Author: Gordon

We used to rely on the BBC as our main source of unbiased news in Africa. But with all the recent revelations of their extreme bias and irresponsibility, I’m questioning a lot of things that were, as it were, received wisdom.

Den Beste has a smackdown of an article whose purpose (as made obvious by internal evidence — I do have a graduate degree in linguistics and textual exegesis, after all) is to provide a convenient emotional image of the US as police state: the US government is prosecuting those human shields (feh!) who violated US law in travelling to the declared enemy of a legally declared war, and there rendering aid and comfort. A little old lady is in danger of losing her pension and her house and facing 12 years in jail and a $1,000,000 fine.

Only it turns out that in the real world, far from facing jail or anything else, she is being fined $10,000 (count those zeros, folks!). Not for exercising her freedom of speech — that she could have done on any street-corner without fear — but for providing aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.