We Have Become a Nation (USA) of Cowards

" And I am ashamed !" - Ted Rall

(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan" )

Read HERE Ted Rall's article " Bush's Willing Executioners," to know WHY

Excerpt from Ted Rall's article:

We have become a nation of cowards, and I am ashamed.

1. Where are the Democrats? Under our two-party system it is their patriotic duty to represent the opinions and beliefs of their constituents, who are mostly liberal. That responsibility becomes an urgent necessity when the GOP, in firm control of all three branches of government, abandons a proud tradition of conservatism in favor of outright fascism. .... Democratic leaders are neither leading nor acting like Democrats. Thirty years of political duck-and-cover has brought them to the brink of irrelevance. Far more damning, they have abandoned their rightful role as loyal opponents.
   
   
2. Where is the left? The radical theoreticians who provided the intellectual rationale for opposition to the Vietnam War--Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, et al--are touring the nation's universities, each pushing books and promoting their personal "brand" to youthful idealists. Former leftist Christopher Hitchens.... has been reduced to insisting that weapons of mass destruction will turn up someday. Probably. Unlike Saddam, Bush needn't cut out his opponents' tongues. They're keeping silent on their own.
   
   
3. Where are the principled Republicans? Not long ago, conservative leaders trudged down from Capitol Hill to tell an embattled Richard Nixon that he could no longer count on their support. Men like John McCain, Bob Dole and George Pataki--remain mute as their party and nation are hijacked by fanatics.
   
   
4. Partisan politics are so dead that the American resistance is entrusted by default into the unlikely hands of the intelligence establishment. Every day brings startling revelations from angry CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency spymasters.
   
   
5. Where is the outrage? Even though it's painfully clear that Bush lied about the WMDs, even though daily ambushes of American troops indicate that the war is far from over, a CBS News poll shows that 62 percent of Americans still support Bush's con job on Iraq. "The president is 99 percent safe on this one," says Newt Gingrich.
   
   
6. (Where are the) protestors who demonstrated against the war... the streets of Washington are quiet.
   
   
7. Editors who parroted the Administration's lies, given the chance to redeem themselves now, downplay the latest Slaughtergate news.
   
   
8. An army colonel confesses, "I'm keeping my thoughts to myself and waiting until I retire to get the hell out of here."
   
   
9. Daniel Goldhagen's controversial 1996 book "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" pointed out an obvious truth: that the Nazis could never have triumphed, retained power or gotten anything done without the explicit complicity of the people they ruled. Therefore, Goldhagen argued--and thoughtful people agree--the failure of the German people to resist Hitler made them just as guilty as he was.
   
   How will history judge us?

  Go to Latest Posting

---

Comments 0

---