"Making Friends With Evil": A Fable for Our Times

[Karmadillo]

http://chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/1969-qmaking-friends-with-evilq-a-fable-for-our-times.html

"Making Friends With Evil": A Fable for Our Times
Written by Chris Floyd
Saturday, 15 May 2010 23:18

Arthur Silber outdoes himself with this one-two punch of an essay. It begins with a tale that pierces to the essence of what we are -- and what we are becoming -- under our murderous imperium. The second half unfolds some of the implications of the fable in the hard facts of the present day, taking off from the almost indescribable depravity of the current "debate" over Barack Obama's open assertion of the power to assassinate anyone on earth at his arbitrary order, and the continuation of torture under the current administration, despite all the bright shining lies to the contrary.

Silber ends with an adjuration that encapsulates, with searing clarity, something I have been trying to say for a long time:

Consider again the nature of the subjects under discussion: the immense evil of torture ... and Obama's claim that he has the "right" to assassinate anyone without judicial process or evidence of any kind whatsoever, simply because he says so. Reread the little story offered above. And then be brave enough finally to state the truth, at least in what should be the sacred space of your own mind:

This is insane.

This is monstrous.

This is deeply, unforgivably, irredeemably evil.

more...

[amborin]

1. knr

[scarletwoman]

2. Power exercised without restraint is inherently evil, it cannot be otherwise. k&r

[inna]

3. kr

[ProSense]

4. "the continuation of torture under the current administration"

President Obama is evil?

Chris Floyd needs to put down the crack.

[tavalon]

6. Evil is hyperbole for sure

Complicit is closer to the truth.

[ProSense]

8. Truth?

The President is continuing a policy of torture?

Floyd is full of shit.

[William Z. Foster]

7. completely unacceptable and deplorable

All decent people should reject your attempt to turn this serious moral issue into some sort of petty partisan loyalty test or shallow-minded feud. This is, I think, a troubling sign of the very thing that Floyd and Silber are discussing.

This goes too far and is reprehensible and disgusting. You are making the issue of the popularity of a politician more important than the issue of torture. There are no lower depths of moral depravity to which you could sink.

This is insane. This is monstrous. This is deeply, unforgivably, irredeemably evil.

How could anyone ever take you seriously again as you defend certain politicians or the party now that we that you will stop at absolutely nothing in that effort, and will even go so far as to attempt to distract people from the subject of torture, to disrupt and debase any discussion on the subject in the service of your ongoing bullying partisan sales effort?

Can you truly not see that even if you are right about this - and I presume that you are trying to make the usual case that Obama is blameless, that Floyd, Silber and others are doing a smear job on the president, and that their motives are suspect - that even if you are right about all of that, and you present absolutely no evidence to support that you are in fact right about this, that you are still wrong - deeply, profoundly and disturbingly wrong? Can you not see that even if your cause is a good one, that you have just damaged your own cause and your own credibility beyond any hope of repair?

[jaxx]

5. This is two sick men patting each other on the back

for trying to outdo each other. Which one won the prize?

[Karmadillo]

9. Kick

nt