Viva la difference?

• Some of My Thoughts for the New Year - Sara
  • A correction to my post - Kaydie
    • Second Amendment point - Backwards typist
      • Totally agree with you Backwards typist - Kaydie
  • I'm with backwards typist, Kaydie, and la difference..nm - passing thru
  • I go along with the well-said points of view of - Backwards typist
  • And some of my viewpoints - Kaydie
  • sm... - la difference
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  • Viva la difference? - Yup

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    Monday 29 August 2005

    Last Monday, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. While Robertson's remarks were shocking in their utter disregard for global democracy and the rule of law (he eventually apologized), he is by no means the first to beat the drum against Venezuela.

    In fact, his comments were merely a more vitriolic version of what the Bush administration has been saying for some time, with declarations to contain Chavez and the funneling of millions of dollars to opposition groups within the country. The White House even supported a 2002 military coup, before popular uprisings restored Chavez to power. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and now Robertson are all in their own ways trying to build the case that Chavez is a menace, a danger to democracy and a source of instability in the region.

    But I was in Venezuela just this month. And I saw a different reality.

    I attended the 16th World Festival for Youth and Students, which drew more than 15,000 young peace and justice activists from across the globe.

    What I saw, in the enormous city of Caracas and the rural towns of Monagas state, were huge numbers of people who, for the first time in their lives, have free and adequate health care, the opportunity to attend university, access to land grants and work contracts, constitutionally assured rights for women and indigenous people, and free breakfast programs for children. And with all this, a sense of dignity and ownership over their lives.

    Let me show you.

    In a room that smells of Tiger Balm, with rain beating on the roof, a doctor massages the curled hands and feet of a crippled boy while his mother murmurs gentle words. Before the free hospital was built, the boy had no access to regular physical therapy and lived in constant pain.

    An old woman, her eyes gleaming through thick glasses, says that two years ago, when she enrolled in a reading class taught by university volunteers, she practically ate the books in her hunger for words, flying through basic reading and moving on to high school equivalency courses. She plans to attend one of the nation's new free public universities next year. At 76 she dreams of being a lawyer.

    The 22-year-old Osmar, with tight curls and baggy jeans, says that in yesterday's Venezuela he would have been a taxi driver or sold cigarettes on the street, doing work without honor. But he was among the thousand top scorers on a nationwide exam and will soon leave for five years of free medical school in Cuba.

    These individuals, like millions across Venezuela, have experienced tangible, visible change in their lives over the last several years. But while these changes have made Chavez a hero in the eyes of Venezuela's poor majority, they have made him an enemy in the White House.

    It makes Washington's blood boil that Chavez not only denounces its global mandates of fiscal austerity, structural adjustment and radical privatization, but that Venezuela has the resources to successfully enact its own development model.

    Using its oil wealth, Venezuela is constructing one of the truly alternative models of economic growth in today's world. The fourth-largest exporter of petroleum to the United States, Venezuela has shifted production from multinational corporations into the hands of the state, which now harvests the bulk of this liquid gold in order to sembrar el petroleo, sow the oil, and invest billions inwards.

    So while Venezuela sows its oil, Washington is sowing the seeds to unseat Chavez. It is building up the case for invasion, a coup or an assassination. If, for many of us, Robertson's comments were the first we registered of this positioning, it is not the first for Venezuelans, who speak often of being the potential next battleground, overt or covert, in the United States' deceptive and never-ending war on terrorism.

    Let us be wary. Very. For those moving to vilify Chavez are the same people who knowingly lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, who used nonexistent uranium to justify a war in which tens of hundreds of young Americans and countless Iraqis have died.

    Let's also honor the value of freedom, of human dignity and democracy. Let us support Venezuela's right to build its own future.

if you're going to make a statement gt don't beat around the bush.  Just come right out and say it.

I'm sure they would welcome you with open arms.

Rudolph and Osama bin Laden is that one is Christian and one is Muslim.  Other than that, there is no limit to their hatred.

To say that clinic workers at an abortion clinic are just as guilty as Rudolph is, at its best, INSANE.  Those clinic workers broke no laws.  Rudolph not only broke the law, he violated the "Thall shalt not kill" commandment that you all claim to believe in.

But, as with Bush in Iraq, it's okay if people kill, as long as they're the people you worship.  I truly don't understand people like you, and I don't wish to.  Frankly, you all frighten me, and I won't be reading your posts any more because I find them too disturbing.

 is between free speech and slander/libel. Everyone has a right to an opinion and to voicing that opinion as long as one does not libel and/or slander a particular individual(s). Since the widows were named and The ***WTC victims*** were not, one is free speech, albeit lunatic fringe free speech,  and one is not. 

To weigh in on the subject of Coulter; she makes her living saying and writing outrageous stuff. She is a shock jock. If she started writing books like William Safire does, no one would read them and she would not be on every talk show on the airwaves. It is her job to be repugnant and she does it quite well.  I don't listen to her, don't read her books. I don't listen to Howard Stern either; nor Rush, nor Grover, nor anyone who makes my blood boil. It is an exercise in futility to try to change anyone's mind on the stuff these people say. You love them or hate them and so I just avoid them.

Within 24 hours of taping?  I reiterate the point I made above. And when you buy things from a private company unless they state it outright they might turn around sell your information to other advertisers.  Unless you can produce where you signed a waiver of privacy, like you do at a doctor's office, you are not guaranteed that your information will be kept private.

I guess any good consumer could elect not to have phone service.  That's one way to keep your conversations private.  It's a bummer when it comes to communcation, but unless your plotting something illegal you really shouldn't have a problem should you?

It's okay for President Bush to get political but it's not okay for his employers (the American citizens) to do the same thing?  That would be the norm in a fascist government ruled by a dictator like Iran.  Is that where we're heading in America today?

Grandma's comment regarding the number of American troops killed in Iraq approaching the number of civilians killed on 9/11 was a very relevant comment, considering Bush himself exploited 9/11 in order to justify invading and occupying Iraq when it turns out Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with it. 

The consertatives you list are political commentators.  They can have their own shows and columns, etc.  Many liberals do.

Huffington Post puts itself out there as a newspaper, a NEWS source if you will.  Problem is, they are all biased to the left so it's not being fair.  Should not be called a newspaper if they can't be fair on both sides.

JMHO.

between American news and real world news, here's a suggestion:

http://www.linktv.org/

Before you start in by saying, well that's just more liberal media, look who contributing authors are and where they are from.  This is just one example of real world news.  Step outside of the box for a while.

Electing a president -- constitutional

Taking away civil rights -- unconstitutional.

If the majority were to rule in all instances, you would not have had the right to vote. 

provision in this bill.  Don't like the HMO, you can go somewhere else.  With total government control, where will you go?  No where, just kow tow.  I don't know anyone who could think it is right to withhold medical care from the infirm, the elderly, and children with devastatinly incurable diseases, anyone not deemed by government as being a productive citizen worthy of having medical care, those who will be a drain on the healthcare system.  I don't want to know anyone who could support withholding medical care from the most vulnerable in our country.

is that you think it's the end of the world if you have to help someone else, while I consider it a privilige to be in the position to do so.  Greed isn't going to make all our problems go away.  It didn't help anything over the last 8 years and it won't help in the future.  The sooner people figure that out, the sooner we have a chance at actually restoring this country to what it should be.

between speech that incites violence versus voicing one's opinion?  On Hannity's website he listed 3 types of revolutions (all of which would be violent -- as in no option for a peaceful revolution) and asked which one would you choose.  That would be the same as asking someone would you like to stab, drown or suffocate this person?  What do you honestly think the implication is with this type of rhetoric?  Get a clue.

Yeah, there are far left nut jobs just like on the right.  However, we (the left) recognize those nut jobs and don't defend them.  You guys do defend your nuts. 

The homeland security report that came out specifically pointed out threats by extremist right-wingers.  So what did you guys do?  You defended them by demanding an apology.  So, what I see is that you self identified with what was pointed out to be extremists.  Why?  I believe it's because that's where the base of the pub party is right now.

What a huge difference it is!

That between OBSESSION and normal ordinary use.  Tee-hee!!!!

One group hurls insults and fiction.  The other hurls their own words right back at 'em.

So who aced debate classes here?  And just to cover all bases here, RINOs get no respect, either.  I've wanted Susan Collins and Olympia Snow (among others) purged from their so-called Republican seats.  They're literally embarrassments.  Meanwhile, Barney Frank (and others) are lauded.