Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Clean Water & Basic Health TODAY'S FEATURED ARTICLES - World Water Day: EU Urged to Stop Privatization, Inter-Press Service - Shooting at the Wrong Target on Health Care, TomPaine.com - Cost of War, Progressive Democrats of America - RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE: Deconstructing Iraq: Year 3 Begins, by Tom Engelhardt QUOTE OF THE DAY: "A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future." - - Leonard Bernstein KNOW YOUR HISTORY: March 18th 1842 -- US Congressman Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio is censured by the House of Representatives for introducing resolutions opposing slavery & the coastal slave trade. The "Gag Rule," first adopted by a South-dominated Congress in 1836, & renewed at the beginning of each session thereafter, pledges every member not to mention the slavery issue on the floor of the House. 1942 -- US Government begins removing Japanese Americans from their homes without benefit of trial, indictment or any other legal anachronisms, & forces them into detention centers hundreds of miles away, in the middle of the desert. These US citizens were stripped of all possessions other than those they could carry, were forced to sell or forfeit their businesses & careers, & were stripped of all the Constitutional rights they'd been guaranteed at birth. *Despite* this fact, the young men in many of these families marched off to war, to fight & die for the very Government which was imprisoning their families. 1969 -- 30,000 people, including Jackie Gleason, Kate Smith, the Lettermen & Anita Bryant appear at the Rally for Decency in Miami. Announcements publicizing the rally warn "longhairs & weird dressers" won't be let inside. Four days later, President Richard Nixon -- whose administration is rife with crooks, liars, cheats & thieves -- sends a letter of congratulation & appreciation to the organizers of the rally. 1983 -- In his "Star Wars" speech President Ronnie Reagan proposes a space-based system to blast incoming missiles out of the sky — just like the 1940 film "Murder in the Air" whose hero, Secret Service Agent Brass Bancroft (played by Ronnie Reagan!), gets involved with the "Inertia Projector," a death ray that can zap planes. RHINO SEZ: If members of the US Congress are interested in health care & quality of life issues (and even fighting terrorism for that matter), they should stop their political grandstanding & pandering to the "who would Jesus bomb" crowd, & appropriate a few of those billions of US taxpayer dollars they're so able to pull out of thin air and make a way to provide clean water & basic health care to every human soul alive on the planet. Then there's pondering the health care & quality of life issues for the people of Iraq and the American troops and their families. While truly critical issues like water & medical care for our citizens and the world get ignored, the majority of Congresspeople are content to let their war keep chugging along like a newly built oil well pump while focusing on steroids in sports & interfering in the lives of families with dying relatives. Rhino sez, " In the age of unlimited domestic long distance phone fees, there's no excuse not to call your Congresspeople's offices regularly. Give 'em what for!". (o/)(o/)(o/) World Water Day: EU Urged to Stop Privatization by Stefania Bianchi, Inter-Press Service, March 21, 2005 BRUSSELS -- Civil society groups are calling for a change of course in the European Union's approach to water and sanitation in developing countries. A consortium of civil society groups, led by the Dutch campaign groups Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and Both ENDS, and the Belgian non-governmental organization (NGO) 11.11.11, says the European Union (EU) must end its preoccupation with private sector expansion and instead support "workable public water delivery options." In a letter sent to EU commissioner for development humanitarian aid Louis Michel to coincide with World Water Day (Mar. 22), the group of NGOs says they are concerned about the way "European aid money and political influence is being used to promote policies that are not working and hinge on providing extra money to European companies, rather than meeting real development needs in water and sanitation."... MORE:  http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=27948 (o/)(o/)(o/) Shooting at the Wrong Target on Health Care by Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, published by TomPaine.com As health care costs soar unsustainably, many employers, state Medicaid programs and the Bush administration want to force patients to pay more. That’s a cost-control strategy that cannot work, and it is adding to the tens of millions of underinsured Americans going without needed care. Patients should not have to forgo necessary care. Health spending in the United States is already enough to cover all Americans—if we better use the vast sums now wasted on ineffective care and paperwork. MORE AT: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/shooting_at_the_wrong_target.php (o/)(o/)(o/) Cost of War Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), March 19, 2005 The Bush administration has requested $80 billion in supplemental funding to continue the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. "Supplemental" means costs of war that do not appear in the program-slashing 2006 Federal budget. As your Congressional representatives debate the cost of the continuing occupation, bear in mind what is being spent to fund this debacle on a daily basis. The National Priorities Project's latest publication analyzes the $82 billion request for war-related funding. Included are updated state and city cost of war numbers. Here's a running total of the cost of the Iraq war, as well as a link to see the costs to your community: http://costofwar.com/ READ MORE:  http://pdamerica.org/newsletter/2005-03-19/cost-of-war.php TO VIEW THE PDA NATIONAL ONLINE NEWSLETTER, GO TO: http://pdamerica.org/newsletter (o/)(o/)(o/) 11:32:59 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Deconstructing Iraq: Year 3 Begins Deconstructing Iraq: Year 3 Begins by Tom Engelhardt, Published by Tom Dispatch ...As is too seldom mentioned, the Bush administration is an energy regime with a number of its major players connected at various past moments to energy companies of various sorts. (Failing sorts in the case of our President.) Our present Secretary of State, a Chevron director from 1991-2001, once even had an oil tanker named after her. As a group, they quite naturally look on the planet in an energy sort of way and dream of global control, at least in part, in terms of controlling energy flows. (That some of these dreams may prove quite irrational is beside the point. Just recall the mad fantasies of gold that once drove Spaniards deep into the New World and that have left us with land developers who give their projects historically bizarre names like El Dorado Acres? After all, they don't call oil "black gold" for nothing.) In the future, can there be any question that historians will look upon our most recent Iraq War as an energy war?... ...If all goes really well, we might draw down to 105,000 troops in Iraq by 2006. And if the Iraqis can begin to take over basic internal security jobs, then, as in Afghanistan, perhaps we'll try to organize one of those "strategic partnerships" and claim at least some of those KBR bases that are now as much a part of the Iraqi landscape as any ziggurat. The most significant fact of our Iraq War and occupation (and war), which can't be repeated too many times, is that the Bush administration busted into the country without an exit strategy for a simple reason: They never planned to leave -- and they still don't. If you have a better reason for taking a withdrawal position and pressing for it, let me know by at least the beginning of Year Four of the Iraqi Deconstruction Era. MORE:  http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2274 (o/)(o/)(o/) Rhino's Blog is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. Feedback & requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. (rhino@kifaru.com) See The Latest Greatest Political Cartoons      While You Read Rhino's Blog AT : http://www.rhinosblog.info Rhino's Other Web Sites: http://www.dreamcatchers.org  (Indigenous Assistance & Intercultural Dialog) http://www.kifaru.com  (Native American Relations Video Documentaries) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 9:27:02 AM    comment

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