Today in the News

Egyptian Army Attacks Pro-Democracy Protestors

The Egyptian military has continued to reassert their control after overthrowing democracy and undoing the progress of the Jan 25th Revolution in a military coup earlier this year.  After more than a month of political arrests and mass killings, the Army has finally gone all-in, storming pro-democracy protest camps with live rounds, killing anywhere form hundreds to thousands of Egyptians in the process.  The demonstrators, who have been protesting the removal of President Muhammad Morsi by the Army earlier this July, have fled the camps in the face of the assaults by the security forces, but have vowed to return to the streets.

Egypt was, briefly, a democratic nation, but now has been returned to a repressive police state, ruled by the bullet, rather than the ballot.  Even Tamarod darling and perennial opposition figure Muhamed ElBaradei has quit his post in government over the bloodshed, with more and more international and domestic pro-democracy activists lining up against the military every day.

Also in the news, Japan has been accused of "white-washing" it's WWII history, the controversy centering around a visit by members of Japan's government to a Memorial to the War Dead, whom the BBC refers to as "convicted war criminals."

Yeah, I'll accept that kind of criticism from the West when the US and UK fully own up to their own war crimes.  How about a great big display on US war crimes in Viet Nam right in front of the Memorial Wall?  I think not.

After all, it was the US who pardoned much of the Hirohito administration and put them back to work running the new Japan.  Including current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's father, Shintaro Abe.

Why is it alright for the West to politicize Japan's War Dead Memorials, while our own remain sacred?  Why are we allowed our own white-washed versions of history, but not Japan?

This had been the Rabbit Punch.