Joe Conason: Immunize The Torturecrats

Whatever grim realities The Great American Future yields for influence-deprived nobodies like me, I'm just happy to not be The Pragmatic Shoeshine Boy for America's Torture Masters, a large, and - contrary to fussy assertions - bipartisan club with enthusiastic members in every branch of government.

By golly, this time next year, when I'm starving to death under a crumbling bridge, I can at least take comfort in knowing I never sunk so low as to assert the nation's most distinguished, accomplished criminals - my political overlords - should be exempt from justice. Optimism is hard work, but, like any other narcotic - except for, say, Darvocet - occasionally worth pursuing. Admittedly, as silver linings go, it's a shitty one. But it's something!

Joe Conason's latest article/proposal/capitulation/rationalization, PARDON THE BUSH MISCREANTS, has been a long time coming. Anyone who ever visited The Carnival of Horror more than once (you know, back when I used to come here myself) is already keenly aware of how all this sanctimonious fakery is destined to play out.

Conason, covering for Senator Pat Leahy and the rest of the millionaire Democratic Establishment, supports immunity for torturecrats if they spill the beans to a legislative body which is itself comprised of torturers, kleptocrats, war mongers and gutless fucking cowards who, by all rights, should be tried and jailed for their recklessness, fecklessness and all-around douchebaggery.

"We don't have the votes for total victory, so, uh, fuck it."

It's a familiar refrain - no, make that a mantra - among those on The Pseudo Left, i.e. the only Left in this nationalist gut heap we call a country. It includes all you sentimental fuckwits who got weepy on Inauguration Day. Hope-addled suckers. Abuse junkies. Perpetual victims. Deniers. Chumps. Friends. (Yes, I still love you. Even though you don't listen. Or look. Or learn. Anything. Ever. You gullible fucking morons.)

Having the votes or not having the votes is presented by The Serious People as the sole consideration for those "tough decisions" facing our elected demigods. In reality, it is something else entirely: a tried-and-true distraction from the moral bankruptcy which defines our collective authoritarian mindset; a factually correct lie. And whether the subject is torture or impeachment or subsidies for new flavors of ice cream, The Mantra is nothing more than a pathetic rationalization used to obscure Americans' tireless acquiescence to, and de facto support of, The Fascist Plague which continues to drive our delirious nation far beyond the boundaries of reason, sanity and redemption.

LETTER:

Shame On The Shameless

Funny how polls are only relevant when they can be molded into a net plus for America's political elite.

What disturbs me about the idea of so-called truth and reconciliation for Bush-Cheney, Inc. and its habitual enablers in the U.S. Congress is how predictable it is. I've seen this coming for years, and, yet, despite the complete lack of surprise, it is absolutely infuriating to watch this ridiculous charade.

Same old bullshit to the Nth degree. There are those who govern and those who are governed, and, by God and Country, the former are intrinsically superior to the latter.

Those Who Govern use the law to steal from us directly and indirectly. They pack off men and women to kill and be killed, either to enrich themselves or purely for political expedience. Their disdain for the rule of law to which the rest of us are subjected, often in brutal and ruthless fashion, is beyond dispute. They unleash their monsters of choice however they see fit, whenever they see fit.

And they - Those Who Govern - do it all because there's always someone like Joe Conason, Et Al, to protect them from the just consequences of their crimes.

This isn't just about The Bush Administration, Joe, and you damn well know it. If Leahy or anyone else on Capitol Hill - our State Actors who, for the last eight years, have perfected the art of moral theatrics and gutlessness - care to prevent the abuses which have stained and strained this country to its breaking point, they need only confess their own failures with a full acknowledgment of COMPLICITY.

Sadly, Joe Conason, your brain - and, along with it, your sense of justice and basic human decency - is no less rotten than those of your Beltway pals. What you're advocating is not pragmatism. It's forfeiture. Some things are worth fighting for, even when the odds do not favor a painless victory - or any victory at all.

You're an abject failure as an American citizen, Conason.

As a journalist, you're about average.

Draw your own goddamn conclusions.

-- Arvin Hill [Read Arvin Hill's other letters]
Permalink Thursday, February 12, 2009 08:13 PM PST

Insight: David Sirota

Less than two weeks ago, liberal darling David Sirota wrote that Washington Democrats are pushing Obama to the left.

One week later, Sirota writes Washington is the same one-party town it always has been -- controlled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by thieves.

So, Obama is being "pushed to the left" by thieves. How fortunate we are that thieves lean left.

Who knows what next week will bring? I am grateful to live in a country where the pundit class sorts out these infinitely complex Beltway dynamics for their fellow Americans.

It's all so very confusing.