{"id":1720,"date":"2009-04-24T10:36:05","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T17:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2009\/04\/more_notes_from_nowhere\/"},"modified":"2009-04-24T10:36:05","modified_gmt":"2009-04-24T17:36:05","slug":"more_notes_from_nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2009\/04\/more_notes_from_nowhere.html","title":{"rendered":"More Notes From Nowhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

By releasing the torture memos<\/a> and then rebuffing calls<\/a> for an independent truth commission<\/a>, the president is doing much worse<\/a> than cementing a reputation for compromise: He’s siding with the rightwingnuts and with all the Congressional pols — Republicans and some Democrats — who want to bury the past<\/a>. Does Barack Obama truly believe that “looking forward” without laying blame will erase what happened<\/a> during the Bullshitter-in-Chief<\/a>‘s regime? Does he really want to become known as the Eraser-in-Chief?
\nIn another context, he might find it worth reading Benjamin Schwartz’s article<\/a> in the current Atlantic, describing how the Nazis established the genocide of the Jews as a pervasive “open secret” so that all Germans would be made complicit. Then, as long as I’m on the subject, he might read Nick Bravin’s article<\/a> in the current Foreign Policy, describing how Lithuania’s chief war crimes prosecutor has — tragically and absurdly — targeted Jewish Holocaust survivors as war criminals. And finally he might want to hear Mandy Patinkin sing the Yiddish song Oyfn pripetchik<\/a>, accompanied by images to remind him of history’s worst war crime — because he apparently needs<\/a> that kind of reminding.
\nPostscript:<\/strong> April 25 — From Josh Brown’s point of view:
\n<\/a><\/span>PPS:<\/strong> May 15 — To release pictures of detainees being tortured like this one<\/a> will “further inflame anti-American opinion”<\/a> and put U.S. troops at greater risk, says Mr. Obama, who is fast becoming the Eraser-in-Chief. But ordering more drone attacks<\/a> that kill indiscriminately — including this strike<\/a> in Afghanistan — won’t? Americans who voted for him believed he would spare the bullshit. Sadly, he is proving them wrong<\/a>. I recall Paul Krugman saying<\/a> way back before the Bullshitter-in-Chief<\/a> was returned to power in 2004 that if “regime change” comes he hoped the next administration would “throw open the records” and not be “too magnanimous” to the B<\/strong><\/font><\/a>a<\/strong><\/font><\/a>n<\/strong><\/font><\/a>a<\/strong><\/font><\/a>n<\/strong><\/font><\/a>a<\/strong><\/font><\/a>R<\/strong><\/font><\/a>e<\/strong><\/font><\/a>p<\/strong><\/font><\/a>u<\/strong><\/font><\/a>b<\/strong><\/font><\/a>l<\/strong><\/font><\/a>i<\/strong><\/font><\/a>c<\/strong><\/font><\/a>ans. Five years later regime change has come, but that hope fades with each passing day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By releasing the torture memos and then rebuffing calls for an independent truth commission, the president is doing much worse than cementing a reputation for compromise: He’s siding with the rightwingnuts and with all the Congressional pols — Republicans and some Democrats — who want to bury the past. Does Barack Obama truly believe that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-rK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}