Listen little Eichmann (with apologies to Wilhelm Reich)
Events like the following remind me of the participants in the The Milgram Experiment
where the little Eichmann bursts out in uncontrollably
nervous laughter because of a melt down in his personal morals and values; A fleeting moment of lucidity and madness...However,then quickly recovers to continue his denial.
From the Davos, Switzerland World Economic Forum blog January 28, 2005 :
At what was an initially very mild discussion at the World Economic Forum titled "Will Democracy Survive the Media?"... Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN... asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times.
... David Gergen was also clearly disturbed and shocked by the allegation that the U.S. would target journalists, foreign or U.S.
... Statements were backed by other members of the audience (one in particular who represented a worldwide journalist group). The ensuing debate was (for lack of better words) a real "sh--storm". What intensified the problem was the fact that the session was a public forum being taped on camera, in front of an international crowd. The other looming shadow on what was going on was the presence of a U.S. Congressman and a U.S. Senator in the middle of some very serious accusations about the U.S. military.
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."