Maybe Rush had a point likening torture to hazing --

[pnwmom]

but not the point he THOUGHT he was making.

http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/envision5.html

Rush Limbaugh, apologist extraordinaire for the Bush Administration, recently commented on the treatment of Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Rush: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release?"

Mr. Limbaugh's justifications are sickening and absurd. On the other hand, he has finally said something that should not be ignored. Specifically his assertion that the documented abuse of Iraqi prisoners is akin to the initiation rites of Skull and Bones (the Yale secret society which claims both George W. Bush and John Kerry as alumni). Although the purpose of Rush's argument was to minimize the harm suffered by Iraqi prisoners, he has stumbled upon something important in comparing what happened in Abu Ghraib to hazing practices common to many American fraternities, military academies, and sports teams.

SNIP

There are obviously significant differences between young people tortured by classmates with whom they are voluntarily associating, and Iraqis being detained by the United States military. But there are also significant and chilling similarities between the physical, mental, and frequently sexualized abuse of young people in certain American organizations, and the horrific treatment of Iraqi detainees. Whether abuse is the price of imprisonment or the dues for membership in a respected organization, forcing a person to endure physical harm, mental torment, or sexualized humiliation is harmful. And fundamentally, acts of rape, forced humiliation, physical beatings, and the like, are toxic to humans-and do serious damage to victims and aggressors.

But why should we care that many American hazing practices mirror what happened in Abu Ghraib? One reason is that the men and women who inflicted the well-documented torture in Iraq may themselves be survivors of physical, mental, and sexual abuse through hazing. Their willingness to degrade other humans, their tolerance for acts of torture and humiliation, their active support for scenarios which cry out for intervention and prevention, may have been learned when they were themselves subjected to, and not rescued from, abuse and torment.

SNIP

[barbtries]

1. good point.

no excuse from where i sit, but it's food for thought.

[GreenTea]

2. Until Limbaugh submits to the "prank" of water-boarding and sucks down some water forcibly,

blindfolded, not knowing how long it will go on, and the pigman is so near drowning....then I may listen to the fuck!

[pnwmom]

3. The question is whether schools that look the other way at hazing

are helping to train the next generation of torturers.