On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>
> The spectacle (and that's what it truly was) of Mr.
> Lileks presuming to lecture an Iraqi on the situation
> in his own country beggars description but is typical
> fare.
>
Living in a city with a large number of Eastern Europeans, I have often witnessed the spectacle of someone describing Eastern Europe as some 1984-like totalitarian nightmare, and then the Eastern European saying "No, wasn't really like that, it's a lot like here. Not much has changed since the early 1990's, except the economy is worse." Most Americans seem to disregard this first-hand account, and stick with the propaganda, thinking the person was "brainwashed" by the communists or something. I even worked with a far right Latvian who even had a picture of Pinochet over his desk, if you can believe that, who said basically the same thing, and again, he was disbelieved in his description by the Americans (except me).