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obviously there are significant differences of degree between these: but nonetheless people like to think that the us is a country of laws and that it's reliance on law is one of the things that makes it distinctive, that makes it "free" (at the formal level anyway)--perhaps it is the shock of abu graib and the program of "extraordinary renditions" that on one hand leads to such reactions--"we" do not do this stuff--but obviously, "we" do.
there's a deeper problem however: part of the external legacy of the united states includes active support for and training of fascist paramilitaries in latin america through the school of the americas--the rationalization and spreading of torture techniques in the name of "anti-communism"--and this is not new--so "we" live in a bubble, separated domestically from much of the brutality that the americans are known for internationally. maybe abu ghraib and other bush-particular actions are opportunities to walk through the mirror. maybe that will lead people to demand change--and end to the grotesque military-industrial regime that the united states has become through and since the cold war. the united states does not operate in ways that symmetrical with its domestic political discourse and the ethics that supposedly underpin that.
no sense in pretending this isn't true---there's so much information out there about it that the shocking thing is that folk manage to find ways to evade it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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