Absurdities & Atrocities

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities- Voltaire

Absurdities and atrocities have come to largely define America in the new millennium. Who would have thought that the United States of America would embrace the practice of torture as a matter of policy? Torture, with all its grim, sadistic, soul destroying, screaming implications.

The President endorses torture. The Attorney General made it possible. President Karimov of Uzbekistan boils enemies alive. ‘Blowtorch Bob’ D’Aubisson of El Salvador loved to burn people. Ronnie Reagan had nuns raped. It was called ‘fighting for freedom’. George is a freedom fighter right up there with the best of them. The shah was a freedom fighter. General Noriega, to a point. Pinochet. Enemies of the US hate it for its ‘freedom’. Damn right. Freedom from the rule of law.

America recently advanced 'freedom' by sodomizing young boys at Abu Grahaib, where they torture children to manipulate their parents. Did you hear that? Americans torture innocent children in front of their parents to intimidate them. Is that possible? Now certain 'leaders' are hoping that the tape of that advancement doesn’t get out. Too much freedom can be a bad thing after all.

To date, none of America's religious leaders have spoken out against the use of torture, or the wanton abrogation of civil liberties in America or Guantanamo. Okay, maybe a few Lutherans whispered something, and good for them. But where's Jerry Falwell? Franklin Graham? (He thinks Islam is evil.) Pat Robertson? (He wants to assassinate Hugo Chavez.) Where are the Catholic bishops? We know the pope has diplomatic immunity, so he can’t be held accountable for covering up sex crimes against children, but where are the priests? The ministers? The good people? If organized religion can’t or won’t stand up to the kind of immorality that is so patently being practiced by the Bush Administration - do you suppose that Jesus would endorse torture? If Christianity has no problem with torture or for that matter the wholesale slaughter of innocents in Iraq - if Christianity has no issue with war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, rape and murder, then perhaps that religion does not have very much to offer in terms of moral values or teaching. Its silence has been louder than any prayer or hymn.

Maybe George is a little hard of hearing and God is actually telling him to fuck off.