If It's Not on TV, Then It Must Not Have Happened

A couple of email messages on Thursday from fellow progressives first alerted me about the arrest of activist and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern during Hillary Clinton's Tuesday speech about internet freedom. His offense: standing silently in the audience wearing a Veterans For Peace t-shirt with his back turned to Clinton .

"How did I miss that?" I asked myself so I started looking for the articles that I must have missed. The video of the incident was from CNN. Searching that site for McGovern's name turned up no stories. I did the same on the Washington Post site. Nada.

A Google search for Ray McGovern turns up stories about the incident but those stories are not major media. Those stories are the ones that filtered out over the next few days. Better than nothing but not particularly informative to the general public.

So I missed the story because it did not exist. It was ignored by the media. The Washington Post dutifully reports Clinton's speech but makes no mention of McGovern's protest.

While the United States government claims to support freedom of expression around the world, its minions are unwilling to tolerate the embarrassing discomfort of Americans exercising those rights here at home. And the mainstream media ensure that citizens are unaware of the hypocrisy.

Counterproductivity in Action

Good story in the Washington Post about Afghan imams preaching against foreign military forces. The Imams unleash some strong, insulting language. The foreign forces are "children of Jews", "jackals" and "brothers of monkeys, gorillas and pigs". But the money quote for me was,

"If you see a feeling of xenophobia these days, that's understandable," Balegh, the preacher, who is also a professor of Islamic law at Kabul University, said in an interview. "I don't think even a single Afghan is happy with the presence of the foreign military forces here." (emphasis added)

Going on ten years and someone can plausibly say that not "even a single Afghan" is happy with the foreign presence in their country.

Could we have possibly done it any worse?

Yikes!

Holy shit! I was on one of those boats just a few weeks ago.



My boat was smaller, it was full with 8 tourists and crew of 4 or 5. Viet Nam News reports 23 persons total on the boat that sank.

These Days in Lahore

I haven't paid too much attention to Pakistan detaining an American who claims "diplomatic immunity" in the killing of two "robbers".

Anwar Hussein writes knowledgeably about his native Pakistan andhe is paying attention.

It is not understandable why seasoned American diplomats would suddenly drop all decorum of hushed and enduring diplomacy. Why would normally dignified US officials suddenly become bulls in a china shop, all muscles, horns and hind quarters, threatening to bring down the whole painstakingly erected edifice if their man is not released. Pray, what sensitivities are involved that have forced the weathered US envoys to replace tact and discretion with threat and bombast?

A Good Case for Redistributing Wealth

The polarization of wealth in this nation is truly obscene. If you think otherwise, take a look at 9 Pictures That Expose This Country's Obscene Division of Wealth and tell me that this is right and just.