Nat Parry ConsortiumnewsBy "authoritarian submission," he means a high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society of which one is a member. "Authoritarian aggression" is characterized by hostility toward people who are perceived to be disapproved by the established authorities.
Both of these tendencies have been apparent in the past couple of weeks, especially around Bush’s and Ahmadinejad’s addresses to the United Nations.
In contrast to the vitriol directed at Ahmadinejad for daring to even step foot in New York, Bush was essentially given a free pass over his many hypocritical statements in his address to the General Assembly.
Typical of the coverage of Bush’s speech was a report from Bloomberg.com, which noted without a hint of irony that Bush “challenged the United Nations to return to its founding principles and take the lead in opposing repressive regimes and championing the cause of human rights and freedom around the world.”
Bush faulted the UN for the world’s deteriorating human rights situation, saying that its Universal Declaration of Human Rights “is not being upheld.”
Bush Abuses Forgotten
Virtually no one in the U.S. media spelled out what the individual rights were in the 1948 declaration – presumably because Bush had violated so many of them – nor did the American press corps delve into the conflict between the UN and the Bush administration over its alleged human rights abuses.
The fact that the UN and other international organizations have long called on Bush to adhere to international standards in his prosecution of the “war on terror” was largely ignored by the U.S. media in its coverage of Bush’s speech.
There was no mention, for instance, of the UN’s call in February 2006 to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, and either bring the detainees before a competent tribunal, or release them.
Five independent investigators of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights made this recommendation after an 18-month investigation into the situation of detainees at that U.S. Naval Base. The recommendation was endorsed by Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said he hoped the prison camp would be shut down “as soon as is possible.”