Senator John McCain, the US Republican choice for presidential nominee, has made an ill-advised, highly political choice of vice presidential candidates in Sarah Palin. She is an incredibly under-accomplished, far-right wing, inexperienced woman whose only significant political experience is being the governor of Alaskaa and an Alaskan city of 9,000 people, Wasilla.
One might think that this woman, who only holds an undergraduate degree from Idaho State and whose policies reflect her utter lack of education and grip on reality, foreign policy, economics, defense, environment, etc, might be unelectable. Unfortunately, as the election of George W Bush before her proves, Americans are apt to vote based purely on personality, looks and lifestyle, not on qualifications, education, policy or experience.
Beyond Palin's corrupt political career, abandonment of her own home state in pursuit of national political aims (her lobbying for a $200 million bridge to connect an empty town in Alaska to a local airport, and then voting against her own bridge after it became clear the country was in uproar, as other bridges in other states collapsed and multiple fatalities resulted), her undistinguished careeer as an almost-beauty queen, her support for oil-drilling on the Alaskan coast to support her personal and family oil company financial interests, and anti-environment policies, etc, Sarah Palin is a rabid right winger against women's human rights.
Ironically, her stance against sex education in schools, and her support of abstinence-only until marriage education, has resulted in her own daughter, Bristol, becoming an unmarried pregnant teenager at 17 years old. Her boyfriend Levi vows on his since-erased MySpace page that he "doesn't want kids." Yet this week, Palin has forced her daughter into becoming engaged to her underaged boyfriend still in high school, in order to uphold her political appearance and candidacy for vice president.
Terrifyingly, McCain is the oldest potential incumbent in the United States, at 70 years old. Were McCain to pop off during the presidency, this woman would become President of the United States. Even more ironically, this woman who is the staunchest opponent to women's rights wishes to reverse the slow and painstaking progress made to gender inequality over the past 100 years. She would reverse Roe v. Wade and she opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
Here's some information about how "Sarah Barracuda", a self-termed "hockey mom" and mother of five, feels about people's ability to make their own choices about their sexual and reproductive health:
Palin Is A Member Of Anti-Abortion Group Feminists For Life. Palin is a member of an “anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life.” When running for governor in 2002, she “sent an e-mail to the anti-abortion Alaska Right to Life Board saying she was as ‘pro-life as any candidate can be’ and has ‘adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion.’”
Palin Opposes Abortion Even In Cases Of Rape Or Incest. In 2006, Palin said that even if her daughter were raped, “I would choose life.” She said that she would support abortion only if the mother’s life were in danger.
Palin Slashed Funding To Help Teenage Mothers. Earlier this year, Palin used a line-item veto “to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.” Funding for Covenant House Alaska, which provides transitional housing for teen mothers, was cut by 20 percent — from $5 million to $3.9 million.
Palin Supports Abstinence-Only Policies. In 2006, the Eagle Forum Alaska asked Palin whether she would “support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education.” Palin replied, “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”
Palin Supports Parental Consent Laws For Minors Seeking Abortions. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin was “disappointed lawmakers let a bill die requiring girls under 17 to get parental consent for an abortion. ‘My belief is parents have the right to know about the health and welfare of their children,’ she said.”
Wow. I was out of town for a couple days and come back to find Obama taking the lead, with Hillary's campaign manager and deputy manager resigned! McCain has promised no new taxes for his entire campaign, this just as the recession is looming, and the taxes in April will bring in less revenue than in years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis was not just a poor people's phenomenon- this type of behavior, of borrowing far more than one could ever expect to pay off, pervades the highest levels of government!
I have mixed feelings about MoveOn.org, but I really admire their new campaign "Iraq/Recession". They have a nice new email action that allows you to easily and automatically write an op-ed to your local newspaper (they send it, you write it) making the tie between the American recession and the Iraq spending. (A tie that is obvious, but few people actually realize!)
Some interesting facts:
"As of today, we've spent over $495 billion in Iraq.1 With the economy in the tank, think about what that money could do here at home: Cover millions of kids who don't have insurance, or help folks who're losing their jobs and homes.
Instead, it's supporting a failed occupation in Iraq.
More and more Americans are making the connection between the billions we've spent over there and the crumbling economy here at home. In fact, a new AP poll shows that most Americans think ending the war is the best way to help the economy.2 But pundits still talk about the war and the economy as two unrelated things.
* The recession is going to force states to cut back their budgets. Most likely, the cuts are going to affect the services that working families need and depend on.3
* Meanwhile, the war is costing Americans more than $338 million a day. 4 That money could be spent to help out the folks who're hurting most now. For less than what we're spending on the war, we could pay for affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of families, health care for children, or scholarships to help folks pay for education. 5
* Gas prices are close to double what they were before the war began. The cost of oil is still hovering around $100 barrel. 6
* We're borrowing $343 million every day to finance the war in Iraq. 7 Our skyrocketing debt will be a bigger and bigger drag on the economy—slowing recovery and burdening future generations.
If thousands of us write, we can get the media to stop ignoring the connection between the war and the recession. The opinion pages are the most widely read pages in the newspaper, so we can also make sure voters—who are growing increasingly concerned about the economy—know that any candidate who wants to stay in Iraq has no plan for the economy."
Gone are the days of boinking creatures on the head in Super Mario
Brothers. Today's popular games are all about gruesome murder and
violence.
I had the lovely experience of playing Halo, a video game which,
thankfully, I am terrible at, which involves killing people with guns,
lasers, nail-spewing killing machines, and other highly effective and
incredibly scary weapons. When you kill someone, your entire
controller shakes and vibrates much like, I imagine, a real machine
gun would do.
I can understand why this game is so popular with soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It must help them to dehumanize their colonial subjects,
and normalize the experience of killing. I can also see why it's
popular with American teens, who are inundated with graphic violence
through movies, television, and news networks. Ultimately it will lead
them to sign up, to "die for their country" and maybe kill off a few
Muslims here and there to boot.
To the point-
It seems the Church thinks this is a wonderful way to attract young
people to the church, and, in their words, to promote "fellowship."
Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Is non-violence pass??
In the world of business, a company can use another's design, approach, membership, and just about anything else, with little redress.
However in the world of non-profit, especially non-profit that seeks to eradicate poverty and embrace global activism, we work collaboratively toward common objectives.
Therefore it's quite sad that MTV has morphed from its once progressive, underground, and radical youth beginnings, into just another corporate giant focused on global advertising, consumerism,
and competition. It's dishonest that they copied TakingITGlobal and even proposed to collaborate with them in order to gain information on how they operate, and then built their own new, for-profit site, ThinkMTV. (As if we need another social networking site!)
No doubt MTV, especially Staying Alive Foundation, has done great good in the world, especially regarding AIDS. However time and again we see that it's going down the road of self-serving, competitive initiatives that proliferate in the youth world.
Such groups may have a lot of money, but some know next to nothing about the issues they champion (for example, see YouthAIDS Executive Director's blog in which she claims "throughout Africa there is a 30% prevalence rate")
I'm tempted to ask, what type of "civic engagement" can MTV really produce? The image I have in my mind is of superfluous paris-hilton type beauty queens who are hoping for "world peace." Is this
for-profit site going to achieve anything besides its advertising dollars?
The site is clearly geared toward US students who think it's cool to talk at the very most superficial level about global issues. To "Save" the Africans... It seems to have been written by Americans/ Westerners for Americans, yet claims to have a global scope. Their buzzwords that appear on the site are a dead giveaway- "Minority" presumably alludes to non-white populations (a.k.a. the majority of the world?) And the snippets from other sections focus on American celebrities such as Kanye West and on the health section, a feature on Jay Z.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the site is the "Get Rewarded" section. It is an uniquely American ethos that material gain is the only incentive for looking outside of oneself. The site does little to promote sharing or community, but rather promotion of the individual in a meaningless world of interactive media overload.
Great news- New York has finally acknowledged that abstinence-only sex education may not be the best idea in a state with rising HIV infection rates, teen pregnancy, and STIs.
Why are the Catholics still saying that giving young people condoms will increase "promiscuity" when numerous studies show that comprehensive sex education actually causes young people to delay first intercourse and to use condoms when they do have sex? (1)
By JENNIFER MEDINA
The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states
that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years.
Excerpt:
"Dr. Daines's announcement came the same day that the New York Civil
Liberties Union, which opposes abstinence-only education, released a
report detailing the number of such programs in the state. The report
stated that roughly half of the groups teaching abstinence in the
state were religious groups and that the state had done almost nothing
to monitor them."
Yet again forcing the Surgeon General of the United States to be the mouthpiece for the Bush Administration's lies, a report calling for action on global health was suppressed by the administration because Carmona kept it a-political.
Steiger, with absolutely no qualifications in global health whatsoever, pulled the report because it did not laud the United States for its action against global health crises such as AIDS, TB and Malaria.
What is there to laud? The United States, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks last in the amount of money it spends on global health from among industrialized nations as a percentage of its GNP/ wealth. (Citation: USAID)
Congratulations to Carmona for speaking out about how his freedom of speech has been curtailed.
By Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 29, 2007; Page A01
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.
Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.
This is absolutely unbelievable! Bush pardoned Scooter Libby! Just look at the grin on his face- Justice evaded, one more time........
What is the lesson learned? Even if you're a diplomat and you question the Bush Adminstration's lies (by writing an op-ed that Iraq did not buy enriched Uranium from Niger), you and your family will be punished by the government. (They leaked the name of his wife, Valerie Wilson, for being an undercover CIA agent).
Bush is not pardoning Scooter, he's pardoning himself. With 18 months left in office, he can do whatever he wants pretty much, with no repercussion whatsoever.
Jesus now we've got the likes of Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton roaming free on the streets of America. Talk about dictatorships!
Sandra M. Kenley was returning home from her native Barbados in 2005 when she was swept into the United States’ fastest-growing form of incarceration, immigration detention.
...
Seven weeks later, Ms. Kenley died in a rural Virginia jail, where she had complained of not receiving medicine for high blood pressure. She was one of 62 immigrants to die in administrative custody since 2004, according to a new tally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that counted many more deaths than the 20 previously known.
...
In the case of Ms. Kenley, a legal permanent resident of the United States for more than 30 years, detention interrupted her medical care for high blood pressure, a fibroid tumor and uterine bleeding. An autopsy attributed her death to an enlarged heart from chronic hypertensive disease. But a report by emergency medical services said that she had fallen from a top bunk, and that a cellmate had pounded on the door for 20 minutes before guards responded.
........
The inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security recently announced a “special review” of two deaths, including that of a Korean woman at a privately run detention center in Albuquerque. Fellow detainees told a lawyer that the woman, Young Sook Kim, had pleaded for medical care for weeks, but received scant attention until her eyes yellowed and she stopped eating.
Ms. Kim died of pancreatic cancer in federal custody on Sept. 11, 2005, a day after she was taken to a hospital.
“We spend $98 million annually to provide medical care for people in our custody,” Ms. Zuieback said. “Anybody who violates our national immigration law is going to get the same treatment by I.C.E. regardless of their medical condition.” (Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security)
We're fighting two wars. We don't have enough troops, and they don't even have bullet proof vests or car armor. We definitely do not have enough Arabic translators, and what self-respecting person with Arab roots or Muslim would sign up to be a translator for the US anyway? How many Americans do you know who are fluent in Arabic?
Stephen Benjamin wrote an excellent Op-Ed in the NYtimes today. The military read through his instant messages and kicked them out for being gay. The other 68 heterosexual men's instant messages contained conversations about their sexual misconduct, mysoginistic comments, profanities, etc. They were not kicked out.
I bet some of them were the same types as the Abu Ghraib torturers whose sexual misconduct was a grotesque aberration. But Bush and his cronies defend torture. How on earth can the Bible be against homosexuality but pro Torture?
When will this country get its priorities straight?
"In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course."
Lou Dobbs, television show host of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and commentator of the Early Show, is drumming up anti-immigrant, racist hysteria by spreading false data that accuses immigrants of spreading disease in America.
Reflecting the current widespread trend of the government/media to create and flame public fears about non-whites and immigrants, the audience for his program has grown 72 percent since 2003.
Lou Dobbs and his peons stated multiple times that there had been 7,000 cases of leprosy in this country over the previous 3 years, compared to 900 cases over the past 40 years.
Interestingly, according to the NYTimes,
"When Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” sat down to interview Mr. Dobbs on camera, she mentioned the report and told him that there didn’t seem to be much evidence for it.
'Well, I can tell you this,' he replied. 'If we reported it, it’s a fact.'"
HOWEVER- official leprosy statistics show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.
Sadly any white racist can spin lies as truth and before you know it, half of America accepts it as truth. We can only pray that Lou Dobbs soon goes the way of Jerry Falwell..........
Bush's appointee to US Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias resigns after being caught on a list of clients of a famous high-end brothel/ escort service.
Tobias is the main man responsible for trying to get all aid orgs seeking US funds or partnering with orgs that receive US funds, to sign a pledge opposing commercial sex work (cuz that's going to do a hell of a lot!).
Who put the H in hypocrisy.............. the United States of America!
....
In the far-rights' anti-science, always fiction world, you should never have sex, unless you
are a married heterosexual willing to do so only at risk of getting pregnant. Others—sexually active unmarrieds, gay, lesbian and transgender persons, and anyone else outside the "norm"—are subject to reprogramming. So since the Bush Administration wants a video cam in every bedroom and uterus (and I have no idea whether Tobias was taping his masseuses but that is another story), it is fair to ask if these guys are practicing what they preach. Apparently not.
...
Abstinence is big in U.S. global AIDS policy, which one colleague dubbed the
"Americans for Stopping Sex in Africa League." Billions of dollars have been
spent in a fruitless effort at home and abroad to spread a hyper-moralistic
and ideological message to everyone and sundry. Programs teaching people
sexual negotiation and safer sex methods have become as scarce as rubbers in
Uganda. Even sex workers in Asia and Africa are being told to abstain.
(Don't ask me.....it's in the program guides.)
.......... He has repeatedly testified before Congress supporting these policies, regularly using faulty data to support his claims. Under the "ABC" policy as developed under Tobias' watch, some 11 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have been subject to abstinence-only-until marriage programs, receiving no information, training, or methods to
practice safer sex, despite the fact that unprotected sex is responsible for 80 percent of new infections in that region. Condoms have been re-stigmatized and in some programs paid for by your tax dollars teens actually are told they will go to hell for having sex.
...
In a saner world, the U.S. government would not be known for its fundamentalist
"tighty-whities-in-a-twist" approach to sex.
But we don't live in that world. In our world, people with wealth, money,
and power get away with "special massages," they make unrealistic rules for
other people and set their own for themselves. And those at greatest risk of
life-threatening infections and engaged in a fundamental daily life struggle
to survive are punished in the interest of moralism. Give me some real
science fiction any day.
Another outrageous example of racial discrimination and profiling. Maybe US officials should recall the past century of imperialism, subjugation, emasculation, and robbery of natural resources in predominately Muslim countries if it's still wondering "why they hate us"
US 'wants British Pakistanis to have entry visas'
Matt Weaver
Wednesday May 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The American government wants to impose travel restrictions on British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, according to a report today.
---
An excellent posting on Kaletra (Lopinavir (ABT-378), an antiretroviral of the protease inhibitor class, a component of combination therapy to treat HIV/AIDS.
Abbott is working hard to ensure that people living with AIDS in Thailand are charged as much as possible for the drug, and that Thailand cannot produce affordable generic versions, even though Thailand has the legal right to do so according to international law.
In an incredibly child-like and coercive response, Abbott has pulled 7 new lifesaving drugs from the Thai market's registration process..
--
Comment: The eight deadly lies of Big Pharma
Brook K Baker
*************
[Mods note: below is a comment by Brook Baker and responds to some of the statements of pharmaceutical companies.
Please send us more responses. Thanks]
**************************************
As Thailand issues more compulsory licences for AIDS and heart medicines that are compliant with the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Thailand's laws, the multinational drug industry and its allies are unleashing an ever more strident public disinformation campaign.
Lie No-1: Mellisa Brotz, a spokeswoman for Abbott Industries: "We do not view [the compulsory licence on Kaletra] legal or in the best interest of patients."
Truth: Thailand's compulsory licence on Kaletra is lawful in every respect: (1) it is a fully TRIPS-compliant Article 31(b) licence issued on valid public health grounds and for government, non-commercial use, which requires no advance negotiation with the patent holder; (2) it is fully complaint with Section 51 of the Thai Patent Act, which directly authorises government, non-commercial use licenses without prior negotiation; and (3) it sets a royalty at .5 per cent of the sale price, which royalty is appealable by the affected patent holder. Although drug companies complain the loudest that Thailand has failed to engage in prior negotiation, in fact, the record shows that Thailand has engaged in many fruitless negotiations with the drug industry for the past two years.
Lie No-2: Roger Bates, American Enterprise Institute: "It is generally understood that compulsory licences should be confined to 'public health crises, including those relating to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics,' which represent a 'national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency'."
Truth: This assertion is the most widely circulated and most repeated misrepresentation that Big Pharma has propagated. The Doha Declaration of 2001 is exquisitely clear that, "each member has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted". Although there are special rules for emergencies that permit expedited procedures for granting a licence, the right to issue compulsory licences is not limited to public-health emergencies.
Teera Chakajnarodom, president of Thailand's Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers' Association, takes the alleged emergency rule and raises it one degree higher: "The law allows such actions with pharmaceutical products only in cases of extreme national emergencies, or during wartime."
Lie No-3: Teera again: "After the company does 10 years of research, and then suddenly the Thai government would like to impose the compulsory licence, taking away their property, their assets."
Truth: Patents are not "property" in the traditional sense - they are government-granted rights that are intended to balance the interests of innovators and the public at large, and which are granted by governments with many express and implied conditions, including the right to issue compulsory licences. Governments around the world, including the US, have issued thousands of compulsory licences since the late nineteenth century, including on pharmaceutical products. Moreover, Thailand had its compulsory licence law on the books when all three companies, Merck, Abbott, and Sanofi-Aventis, filed their patent claims in Thailand.
Lie No-4: Khun Teera again: "Everything is negotiable."
Truth: For monopoly-based drug companies, everything isn't negotiable. Abbott has flatly refused for nearly six months to lower its mid-tier price for Kaletra. Moreover, even when negotiating deeper discount prices, drug companies frequently extract promises that countries will refrain from seeking other cheaper sources of supply. In this context, drug companies are mainly interested in preventing generic competition.
Paradoxically, in pursuing the generic-freeze-out option, drug companies will occasionally give concessions to bigger middle-income countries that "make the market" even though they would not do so for smaller and poorer countries like Guatemala.
Lie No-5: Harvey Bale, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations: "Compulsory licensing can be a route to commercial abuse."
Truth: Monopolies and excessive pricing are not commercial abuse, but competition and lower prices are - go figure. For the hugely rich, R&D drug industry (more than 90 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market) to complain about commercial abuse by generic producers (less than 10 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market) is deeply ironic.
A particular form of this complaint has been asserted by Pharma apologists Roger Bates and Ronald Cass. These two industry-sponsored pundits complain that licenses might eventually be granted to Thailand's own publicly owned, profit-making pharmaceutical company, the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO). They assert that this will be a form of cheating because production by the GPO will create a commercial advantage to domestic producers, who might thereafter become regional suppliers to other countries.
Nothing in TRIPS prohibits granting licences to profit-making entities. Since Big Pharma has disinvested in developing countries' pharmaceutical capacity post-TRIPS, it makes sense for countries to increase their own capacity to meet domestic and regional needs for essential medicines.
Lie No-6: Harvey Bale: "Compulsory licensing can ... put patients at risk." Merck, Abbott, and Sanofi-Aventis also warn that overriding patents risks jeopardising quality.
In terms of product quality, Bale roll outs out another old chestnut - "generics are inferior". He neglects to mention that multiple generic versions of efavirenz manufactured in India have already received pre-qualification at the WHO. Although it is true that the Thai Government Pharmaceutical Organisation has not yet received WHO-pre-qualification on its first-line ARVs, it is building a good manufacturing practices manufacturing plant after which it will surely meet global standards.
Lie No-7: All of the sources from Big Pharma previously quoted have said that compulsory licences will reduce incentives for innovation.
Truth: All of Asia (except Japan) and all of Africa comprise only 5.1 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market, according to Information Management Group.
Even though low- and middle-income markets are growing faster than developed country markets, drug companies continue to make the vast bulk of their profits from sales in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan, which collectively buy nearly 89 per cent of drugs by dollar volume. Drug companies always argue that compulsory licences interfere with their R&D incentives, but they never admit that developing countries' compulsory licences never affect their monopoly profits in rich country markets. How can South and Southeast Asia's infinitesimal share of the global market really affect R&D incentive?
Lie No-8: Abbott: "[Because] Thailand has chosen to break patents on a number of medicines, ignoring the patent system ... we've [lawfully] elected not to introduce new medicines."
Truth: As discussed above, Thailand has not ignored the patent system - it has used one of its important lawful flexibilities for licensing access to patented products and processes.
Moreover, instead of Thailand breaking the law, it is Abbott that has engaged in an unprecedented and probably illegal withdrawal from the Thai market, taking seven important medicines, including a heat-stable form of Kaletra, out of the drug registration process.
To withhold life-saving medicines from the market in retaliation for lawful use of lawful flexibilities is not only unjustifiable, it is abusive and unconscionable.
- Brook K Baker is a professor in The Programme on Human Rights and the Global Economy at Northeastern University's School of Law
(Published on 21 April 2007 in The Nation, Thailand)
Since clearly losing two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is not enough, and since we barely have enough troops to "win" one of those wars (whatever that means?) John McCain decided it would be a brilliant third war to BOMB IRAN!
Please check out MoveOn.org's counter ad. They need to raise $100,000 to run the ad next week. I just donated $25, and I am broke as a joke.
It infuriates me to hear these ignorant imperialist GOP hawks talk about democratizing the Middle East and about bringing "FREEDOM" to the Muslim peoples. When things don't go their way, instead of coming to the logical conclusion that American Imperialism is not wanted or needed in the region, they say "Well, that's just because democracy is incompatible with Islam!"
Do they forget that Britan and France brutally colonized the region for the greater part of a century? Do they forget that the colonial powers defeated attempts at constitutional governments and participatory democracies in the region in order to maintain control and revenue collection?
What about their colonization of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Qater, Kuwait, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Libya, etc etc etc?
What about Britain and France testing out their new weaponry, Aerial Bombardment, on civilian populations in Iraq, Morocco, Syria and Libya? It's not as if this fact were hidden. In face the colonizers, the Royal Air Force (RAF) wrote a handbook on aerial bombardment:
Notes on the Method of Employment of the Air Arm in Iraq
"within 45 minutes a full-sized village... can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed and injured by four or five planes which offer them no real target and no opportunity for glory or avarice."
America was looked upon, due to its historical beggining as an anti-colonial nation that gained its independence from British domination, as a benevolent state in the region.
But once oil was discovered and once the battle for control over the region flowered toward the end of the Cold war, America became the new oppressor.
I QUOTE:
"Oh ye Egyptians, they may say to you that I have not made an expedition hither for any other object than that of abolishing your religion... but tell the slanderers that I have not come to you except for the purpose of restoring your rights from the hands of the oppressors."
-Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexandria, Egypt, July 2, 1798
"Our armies to not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators... It is the hope and desire of the British people and the nations in alliance with them that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth." - General F.S. Maude, Commander of British Forces, Baghdad, March 19, 1917
"Unlike many armies in the world, you came not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate, and the Iraqi people know this."
- Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Baghdad, April 29, 2003
In 1951, following two years of massive student strikes against British control of Iran’s natural resources, , Iran’s Parliament voted to nationalize the AIOC, returning control of its oil reserves to native control. Up till then, since 1901, Britain controlled 84% of the industry’s revenue. The new Prime Minister, Mossadeq, won unanimous support for this controversial move, and was re-elected into second term, despite a world-wide boycott that Britain, its allies, and colonies, imposed on Iranian oil. Fearing the loss of one of the most fertile countries to feed into the then-nascent demand for fossil fuels, the United States CIA and British M16 financed and supported a military coup that dissolved Parliament and established a totalitarian dictatorship of Shah Pahlavi. The Shah gave America 40% control of Iran’s oil industry and gave the rest to British Petroleum (BP). So much for bringing democracy to the Middle East.
33 people were killed today by a crazed shooter on a rampage at a college in Virginia.
Our illustrious President's reaction-
--That sucks, but remember, me and the NRA firmly support Americans' right to bear arms! Don't try this at home, kids!--
AP: President Bush Described as 'Horrified' by Shootings at Virginia Tech
Reported by The Associated Press
April 16, 2007
President Bush was described as shocked and saddened by the mass
shooting at Virginia Tech, the deadliest campus violence ever in this
country. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino says the
president was "horrified and his immediate reaction was one of deep
concern for the families of the victims, the victims themselves, the
students, the professors and all the people of Virginia who have dealt
with this shocking incident."
Perino said "The president believes that there is a right for people
to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed."
Perino said federal assistance is available if Virginia authorities
ask for help.
In the House, which returned today from a two-week recess, Speaker
Nancy Pelosi interrupted proceedings to lead a moment of silence in
remembrance.
