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Charles Pierce, writing about one historical precedent for the US's current crimes against migrants, quotes these priceless words:
It is impossible not to see that, however blameless we may be in the matter, we shall not be able to make anybody think so, and I cannot avoid an uncomfortable feeling that there must be some way to make the thing a little less awfully bad if one could only think of it.
That's Lord Milner, circa 1903, privately discussing the unfortunate issue of concentration camps in the Second Boer War.
The depressingly hilarious image of someone in a position of high authority pretending we not only can't do anything but can't even think of what could be done, and insisting that of course it's not even our fault, is of course timeless. But the passage that Pierce quoted omits some context that makes Milner look even worse.
( Read more... )
It is impossible not to see that, however blameless we may be in the matter, we shall not be able to make anybody think so, and I cannot avoid an uncomfortable feeling that there must be some way to make the thing a little less awfully bad if one could only think of it.
That's Lord Milner, circa 1903, privately discussing the unfortunate issue of concentration camps in the Second Boer War.
The depressingly hilarious image of someone in a position of high authority pretending we not only can't do anything but can't even think of what could be done, and insisting that of course it's not even our fault, is of course timeless. But the passage that Pierce quoted omits some context that makes Milner look even worse.
( Read more... )
