Wouldn't want to offend any lynch mobs | Main | An old banker frets, dithers
June 16, 2005
Giving the word "mob" a bad name
I won't go as far as Kos and say that those who remain on the list below (updated) are there because they support lynching. But I will say that they are afraid of those who do. They obviously have constituents whose clout and numbers are sufficient that they must be appeased.
People have made statements this week disparaging the worth of the apology resolution, and I've tended to agree with them. This belated sympathy card cannot make up for crimes against humanity.
Thinking about it now, though, the fact that this list even exists--the fact that there are 15 United States Senators afraid to sign onto an innocuous, superficial apology for a criminal legacy the Senate was once powerless to even condemn, let alone halt--is all the validation this apology needs.
It's suddenly obvious that this is not some pointless, feel-good affirmation of something we all agree on. Apparently, surprisingly, we don't all agree, and there are people in this country who need to have it demonstrated for them that they are not in the majority.
Whereas only by coming to terms with history can the United States effectively champion human rights abroad...
Lynch mobs no longer stalk the backroads, and their damage is long since done, but if you need proof that America's public tolerance for Afghan and Iraqi civilian casualties and mistreatment of Arab terror suspects--including innocent ones--is, at least in part, rooted in racism, look no further than this list of (currently) 15 Republican senators, and consider their constituencies.
"The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." -- William Faulkner