[lbo-talk] People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

[Dennis Perrin]

> (Can't help wondering what the US would say if Castro followed
> Israel's example and openly murdered trouble-makers? As for CUBA not
> letting human rights monitors onto the island, the US government has
> jurisdiction over the most well-known hellish prison on the island of
> Cuba. It doesn't allow UN inspections either. Let alone family
> visits. Oh, the US also tortures Mr Bush's prisoners in Cuba. In fact
> those prisoners of Castro should probably thank their lucky stars
> they only came to the attention of Castro, rather than the leader of
> the "free world".)
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas.

Excellent points, Bill. And that our Liberal Media cannot and would not make
this obvious distinction says much about the present state of "freedom."

I never watch local news, but the other night I left the TV on and witnessed
one of the strangest and saddest pieces I've seen in some time. A local
19-year-old woman stationed in Iraq was killed by a bomb, and the local news
did a profile of her and her parents. The parents, obviously, were
distraught, each wearing a t-shirt sporting their daughter's photo. They
couldn't accept that their daughter died for oil or geopolitical designs, so
they insisted that she died defending America from a future Saddam-backed
terror spree. They had to believe this, because if they didn't, they would
then have to get mad about the invasion and Bush's rationale, and clearly
that wasn't an option. As they spoke, the tape kept cutting to flags
flapping in the breeze while a gospel version of the National Anthem slowly
rose in sound till it arrived at the end of the piece, blasting the speakers
with patriotic flourish. Pure State Television. Karl Rove could barely
improve on this, and I wonder if local news everywhere is this bad.

DP