Molly Ivins: The outrage of the week (Molly has outrage overload)

[Dudley_DUright]

On one of those television gong shows that passes for journalism, the panelists used to have to pick an Outrage of the Week. Then, each performer would wax indignant about his or choice for 60 seconds or so. If someone asked me to name the Outrage of the Week about now, I'd have a coronary. How could anyone possibly choose?

I suppose the frontrunner is the anti-torture amendment. Sen. John McCain proposed an amendment to the military appropriations bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military.

<snip>

So deeply does President Bush feel our country, despite all its treaty commitments, has a right to torture that he has threatened to veto the bill if it passes. This would the first time in five years he has ever vetoed anything. Think about it: Five years of stupefying pork, ideological nonsense, dumb administrative ideas, fiscal idiocy, misbegotten energy programs -- and the first thing the man vetoes is a bill to pay our soldiers because it carries an amendment saying, once again, that this country does not torture prisoners.

This is the United States of America. It is our country, not George W. Bush's personal property. The United States of America still stands for the rights of man, for freedom, dignity and justice. We do not torture helpless prisoners. Our soldiers are not the SS, not the North Vietnamese who tortured McCain and others for years on end, not bestial Argentinean fascists, not the Khmer Rouge.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19727

[rkc3]

1. We may not be the Khmer Rouge, the SS, the VietCong, but...

we're slowly heading there.

One law at a time, one small restriction of our civil liberties, one reduction to the Bill of Rights, and we further distance ourselves from a democracy and head to a fascist/corporatist theocracy.

I wonder if the Germans felt this way in 1938.

[wtmusic]

3. Maybe 1933

If you haven't already read this Thom Hartmann piece, it's a classic:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

[rkc3]

5. I keep thinking we're further down the line than 1933 - I hope I'm

right and this isn't just the beginning.

[catzies]

11. Thanks for relinking. It may reach a new audience of new DUers.

Classic indeed. :thumbsup:

[cassiepriam]

9. Slowly? I would say we are on the fast track, if not already there.

And yes, I am sure that there were honorable Germans
who felt this way in Hitler's time. I can identify strongly
with how they must have felt.

[afdip]

2. she's preaching to the choir here . . . unfortunately we have to

live with "the mistake of 2004" for another three years. in '06 and '08, i'm not certain that many of the 59+ million morons who voted for dubya the demigod will change despite the mountain of evidence against the repukes.

[electropop]

15. He'll be out by August 2006

The Pukes are already feuding and splitting. Bush is now a huge liability to them. They will throw him overboard sufficiently early to try to show the public they are reforming. It will be too late though; the Congress is going to flip big-time.

The poll numbers for Bush and the Banana Republicans in Congress are in the toilet, and swirling down the drain. Better times are coming.

[xchrom]

4. ya gotta love molly.

wish more that kind of sentiment would reverberate through the media.

[indepat]

6. The USA has been taken over by those who do IMHO

[Rowdyboy]

7. Thank God for Molly...A voice of sanity in an increasingly bizzare world

[Bluestar]

8. Stupefying Pork!! Made me Laugh out Loud

Besides all the other excellent points she makes with this article, I love the phrase "stupefying pork". In two words it just says it all about the greed of this administration. The Dems should adopt this as another mantra along with "Culture of Corruption".

[cassiepriam]

10. Just when I think * can sink no further.......

The torture will haunt us for a long time.
And will do a great deal of damage to us.

[cornermouse]

12. The outrage of the week - Molly Ivins

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19727

Oops. Sorry. I didn't see the earlier one.

[Catfight]

13. We really need to take back America before bush ruins us for good. nt

[teryang]

14. Torture advocates now in top positions of power

That is really the last word on what kind of people run our country. Think of their foreign policy, it consists mostly of threatening sovereign states with war on a regular basis, placing military bases in every country, claiming the right to attack any nation unilaterally, and touting the pre-emptive nuclear war option.