Legacy

The WaPo reports with a straight face that “Afghans have demonstrated enormous enthusiasm for the election -- about 12.4 million people have registered to vote, 2 million more than for last year’s presidential election”. Right, last year more people were registered to vote than there were actual people qualified to vote in all of Afghanistan, with voter registration reaching 140% in some areas, and this year they’ve topped that by 20%.

At the national prayer & remembrance thingy, Bush said, “As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality.” Really, George, is that really what you want us to do? Because no one’s life history shows the legacy of inequality more than yours does. Or do you not consider privilege, cronyism, nepotism and favoritism, which got you out of Vietnam, into Yale (you were even called a “legacy”), and smoothed your way through every economic venture you ever participated in (God knows it wasn’t skill and hard work), etc etc etc to be part of the legacy of inequality? Because while he may say that “poverty has roots in generations of segregation and discrimination that closed many doors of opportunity,” he doesn’t acknowledge or understand that his wealth and privilege and power are rooted in precisely the same discrimination, but discrimination in his favor. Deep down, he still believes that everything he has was earned, that he is entitled to them. And many of his followers’ biggest worry about Katrina is that it will derail their plans to eliminate permanently the legacy of inequality tax estate tax.

The NYT seems to have finally decided to report in more detail on the mass hunger strike in Guantanamo (which the military likes to call a “fast”) and the forcible feeding of prisoners (which the military likes to call “assisted feeding,” as if they were cutting up their meet for them rather than shoving a tube into their nostril and aaaaall the way down into their stomachs). A month late, but welcome nonetheless. Still, the Pentagon has been able to keep a pretty tight lid on the facts, which was of course the whole point of keeping the prisoners on a military base in Cuba in the first place, so the story is more frustrating than illuminating. The NYT reports, for example, that a “senior military official” told it that camp officials “had tried several ways to end the hunger strike, without success.” What on earth could those several ways have been? We do not know. A prisoners’ grievance committee was chosen (by whom? how organized are the prisoners?), began negotiations, and was almost immediately dissolved by Gitmo officials, we do not know why. What are their demands, and are the guards really desecrating Korans again? The Pentagon is also withholding information on the prisoners’ health, has lied about the numbers participating in the hunger strike, and won’t release the names of those on hunger strike, to the distress of prisoners’ relatives.

As I read that story (in Opera), I got Google ads for 1) “Club Gitmo” t-shirts, 2) the tv show “Prison Break”.