Accessories to Crimes

There was discussion this a.m. at Eschaton comments about a certain op-ed that I refuse to read, but I will attach a link for you. Dick Cohen wants us to forget the crimes against the country. It seems that is his absolution of himself, and a way for wiping his slate clean for supporting the war, and the war criminals in the occupied White House.

Thanks, Hecate, for excerpting the relevant excuse from Cohen's drivel.

At the same time, we have to be respectful of those who were in that Sept. 11 frame of mind, who thought they were saving lives -- and maybe were -- and who, in any case, were doing what the nation and its leaders wanted. It is imperative that our intelligence agents not have to fear that a sincere effort will result in their being hauled before some congressional committee or a grand jury. We want the finest people in these jobs -- not time-stampers who take no chances.

The best suggestion for how to proceed comes from David Cole of Georgetown Law School. Writing in the Jan. 15 New York Review of Books, he proposed that either the president or Congress appoint a blue-ribbon commission, arm it with subpoena power, and turn it loose to find out what went wrong, what (if anything) went right and to report not only to Congress but to us. We were the ones, remember, who just wanted to be kept safe. So, it is important, as well as fair, not to punish those who did what we wanted done -- back when we lived, scared to death, in a place called the Past.

The wave of commentators blaming the public has astonished those of us who have been rejecting their bleating for years. We did not live, scared to death, in the past and are not accepting blame now. We posted on the willingness of paid op-ed creators to accept propaganda, and rejected it.

As Avedon Carol cast off Frank Rich's claim that we the people made our present crisis by buying and now have to make sacrifices to pay for it, we leftie bloggers reject the blame for war after having inveighed against it for eight years. As she said; buster, we didn't do it.

The columnists who kept showing up on panels on major media news shows, telling us that we should believe the liars in that occupied White House and follow them over the cliff, are now saying we believed and followed them. They only seem to read each other, so you can see how they would be so massively deceived. Those of us with perfectly good and clear intelligence have rejected them and their bablings, and if the Rich's and Cohen's had read authorities like Dr. Krugman and Juan Cole and leftie blogs like this, they might have learned what was right and true rather than followed bad advice like their own.

No, we are not to blame, and you are, and the country is in big trouble because of mindless followers of the horrendously bad leadership in power before January 20th of 2009. If we link to these babbling lightweights, it is for the most part to point out how ludicrous their concepts are.

The thinking people in the media audience are not responsible for the war crimes or the economic crisis, however comfortable the intellectually bankrupt pundits wish it were so. Again, from Avedon Carol; It was your job to warn people about what was going on when their leaders lied and the newspapers - your newspaper - kept carrying ridiculous stories about how the stock market could never ever fall again, greedy people could be relied upon to stay honest and responsible even when they knew no one was looking over their shoulders, and money grows on trees.

Without the internets, true, there would have been a distinct lack of real information. And assuming readers have no resources but our press would indeed lead commentators to blame the readers for believing them. That was not the case, and it is increasingly not the case.

One final laugh line from a Dallas Morning News editorial;

If financial and corporate elites don't start looking out for the common good instead of arrogantly protecting their privileges, the public will lose confidence in the system – and who knows where the resulting populist backlash will end?

These editorialists are still clinging to a disproved concept, that those CEO's are looking after the common good. That is the only wisp of defense left for the deregulation stampede they brought on, and that they haven't yet seen for the accessory of choice for crimes against the public.

We on the left did not drink the koolaid. Blaming us for your op-ed mistakes doesn't work.