The President of the United States has openly, proudly admitted that he approved the use of interrogation methods that are by every measure -- including the measure of United States law -- criminal acts of torture. It is one of the most brazen and scandalous confessions of wrongdoing ever uttered by an American leader -- and it has had no impact whatsoever. No scandal, no outcry, no protest, no prosecution....Meanwhile, Barack Obama likes orange juice. And Hillary Clinton thinks we're very cheerful.
There has never been a condition of such deep, virtually catatonic civic paralysis in American history -- and few such instances in world history. There will be no good issue from all of this. No saving grace in the last act, no life-enhancing "lessons learned," no character growth in the story arc, no deus ex machina, no redemption. There will only be -- at best, in the very best-case scenario imaginable -- a long, slow agonizing slog through the ruins, a hard, interminable labor of waste disposal and reclamation, in a much-diminished world.
And yet the sleepwalking goes on. For not only is Bush never chastened or hobbled by revelations that ordinarily would topple even the strongest government in any nation with even a tincture of democracy -- he and his cronies simply move on from each exposed outrage to even greater crimes. And that is what is happening today. Even as Bush was telling ABC News about his approval of the White House torture meetings -- where the nation's most august figures of state watched CIA men act out torture techniques for them -- he and his minions were also bolting the last rivets onto their latest war machine: the engine of murder and destruction they have prepared for Iran....
The sharpest truth, shouted like a trumpet blast, will not wake the sleepwalkers now. Nothing has pierced the shadows and fog so far, nothing has roused their moral sense, their legal sense, their political sense; nothing has stirred them to take action against the torture, the secret prisons, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, the ludicrous farce and deadly tyranny of the "Unitary Executive" cult -- and the never-ending act of mass murder and rape that is the war in Iraq. Will they stir now to stop another war crime in Iran?
No, it's obvious now that we must drink this bitter cup to the dregs. The sleepwalkers have encompassed us all in their nightmare. And how terrible, how terrible will be the awakening.
The Sleepwalkers' Nightmare
Chris Floyd:
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The President of the United States has openly, proudly admitted that he approved the use of interrogation methods that are by every measure -- including the measure of United States law -- criminal acts of torture. It is one of the most brazen and scandalous confessions of wrongdoing ever uttered by an American leader -- and it has had no impact whatsoever. No scandal, no outcry, no protest, no prosecution....Meanwhile, Barack Obama likes orange juice. And Hillary Clinton thinks we're very cheerful.
There has never been a condition of such deep, virtually catatonic civic paralysis in American history -- and few such instances in world history. There will be no good issue from all of this. No saving grace in the last act, no life-enhancing "lessons learned," no character growth in the story arc, no deus ex machina, no redemption. There will only be -- at best, in the very best-case scenario imaginable -- a long, slow agonizing slog through the ruins, a hard, interminable labor of waste disposal and reclamation, in a much-diminished world.
And yet the sleepwalking goes on. For not only is Bush never chastened or hobbled by revelations that ordinarily would topple even the strongest government in any nation with even a tincture of democracy -- he and his cronies simply move on from each exposed outrage to even greater crimes. And that is what is happening today. Even as Bush was telling ABC News about his approval of the White House torture meetings -- where the nation's most august figures of state watched CIA men act out torture techniques for them -- he and his minions were also bolting the last rivets onto their latest war machine: the engine of murder and destruction they have prepared for Iran....
The sharpest truth, shouted like a trumpet blast, will not wake the sleepwalkers now. Nothing has pierced the shadows and fog so far, nothing has roused their moral sense, their legal sense, their political sense; nothing has stirred them to take action against the torture, the secret prisons, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, the ludicrous farce and deadly tyranny of the "Unitary Executive" cult -- and the never-ending act of mass murder and rape that is the war in Iraq. Will they stir now to stop another war crime in Iran?
No, it's obvious now that we must drink this bitter cup to the dregs. The sleepwalkers have encompassed us all in their nightmare. And how terrible, how terrible will be the awakening.
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