Don't Ask Me!

Consumer Retorts: Rants and Raves on the Business of Self- and Home-Improvement

Sunday, June 19, 2005

exterminate the critics of torture

Senator Durbin speculates that if one were to hear of what goes on at Gitmo, one would have believed in happier times that these things took place at the most notorious internment camps of the previoius century and he is called a piece of excrement by right-wing superpatriots. Read the full story and debate at Orcinus.

Now that the Right has twisted this speculate analogy to mean "All US soldiers are Nazis," there are death threats flying around against Durbin.

In the comments, many said that Durbin's remarks are unhelpful. Unhelpful to whom I would like to ask.

On the Northwest flight back to the US, I watched parts of Vin Diesel's "The Pacifier" in which he plays a special opps soldier assigned to babysite a family of adorable blond children, and realized that the worship of the military flourishes unbounded in this country, for not only can Diesel drive a hummer and take out enemy under the cover of night, he can also change diapers and deal with teenage crises with one flex of his giant biceps. But that is not the most disturbing thing about this movie. The most disturbing thing is that the musical loving teenage son (read gay) who Diesel directs in the school production of The Sound of Music plays the Nazi sympathizing boyfriend of the Von Trapp daughter and none of this is mentioned. We just learn that it is all right to like musicals because Diesel can direct them better that the (bad gay) music teacher.

Something has snapped in this country. When the military and its practices are immune from criticism and seen to be all powerful, then militarism has triumphed.

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