Frank Rich's "Good Germans"

Frank Rich writes another trenchant, well-researched and beautifully synthesized piece on the Bush cabal rubber-stamping torture as policy. Rich's premise, in his New York Times column, is that only through the passive acceptance of this policy by the American citizens, who have been informed repeatedly through the media and congressional hearings, can this disgusting policy continue. It started with the uncovering of the Abu Graib prisoner torture scandal, and now rocks on with Blackwater and more.

Thus Rich refers to the "Good German" of post Nazi Germany when the common citizens of Hitler's dictatorship claimed they really knew nothing of the holocaust atrocities committed in their midst. They were just good patriots going along with the country's laws and minding their own business.

If Rich's modern-day "Good Germans" are the Americans who choose not to raise a stink about torturing alleged enemies behind closed doors, then I propose another "Good German" analogy about my fellow citizens: the pervasive bigotry that oozes throughout our daily lives is constantly ignored by people even when it's shoved in their faces. How many times has the reader of this blog over-heard or been confronted with defaming remarks about an ethnic group, or a sexist statement, or anti-gay or lesbians on any given day, and not reacted by saying out loud you won't stand for that kind of language?

This country is full of people who acquiesce before racism and bigotry even when they are abhored by it. I appreciate Frank Rich's discussion of Bush getting away with illegal actions because the American voter is complacent and uncaring. I also see the bigger issue and ultimate dilemma in our society of ongoing racism, xenophobia, and bigotry and the allowance and even ignorance of them by Americans as the downfall of us all if we don't stop being "Good Germans" and raise our voices now.