But today, when reading Glenn Greenwald's post on Britons investigation into torture and war crimes all I feel now is sadness.
And let me tell you, my anger was quite substantial. I had to stop reading Glenn's book "How Would A Patriot Act?" several times because of the anger that would build. So to with Al Gore's book "The Assault On Reason." The more he described the illogical and purely propagandist rhetoric of the Bush administration and the conservative movement, the more rage I felt. Again, I had to put his book down, the anger would become so overwhelming.
I have to admit, I often can only get half-way through a Glenn Greenwald post because of the usual anger and rage that boils out of me. But, like I said in the beginning of this post, reading Glenn's post this morning has simply made me sad. Sad at the lack of courage to stand by our constitutional values of basic human rights.
Political cowardice. That's all I've seen in my life time. I was too young to remember the Kennedy years and Johnson years. But Watergate I remember, with the cynicism and pessimism running rampant through the electorate. And not because of the resignation of Richard Nixon. Not even because of his crimes.
No. The cynicism and pessimism resulted from the pardon of Nixon by Ford. At that moment our fate as a failed constitutionally lead nation was sealed. Instead of holding a man accountable for his actions, we established a precedence where he was allowed to escape legal consequences. The Rule Of Law was not upheld. Instead, as Nixon himself famously framed by claiming "If the president does it, it's not illegal" our nation drifted into a surreal nightmare of political chaos and impotent leadership.
Candidate Obama promised change we can believe in. But President Obama lack of confronting the torture and war crimes of the previous administration appears to be leading us into the same moral, legal, and political quagmire that has existed since the pardon of Richard Nixon. That is a lack of change I can not believe in.
And let me tell you, my anger was quite substantial. I had to stop reading Glenn's book "How Would A Patriot Act?" several times because of the anger that would build. So to with Al Gore's book "The Assault On Reason." The more he described the illogical and purely propagandist rhetoric of the Bush administration and the conservative movement, the more rage I felt. Again, I had to put his book down, the anger would become so overwhelming.
I have to admit, I often can only get half-way through a Glenn Greenwald post because of the usual anger and rage that boils out of me. But, like I said in the beginning of this post, reading Glenn's post this morning has simply made me sad. Sad at the lack of courage to stand by our constitutional values of basic human rights.
Political cowardice. That's all I've seen in my life time. I was too young to remember the Kennedy years and Johnson years. But Watergate I remember, with the cynicism and pessimism running rampant through the electorate. And not because of the resignation of Richard Nixon. Not even because of his crimes.
No. The cynicism and pessimism resulted from the pardon of Nixon by Ford. At that moment our fate as a failed constitutionally lead nation was sealed. Instead of holding a man accountable for his actions, we established a precedence where he was allowed to escape legal consequences. The Rule Of Law was not upheld. Instead, as Nixon himself famously framed by claiming "If the president does it, it's not illegal" our nation drifted into a surreal nightmare of political chaos and impotent leadership.
Candidate Obama promised change we can believe in. But President Obama lack of confronting the torture and war crimes of the previous administration appears to be leading us into the same moral, legal, and political quagmire that has existed since the pardon of Richard Nixon. That is a lack of change I can not believe in.
Leave a comment