Across the pond

Which gets nearer to the truth?

1. Riveting old Coen Brothers movie on Channel Four last night, No Country for Old Men, which is set in Texas, 1980. Two psychopathic killers employed by drug gangs, killing anyone who gets in the way as they try to take recover a suitcase of their money found by a good outlaw character, who is a Vietnam vet. The old man of the title, played by Tommy Lee Jones, finds himself helpless in the face of their gun power. The outlaw makes it to the Mexican border but Jones did not manage to stop them killing his mother-in-law. This morning’s hard news. 13 killed in Mexico border drug gang wars. Not big news in this part of the world where over 5,000 people have been shot recently.

2. The WikiLeaks web site has got hold of nearly 440,000 secret US army secret reports, probably the biggest leak in history. They show, amongst many other things; how US failed to investigate the army reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by the Iraqui police, how 15,000 civilians died in previously un-reported incidents, the death’s of 66,o081 non-combatants, though the US has always claimed they had no body-count figures. First official US reaction is that there is nothing in the leaks to cause them to censure the people responsible. The only ‘crriminals’ they are chasing are the persons, or persons, who leaked the secret reports.

3. British cuts. The fairest ever, claimed George Osborne in his budget speech, making the rich take the biggest burden. Most unfair, stated the widely respected Institute of Fiscal Studies, backed by their facts and figures, which shows the biggest burden falling on the poorest and not so well off middle classes with kids. More evidence today that even the NHS will have to punish the poorest –  because there are not enough hospital beds to keep in the elderly infirm, and they can no longer  be supported by the Council care services, because Council budgets are being cut by a massive 26 per cent.