[extropy-chat] (no subject)

[matus at matus1976.com]

----- Original Message -----
--- matus at matus1976.com wrote:
> I really have to wonder what the world would be like
> if the media covered the murderous tyrants of the
> world as it does to this tragedy. If we saw
> relentless video footage of the victims of Saddam
> Hussein or Kim Jong Il, if survivors were
> interviewed daily and newspapers ran front page
> photos every day of the tortured, beaten, starved or
> grieving victims of these horrific regimes.

Quite a few journalists have tried to give us that
coverage.  They tend to get arrested or shot by the
same dictators for their efforts.  Those in power in
those situations know that unfavorable media coverage
would be a quick way to bring the world's armies down
on them, and that the best way to stop it is to stop
the reporters.

    -------------

Really?  I suspect the occurences of that are way overblow.  Christopher Hitchens visited North Korea and wrote a pretty damning commentary on it.  Did anyone care?  He wasnt capture, tortured or killed.  

I dont know, I think the truth is more of the ostrich syndrome, people dont want to know about these shitty countries because they dont want to be faced with the moral quandary of what to do about them.  Among those who do know about them the leading mentality seems to be that it's none of our business anyway, that there is no standard of morality and we have no right to judge Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot or Idi Amin.  How many western journalists have North Koreans murdered?  Any?  There are plenty of victims fleeing the horrific regime of North korea into China who could grace the front pages of the NYT every day, complete with horrific stories of famine and torture.  

Hitchens on North Korea...

"All films, all books, all newspapers and all radio and television broadcasts are about either the Father or the Son[Kim Jong Il]. Everybody is a soldier. Everybody is an informer. Everybody is a unit. Everything is propaganda...Children are drilled to think of Japanese and Americans, in particular, as monstrous...The old justification for the Stalinist forced-march system was that at least it led to development. But even in Pyongyang, the capital city which is reserved for approved citizens, one can see that this excuse doesn't work. Neither does anything else; the place is stalled and hungry and subject to constant blackouts. There are no cars on the streets; there is no construction except of tawdry shrines to the Holy Family. A very small window of dollar bribery has opened up in recent years, but there's nothing to buy and no black market. Corruption at the leadership level is exorbitant, with palaces and limos and (a special obsession of Kim Jong Il's) megalomaniacal movie projects...I saw people scavenging individual grains from the fields and washing themselves in open sewers. On the almost deserted roads, animals do a good deal of the hauling. Domestic pets are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps most have been eaten, for the fact is that North Korea is a famine stat...Nobody knows the death toll-the best guess is between 1.5 and 2 million-but in addition a generation of physically and mentally stunted children has been "fathered" by the "Dear Leader." Well-attested rumors of cannibalism have filtered across the border to China, where a Korean-speaking minority has lately been augmented by refugees so desperate that they will risk shooting in order to brave the river. A system where you can't live but you can't leave is the definition of hell...deserted towns, empty factories, wandering and neglected children and untilled fields...the country's once productive coal mines have been allowed to flood, and that there are no pumps that can be brought to bear" 

(from -http://www.chosunjournal.com/worst.html)