IF WORDS COULD KILL
Then, I read about Russia. It's hard to tell if it's Russia a hundred years ago, or now, but sadly, it's just Russia being Russia. While the bias in our media can nearly drive one to distraction, consider that across the pond there have been 220 journalists killed since 1991. Journalsits, writers, anyone willing to take the death-defying leap of putting thought to paper. I say killed, some just seem to have disappeared. It is unusual though, that Russia boasts an 80% success rate when it comes to solving homicides, and prosecuting them. That number drops to 6% when it comes to solving who-dunnits involving journalists. Oops! I don't think you guys are trying hard enough. Indeed, of those 220, only five or six have seen any serious investigation at all. It is an appaling state of affairs, yet it goes on and on. Consider that if you can get an ice pick through the eye for writing something that is critical of the Putin Posse, imagine what may await you if you decided to complain about the lack of investigations being conducted regarding missing press people. Remember the guy who got poisoned? Moscow is a full time reality TV mystery and one can only wonder what goes on behind the scenes.
You don't need a degree in psychology to get a read on Putin. This guy is as creepy as they come. But when you stop and consider how brutal, how archaic, this thinking is, it is truly frightening. Imagine that dissenters or those critical of our government were "taken out". Remember the hunting accident with Dick Cheeney? Is that how it happens? Bush gives the order and the hit gets assigned. Cheney has long struck me as the hit-man type. "Make it look like an accident..." How about Vince Foster and the long list of Clinton associates who died under dubious circumstances. Could it be?
I'll tell you one thing, though. It sure makes one appreciate being on the right side of that ocean, that our biggest complaint is that the press is unfair or unbalanced. In a way, we even control it, or could, with our pocketbooks. If your newspaper or favorite tv news station is inspiring your ire because of a flagrant disparity between covering good news from Iraq and covering bad news from Iraq, then stop buying it. Stop watching it. But the situation in Russia reminds us also of what it is we have always, as a nation, fought for. It underscores that most basic of freedoms, freedom of speech and expression, and provides a dark picture of what life, or death, must be like without it. God Bless America.