Decade of looking the other way

I would like to nominate this decade, the 2000s, as the Look-the-Other-Way Decade.

Of course, we all remember the Me Decade and the Not-Me Decade. Welcome to the Look-the-Other-Way Decade.

It is a time when we all know what is going on in the world but no one is willing to admit it. We are told to "look the other way."

For instance, we all know the speed limit is 55 mph but do you ever see anyone doing the speed limit, let alone being stopped by the police for speeding? Well, maybe if they're going over 100.

Imagine all of the gasoline wasted by speeding drivers. There probably would be no oil shortage if Americans drove the speed limit. But that is not reality. The police and the rest of America just seem to look the other way.

We all know the Bush administration has conducted waterboarding and other atrocities on alleged terrorist suspects. But no one is calling it by its rightful name, "a war crime" and "torture."

There are few if any members of Congress demanding an investigation of the Bush Administration's war crimes or stopping the torture of alleged terrorist suspects.

Back in the day when I grew up, we were told that in America you are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Whatever happened to that thing called the Bill Of Rights?

If the torture the CIA perpetrates on alleged terrorist suspects happened to occur in Somalia, Serbia or back in Nazi Germany, the leaders of those countries and the actual torturers would be tracked down like dogs and tried for their despicable and hideous war crimes.

But in America in the 2000s, we just look the other way.

For the past 25 or 30 years everyone in America, and I mean everyone, has known that professional baseball players have used steroids for performance enhancement.

The baseball commissioner ordered former Senator George Mitchell to conduct a thorough investigation of this serious claim. After three years and $60 million, the report from the investigation found widespread use of steroids in professional baseball.

From owners to players, from coaches to minor leagues, everyone in professional baseball is guilty of this fraud on America.

Now, if a horse gets injected with drugs and wins a race, and gets caught, they call it cheating and the horse, owner and jockey are permanently banned from the sport. But the baseball commissioner says it is not cheating and that we shouldn't punish those cheating baseball players who were caught. The commissioner says we should just look the other way.

I believe that Americans are sick and tired of just "looking the other way."

James A. Wotal

Palatine