As American as Gauze Taped Tight Under A Pair of Black Goggles

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I GUESS THE IRONIC factoid that still stares at me from the corner is that as SOON as the World Trade Center had fallen (maybe a little after I haven’t checked my tapes but you get me) we began hearing about how we would never give up on our freedoms and rights and our way of life. Dammit, attack us as they may, the terrorists would not “win!” That was the litmus. And yet, as the reports continue to roll in, it is clear that we gave up immediately. We gave up our justice system, all the nobility hinted at or stated directly in our dearest writs, and our morality. In a heartbeat. We traded it for sheer might, terror, and force. We did not act like some wise elder intellectual/statesman with puffy sleeves and elegant quill pen, such as one would imagine signing his “John Hancock” to a momentous sheaf of papyrus. We acted like a freaked out extremist with some really bizarre ideas.

If you download and read the leaked Red Cross report report [pdf] (and I’ve only got a page or two in, don’t have the time now but it’s working on my mind let me tell you) it’s just amazing. The process we put humans through and kept secret is revolting. And clearly was implemented so damn methodically that the presentation of events feels cold to the point of habituation. The voice/tone and some words of the medical report make quite clear the Red Cross Medical faction’s concerns, and yet, the way in which the medical establishment is implicated in the ongoing catalogue of horrors is chilling. I am immediately reminded of every story I’ve heard that sought to inculcate one with the depth of horror belonging to the Nazi death camps. Nothing is “like” the Nazi death camps, of course. But one doesn’t have to reach too far to find that same alien chill, this cold, measured scientific eye cast over horrors that should immediately shock and repulse any person who has not destroyed their sensitivities; any person with a a functional conscience. I already know that fear can erase many lines within the mind. But there is no light you could shine on this that would convince me it is “American” or anything like that. Or, hey. Maybe it is. What do I know. Maybe I’m the naive one. Maybe the real Apple Pie is not taken from the oven by some beneficent smiling woman, but instead, scooped and scraped out of a diaper that you force a detainee to soil repeatedly and wear prolongedly as part of their induction into a torture factory.

Did we ever really believe in all those grand ideals that we thought we’d not “give up” no matter who hit us? I guess some of us did. And some of us never did. Some of us only really believe in a big enough gun or tall enough wall and to hell with the fancy notions like morality or humanity when it’s US vs. THEM. Is that too simplistic a conclusion for me to come to? Here’s some more stone-cold conviction, then: those who do believe in the more beautiful ideals of the USA are the ones who will chase the perpetrators who violated so much and so many, those who have shocked the national conscience with an array of sick crimes—until justice is done. And the people, pundits, and politicians who simply do lip service to a structure that can make them rich and powerful are the ones who will do all they can to avoid the truth of everything getting out. Because they don’t believe the system can handle the truth, that the People deserve to know it, or that—and here’s where the bass drum drops—it matters.

President Obama spoke in many ways of how he would bring change to our nation. He has made some bold moves and even bolder statements in this direction. Yet, the fronts on which he makes no substantial shift from Bush policy accumulate disappointingly. As much as I loathe the Right Wing maniacs like Hannity and Beck and that weird Limbo guy who do their best every day to stir up the ugliest types of opposition to Obama (and at everyone’s peril), I cannot be strong armed into defending Obama’s policies just to offer a buffer against their hate. I cannot possibly align myself, after all, with the President’s policies if he insists on aligning them with those of George W. Bush. And we can no longer ignore the war crimes that trail us like a raging family of ghosts. Either we refute and condemn them through action, or we are become them.