Tag: United States

“You can’t imagine the happiness I am feeling”

“You can’t imagine the happiness I am feeling,” said Maria Benedita Sousa.

Sousa is an American success story. She has pulled herself up by the bootstraps in one of the poorest areas of the country and now owns her own business. Sousa now employs 25 people that produce 55,000 pairs of women’s underwear a month. Not only is she a small business owner, this mother of three has bought and restored a home for her family and is helping pay for her daughter’s schooling to become a pharmacist. When she graduates from college, she’ll become the first in the Sousa family to do so.

“I battled and battled, and today my children are studying, with one in college and two others in school. It’s a gift from God,” she said.

Proof positive the American dream is alive and well… in South America – Brazil to be precise.

“Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations”

The House Judiciary Committee today, Friday, July 25th, will put Impeachment squarely back “on the table” and restored to its prominent place in our Constitution.

Wednesday 07/25/2008 – 10:00 AM

2141 Rayburn House Office Building

Full Committee

By Direction of the Chairman

July 21 in History

Brought to you as This week in History by Peace Buttons.

The Dilemma of Black Patriotism

route66 has a diary up about today, Flag Day here in these United States.


I was going to post up something I found recently that attempts to explain some recent occurances on the meaning of ‘Patriotism’, and a tie in with ‘route66’ diary is appropriate on this day.


After all I’m one of the millions, in this country, who have been called ‘UnPatriotic’ for having not walked in lockstep with the criminal cabal, and their followers, who have led this country into it’s extreme failed policies of an Occupation built on Lies and Fixed Intelligence and done in All Our Names!

Burma’s Military Unilaterally Extend Aung San Suu Kyi’s House Arrest

From the AP:

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was personally informed of her continued imprisonment by officials from the Home Ministry who entered her villa prior to the announcement, the official said.

snip

The extension was issued despite a Myanmar law that stipulates no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trial.

The junta faced a deadline to extend Suu Kyi’s house arrest for another year or release her. Members of her National League for Democracy were marching from the party’s headquarters to her home when riot police shoved the group into a truck.

It was not immediately clear where the truck was headed or exactly how many people were detained.

link: http://ap.google.com/article/A…

According to this YouTube, “Dust In The Wind” has been adapted as a song of protest by Burmese refugees living along the country’s border (it’s YouTube, so take it with the appropriate grain of salt):

UN, ASEAN Press For More Aid to Burmese Cyclone Victims

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is en route to Myanmar today, but already his presence in the region seems to have had an affect:

“We have received government permission to operate nine WFP (World Food Program) helicopters, which will allow us to reach areas that have so far been largely inaccessible,” Ban told reporters in New York on Tuesday before departing for Southeast Asia. His announcement was not immediately confirmed by officials in Myanmar.

“I believe further similar moves will follow, including expediting the visas of (foreign) relief workers seeking to enter the country,” Ban said, warning that relief efforts to save survivors of the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis had reached a “critical moment.”

“We have a functioning relief program in place but so far have been able to reach only 25 percent of Myanmar’s people in need,” he said.

link: http://ap.google.com/article/A…

Progress can’t come too soon, as cyclone victims, desperate for food, beg by the side of the road:

US Faces Donor Fatigue While Burma Accepts More Aid

“For the vast number of Americans, if they just gave to some disaster far away and then another disaster happens, in their mind that’s clumped as ‘faraway disaster,'” Strahilevitz says. “So they will feel, ‘I just gave to a faraway disaster.'”

link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24…

It’s no secret that Americans are feeling less fortunate than in previous years. Escalating gas and food prices, the mortgage crisis and a recent “economic recovery” that only positively affected the most wealthy among us have left families seeing their household budgets shrink.

But as tough as we have it, it is nothing compared with what millions of people are going through right now in Myanmar:

MSNBC reports that Americans have given $12.1 million to charities for Myanmar relief efforts, far short of the $1.92 billion the US gave to assist the victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Updated – Over 100,000 Dead In Burma: Why We Need To Change

ITN News UK is reporting that experts predict the death toll in Burma will be over 100,000:

This is bolstered by the military junta’s own estimates:

The Burmese military says it believes 80,000 people died in the one district of Labutta in the Irrawaddy delta, which bore the brunt of the storm.

That figure would imply an overall death toll for Cyclone Nargis well above 100,000 people.

link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto…

And yet the authorities in Burma have put up roadblocks to international assistance, including receiving relief supplies and – more vitally – disaster workers as the situation on the ground deteriorates.

It’s time for us, all of us, to start changing the way we do business.

Updated (2x) – 80,000 Dead In Burma: The High Cost Of Oil

Despite economic sanctions against Myanmar by the United States and the European Union, Total continues to operate the Yadana gas field, and Chevron Corp. has a 28 percent stake through its takeover of Unocal. Existing investments were exempt from the investment ban.

Both Total and Chevron broadly defended their business in the nation.

“Far from solving Myanmar’s problems, a forced withdrawal would only lead to our replacement by other operators probably less committed to the ethical principles guiding all our initiatives,” Jean-Francois Lassalle, vice president of public affairs for Total Exploration & Production, said this week in a statement.

link: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BU…

ABC News Australia is now reporting that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis in Burma could be as high as 80,000 right now, and a perfect storm of lack of sanitation, food and aid workers to – among other things – dispose of dead bodies decomposing in rice fields and local water supplies could lead to an even larger human tragedy. link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto…

Updated – Okay, China, So What Else Shouldn’t Be “Politicized”?

It’s not like there’s nothing happening on the Olympic torch front. There are already protests in Australia as the torch heads toward that country: http://www.news.com.au/heralds…

Lin Hatfield Dobbs, a social justice campaigner, has pulled out of the Olympic torch relay in Australia, saying of the torch, “For a lot of people it still carries the meaning of harmony but for an increasing number of the global community watching it’s carrying a lot of meaning around human rights.” link: http://afp.google.com/article/…

And the International Herald-Tribune reports that in Japan, instead of the torch relay starting at the enigmatic Zenkoji Temple, it will begin in a parking lot: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap…

But all of that really pales in comparison to an event happening right now, involving multiple countries, including the United States and China. It includes an act of non-cooperation by trade union workers. A political party has spoken out, expressing fears that its members would become the victims of violence.

And yet we are treated to the same response by the Chinese government, that this event shouldn’t be “politicized”.  

EENR for Progress: The International Criminal Court and Human Survival

Cross-posted from EENR Blog



The Kyoto Treaty is not the only treating affecting human survival that Bush prefers let languish without the participation of the United States.  He also unsigned us from the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court.

.

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ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT


PREAMBLE

The States Parties to this Statute,

Conscious that all peoples are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced together in a

shared heritage, and concerned that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time,

Mindful that during this century millions of children, women and men have been victims of

unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity,

Recognizing that such grave crimes threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world,

Affirming that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole

must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at

the national level and by enhancing international cooperation,

Determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to

contribute to the prevention of such crimes,

. . .

http://www.icc-cpi.int/library…

Updated – Dalai Lama: China Is Not Our Enemy

Amid the Chinese government stepping up claims that the Dalai Lama wants to foment a violent uprising in Tibet – including allegations today that they discovered an arms cache in a Tibetan monestary (link: http://www.reuters.com/article… ), the Dalai Lama gave a forceful reply last Friday.

He didn’t call them the Evil Empire. He didn’t say they were members of the Axis of Evil.

He said, “we are not anti-Chinese”.

The full interview can be found at MSNBC’s website here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…

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