Saturday, May 08, 2004

Posted here Saturday, May 08, 2004 at 5:41:40 PM     Overheard. The Halliburton subsidiary KBR, no longer content to make US soldiers merely miserable by denying them the hot showers available to KBR employees in Iraq, is now going to cut their email and internet access for the next 90 days. I guess this is to give KBR time to set up an e-censorship system, though I wouldn't be surprised if technical difficulties caused the block to last until, say, November? The many little details like this each alienate a different group of people, and the accumulation of distrust and anger will be like the flicking tail of the lizard that slowly dissolves an empire, in that other poem I can't remember, that reminds me of Ozimandias Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. ********

Posted here Saturday, May 08, 2004 at 10:28:10 AM     Sometimes it is at hand.. From the NYT Mistreatment of Prisoners Is Called Routine in U.S. By FOX BUTTERFIELD Published: May 8, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/national/08PRIS.html hysical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates. ********

Posted here Saturday, May 08, 2004 at 10:08:33 AM     The full impact of the hearings yesterday, and the other events of the week are not clear. The NYT editorial says its a mess but nothing proposed that sounds like a solution. David Brooks, the New York version of George Will, is dismayed and says we need to reboot. But no suggestion as to what that means. He raises the good obvious questions: who had the idea to reuse the prison at all? Dumb. He hints at the museum looting but fails to remind us that Rumsfeld was very dismissive of what should have been the first clue. It is important to think through why this episode is so important. Clearly what happens in jails all over, and probably American cities, is worse - yes, worse. But something about American posturing creates a world wide reaction that is at the flash point for  the details on the ground to touch off a mas revolution. I am reminded of Princess Diana's campaign against land mines, and its effect on real public opinion independent of manipulation by the press. The size and power of these "episodes" suggests that the future, with more people thinking and less social control, are likely to have very significant effects on the reordering of the world's manner and priorities. As is clear in what I have been writing, to me the major question is, can anything stop the market and technical rationalization that continues to reduced human beings to pushed around points in the social economic fields of power, or can we re-emerge as full human beings in our appreciation of ourselves and each other and the kinds of cultures we need to sustain that emotional field? The world reaction to the prison problem at Abu Ghraib is worth a deep ponder. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/opinion/08SAT1.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/opinion/08BROO.html ********