Pros and Cons
It's interesting, isn't it, the wallowing degree to which the Canadian media is now willing to go to show us all how inhuman/e American prisons are. It's as if, suddenly - it matters.
Well, it always mattered (to me, anyway), but now one of their own is facing several years in one, so suddenly - and this is the good news - American justice isn't so grand.
It's shabby. Medieval. Archaic. Terrible. Indeed - it is all that and worse. But none of our Neo-Con media cared much about that before Conrad Black was convicted on American charges by an American jury - did s/he?
No. S/he did not. Much of our Canadian media, these days, in fact, is made up of the type of people who have spent much of their media lives championing all things American - including American justice. Once their Lord and employment master, Conrad Black, was charged, however - all that changed like so many leopard spots.
Oh wait - a leopard can't change its spots - can it... So... really... all those media pundits on the Right just thought poor people should be subjected to draconian justice - didn't they - and that rich people shouldn't?
And THAT, Dear Reader, is what we should have been paying attention to all along. Conrad Black, himself, introduced many of these pundits to us. He paid them very well to promote an ideology that is at odds with decency and humaneness and they are still among us - most notably championing all that George W. Bush has done to erode civil liberties in the United States and urging Canadians to endorse a government here that would very much like to do the same.
Personally, I can't help but feel a pang for Conrad Black. He was to the manor born and for the first 60 years of his life he got away with the Church funds in full view of his friends and family. Had he been content with his lot in Canada, he would still be getting away with it, too. Alas, the Wild West (that which never really was - the government essentially settled it, doncha no) every once in a while rides into American cities and the boom is lowered.
Even the daily reports on the trial by his friends (all in his employ, of course, at one time or another - and very, very dependent on his largesse, which, I guess, was pretty much stolen...) all indicated guilt to even the most unschooled Canadian reader (they had no idea, so lost up their own asses they are, that it was really the only impression their columns ever gave - guiltier'n all geddout). But they seemed astounded that he got caught by America the Great, Their America, the one that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
It says a lot, doesn't it. That they simply could not believe America the Free Market for the Rich, their Wonderful America for Anyone with Loot, the Glorious Land of the Free and the Brave with Lots of Money, the Country From Where Dragonslayers are Sent Out by the Wealthy to Take on the Big Bad World of Terror - was the one to net Lord Black.
Maybe now, they will shift their focus to how most people are REALLY treated in America. How prisoners are abused and tortured, how poor people are denied the same rights as rich people, how sickeningly medieval the system is for so many of its citizens.
I doubt it, but maybe. It would be a nice thing for all those other people of lesser means who have suffered through it to have some powerful voices in the media speak out on their behalf: "Stop the Insanity!"
Because it doesn't matter why they do it - just that they do it. Redemption and all that rot, you know.
