Comments on: Plamegate? http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/10/plamegate/ Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:07:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anonymous http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/10/plamegate/comment-page-1/#comment-266 Anonymous Tue, 25 Oct 2005 18:29:54 +0000 http://rhinocrisy.org/?p=462#comment-266 It was the same under Clinton -- he orders a cruise missile attack on the biggest pharmaceutical factory in the northern half of Africa. No big thing. He lies about a blowjob, he's impeached. The problem is that Americans -- and perhaps citizens of all countries -- lack the strength to recognize their leaders as war criminals. That would implicate the entire country, and by extension ourselves. <br/><br/>The nature of criminal law is to make the criminal into the other, to then punish this alienated beast by locking it in a box where it can harm only other aliens. It hurts way too much to do that to yourself. It is possible to make Bush the "other" for being a slanderous, sliming liar. It is harder to do that for crimes against humanity and crimes against peace, which are the real crimes in Iraq. <br/><br/>That said, people who have been forced to face their criminal past -- many Germans after WWII, many South Africans after apartheid -- have emerged as far more unified, positive, smart, and caring. People who spend their energy denying the past -- the U.S. after slavery, Japan after WWII -- end up with strange neuroses. <br/><br/>You can see visual echoes of these traumas in fetish pornography, but that's a subject for another time. <br/><br/><a></a><a></a>Posted by<a><b> </b></a><a HREF="rhinocrisy.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="">hedgehog</a> It was the same under Clinton — he orders a cruise missile attack on the biggest pharmaceutical factory in the northern half of Africa. No big thing. He lies about a blowjob, he’s impeached. The problem is that Americans — and perhaps citizens of all countries — lack the strength to recognize their leaders as war criminals. That would implicate the entire country, and by extension ourselves.

The nature of criminal law is to make the criminal into the other, to then punish this alienated beast by locking it in a box where it can harm only other aliens. It hurts way too much to do that to yourself. It is possible to make Bush the “other” for being a slanderous, sliming liar. It is harder to do that for crimes against humanity and crimes against peace, which are the real crimes in Iraq.

That said, people who have been forced to face their criminal past — many Germans after WWII, many South Africans after apartheid — have emerged as far more unified, positive, smart, and caring. People who spend their energy denying the past — the U.S. after slavery, Japan after WWII — end up with strange neuroses.

You can see visual echoes of these traumas in fetish pornography, but that’s a subject for another time. 

Posted by hedgehog

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