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Good reply Tom.

By the way, I'm glad that someone else is pointing out examples of something which have been bothering me for a long time: false equivalences and obfuscations arise frequently in discussions/articles/essays of this type-- political/social/economic/cultural/strategic issues can be quite complex, so to some degree this is unavoidable. However everyone would do well to remain alert for such "fuzzy thinking", because where there are significant false equivalences or obfuscations, the conclusions drawn can easily be different, or even inverted(!), from what should rationally be determined.

There is probably some media bias almost anywhere, and the US government might occasionally request the news media not to carry certain stories (especially if there are serious military/security implications--but in these cases we can almost rest assured that someone will "leak" the story anyway;-). However to compare this with the former Soviet Union's absolute control of Pravda is absurd IMO, and I don't quite see how anyone could completely believe that.

Anyway it's been a good while since our posts crossed paths;-)--and I would like to say that I have always considered your posts to be very thoughtful, sincere, and frequently quite thought-provoking.