HollyDays

News of the courageous protests staged by Buddhist monks (and then, by civilians) in Burma–and now of the atrocities committed by the repressive government in power in their efforts to crush the peaceful uprising have slowly been leaking out–or had been leaking out, until the government there managed to squelch even the spotty internet-born reports sent forth by desperate Burmese citizens who crave only democracy and peace.

In a nutshell, this past week thousands of monks marched in protest of the repressive government regime in Burma (called Myanmar by those who control it) The monks marched past the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize winning activist who had been under house arrest and whose National League for Democracy won a stunning victory in the 1990 Burmese democratic elections (but were prevented from taking power after the elections). The monks’ protest sparked even larger marches and protests by both monks and civilians. But now, the monks have been locked in their monasteries behind barbed wire and the civilian protestors are being gunned down in the streets. And again, the United States has done nothing. Nothing to support the people of Burma, who actually crave democracy and who have cried out for our help. But the United States’ military is busy “enforcing democracy” in the Middle East. Worse, gross human rights violations have been going on in Burma for years, including the systematic rape of women and girls at the hands of the Burmese/Myanmar military. And the United States has done nothing but impose a few puny sanctions–which is all the United States has to offer now (other than a whining plea to China to use their influence to quell the violence being perpetrated by the junta in Burma).

Still worse, it seems that few, other than a few sharp-eyed bloggers, have been covering this developing story with any real zeal. Until today. Until it’s probably too late. Until people have started to die–and die in numbers.

I’m ashamed of the U.S. administration–but then (at least for the past 7 years) I generally am. I’ve come to expect that the present administration will allow people in other places to suffer and die–unless they have something we want, like oil (in which case we’ll occupy their country and destroy their infrastructure and turn their homeland into a war zone–literally). I expect the present administration to allow women and children to suffer and die because they have demonstrated again and again that they do not care about women and children in general (through everything from the continued enforcements of the Global Gag Rule to the likely veto of the recent Schips legislation in our own land).

I’m more ashamed that the news anchors I’ve come to trust have not done more to make sure that this story gets told. Why is Larry King interviewing everyone from Jenny McCarthy to Britney Spears’ former body guard while people are dying in their fight for democracy and justice in Burma? Why has Anderson Cooper been covering the Warren Jeffs verdict–and not the atrocities in Burma? Didn’t Anderson Cooper cover the earlier uprising of a similar ilk in Burma in 1988? I can’t understand why he hasn’t been doing so now–when he has the power and clout that come with a two-hour nightly broadcast on CNN–the most watched news network in the nation. I enjoy Larry King and I’ve long been a fan and admirer of Anderson Cooper–but I feel like they’ve been letting us down. More importantly, I feel that they have let the people of Burma down. The so-called “news blackout” is no excuse. There’s been news–the bloggers have managed to find it with a few clicks of the mouse.

Like the U.S. administration, I wish the mainstream news media had done more too. Before people began to die.