Gary? wrote:
>
> From: "Joseph Wanzala"
> > Connecting the dots...
> > Charles A. Graner, Jr., an army reservist pictured in some of the photos
> > showing U.S. Military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners and who is cited
> in
> > a military report as supervising the torture of Iraqi prisoners, is a
> > CURRENTLY EMPLOYED prison guard at the SCI-Greene maximum security prison
> in
> > western PA where thousands of prisoners are held!
> >
> this is obviously balderdash , these actions couldn't possibly occur in a
> nation incomparably more civilised than forty years ago.
>
While I have indicated reservations about the claim, the fact that "these actions" are being publicized could be evidence _for_ the claim of an improvement in "civilization." Correctly so, perhaps. My reservations concern the ridiculousness of the adverb (such extravagance weakens the claim) and the ideological role which the terms "civilized" and "progress" or "progressive" play in popular culture in the u.s. (Those who think culture important should take such questions seriously. But perhaps culture isn't important to politics.)
Carrol
> Gary?
> ride si sapis
>
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