Archive for June, 2009
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
The Supressed Facts: Death by Torture
Read “The Supressed Facts: Death by Torture” by Glenn Greenwald.
If you’re not going to call it torture, but over 100 detainees died during the process, then what do you call it? And if this isn’t torture, then what is torture? We know when other governments commit human rights violations, but what can our government not […]
8 Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 44 by eric
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
The American Bad Apple
In the U.S. we have this game we play. Some major violation of our fundamental values occurs and instead of blaming the system or society at large, we blame the Bad Apple.
In the case of Abu Ghraib, we blamed a few bad apples — even though it was obvious then and even more obvious now […]
4 Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 44 by eric
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Seasons and Longing
I only ever really feel homesick at the change of each season. And now that summer is very much upon us, especially in Madrid where it has been consistently over 90F (32C) for the second straight week, I very much miss home. I miss my brother’s rooftop in Brooklyn (though I have only been up […]
5 Comments » - Posted in Digressions, Friends / Family by eric
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
American Socialism Defeats European Capitalism
It’s ironic that the entire spirit and competitive structure of American professional sports is effectively socialism in practice – its anti-trust violating franchise system, player drafting, revenue sharing, salary caps, player unions, etc – while the European model is almost pure capitalism where only the fittest of the fittest survive, the rich teams always get […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Digressions, Living la vida española by eric
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Barack W. Obama
This week there were two good examples of the press finally confronting Obama for his hypocrisy in furthering Bush secrecy and torture policies. First it came from the admitted Obama supporter Bob Herbert who wrote,
It was thought by many that a President Obama would put a stop to the madness, put an end to the […]
No Comments » - Posted in Obama 44 by eric
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Goodbye Lenin, Mr. McCain, the Cold War is Over
This morning on my way to work I suffered listening to John McCain talk utter crap on Face the Nation. Besides the obvious senility of still thinking we’re living the Cold War (reminds me of the movie Goodbye Lenin), McCain spewed this crap about the U.S. being a beacon of light of freedom in the […]
3 Comments » - Posted in Essays by eric
Monday, June 15th, 2009
Socialized National Defense?
What I don’t understand is why Republicans think that government cannot do anything right at home, but can’t do anything wrong abroad. We can deride government workers as inefficient and inept, but any criticism of the military is anti-patriotic. Why do we think that military officials and soldiers are any better or more effective than […]
7 Comments » - Posted in Essays by eric
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
Neither the Free(d) Nor the Brave
As Glenn Greenwald continues to remind us, there is something inherently comical in the right wing’s insistent irrational fears about putting criminals in American jails. Nevertheless, other nations are not so afraid of justice. Bermuda and Palau apparently are taking in the Uighurs who have been in the Guantanamo for seven years. The U.S. government […]
No Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 44 by eric
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Cognitive Dissonance
While imprisoning and torturing hundreds of detainees in Guantanamo and elsewhere for years on end, the Bush Administration claimed that those detainees had absolutely no habeus corpus rights. In other words, they could be detained without ever having the right to contest their detention, being presented with the evidence against them or getting their day […]
No Comments » - Posted in Essays by eric
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
The Despicable State of Our Leading News Sources
Yesterday’s New York Times ran a story entitled “U.S. Lawyer Agreed on Legalities of Brutal Tactics“, giving the completely misleading impression that the the Bush/Cheney enhanced interrogation policies were legitimized by government attorneys. The story was based on three emails penned by former Deputy Attorney General, James Comey, that were leaked, as described by Glen Greenwald,
clearly […]
