Emphasis Added

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Differences between Abu Ghraib Abuse and the Beheading

In the interests of moral clarity, the following chart outlines the important differences between what those sick thugs did to that poor American civilian, and what happened in that prison that�s generating all this "foolish outrage" (in the imortal words of Senator Inhofe (moron - OK).

Beheading	Abu Ghraib
Innocent victim, in wrong place at wrong time	Innocent victims, in wrong place at wrong time (ICRC: 70-90% of arrests �mistaken,� corroborated by Taguba report)
Victim humiliated and executed	Victims humiliated, raped and tortured
Captors took savage glee in victim�s suffering	Captors took savage glee in victim�s suffering
Horrible incident captured on film, made public	Horrible incidents captured on film, made public
Perpetrators claim responsibility, reject consequences for act	Perpetrators finger-point about responsibility, debate consequences
Perpetrators attempt to excuse savage act because of nobility of larger mission	Perpetrators attempt to excuse savage act because of nobility of larger mission
Perpetrators claim act was justified by revenge	Perpetrators claim �alleged abuses� justified by conditions of war
Perpetrators are claimed to be fringe extremists, not representative of Iraqi population at large	Perpetrators are claimed to be �renegade� MPs, not representative of US troops in general
Perpetrators religiously motivated, indifferent to world opinion	Perpetrators part of mission to bring freedom and justice to foreign country
America says: Perpetrators and everything they stand for clearly evil, deserving blanket condemnation and violent retribution	America says: Perpetrators misguided and overzealous, deserving individual punishment

Violence against innocents is universally abhorrent and should be universally condemned. As conservative Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC), one of the Clinton impeachment managers, said yesterday, �If we want to be the good guys, we have to act like the good guys.�

1:30:26 PM

Emphasize This! []

Waste of Energy

Yesterday at the gym, they happened to have C-SPAN on while Senator John McCain was giving a blistering speech (transcript not yet available) against the new Energy Bill that�s working its way through the Senate. McCain called it a �shameless scam,� and that�s one of the nicer things he said. This is the long-awaited product of VP Cheney�s secret meetings with energy lobbyists which went down to unexpected defeat earlier this year. Now, while we�re preoccupied with other matters and rising gasoline prices have given political cover to the idea that we need to do something about energy policy (no matter what), the Bill is back, (now rolled into a $170B corporate tax �reform� package) and as bad as ever.

This Bill has something for everyone to hate. If you�re a fan of the free market, the Energy provisions are an outrageous attempt by government to tamper with the natural and self-regulating incentives that drive exploration, research and development of new energy sources. It picks winners (with subsidies and tax breaks) in the most cronyish political manner without doing a thing to ensure accountability and results. Even if you believe in some kind of government intervention, this Bill is apparently so larded with special interest giveaways that it promises to be singularly ineffective in achieving anything positive in terms of energy policy. Partisan Democrats have been boondoggled on board by crumbs doled out to their states and districts, but in total, this Bill is a huge giveaway to the staunchest Republican constituency in the country � a measure to be bitterly opposed on political grounds if not on principle. Finally, it offers billions in tax breaks and giveaways at a time when we�re fighting two wars and running record deficits. It�s hard to imagine a piece of legislation that ill-serves the public interest to a greater degree.

Needless to say, McCain�s poison-pill amendment to the Bill failed and the omnibus corporate tax bill passed overwhelmingly. Too many Senators have been bought off, too many lobbyists are sucking on the swollen tits of this monstrosity, and the public, even if we were informed about this kind of thing by our media, has other worries at the moment. I�m not opposed to government spending per se, but it seems important to get something for your money in terms of public good, and to have some kind of responsible revenue model to support the spending. In this case, we have a bi-partisan failure � not only of discipline, but of basic legislative competence. In a time of war, economic hardship and the need for genuine leadership on energy policy, the best our representatives can come up with is this corrupt, bloated, counter-productive lard-pile of legislation. We�ve come to a real crisis in American democracy when this sort of thing, on this unprecedented scale of utterly unproductive waste, becomes business as usual for both parties.

8:42:59 AM

Emphasize This! []