Actually, Bill Clinton did help facilitate some investigation of past crimes, in regards to the radiation experiments of earlier days, and it was during his term that much of the work of the JFK archives research was done (begun under a law signed by, of all people, GHWB).

My point about time passing and the need for investigations still stands, however. When Carter failed to press for accountability on Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, and instead tried to position the U.S. as a “human rights” force for good, he achieved the shell of the latter, and left the husk of the former, which afterwards came back to haunt us in the form of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and other of the Nixon men. The Democratic Party’s failure to understand its role in the Vietnam debacle is the direct predecessor to its failure to stand up for clear antiwar goals today.

Also, the Vietnam escalation did not begin under JFK. In fact, he had planned to remove even the advisers after his re-election in 1964 (which of course did not happen). LBJ is the one who agreed to the introduction of large scale combat troops and orchestrated the pathetically transparent Gulf of Tonkin incident to provide a fig leaf of justification.

I went back to reading Scott Peck’s People of the Lie and Alice Miller books about trauma theory to try to wrap my own mind around what was happening. Peck goes deep into the MyLai massacre to appreciate moral deterioration and the power of group think. And the higher up you go, the exceptionalism and elitism … and people .. human lives become pawns in power games. And that elite group think power patriarchal clubbiness.

Even Madeline Allbright recently .. didn’t she say something very chilling .. I am blanking right now.

The Armenians are asking all these years for an acknowledgement of the truth.

And the Gaza War so incredibly minimized by an irrationally conservative led Israel and this country, which has no right to be so codepedent with them, just stepping in line. I feel Obama has betrayed the left in this country and the peacekeepers and populists in other countries. Like in Honduras, too.

And now we are supporting drug trafficking in Afghan leadership. Oy vey.

I’m afraid, though, that we (the VN-era/baby boomers) are discredited with younger and older – it was being too young to have had to choose sides on VN that helped Obama get elected.
That does mean, of course, a certain amount of historical ignorance – but I think he knows more about the war and the time than his typical age-cohort.

So, the ultimate oddity of Andrew Sullivan, as it is of all the big brains on the right, is 1) that, in the guise of making serious contributions to intelligent discourse, he happily fabricates nonsensical foundations to support bad conclusions, 2) that he believes to have the winds of timeless principles powering his sails, though he does not, and, worst of all, 3) that he willingly or ignorantly turns a blind eye to the ways in which his intellectual masturbations assist unprincipled people of the Conservative movement to monger fear, to stoke hate, and to justify the unjustifiable.

Wow… I love the diary. The thing about Bush and the chewing gum wrapper cracked me up. Want to go back and read more closely.

You know I read an article last night about how bin laden is probably dead but the Bush and Obama administrations don’t want it known most likely to justify militaristic imperialism. To justify to Americans why we are crossing into nations with our violence. He is the symbol to justify our corporate military agenda. One author compared bin laden’s aliveness to the Elvis sightings.

I think you are onto something important regarding Obama’s generational position. Somehow, we skipped the 60s/70s/Vietnam generation in the WH, unless you include GWB (ugh). That was the most politicized generation in modern U.S. history, and I don’t think Obama truly understands what he impact of that clusterfuck was on this country (not to mention upon the understanding of what U.S. power “stood for” by others around the world). I’d like to see someone ask Obama about Operation Phoenix, and I wouldn’t wonder if we didn’t see a Sarah Palin-like moment of obfuscation or deer in the headlights. Obama’s a smart guy, but you don’t know what you choose to ignore.

You know I have been wearing my black armband since May and only one person has asked me what it stands for. But I wear it to remind myself that it is not okay for my country to commit such obscene acts … caging and torturing innocent people for years without serious acknowledgment, amends or restitution.

There was an old movie, A Gentlemen’s Agreement, with Gregory Peck and it was about anti-Semitism. And at one point a character calls out people who are uncomfortable when hearing prejudice and shift uncomfortably over a joke or some in your face bias but they don’t put it back in the speaker’s face that it is wrong and they won’t tolerate it.

Yes, I saw Michael Moore’s movie and he had some priests really coming out angrily at capitalism and it was good to see.

Skewering the Bible to justify atrocities economically and militarily is horrifying.