Bureaucracy is a lot like torture
Bad? Brilliant?
You can rate this post.
Register or login now and
tell us what you think.

According to an article in today's Washington Post, President Bush told Egyptian resistance leader Saad Eddin Ibrahim in June that:

I too am a dissident in Washington. Bureaucracy in the United States does not help change. It seems that Mubarak succeeded in brainwashing them.

If we ignore certain facts, like that Bush is the leader of the most powerful country in the world, has never been imprisoned or tortured for political reasons, and that his administration has been all too willing to cooperate with Mubarak in his utter disregard for civil and human rights, then, yes, our president is a whole lot like Ibrahim.


Reader Comments
  
haha
By Bobby Allyn Aug 20th 2007 at 12:45 pm EDT
Chomsky? Pilger? Zinn? No way, Bush is America's leading dissident voice...
  
Torture isn't bureaucracy,
By Liberaltarian Aug 20th 2007 at 1:18 pm EDT
but what happens when average folk confront or otherwise disobey bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy, like violence, is a mode of social interaction which has voided itself of humanity or nuance and does not require the entity in power to know anything about or care about the powerless. "Cross this line and I'll shoot you." "Fill out this form or you won't get your medicine." Anthropologist David Graeber has a kick-ass essay on the topic, here: Link
Re: Torture isn't bureaucracy,
By Ben Regenspan Aug 20th 2007 at 3:27 pm EDT (Updated Aug 20th 2007 at 3:28 pm EDT)
Bureaucracy can mean a lot of things, though, especially if the word's used as loosely as Bush seems to be using it. In this case "bureaucracy" would seem to refer to the checks and balances that keep the president from doing absolutely anything he wants to, which are inhuman and bureaucratic structures but also recognized as absolute necessities by classical liberals.
  
Campus Progress

Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.

Campus Progress