Well Said spanky…one thing…I’m not even sure if it is a subtle shift as it is very obvious to many outside of the situation. I am sad to say that people are not “going to be killed” but have already….they are the good folks fighting a “war” in Iraq. It was the opportunistic presentation after 9-11 of Iraq having/acquring WMD and harbouring terrorists that got the American people behind the administration to invade that country in a preemptive strike.
Here is a good rant on that topic (well said by the author)
xxhttp://develnet.org/ThisAndThat/DaddyWhyDidWeHaveToAttackIraq
The scary thing is you can’t even say these thoughts in the United States as you would be deemed “unpatriotic” and “against the troops”. I witnessed this first hand when I was in Vegas a few months after the invasion and was kicked out of a cab…after the redneck cabbie said to me… “We should just bomb all those goddam people in Iraq, they are all just terrorists anyway..fucking muslims. What the fuck, don’t they realize that we are there for there own good. We don’t need to be there, they should be on their knees as we pass them and appreciate the fact that we are saving their asses”. My simple response back was…”do you think that 17-18 year old Iraqi boy that just had his house bombed and is seeing Americans for the first time, rolling by him on the streets realizes that he is getting his ass saved?”
Out to the street I went…Whatever happened to free speach?
Oh I forgot…I was in America….
This was around the same time that the anti-gambling rightwingers like John Ashcroft starting pressing the media through the justice department to stop accepting gambling ads. The media basically shrivelled up with the threats and accepted this new censorship. Obviously affecting many of the folks on this website!!
Now that a “law” has passed in the Washington State regarding online gambling and will take effect on June 7th, and the fact that the US government can tap anyones phone or get phone records from corporations, etc. It will be interesting to see if they actually follow through with these threats and arrest some individuals for promoting gambling or just playing poker at party poker!
On a seperate but similar topic….
Watched this PBS story yesterday regarding the 25th anniversary of the aids epidemic. xxhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/view/
Highly recommend it. You can watch it online…
What’s interesting is… of course…it took 20+ years for basically the USA to say there was a problem. With George W. et al.’s commitment to fight Aids in Africa with $15B pledge…but there are conditions. In order for the poor countries to get any funds they basically cannot promote or do anything regarding condom distribution. The majority of the money is also committed to christian mercanary and religious organizations and not directly to aid organizations.