The New Normal
From Chris Floyd :
Imagine growing up in a family where every day, father raped daughter, mother tortured son, brother abused brother, sister stole from sister, and the whole family murdered neighbors, friends and passing strangers. Imagine the underlying assumptions about life that you would adopt without question in such an atmosphere, how normal the most hideous depravity would seem. If some outsider chanced to ask you about your family's latest activities, you would spew out perversions as calmly and unthinkingly as a man giving directions to the post office.
This state of unwitting confession to monstrous crime has been the default mode of the American Establishment for many years now. Government officials routinely detail policies that in a healthy atmosphere would shake the nation to its core, stand out like a gaping wound, a rank betrayal of every hope, ideal and sacrifice of generations past. Yet in the degraded sensibility of these times, such confessions go unnoticed, their evil unrecognized – or even lauded as savvy ploys or noble endeavors. Inured to moral horror by half a century of outrages committed by the "National Security" complex, the Establishment – along with the media and vast swathes of the population – can no longer discern the poison in the air they breathe. It just seems normal.
And so it was again this week when the Washington Post outlined the Pentagon's plan to put dirty war – by death squad, by snatch squad, by secret armies, subversion, torture and terrorism– at the very heart of America's military philosophy. Not defense against declared enemies, not deterrence of potential foes, but conducting "continuous" covert military operations in countries "where the United States is not at war" is now the Pentagon's "highest priority," according to the new "campaign plan for the global war on terror" issued by Donald Rumsfeld.
Just business as usual. The topper for me in the last few months is the ho hum, off handed way that people discuss nuking Iran. I don't even feel that I'm living on the same planet as those people. On discussion boards there are always some idiots or young punks that toss the word "nuke" around. But this is being discussed at length with almost breathless anticipation in main stream media.
It's as if people are resigned to losing all their humanity, film at 11, pass the popcorn.
If you've got the stomach for it, go see our depleted uranium handiwork in Afghanistan.
Business as usual.
Imagine growing up in a family where every day, father raped daughter, mother tortured son, brother abused brother, sister stole from sister, and the whole family murdered neighbors, friends and passing strangers. Imagine the underlying assumptions about life that you would adopt without question in such an atmosphere, how normal the most hideous depravity would seem. If some outsider chanced to ask you about your family's latest activities, you would spew out perversions as calmly and unthinkingly as a man giving directions to the post office.
This state of unwitting confession to monstrous crime has been the default mode of the American Establishment for many years now. Government officials routinely detail policies that in a healthy atmosphere would shake the nation to its core, stand out like a gaping wound, a rank betrayal of every hope, ideal and sacrifice of generations past. Yet in the degraded sensibility of these times, such confessions go unnoticed, their evil unrecognized – or even lauded as savvy ploys or noble endeavors. Inured to moral horror by half a century of outrages committed by the "National Security" complex, the Establishment – along with the media and vast swathes of the population – can no longer discern the poison in the air they breathe. It just seems normal.
And so it was again this week when the Washington Post outlined the Pentagon's plan to put dirty war – by death squad, by snatch squad, by secret armies, subversion, torture and terrorism– at the very heart of America's military philosophy. Not defense against declared enemies, not deterrence of potential foes, but conducting "continuous" covert military operations in countries "where the United States is not at war" is now the Pentagon's "highest priority," according to the new "campaign plan for the global war on terror" issued by Donald Rumsfeld.
Just business as usual. The topper for me in the last few months is the ho hum, off handed way that people discuss nuking Iran. I don't even feel that I'm living on the same planet as those people. On discussion boards there are always some idiots or young punks that toss the word "nuke" around. But this is being discussed at length with almost breathless anticipation in main stream media.
It's as if people are resigned to losing all their humanity, film at 11, pass the popcorn.
If you've got the stomach for it, go see our depleted uranium handiwork in Afghanistan.
Business as usual.
posted by nolocontendere at 10:46 PM
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