What Now, Pussycat?

“Journalism is the art of coming too late as early as possible,” wrote Swedish author Stig Dagerman.

“Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil,” wrote Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

What more apt descriptions than these can be imagined for the publisher, editor, and columnists of The Santa Barbara Independent?

In 2012 these worthies urged us to vote for Barack Obama: “He doesn’t walk on water. Get over it!” wrote editor Nick Welsh; “I voted for Obama, and here’s why you should Too” wrote columnist Tam Hunt.

Even then their espousal studiously ignored Obama’s having sought to make it legal for the government to lie to Freedom of Information Act applicants as to whether the U.S. had in its possession a requested document; his continuation and enhancement of George W. Bush’s policy of extraditing and torturing prisoners.

In the unimaginably awful succeeding years these “independent” journalists continue to duck their heads in the face of the President’s authorized murder of U.S. and other citizens — including hundreds of innocent women and children — via drone strike; his secretive implementation of massive spying on all of us and on foreign governments, businesses, leaders, and organizations; the intimidation of fellow journalists by the U.S.’s subservient ally Great Britain; the vindictive prosecution of those who would reveal his government’s shameful practices — almost all of these in direct violation of his campaign rhetoric.

So what now, Independent? I’ve heard of stand-up comics. What about jokers who won’t stand up?