Thursday, May 21, 2009

Irish reform schools, the CIA, and George Bush

The Irish government has finally released a shocking report on the sexual and other abuse of children in boarding schools operated by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy. I won't bother to go over the horrid details of this, which you can read about all over.

I have to say that I am not shocked. I am not shocked because the schools were based on an authoritarian organizational model, that is, one in which just questioning a superior is a serious violation of the rules, and because they acted in secrecy. In my mind those circumstances are very likely to produce immoralities and crimes of one sort or another. Power, as we know, corrupts, and the best way we have found to limit corruption is publicity. People are much more likely to do horrible things when they think nobody will find out. Even Stalin and Hitler tried to keep their worst crimes secret.

Which brings me to American foreign and defense policy. Yes, there are things we have to keep secret, and in any kind of military situation people have to follow orders. But if we care about freedom, we must resist everywhere we can the temptation of secrecy, because what is kept secret cannot be either approved or rejected by the people. When an organization is both secret and authoritarian, like the CIA, the temptation to criminal excess will from time to time overwhelm morality. After all, this is hardly the first time the CIA has tortured people, or the first time the government has spied on citizens for no good reason. And it will keep happening until we change the culture of the government in ways that limit secrecy and encourage subordinates to denounce their superiors when those superiors demand illegal things.

4 comments:

Carole67 said...

and... listen to President Obama's speech!

TheFinder said...

I concur with your wisdom. I notice now that Cheney is touting his new book and trying to convince the world that what his administration i.e, Bush/Cheney did was right. First they keep secrets, torture, then lie to us about it and now Cheney wants to reinforce it by saying they were right...what is your opinion on this?

John said...

I think Cheney's position is foolishly fearful. He thinks, as many others over the years have thought, that a free, democratic society is too vulnerable to survive. To survive it must take on some of the characteristics of a military dictatorship, including secrecy and belligerence for its own sake.

But this is completely wrong. The free world is strongest when we celebrate our freedom.

We keep falling back into the trap of secret militarism because it is so tempting for our leaders. To lead a free society, Presidents must renounce powers they could probably get away with wielding. This feels weak to them. They feel that to defend the country they must have more power, not less. Because this impulse is so natural, we, if we want to remain free people, must be constantly on guard against it and willing to turn with righteous rage against politicians who fall into the dictatorial trap.

TheFinder said...

Your right when you say if we want to remain free, we must be constantly on guard against the dictatorial powers of our leaders and we must be willing to work to see that these kinds of politicians are soon replaced. Bush once said that some people had said that his administration was turning into a dictatorship, he said that would be ok, if he was the dictator, and then he laughed, like it was a joke. I don't think he was joking, I think that he was dead serious. Too often the power of the office corrupts individuals, ask Nixon. One man with so much power can easily be corrupted.

I believe in openess, I don't believe that a secret society is healthy. I think the government needs to be honest with the citizens. We all know that going to war means interrogations and that there is probably several forms of torture used. If the administration would have just said, we are going to war and there will be things that we have to do to get information from these criminals and left it at that, instead, they lied and said they were not torturing the prisoners. Taking them to Guantanamo was torture, flying them bound, hand and foot with blindfolds after deprivation of sleep is torture. There are many forms of torture, but what happened at AbuGhraib is unforgivable and made me ashamed.

I believe that as Americans we could have done better and should be doing better. If we are to be the leader in the world then you do not stoop to tactics that were used in Iraq.

As leader of the free world Bush/Cheney had the opportunity to make us look good and instead chose to try to destroy us in the eyes of the world. The ramifications of what has been done we will not be able to comprehend for some time, but our children will suffer and their children.

The only two people in the world that have stood up against Bush/Cheney regime, is Chavez and the shoe thrower and I would love to have been there when he threw that shoe and called Bush a dog...he had more guts than any American I know. Too often we grumble and do nothing, at least he did something, even if it was wrong. LOL