the american student convicted last year for murder in italy. google her name to refresh your memory.
i'm not often shocked and ashamed of my own ignorance, but i should be. i discovered soon after high school american actions against indians and citizens of other countries had been completely whitewashed. for example, the 45 caliber pistol developed against phillipine rebels trying to kick the yankees out after the spanish-american war. the native fighters tightened barbs around the leg so tightly they could feel no pain when bullets hit them. the 45 so powerful it blew them apart and backwards. so much for helping peoples rebel against tyrants.
and i really should have no illusions about the u.s. press. gore vidal said he'd never read anything positive in our newspapers about another country. and look at the slanders against the french for not invading iraq with us. irony, irony, now the french have drawn us into helping al queda in libya.
instances of injustice abound, of course. take roman polanski, the polish director who had sex with a thirteen year old. he confessed enough to go for a psychiatric evaluation among known killers. the judge, however, worried about the press, decided to pursue him into prison anyway. the film-maker fled abroad for good reason, yet pilloried in this country ever since as a renegade. i dare anyone to watch the documentary
and still believe he got a fair deal.
or take the novel by phillip kerr A Quiet Flame: A Novel (Bernie Gunther Novels) where i felt sick at the end. the argentinians built gas chambers and killed thousands of jewish refugees escaping from germany. (you can watch the play magic fire about a jewish family relocated to buenos aires and the threat of death they ran into. a very moving piece.)
yes, i should not be surprised by the afterward to the nonfiction The Monster of Florence by douglas preston and mario spezi where the authors reveal the desperate, dirty shenanigans of the italian prosecutor in previous cases, the knox case not even gone to trial. and the whole frame-up even convinced me she must be guilty, to my utter shame. the story so vividly presented i wanted the girl convicted.
now i have to back-up and assess my own guilt. innocent until proven guilty, the rule still holds long as presented in the constitution (or is it not in that document?) if not in the media.
