There is no way to sugarcoat how incompetent and brutal the Communist Party has been, and continues to be, in China, killing untold millions of its own people thanks to political and logistical abortions such as the 100 Flowers Movement and the Cultural Revolution.
However, the L.A. Times, in an edition dated May 18,. 1959 offered an interview with two American soldiers who had been taken prisoner by Chinese forces during the Korean War (1951-1953). With all the discussion over how Americans have treated detainees at Bagram Air Base, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the Times article, which you can view here, should prove a startling contrast.
The caveat here, obviously, is that this is anecdotal, but nonetheless food for thought. .
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Rachel Maddow's Ratings Drop
There was this piece in HuffPo about a decline in the ratings of MSNBC hots Rachel Maddow. I posted the following comment:
What's disturbing to me is the marketing of news program hosts and anchor people as celebrities to the exclusion of quality of news content.
Rachel's show is pretty journalistically meaty (not to get on a Talk Soup parody thing) and her criticisms of Obama's refusal to deal with the torture issue as it should be (prosecutions all around) is a worthy topic because Obama is sweeping it under the rug while the rest of the world waits and hopes we finally cleanse ourselves by recognizing the enormity of the crimes committed by the Bush Administration. Yeah, nobody wants to hear about the U.S. torturing because it's pretty painful to accept, but somebody has to keep the fire lit under Obama's behind about it. The media already ignores enough sleaze.
If you want bimbos and himbos discussing pre-digested pablum (Fox News and just about any local news program you can name), then watch that. But you're doing you and your country a disservice.
It doesn't matter that it's Rachel giving us this stuff. It's that SOMEONE is. I don't care about her appearance, the set, or whatever. It's about content. Her show delivers it.
As for why she doesn't get more political guest, they are scared. They saw what she did to Colin Powell and exposed the fact that he's a douchebag. She has become the new Mike Wallace, the person no scam artists wants to be confronted by because even Chris Wallace has punted on being that. .
What's disturbing to me is the marketing of news program hosts and anchor people as celebrities to the exclusion of quality of news content.
Rachel's show is pretty journalistically meaty (not to get on a Talk Soup parody thing) and her criticisms of Obama's refusal to deal with the torture issue as it should be (prosecutions all around) is a worthy topic because Obama is sweeping it under the rug while the rest of the world waits and hopes we finally cleanse ourselves by recognizing the enormity of the crimes committed by the Bush Administration. Yeah, nobody wants to hear about the U.S. torturing because it's pretty painful to accept, but somebody has to keep the fire lit under Obama's behind about it. The media already ignores enough sleaze.
If you want bimbos and himbos discussing pre-digested pablum (Fox News and just about any local news program you can name), then watch that. But you're doing you and your country a disservice.
It doesn't matter that it's Rachel giving us this stuff. It's that SOMEONE is. I don't care about her appearance, the set, or whatever. It's about content. Her show delivers it.
As for why she doesn't get more political guest, they are scared. They saw what she did to Colin Powell and exposed the fact that he's a douchebag. She has become the new Mike Wallace, the person no scam artists wants to be confronted by because even Chris Wallace has punted on being that. .
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