PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Is the Right Losing Control?
by AntiChimp Friday, Jun. 17, 2005 at 4:16 AM
antichimp2005@yahoo.com

From Pittsburgh Hate Radio, to Iraq, to Gitmo: signs that the Right is losing its Grip.

Some signs today that the Right might be losing control, although it could be just wishful thinking on my part.

First off, I tuned in to my local hate radio warlord this morning, and he seems to have stepped his vitriol up a notch, practically foaming at the mouth over Senator Dick Durbin's single-sentence comment regarding an e-mail he was about to read from an FBI agent, who was complaining about the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Durbin said "If I read this to you, and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings."

So maybe Durbin was a little over the top with his rhetoric, but show me a politician who isn't. The reaction from the Right has a theatrical air of feigned indignation that I believe is transparent even to themselves. By flamboyantly "killing the messenger", they again attempt to distract from the real issue, which is that the U.S. set up Gitmo as an isolated lockdown, outside the constraints of the Geneva Convention, and that abuses of basic human rights are being perpetrated there. By Americans.

Thankfully, Durbin, like Howard Dean, is not backing down from his words. These two must be doing something right, if it is causing such a frenzy for Republicans. Maybe some of our more mealy-mouthed Dems can learn something here.

There's a story in the Times Online today (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1657757,00.html) about Pat Blackburn, the mother of a British soldier who was killed in Iraq just days after the start of the war. Having lost her son, she has nothing else to lose, and so has refused to pay income tax until Prime Minister Tony Blair either provides evidence of Iraq's WMDs, or else resigns from office. The best part of the story is that Blair has been summonsed by the court to appear as a witness in the case. Mrs. Blackburn has even generously offered Blair £500 to cover his expenses and loss of wages for the day. No comment yet from Downing Street. Court date is sometime next week; I'll be watching this story.

Finally, A U.S. Army staff sergeant was charged with murdering his two commanding officers last week outside of Tikrit. (http://www.wnbc.com/news/4618420/detail.html) Probably an isolated incident, but it does bring to mind the fragging that went on towards the end of the Vietnam War, when soldiers realized that they were being used as cannon fodder. It's hard for soldiers, who have basically been brainwashed by their training (and necessarily so), to discover that they are being fed into a meat grinder for a lost cause.

www.antichimp.com

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