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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Founding Father simile tested
Message-ID: <3900217@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 19:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.3900217
Posted: Tue Sep  3 19:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Sep-85 04:22:16 EDT
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #N:inmet:3900217:000:1443
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Sep  3 19:03:00 1985


/* Written  8:51 pm  Aug 26, 1985 by inmet!janw in inmet:net.politics */
> The group (Witnesses for Peace) is not asking for anyone to
> pity their plight at the hands of the contras that held them,
> they are demonstrating that perhaps our "founding father"   
> equivilents [sic] are less than noble. [ todd jones ]

BUT they've proved the exact opposite, haven't they ?  Were a
group of, say, Prussian meddlers to sail for the American
shores to shield king George's loyalists with their live bodies;
and were general Washington to treat them as the Contras did -
namely, detain for one day, then set free - why, people would
have said that the general had lived up to his noble reputa-
tion ...

And, by the way, they *are* asking for pity. In today's  (Aug  26)
Boston Globe two of them are whining at length. Can you imagine,
they were induced to actually *walk!* for *more than an hour!* 
with their captors, who had not even had the courtesy to pave the
jungle road! As far as compromising the Contras goes (the too-obvious
objective of the witless  "Witnesses"), the trip was a flop. They
had to go back to their Sandinista friends for a fresh earful
of atrocity tales.

Another small point: from all accounts, these people's safety or
their release were never made conditional on any demands.  So,
who was it, on or off the net, who first labelled them "hostages" ?

        -Jan Wasilewsky
/* End of text from inmet:net.politics */