WHY THERE IS NO OUTRAGE



(Reprinted as fair use)


Lots of scribes on the political Left, echoed by liberal politicians are troubled by the news from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and want to know why more average citizens aren’t up in arms about it, too. They see the pictures and hear the accounts of some first hand observers and ask why is the country cast as the “Leader of the Free World” ignoring this at best, and encouraging it at the worst? Searching for the answer doesn’t require looking into psychological treatises or case studies. Examples of why are all around us.

Every time the family of a crime victim lashes out in anger and unbridled thoughts of pain-riveted vengeance while “caught” on videotape, the notion of what is just and fair is incrementally skewed, and the line between revenge and justice blurs. Every time someone substitutes a convenient slur – for example de-selecting “Arabic” in favor of “rag head” to describe someone from the Mid-East, people from that region of the world are marginally closer to marginalization. E-mail makes this stuff all too easy to pass around from one to another with some keystrokes and a click of a mouse, all in a circle of friends and co-workers get a not-so-subliminal message that certain folks, based on where they were born or grew up, are not as good as “we” are. Politicians know this too, and have played it up for political advantage when it comes to people from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Middle East. In generations past it was primarily the Negro, or the Jew or the Pole, or the Irish,, or the Slavic, who bore the brunt of this type of politics. This type of marginalization has not ended as to these other ethnicities or Creeds, but the slurring of all Arabic/Muslim people was already widespread before, and has gained in acceptance dramatically since September, 2001.

The President and his circle know exactly what they’re doing every time they mention September 11, and “killers” and “terrorists” and “thugs.” They know that every time those things are said in close proximity, the subliminal message to the public is that they’re all killers and thugs, they all had a hand in killing Americans in 2001, and they all don’t deserve the benefits, protections and safeguards of our Constitution, or the Geneva Convention. Those things are reserved for humans who “share our values.” The Adminstration is cynically manipulating public confusion over the distincition between justice and revenge, while fanning the flames of bigotry in the process. It's disgusting, and it ought to stop.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask some of your friends and co-workers what they think about US “detention camps,” and be prepared to hear things like “they killed our people. I don’t care what happens to them.” Sorry to say it seems to be that visceral for a large group of people in our country.