Really Speaking Truth to Power

This short post is really just an indictment of the 200 plus "bloggers" who post regularly to The Huffington Post LINK: CLICK HERE.

Sadly Huffington's powerful who's who of Hollywood glitterati and liberal media pundants lack any perspective of right and wrong. And they seem to lack any agenda beyond using their celebrity to attack any available member of the Republican Party or any nearby quasi-conservative.

Once upon a time being a liberal activist actually meant have strong, heartfelt convictions you would defend at any and all cost. I always counted on liberals to defend the weak, the oppressed and the downtrodden. We (and I still consider myself a liberal) fought for racial equality and marched for the right to vote. We demanded that everyone be represented regardless of race, color or creed.

Our causes could not be corrupted. We demanded women's rights, equal pay for equal work and, more recently, for women's reproductive rights.

We fought along side atheists, Muslims, Jews and wiccans for freedom of religion and freedom from state sponsored religion.

And freedom of speech was one of our most sacred causes.

If there is any of this old style liberalism left, it's damned hard to find. And there's not an ounce of it left over at Huffington.

Today we need an army of good, old fashioned liberals to take up the cause of Oriana Fallaci, a seventy seven year old woman being attacked for "Speaking Truth to Power." As a feminist pioneer and journalist, Oriana Fallaci has earned and deserves our support.

Oriana Fallaci has been indicted by a judge and faces what, at her age and health, would likely be a death sentence in her native Italy for her published writings about the current culture clash in western Europe fueled by the immigration of adherents to the Muslim religion. A centerpiece of here writings is the Muslim religion's treatment of women.

Foolish me, I thought that "Speaking Truth to Power" was what Arianna Huffington was all about. After all, Arianna heaped praise all over Jean Sara Rohe for her brave assault on John McCain at a college commencement.

Arianna and dozens more of her bloggers praised Stephen Colbert for his incredible bravery in being a paid keynote speaker at black tie dinner.

And Arianna and her many bloggers have absolutely worshiped Cindy Sheehan for taking a six week vacation outside the President's ranch on Texas. "Speaking Truth to Power" is what it's all about.

Unless you're Oriana Fallaci and the "power" you speak to is the established Islamic religion. If you dare to speak truth to a religious power in Italy, you face a greater risk than the risk of bad chicken dinner faced by the brave Stephen Colbert.

Oriana Fallaci faces a trial and jail time for a book, "The Strength of Reason," that she wrote over a year ago about the challenges facing Europe as more and more Muslims move into Italy and western Europe. Several of her comments were interpreted by Muslim leaders as insulting to Islam. And insulting Islam is illegal in Italy.

Oriana Fallaci has spoken truth to power all her life. In the 1970's and 1980's she was one of the most famed and feared journalists on the planet. No one ever dared turn her down for an interview. Yasir Arafat, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Haile Selassie, Deng Xiaoping, Henry Kissinger, Qaddafi, the Shah of Iran and even Ayatollah Khomeini all granted interviews to the powerful Fallaci.

According to Margaret Talbot, writing in The New Yorker LINK: CLICK HERE Henry Kissinger has said that he had been flattered into granting it by the company he'd be keeping as part of Fallaci's "journalistic pantheon." But later Kissinger wrote that his 1972 interview with her was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press."

Indeed, Fallaci should be a hero to all women who fought for equality in the 1970's and 80's. But regardless of that, she certainly deserves our support in her exercising her journalist rights. No one, certainly not a fellow journalist or blogger, should be unwilling to stand in support of her rights against this tyranny.

Oriana Fallaci. A woman. A pioneer. For thirty years a "speaker of truth to power." Surely the calvary will come to this poor woman's aid.

But the hundreds of fine liberal glitterati at Huffington are much to busy assaulting Ann Coulter to even notice the trial that began today, June 12, 2006. While there are literally dozens upon dozens of columns in Huffington that condemn, assault and even threaten Coulter for Coulter's remarks about four New Jersey 9/11 widows, only one lone blogger has been able to muster one short sentence about Oriana Fallaci.

Eugene Volokh LINK: CLICK HERE wrote in Huffington, "It's a Crime to Harshly Criticize Islam in Italy: Leading Italian journalist and author Oriana Fallaci has discovered this -- she's being prosecuted for allegdedly libeling Islam."

That's it. One sentence. One of the world's leading journalists faces jail and jihad for speaking truth to real power and no one at Huffington can even be bothered to pay attention.

Isn't it a damn shame that Oriana Fallaci hasn't been insulted by Ann Coulter. Then poor Oriana could have 200 Huffington defenders riding to her aid.