Geoffrey Barnes wrote:


"Frank" wrote in message
...
Perhaps so, but what he did was show it _could_ work, and at great risk
to himself. Certainly nothing to hold in comtempt. And the lessons have
been used elsewhere. Romania comes to mind, certainly Ceacesceu (sp?)
wasn't much interested in world opinion.

Did you see what they did to Ceacesceu and his wife? That wasn't exactly
Ghandi-esque, and it certainly doesn't qualify as "non-violent".

I did see it and it certainly was not "non-violent". As despicable as he was
I still wouldn't condone it. But his regime was toppled by non-violent
protest and that is what we're talking about.

This is part of my point. In today's world of instant communication
Stalin,
Pol Pot, Saddam should have a much harder time concealing this sort of
thing from the world.

But Saddam was able to conceal this exact sort of thing from the world.
Thousands upon thousands of people were rounded up and executed after the
1991 war. Journalists were everywhere, and some of them even reported (or
at least tried to report) what was going on. The news was ignored by the
rest of the world.

Shame on anyone, anywhere for ignoring any such atrocities.

I said it badly but I'm talking about going forward. Get the internet into
the hands of the people. While there are certainly fine journalists out
there, the news organizations that we rely on for delivery are failing
miserably and can no longer be trusted to fulfil their role.

It's also a way for us to demonstrate to the world that we really mean it
when we talk about free speech. We in America know open dialog is crucial
to democracy so exporting it can only help us in the long run.

--
Frank....H