Good Night and Good Luck

We just came from seeing the George Clooney’s new documentary that chronicles Edward R. Murrow’s battle against Senator Joseph McCarthy. Despite the fact that most of America was behind Murrow, this was the beginning of his downfall. But he didn’t go down without seeing some wrongs righted and without making millions of Americans aware of what was happening in our county at the time. The movie depicts a whole staff of newsmen at CBS who were there for the story, not the consequences.

I found myself asking where those newsmen are today? Our civil liberties are once again under attack and a complacent America is not complaining very loudly, if at all. There are thousands of political prisoners who have not been charged with crimes, who sit in jails in Cuba or elsewhere, waiting for some semblance of justice, just wanting to return to the business of living. It seems that their plight is forever overshadowed by another terror alert.

I can’t help but think that the continued threat of terror is just as absurd as the threat of Communism in the McCarthy era.