Sunday, May 16, 2004
Not Hazing
Okay, I've had enough of the rightwing blithering about how the prisoner abuses are just a little frat hazing, the kind of thing that happens on spring break over here, blah blah blah, etc., etc.
Let me point out two important differences. First -- in the US, we prosecute members of frats, sports teams and other groups that do this sort of thing. Frats can be shut down. Individual perpetrators can face jail time.
Second difference. Hazing stateside is a more or less peer group thing. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head demanding that they pretend to fellate a fellow pledge. The doors aren't locked, there is no captor/prisoner relationship. Even in a place like Sweden, where frat hazing is still institutionalized, the sense of fun and games is obvious.
It wasn't fun and games in Abu Ghraib, or in any of the other places in which we're sure to find out in the coming days that this stuff has been going down.
Now, with those two points brought up, to any rightwinger -- or to anyone -- who still thinks that it's all been harmless horseplay, a question: Would you be willing to allow your sons or daughters to be a participant on the receiving end of these playful little pranks, and then allow the pictures and video to show on the nightly news and internet over and over?
Didn't think so, you fucking hypocrites.
Let me point out two important differences. First -- in the US, we prosecute members of frats, sports teams and other groups that do this sort of thing. Frats can be shut down. Individual perpetrators can face jail time.
Second difference. Hazing stateside is a more or less peer group thing. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head demanding that they pretend to fellate a fellow pledge. The doors aren't locked, there is no captor/prisoner relationship. Even in a place like Sweden, where frat hazing is still institutionalized, the sense of fun and games is obvious.
It wasn't fun and games in Abu Ghraib, or in any of the other places in which we're sure to find out in the coming days that this stuff has been going down.
Now, with those two points brought up, to any rightwinger -- or to anyone -- who still thinks that it's all been harmless horseplay, a question: Would you be willing to allow your sons or daughters to be a participant on the receiving end of these playful little pranks, and then allow the pictures and video to show on the nightly news and internet over and over?
Didn't think so, you fucking hypocrites.
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