. Errol Morris is making a documentary about her. It should be very good.

She was the 'fall guy'. Stupid for sure, but not the monster portrayed. She just held the leash and posed for the pictures. No, she didn't protest the actual torture that was order and carried out by higher-ups. But, she also didn't torture. Just made snapshots at the wishes of her twisted boyfriend, Grainer.

[patrice]

9. People here need to understand how DIFFERENT someone like she is from how they are.

There are entire dimensions of the universe that such people NEVER even see, let alone look at or actually enter.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Huh?

Want to say that again in English?

What dimensions? Which people?

Doesn't anybody get that she is EXACTLY like everyone here?

[patrice]

32. There are differences in mental abilities, e.g. no matter how much you

describe/explain some things, there are people who cannot understand. As an analogy, tt doesn't do any good to punish a blind person because they do not understand blue-ness.

[RaleighNCDUer]

33. Are you saying that compassion and empathy are dependent upon

a person's intellect? There are a great many people who are not intellectual giants who abound with these better qualities; at the same time, Ted Bundy had an IQ in the 120s.

The story of Lynndie England is like that of the Milgram experiments - people will confirm to the norm, even if the norm is twisted. She really had no idea that what she did was wrong till she was away from the context that said it was right.

She could be ANY of us.

[Jennicut]

10. What this girl did was horrific and wrong but there are ex murderers out there able to get jobs

She should not be signaled out. Why is that fair while Bush and Cheney and the rest live in luxury right now?
She also did her time in jail.

[patrice]

11. Absolutely Right On! nt

[peace frog]

12. Of course it's not fair

that Smirk and Sneer live in luxury while she languishes in poverty and loneliness, but what else could anyone expect?

If she seriously wants to start a new life, best for her to change her name, move to a different part of the country, dye her hair/change her look a bit, keep her head down and her nose clean. Otherwise she can expect more of the same, at least in the short run. Stop sniffling and get moving, girlie.

[MountainLaurel]

18. Not in her neck of the woods

The town where she lives has an unemployment rate of about 7 percent according to April statistics, but that's because all of the people who were affected by manufacturing closings timed out of unemployment statistics years ago. So, the rate of folks who are younger than retirement age who aren't working is much, much higher. A few of them are my relatives.

If Lynndie moved about an hour east, to an area that has become a commuting community for folks working in D.C., she could find a job with no problem.

[patrice]

30. Maybe she's a little turned-off on the system and doesn't want to work.

People feel that way when they get used.

[zbdent]

13. If she was "just following orders" ...

why isn't she on all the networks proclaiming it, and testifying to Congress under oath? (Which is something that her C-in-C refused to do, even with help ...)

[arcadian]

16. Because they want this story to go away.

That is the MSM, DoD and administartion officials. Obama most of all.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. The real "news" is that Lynndie England isn't all that unusual.

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009...

Researcher Finds Most Will Inflict Pain on Others If Prodded
Finding mirrors results of infamous psychological obedience study in 1960s
Posted January 5, 2009

MONDAY, Jan. 5 (HealthDay News) -- People today may be just as willing to follow orders to hurt others as they were nearly half a century ago, a new study finds.

In a replication of one of the most famous and controversial experiments in behavioral psychology, people were asked to give what they believed were increasingly painful electric shocks to others in the name of science. Just as occurred in the original experiment, a vast majority of the shockers continued to turn on the juice even though it appeared the people receiving the jolts were in pain.

Also ironic that she can't get employment at the lowest levels, but the people who ordered, approved and enabled systemic torture are still out on the lecture circuits and pontificating on TV and getting book contracts.

Lynndie should write a book and tell her story - how a formerly "average" American can be placed in a situation of shocking lawlessness, immorality and degradation and then become a participant and then scapegoat of the forces that create such settings.

[NJCher]

20. writing her own story is such an excellent idea

It would accomplish:

• The Redemption Process. If she interacted with a writer, particularly one with a conscience, i.e., no Regnery Press hack, it would stimulate contemplation and reflection on a higher level than she could probably accomplish on her own
  
• Once she's written the book, her travels and talks with others extends awareness of what this country did
  
• It keeps the focus on certain evil leaders
  

I'm a writer but I certainly don't have the stomach for this project. I'm sure there are others out there who do, however. I wonder how we could put this up for consideration to writers?


Cher

[spanone]

15. meanwhile dick cheney is on teevee regularly promoting what lyndie england did

[Turbineguy]

17. The lesson for Bush and Cheney et al. should be:

If you use somebody who isn't very bright or morally well-grounded to do your illegal works, they are likely to embarrass you.

And she has no means of defending herself as she is not very "TV-genic".

[DinahMoeHum]

21. Author Joe Bageant's assessment of Lynndie is spot on, IMO

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/06/mash_note_for_t.h...

"If you are doomed to eat shit, you may as well bring your own fork."

[JVS]

22. I'm impressed by the goodness of the people around her. I expected her to find a freeper town...

and become a local celebrity.

[MountainLaurel]

24. I'm rather surprised myself

When the story of Abu Ghraib first came out, all you saw in the media (local and otherwise) were comments supporting the unit involved and vilifying the whistleblower. I wonder what, if anything, has changed in the interim.

[dysfunctional press]

23. i would think that she'd be able to get a book/screenplay deal from somebody...

it would probably have to be co-authored or ghost-written...but i'm sure that her story would have a market.

[siligut]

25. I am sure it would have a market.

However, the people at the top of the food chain don’t want anything other than the party line slipping out. Who is going to go against that and help Lynndie England speak her side of the story?

[Aristus]

26. Bush and Cheney could never have carried out their war crimes if they didn't have loyal,

unquestioning brain-dead zombies doing their filthy bidding for them. The bitch can go hang for all I care. And if I ever somehow find myself in some squalid little fast-food shack in East Asshole, West Virginia, and see her behind the counter, I'll turn right around and walk out. Food poisoning, I don't need...

[L0oniX]

27. Maybe she should try working for "Dumbest Criminals" on True Tv.

[AlinPA]

28. The RNC or Fox "News" could hire her. She was their heroine when the pictures

came out.

[Javaman]

29. So amusing...

she didn't take part in the tortures, she was shacked up with a moron who did the actual tortures. She gets put in prison for being in photos, yet, those who authorized it and some who actually did the torturing, get off scot free.

So who are you mad at? Lynndie, high school educated, contract admin, private who slept with the wrong guy and gets blamed for all of the terrible things that happened at abu garib because she posed in some photos?

Or the guys, you know them: bush*, rumsfeld, gonzalez, chu, chaney, feith, blackwater, the cia, etc, etc, etc, who will never ever spend a single day in prison, have very healthy pensions, vacation homes, full life time benefits, who continue to make huge amounts of money off of their evil?

Perspective folks. At best England was a stooge who took the fall because she was stupid.

After the dust up of the trial, what happened then? Nothing. Just more photos and videos that we will never ever see the light of day, that implicates moron* and his* room full of evil fucking bastards.

Taking our frustration on some dupe, serves nothing but to distort reality and to keep our eyes off the ball.

So, castigate her all you want, it serves nothing but keeping the ones that actually ordered the torture out of prison.

This is the equivalent of locking up someone in possession of a joint and allowing the drug lord to go scot free.

Same as it ever was.

[patrice]

31. Very Well Said. nt