Frat Boys at War:
The Rude Pundit is no neophyte to the ways of groupthink among boys (and depraved girls, but let’s focus here, people). He has played grab-ass, had his balls popped by towels in the shower, and circle jerked on more than one occasion. One particularly bad pants-down spanking comes to mind, in the middle of an undergraduate game of Truth or Dare, but at least the pay off was Crazy Carla, the sophomore from the next dorm, dancing naked, stoned out of her mind, on the balcony. Here’s the deal: all of us volunteered to be degraded. If, perhaps, we had ripped off Carla’s clothes with a knife while she screamed and begged us to stop, and then we made her dance spread-eagled for our pleasure at gunpoint, under pain of death to her and her family, slapping her when she paused, would that be close to, say, sexual assault? Maybe something not unakin to torture? Would we be culpable in a crime? If you answered, “No, shit, you vile fucks should become the toilets at the county lock-up,” then you got it right.

So perhaps, maybe, all those apologists on the right who poo-poo the depraved acts of sexual violence against Iraqi prisoners ought to be forced to spread their ass cheeks for the cameras with electrodes attached to their scrotums. ‘Cause, see, unlike "interrogation instructor" Tony Robinson on Hannity and Colmes, who actually, actually compared this to frat boy hazing, the rest of us live in a real world where there ought to be consequences for all those brutal bastards who feel free to destroy the lives of others. Of course, those who would actually believe, in some way, shape or form, that forcing prisoners to act like they're fucking each other is just this side of horseplay might just be the perpetrators of the disgusting bullshit that passes for "initiation" in America's wonderful youth organizations. Like those Long Island football players who held down and sodomized three of their freshman with broomsticks and pine cones. And, fuck, ya gotta imagine that the coaches, who created the culture where their players felt they could actually sublimate their homosexual urges for getting sucked off by the QB in the clutch through gay torture, are not that far removed from the Bush Administration, for whom "accountability" is just another censored word. Jesus Christ, Rumsfeld couldn't even bring himself to use the word "torture" when talking about this. (C'mon, gang, can't you even find a scapegoat to fire? Or are you so afraid of what that person would reveal that you'd rather act like no one's ever responsible for anything?)

Hazing? God, you gotta think that those Iraqis would have loved to drink themselves to death after what they’d been through. And just like every frat insists that it’s okay to gang rape co-eds and force pledges to drink their own piss because the fraternity hosts blood drives for the Red Cross, we have the sad, sad sight of the administration and the military scrambling to say that this is an isolated incident even as more and more incidents become public, even as those in charge, like Rumsfeld and Richard Myers, claimed that they had not read a weeks-old report from the Pentagon on the abuse allegations. As Aaron Brown said on Newsnight last evening, "Fair or not, it leaves an impression that it only was a big deal when it became a public deal." And Bush, when he puts his dopey, blank slate face on Arab television, better unequivocally apologize. Even then, he's only gonna place a butterfly bandage on an open, bleeding shiv gash.

We're a country run by privileged frat boy bullies who are busy hazing us all. Bend over in November and get yer picture taken.

Brief Note On Michael Moore:
So Disney won't distribute Michael Moore's new Miramax film because of the political content? God, isn't it great when a five-buck-a-blow crack whore decides she won't let you piss on her? Everyone loves a diseased slut with a moral code. But, please, really, and, c'mon, she'll still bob on your crank for that five dollars, baby.