Conservatives were angry that the trial of a doctor in Philadelphia who performed abortions under illegal circumstances was not getting more publicity. They accused the “liberal media” of not covering the trial and made a big fuss about the supposed lack of reporting.
If the Pennsylvania authorities had been doing their jobs, this doctor would have been stopped years ago. What he was doing was already illegal under Pennsylvania law. We didn’t need new legislation on ultrasounds and vaginal probes and clinic requirements, we needed state inspectors to do their jobs.
Now my complaint about news coverage. In mid-April, an 11-member task force led by Asa Hutchinson, a Republican who was an official in the Bush Administration, and James Jones, ambassador to Mexico under Clinton, issued its report on the treatment of prisoners during the Iraq War.
The conclusion: “...the United States engaged in the practice of torture.” There’s a 22-page appendix that details legal cases in which our country prosecuted others for doing what we did or said it was torture when other countries did it.
Why didn’t that make the news? And why isn’t the hunger strike by prisoners at Guantanamo in the news? They are being force-fed through tubes through their noses. Now. Under American supervision.
I know, I sound strident, even shrill, but I can hardly stand some of the things we do. And we lecture the rest of the world about justice and democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment