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The Uglyness of America May Be More Than Skin Deep

"The most distressing of the scandal photos is, to me, the one of an American woman, a GI, who is laughing, holding a cigarette and aiming her fingers as if comically shooting or aiming at a group of prisoners, presumably Iraqi. They are naked and hooded. She looks coarse, cruel, perhaps drunk. And as I looked at her I thought Oh, no. This is not equality but mutual degradation. Can anyone imagine a WAC of 1945, or a WAVE of 1965, acting in this manner? I can't. Because WACs and WAVEs were not only members of the American armed forces, which responsibility brought its own demands in terms of dignity and bearing; they were women. They apparently did not think they had to prove they were men, or men at their worst. I've never seen evidence to suggest the old-time WACs and WAVEs had to delve down into some coarse and vulgar part of their nature to fit in, to show they were one of the guys, as tough as the guys, as ugly at their ugliest. . . . But the young woman soldier in the scandal photo--she looked, shall we say, confused about these issues. It was chilling. Perhaps we should be worrying about that, too."
-- Peggy Noonan
[COMMENT: Noonan was a speechwriter for Reagan and the first Bush.]

posted by LoZo 3:42 PM