A seismic shift

Sam Smith notes the "signs along the road to Abu Ghraib" over the course of the last two decades, a period when "brutal capitalism and post-modernism firebombed principles of cooperation, decency, individual ethical responsibility, community, and social democracy. In their place came simple brute power manifesting itself in whatever guise seemed most useful at the time. With hubris rather than horror, America celebrated the collapse of its own consensus of conscience."