How very cool.
Sixties/seventies rockers with their families. These photos, from the archives of Life Magazine, show rock luminaries of the time at the homes of their parents and grandparents. In addition to Zappa and Crosby, the portraits include Grace Slick, The Jackson Five, Elton John and Eric Clapton.
Go to apartment therapy to see more photos.
Thanks to Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog
I have had experience, or my family or close friends have had first hand experience, in Canada, the UK, France, Norway and Italy with medical care and in all instances have found the care prompt, efficient, caring, and generally covered by the various national health plans as a courtesy to visitors.
By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / November 29, 2008
On Wednesday I was in the barbershop and in the next chair was a middle aged man loudly demeaning the Canadian Health Care system: “One has to wait forever to see a doctor,” “the doctors in Canada and Europe are poorly trained,” etc. I asked him the source of his information, and looking at this poor old man, he answered “why from my friends in Seattle and THEY KNOW.” End conversation, as one learns that it is the acme of futility to reason with such folks. About as reasonable as arguing theology with Sarah Palin’s pastor!
In truth, the Canadian health care system is not “universal.” The federal government assures financing and established the basic format, but the program is administered by the provinces and their rules vary. As to waiting, this is relative. In an emergency in Canada, as in Europe, acute situations are taken care of post haste; however, elective surgical procedures, i.e. a total knee replacement for instance, may require twice as long a wait as in the United States. One should note as well, that one has faster care from a specialist in a city as one does in one of the rural western provinces.
As to training of Canadian, or Western European physicians, their education is equivalent, or in some instances better, than in the United States. Further, in Western Europe there are more general practitioners per 100,000 citizens than in the USA. In addition they have more hospital beds and CT Scanners available, there is very little paper-work involved, and no-one goes without medical care. I learned what it is to be without medical care when I worked after my retirement as a volunteer physician in a neighborhood free clinic. We provided “care” but we were by and large restricted to practicing Third World medicine due to restraints in doing sophisticated medical testing which most of us normally take for granted in the every day world.
To wait for a doctor’s appointment in this country is not unique. If one wishes to see the chief of a service, at a specific institution, one can wait some weeks or indeed some months. If one is happy to see a subordinate physician one can be seen within several days. However, the enemies of a system, can cherry pick, and cite the time to see the chief of service as a “normal” wait. At best, in this country, one can wait and where I am it may require six months to get an appointment with a dermatologist.
I have had experience, or my family or close friends have had first hand experience, in Canada, the UK, France, Norway and Italy with medical care and in all instances have found the care prompt, efficient, caring, and generally covered by the various national health plans as a courtesy to visitors. I must note than in two instances in Italy the departing patients were asked to pay their TV charges as these were not covered by national health payments. One gentleman who was hospitalized for three weeks with a stroke was not charged but the hospital administration asked for his insurance information in the event they could collect it. Business offices in European hospitals are not necessarily operations that catch ones attention, on occasion being in the hospital basement
Yet medical care, under the system dominated in this country by the insurance companies ain’t what it used to be. When did you last talk to your doctor on the telephone? Ist is my recent experience, and that of my friends, that one gets a callback from the doctor’s physician assistant or nurse. Compare this with my partner of some 30 years ago. Paul was a diabetic specialist, his practice largely children with diabetes. Every evening at home Paul had a “calling hour,” 7-8 p.m. after dinner, when his patients could call him with questions or problems. Most of us of that era did not go as far as Paul, but made sure before leaving our offices that we responded to every patient who had called us that day and needed personal advice. These days, so very much of the doctor’s time is spent on the telephone talking to insurance companies to clarify rules about how they should treat their patients.
Another recurring problem for the elderly is developing opposition by many members of congress to “Medicare Advantage Plans.” To understand what underlies this debate one must have some idea of what constitutes “neo-liberal” economics (supply side economics) which became the only way under the Reagan administration, per economist Milton Friedman. This is an economic theory that advises that all government programs should be privatized, that all economic controls should be done away with, and that all social service programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, should be excluded as government functions. President Bush tried several years ago to “privatize” social security, and congress, in of its few sterling moments, stopped the plan. Mr. Bush wished to turn Social Security over to the stock market! If he had succeeded imagine that in the present economic downturn that your monthly payment would be 50% of what it was.
“Medicare Advantage” is the Bush attempt to privatize and do away with government sponsored Medicare. Currently the government spends $94 billion per year on “Medicare Advantage,” some $15 billion of that is excessive and mostly represents profit to the insurance companies that administer the plans. The tragedy for the elderly, is that in the long run these excesses will exhaust the Medicare Fund, and no more Medicare. Some privatized plans give an initial impression of better service at the cost to the Medicare Fund of $1100 per enrollee; however, at some point one will find varying restrictions as to what the individual insurer will pay. We are now seeing the fruit of the deregulation of our financial institutions with a looming depression which may rival that of 1929.
Further, the incoming congress and Department of HHS must revise the present absurd Medicare Prescription Act to benefit the patient rather than produce profits for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The FDA not only has been staffed by the Bushadministration with incompetent, unqualified ideologues, but the fiscal policies regarding prescription drugs must be revised. An AP analysis found that Medicaid paid nearly $198 million from 2004-2007 for more than 100 unapproved drugs. Further, Medicaid as an entity is a failure as a means of decent health care. Before my retirement 18 years ago the payments to the physician were so meager that one could not cover office overhead if one’s practice contained too many Medicaid recipients. As a result we designated, as I recall, Thursday mornings for seeing our Medicaid patients. This is patently unfair, and a single payer, universal plan should incorporate all citizens equally. Further, when the new FDA appointees take over, the ability to obtain the “morning after pill” should be determined by scientists and not Bush-appointed religious crusaders.
For those with further interest I would once again refer you to the originators of HR 676, Physicians For A National Health Program, as well as a recent article in Campaign For America’s Future having to do with the insurance companies’ offer to provide universal care, and finally The Washington Post re: the FDA.
It is important that the older population and their offspring understand some aspects of the current campaign for universal, single payer health care. I am in perfect accord with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s recent suggestion of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing health care for all Americans.
There are those in the Obama entourage who feel that incorporating a universal, single payer health care plan, would be another anchor in providing economic recovery. Let us made our wishes known to the President Elect and join in that chorus.
Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming American democracy. The second step must be indicting ex-president George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many criminal acts and putting him in prison. Forget revenge. Think rule of law and justice.
I want President Obama soon after taking office to go on television and announce the formation of a special group of outstanding jurists and attorneys to make a recommendation whether or not the US Justice Department should bring criminal charges against George W. Bush. Based on earlier analyses, including work by the American Bar Association, I have no doubt they will recommend indictment.
If moral honesty and courage have any meaning, then the nation must take seriously the concept that no president can ever be allowed to be above the law. How can President Obama not strongly support this? Surely no president must be allowed to disrespect and dishonor the US Constitution. George W. Bush broke his oath of office. His behavior was treasonous. Instead of defending the Constitution he disgraced it. Instead of protecting constitutional rights, including privacy, he sullied them. He asserted his right to ignore or not enforce laws so he could break them. Respect for the office of the presidency must never be allowed to trump truth and justice.
Millions and millions of Americans and people worldwide know that George W. Bush made 9/11 the trigger for initiating an illegal war in Iraq that has killed and maimed so many thousands of people. What Vincent Bugliosi, author of “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” called “the most serious crime ever committed in American history.” I say convict Bush of myriad counts of criminally negligent homicide related to both Iraq and the Katrina disaster and put him in prison. A former president in prison would not disgrace the presidency. It would restore honor to the office and the Constitution.
Surely millions more people now understand that George W. Bush bears responsibility for creating the conditions that encouraged greed-driven capitalism to rape and murder the middle class and push us into the current global economic meltdown. By removing government oversight and regulation he committed the greatest acts of fraud in the history of mankind. After he made American democracy delusional he made prosperity delusional.
We the people are paying the price for George W. Bush’s criminal acts and so must he. When George W. Bush is sent to prison everyone will see that American democracy has earned the respect of the world. Everyone will better understand that evil comes in many forms and that even an elected president of the United States of America can and must be recognized as a perpetrator of horrendous criminal acts.
Please President-elect Obama, make it so. Be the principled person we want you to be. Make the USA the nation it is supposed to be. Have the courage to do what Congress refused to do when it did not impeach George W. Bush. Change history by showing the world that American justice applies as equally to the president as it does to anyone else. Do not let George W. Bush escape the justice and prison sentence he deserves. Do not let respect for the presidency trump respect for justice. If we do not bring George W. Bush to justice that probably only you can make happen, then surely we do not restore respect for the office that you worked so hard to achieve.
To ensure that no future president behaves like George W. Bush we must punish him. Not merely through the words of historians, but through the physical punishment that he has inflicted on so many millions of people. In previous eras citizens would have demanded “off with his head.” Now we must demand “lock him up.” How poetic for a pro-torture ex-president. As summed up at www.imprisonbush.com: “Bush must be made accountable to the law, to serve as a lesson to all those who would attempt to destroy the American system of laws and liberty for the sake of their own power.” This is a test for both President Obama and American democracy.
If there is any kind of God in the universe, then George W. Bush must go to prison. When he does, then and only then should God bless America.
[Formerly a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of nonfiction books, including Prosperity Without Pollution, Sprawl Kills and Delusional Democracy.]
Source / Associated Content
VENEZUELAN OIL: Controversial but free program in 3rd year.
With heating oil prices approaching $10 a gallon in rural Alaska and reports of neighbors stealing fuel from neighbors to warm their homes, a Venezuela-owned oil company plans to supply free fuel to villages again this winter.
That’s what a Citgo executive who oversees the company’s free heating oil program told the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council earlier this month, said council director Steve Osborne.
Citgo has provided roughly 15,000 Alaska village households 100 gallons of heating oil each for the past two winters. If the company donates the same amount this year, some families will save as much as $1,000 on their fuel bills. It’s part of a program providing assistance to low-income communities in 23 states.
In the Inupiat village of Noatak, north of Kotzebue, heating oil sells for $9.79 a gallon. Villagers are crossing their fingers for the Citgo assistance while locking their fuel tanks under plywood and padlocks to protect them from thieves, said Eugene Monroe Sr., a local councilman.
“You got to be watching your tank all the time,” he said.
But the free oil comes with political baggage, particularly in an oil-rich state with a potential presidential candidate for governor.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a proud socialist who once referred to President Bush as “the devil” before the United Nations. He teamed with Iran to fund other nations’ efforts to, as Chavez put it, “liberate themselves from the (U.S.) imperialist yoke.”
The fact that the heating assistance is coming from Chavez led some eligible Alaska communities — such as St. Paul — to reject Citgo’s gift in the past.
It would have been unpatriotic to participate, said Steve Senisch, a local councilman who voted against the gift in 2007.
He predicted the council will vote the same way this time.
“I don’t think the rhetoric coming from Hugo Chavez has really changed in any way.”
But Osborne said that villages that once opted out of the program, such as St. George, plan to participate this year as Citgo’s program grows internationally and prices remain high in rural Alaska.
Melanie Edwards lives in Nome, where she’s the vice president of the regional nonprofit that manages the heating-oil program for more than a dozen nearby villages.
“Last time I checked, (Citgo is) paying corporate taxes to the U.S. Treasury,” she said. “And we figure until such time that the U.S. government is so offended by Venezuela and Citgo that they’re not accepting any more funding, then we’re not being unpatriotic by accepting the same.”
RESOURCE REBATE HELPED
High fuel prices this year filled Alaska’s coffers even as residents struggled to pay their bills. In response, the state gave all Alaskans a $1,200 “resource rebate” at the urging of Gov. Sarah Palin.
Palin’s team is now working on the state budget and new state energy plan. She’s also fresh off her vice presidential bid, where Sen. John McCain presented her as a leading expert on energy policy.
Palin’s office did not respond to questions Wednesday about the governor’s stance on the Citgo program, and whether she would call for another round of state-funded energy relief next year.
Anchorage Rep. Bob Lynn, a Republican, said he doubts the state would cut checks again because oil prices are dropping and the payment was meant to be a one-time measure.
Lynn said it’s not right for Alaska to receive oil from Chavez. “We need to be able to take care of our own. The United States needs to do something about this,” he said.
Still, Lynn added later, “It’s one thing for me to speak philosophical thoughts here in the warmth of my home in Anchorage. It’s another thing to have a wife and kids in danger of freezing to death out there.”
VILLAGE COSTS LOCKED IN
Branson Tungiyan grew up in the St. Lawrence Island village of Gambell and is now the general manager.
Come January, when temperatures sink to 20 and 30 below, he’ll burn up to 30 gallons of heating oil a week, he said.
But the cost has jumped from $4.75 a gallon last year to $7.65. And unlike the cities, where local fuel prices dip along with the national market, the village price is locked in place all winter.
It won’t change again until the next supply barge arrives sometime this summer, Tungiyan said.
Villagers are turning to hauling driftwood that washes ashore about 10 or 15 miles out of town and burning it for heat, he said.
“We feel for our government, but we also have more concern to our families’ survival to have heat in our homes … That’s what I meant by leaving politics to the politicians.”
This week, the local tribal government approved a gift of its own — 30 gallons of heating oil per household, to help with the bills, he said.
PROGRAM FOR U.S. POOR
Citgo Petroleum Corp. started the heating assistance program in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and Chavez toured poor neighborhoods in the Bronx, officials said in 2006.
Venezuela is one of the world’s top oil-producing nations and now provides low-cost or free fuel in 23 states. In 2006, New Hampshire refused the free oil, saying it was an attempt at political grandstanding by Chavez. But this year state officials changed their minds in the face of rising fuel prices, according to The Associated Press.
Company spokesman Fernando Garay, in Houston, declined to talk about the company’s plans for Alaska this week. “We cannot discuss it at this point in time and once the program is approved, we will release all the pertaining information.”
But over the past two winters, Citgo donated roughly 4 million gallons of oil worth more than $15 million, the company said.
About three weeks ago, a Citgo executive called Osborne at the AITC and said the company was “planning on doing the program” again this year.
The paperwork isn’t finished, Osborne said.
So is there a chance Citgo wouldn’t provide the aid?
“Boy, I don’t think there is a way. They’re good at their word,” Osborne said.
The gift is available to anyone who lives in an Alaska community that is more than 70 percent Alaska Native, said Osborne, who hopes to see the program expand to other rural towns and even cities such as Anchorage and Fairbanks in the future.
Citgo doesn’t actually send oil to Alaska.
Last year, the company gave oil to a nonprofit, Citizens Energy Corp. — founded by former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy — which in turn sold the oil and delivered the money to the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which manages the program in Alaska.
Fewer households appear eligible for the program this year because local nonprofits are finding fewer families living in Alaska Native communities, Osborne said.
“You always hear about villages closing or people moving out of villages. … the numbers that I’ve received so far would seem to indicate that is the case,” he said.
CONCERN IS GENERAL
With Alaskans in villages and cities alike calling for help with energy bills this year, governments at all levels are kicking in money to curb costs.
Rocketing fuel prices and worries of a migration from villages to cities dominated the Alaska Federation of Natives annual meeting in October, where Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the federal government is doubling the amount of money it’s sending to Alaska to help low-income families heat their homes.
Congress approved $34 million for Alaska this year through the federal program, which is called Low Income Home Energy Assistance and sends aid to families with incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
Households that make slightly more money can apply for a similar state program created by the Legislature this year. Lawmakers appropriated $10 million for that program and the money is being distributed now, said Ron Kreher, chief of field operations for the state Division of Public Assistance.
President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has invited the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council and other tribal leaders from around the country to meet in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8, Osborne said.
Obama’s team wants to hear two or three priorities that the tribes think the new president should focus on, he said.
“One of them will be, I think, that energy crisis.”
Meantime, the state is working on a long-term energy plan that’s expected to be unveiled in time for the Legislature to consider in January.
Source / Anchorage Daily News
Thanks to Betsy Gaines / The Rag Blog
‘I could only imagine how much money AT&T was saving by forcing their counter clerks to talk to the voice-lady all day like robots, while making customers take a number and wait.’
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / November 28, 2008
I called AT&T a while ago to learn how to buy one of their “Go-Phones.” I found the 800 number and placed a call. Human beings no longer answer your call to AT&T. A recorded female voice answers and greets you as if it were a human. It asks you to respond by talking to “her,” speaking words into your phone from her fixed list of questions. The voice recognition routine becomes tedious and irritating real quickly and the voice lady’s options of words to say had nothing to do with Go-Phones.
The voice-lady had no sense of humor. With an insistent tone, she replied “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that,” and she repeated the fill-in-the-voice-blank question. Amazed at the absurdity of talking to a computer hard drive, I replied in cartoon character voices, even urban street gang black mangled English until finally, in a slightly scolding tone, the voice-lady said, “Please hold and I will connect you with an AT&T Agent.” Finally a human!
But eventually being connected to a live AT&T agent, opens up a whole new set of problems. The real person did not have the Go-Phone information and asked me to hold so they could “connect me, with that department.” Guess what? I got connected to the voice-lady again. It is the voice-lady or no sale.
So, customer service is now the voice-lady on a hard drive somewhere in a large computer cabinet. AT&T must assume that America will willingly turn themselves into manipulated robots happily dealing with this maddening, frustrating and totally un-customer- friendly waste of time.
I finally managed to escape the voice-lady by doing something I had read about on the internet, repeatedly pressing #0#0#0#0. This got me to another real human and he eventually actually helped me place my Go-Phone order. But it required a sneaky back door trick to bypass the voice-lady. The phone arrived promptly but the charger plug did not fit into the phone. I forced my way past the voice-lady once more, and eventually got a human who directed me to a local AT&T store nearby where I could get a phone that worked. “No problem, sir, just go out there and they will make an in-kind exchange.”
The Go-Phone store, formerly Cingular, was located in a large shopping center. It was set up like a circular airline ticket counter with uniformed clerks positioned in little spaces around it like orange suited carousel horses. Customers are made to stop at a pedestal just inside the front door and sign in, noting the time you got there. Then you wait in line for one of the carousel horses to become free.
I finally got to the counter, told the fellow that I was here for an “in-kind exchange.” He had no idea what I was talking about. I explained that I had been told to come here to exchange the phone for one that would properly charge. I demonstrated how the little flat rectangular plug just wallowed around in the phone charger receptacle. He fiddled around and eventually found the proper charger for my phone. I asked him if that would fix the problem, because I thought I was supposed to exchange the whole telephone in its original packaging. “Yeah, this should work. We don’t carry that model phone, and we don’t do exchanges. We just sell and activate new phones.”
It was like an orange-hued Twilight Zone. No two people seem to have the same information. Then I then noticed that all the sales agents were using their speaker phones to talk to the AT&T voice-lady! I was astounded. I asked if they didn’t have direct lines, and was told in a resignedly tired manner that no, they have to use the same 1-800 numbers all customers have to use. I could only imagine how much money AT&T was saving by forcing their counter clerks to talk to the voice-lady all day like robots, while making customers take a number and wait.
Americans are already being trained to “Press 1 for English.” Now, to do business or get help we must repeat words to a soulless, humorless recording. Fad-driven cell phone users already easily accept paying two bucks for a rude and raucous ‘ringtone,’ and are oblivious to the monthly bill for mindlessly chatting, texting and doinking around on the internet squinting at the tiny little screen. Just put it on the credit card. If this steadily growing monthly financial obligation doesn’t bother them, talking to voice-lady eventually might seem normal. But it will never seem normal to a huge number of us out here who know better, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be called customer service.
[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]
BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed 12 people in an Iraqi mosque on Friday while thousands of followers of anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in Baghdad after parliament passed a pact allowing U.S. troops to remain through 2011.
Some 9,000 people protested in Baghdad’s Shi’ite slum of Sadr City after Friday prayers, burning a U.S. flag and holding banners reading “No, no to the agreement.” About 2,500 people held a similar rally in the southern city of Basra.
“I express my condolences to the Iraqi people on this grave occasion, in which they are harmed by the … pact of shame and degradation,” Sadr, whose militia has fought U.S. troops many times, said in a statement read to followers on his behalf.
Sadr told his followers to wear black to mourn the passage of the deal, under which U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by mid-2009, and leave the country by the end of 2011.
Earlier on Friday, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed vest killed 12 people and wounded 17 others inside a Shi’ite mosque visited mainly by Sadr supporters 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
The U.S. military said the bomber killed eight people and wounded 15 others as they queued outside the mosque to enter for Friday prayers.
U.N. officials say such attacks are aimed at provoking renewed sectarian fighting between minority Sunni Arabs, once affiliated with al Qaeda, and the majority Shi’ites who are now in charge of Iraq.
BAGHDAD BOMBINGS
In central Baghdad a suicide car bomber killed two people and wounded 14 others, police said, and in Sadr City a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol wounded one person, the U.S. military said.
Sadrist lawmakers opposed the security deal with the United States to the last, banging desks and chanting slogans during the parliamentary session that passed it on Thursday.
They consider the U.S. military presence an occupation and want an immediate withdrawal.
The deal curbs U.S. military powers to arrest Iraqis and conduct operations, shifting greater responsibility onto Iraq’s security forces to keep the peace. Violence is at four-year lows, but car bombings and suicide blasts are still common.
In the first comments by a senior Iranian figure since the passage of the pact, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads a powerful constitutional watchdog, said Washington had forced its passage with pressure and threats.
“Yesterday, this pact was finally approved despite the … problems it had. This ratification was not a normal one,” Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, told Friday prayer worshippers in Tehran in a sermon broadcast on state radio.
He likened its signing to “somebody standing over your head with a sword,” saying Washington had threatened to indirectly overthrow the Iraqi government if it was not ratified.
Iran, which enjoys close ties with Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government, has repeatedly blamed the United States for the violence and bloodshed in Iraq in the last five years.
The U.S. military has long accused Iran of arming, training and funding small Shi’ite militia units which attack U.S. troops and Iraqi forces, a charge Tehran denies.
Under the security pact, the United States will no longer be able to hold Iraqi suspects detained during the insurgency and around 16,000 mainly Sunni Arab prisoners will have to be handed over to Iraqi authorities or released.
Human rights group Amnesty International said thousands could face torture or possibly execution as a result as the pact provided no safeguards for prisoner rights.
Nor does the security deal mention 2,000 members of Iranian exile group the Mujahideen Organization of Iran, who have been housed at Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad for two decades. They could face execution if sent back to Iran, Amnesty said.
[(Additional reporting by Khalid al-Ansary in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed in Basra, Zahra Hosseinian in Tehran; Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Michael Christie and Giles Elgood)]
Source / Reuters
The Rag Blog
* SOFA = Status of Forces Agreement
Lest we forget, the war in Iraq and the subsequent ethnic cleansing have displaced roughly 4 million Iraqis, 2.5 million internally and another 1.5 million who have left the country, perhaps permanently. For the European Union to agree to accept 10,000 of that 1.5 million is little more than a slap in the face to those Iraqis facing the hardship of displacement from their homeland. I believe it is crucial that those responsible for this debacle be brought to the International Court to answer for the war crimes they have committed.
Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog
The European Union says it is ready to accept up to 10,000 Iraqi refugees, many of whom are living in extreme hardship in Jordan and Syria.
The agreement came at an EU meeting in Brussels on Thursday, where interior ministers received a new report on conditions at refugee camps.
Germany said it would take in about 2,500 of the refugees.
Priority will be given to those with medical needs, torture victims, single mothers and religious minorities.
The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, welcomed the EU pledge as a “positive step”, saying it had been pressing the EU for 18 months to offer more protection to vulnerable Iraqi refugees.
So far, only 10% of those resettled by the UNHCR have found a home in EU countries, mainly Sweden and the Netherlands, the BBC’s Oana Lungescu reports from Brussels.
Sweden says it received about 18,000 Iraqi asylum seekers in 2007 – more than half the total that entered the EU last year.
Sweden has a well-established Iraqi community totalling about 100,000 but says other EU countries should take in a bigger share of Iraqis, who have mostly fled violence and poverty.
Not a binding commitment
A UK Home Office spokesperson said the UK had “already shown its clear determination to support Iraqi refugees through the Gateway Programme, with over 200 people resettled in the UK since April and more arriving in the coming months”.
“We will continue to work with our European partners to ensure that Iraqi refugees are resettled across Europe,” the spokesperson added.
An EU expert group that toured Iraqi refugee camps in the Middle East recently said conditions were worsening for most of the refugees, because their savings were dwindling and they did not have work permits, German media reported.
The EU decision to resettle the refugees is voluntary, rather than binding, and is unlikely to reverse the current trend, our correspondent says. So far, most Iraqi refugees have been taken in by the United States, Canada and Australia.
Source / BBC News
These various initiatives, which will collectively set the nation on a path towards energy independence, ending the war and redistributing financial resources downward, are presented as unconnected pieces of legislation but actually they are interlocking components of Obama’s coherent multi-layered agenda.
By Jeff Jones / The Rag Blog / November 29, 2008
Also see Obama Chooses an Unlikely Team of Hawks by Peter Beinart, Below.
I agree with Mark Rudd’s perceptive article Let’s Get Smart About Obama in The Rag Blog.
The writing style of Audacity of Hope reveals how complex and perceptive Obama is: he is hyper-literate, almost Ciceronian, and unlike most of his speeches, amazingly precise. He expresses what he thinks and feels without resorting to binary thinking. He does not interpret reality in black and white terms: he is the nation’s first post-modern president.
All of this leads me to the same conclusion reached by Mark Rudd: this guy is really SMART. He is setting Hillary Clinton up to be the public face of his effort to end the Iraq war. He is going to sucessfully extort green concessions from Detroit. He will convince Congress to pass a major stimulus package that will lay the foundation for the development of an alternative energy manufacturing industry. He will do something to help reduce housing foreclosures. He will let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
These various initiatives, which will collectively set the nation on a path towards energy independence, ending the war and redistributing financial resources downward, are presented as unconnected pieces of legislation but actually they are interlocking components of Obama’s coherent multi-layered agenda. His centrist appointments are a smokescreen; they co-opt the moderate center, but he’s still the commander in chief. Even Lenin would be impressed!
Please see Mark Rudd : Let’s Get Smart About Obama by Mark Rudd / The Rag Blog / Nov. 28, 2008
Obama Chooses an Unlikely Team of Hawks
By Peter Beinart / November 26, 2008In liberal blogland, reports that Barack Obama will probably choose Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and retired general James Jones as National Security Adviser and retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense have prompted a chorus of groans. “I feel incredibly frustrated,” wrote Chris Bowers on OpenLeft.com.
“Progressives are being entirely left out.”
A word of advice: cheer up. It’s precisely because Obama intends to pursue a genuinely progressive foreign policy that he’s surrounding himself with people who can guard his right flank at home. When George W. Bush wanted to sell the Iraq war, he trotted out Colin Powell–because Powell was nobody’s idea of a hawk. Now Obama may be preparing to do the reverse. To give himself cover for a withdrawal from Iraq and a diplomatic push with Iran, he’s surrounding himself with people like Gates, Clinton and Jones, who can’t be lampooned as doves.
To grasp the logic of this strategy, start with the fact that Obama’s likely national-security picks don’t actually disagree very much with the foreign policy he laid out during the campaign. Jones is on record calling the Iraq war a “debacle” and urging that the detention center at Guantánamo Bay be closed “tomorrow.” Gates has also reportedly pushed for closing Gitmo and for faster withdrawals from Iraq.
He has called a military strike against Iran a “strategic calamity,” urged diplomacy with Tehran’s mullahs and denounced the “creeping militarization” of U.S. foreign policy. (You don’t hear that from a Defense Secretary every day.) For her part, Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign embraced an Iraq-withdrawal position virtually identical to Obama’s. And although they fought a sound-bite war over sitting down with the leaders of countries like Iran, the two candidates’ actual Iran policies were pretty much the same. Both wanted intensive diplomacy; both wanted to start it at lower levels and work up from there.
On key policy issues, Jones, Gates and Clinton aren’t significantly more hawkish than Obama. What they are is more hawkish symbolically. Gates is a Republican; Jones is a Marine general who once worked for John McCain; Clinton, as Senator from New York, has gained credibility with hawkish pro-Israel groups. In other words, what distinguishes Gates, Jones and Clinton isn’t their desire to shift Obama’s policies to the right; it’s their ability to persuade the right to give Obama’s policies a chance.
Obama knows that although Iraq has tarnished the GOP foreign policy brand, Democrats remain vulnerable. When the moderate Democratic group Third Way asked voters in September whom they trusted more on national security, Democrats trailed by 14 points. (The gap has widened substantially since late 2006.) On the question of “ensuring a strong military,” they trailed by 30 points–an astonishing figure, given that it is a Republican President who has stretched the Army to its breaking point.
Politically, therefore, Obama is playing with fire. If he accelerates troop withdrawals and violence in Iraq flares up again, the GOP will pounce. If he cuts a nuclear deal with Iran, it will probably do the same, accusing him of putting his faith in an inspection agreement that Tehran will never obey. And if he pushes hard for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, right-leaning Jewish groups may cry foul. That’s the beauty of his emerging national-security team. Even Republicans will find it hard to call Gates and Jones latter-day Neville Chamberlains, and even many Likudniks will think twice before claiming that Hillary Clinton is in league with Hamas. (For cover on Israel, Obama will also be able to trot out Rahm Emanuel, whose father was born in Jerusalem, and, quite possibly, long-serving Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, who is tight with the pro-Israel lobby.)
Obama understands that foreign policy is, in international-relations-speak, a two-sided game. To get your way, you not only have to convince other governments; you also have to convince the folks back home. Bill Clinton negotiated the Kyoto Protocol on global warming with well over 100 other countries but couldn’t get it through the 100-member U.S. Senate. He crafted a nuclear agreement with North Korea but saw it sabotaged by a Republican Congress that wouldn’t provide sufficient money to carry it out. Obama knows that while it’s a tough world out there, it’s tough here as well. In Gates, Jones and Clinton, he’s found people who can do more than sell his foreign policy to Iranians, Iraqis and Israelis; they can sell it to Americans too.
[Beinart is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.]
Source / Time
Thanks to Thomas Cleaver / The Rag Blog
What kind of government in the 21st century can deny another people basic human rights – that is, the right to food, water, shelter, security and dignity?
What kind of government imposes draconian sanctions on another people for democratically electing a government not to its liking?
What kind of government seals a heavily populated territory of 1.5 million people so that no person can enter or leave without permission, fishermen cannot fish in their own waters, and world food aid cannot be delivered to the starving population?
What kind of government shuts off fuel, water and electricity and then rains down on the people, bombs and artillery fire?
The answer is – no government of integrity.
And yet, government after government in Israel continues to demand recognition and accolades as a first world democracy superior to all others, despite Israel’s flouting of international law, its human rights abuses and the criminality and corruption of Israeli leaders. Worse still, the world has acquiesced and has welcomed every Israeli administration into its fold as a favoured guest.
This should give everyone pause to revisit our noble declarations of independence and human rights, ethics, morality, religious beliefs, civil liberties and the rule of law. Are they just for show or do they really mean something? Are they intended only for some people or for all people?
Israel’s President Shimon Peres is just one of the many leaders who have furthered Israel’s aggressive policies and programs and yet he has been honoured with a knighthood from the Queen and is likely to be honoured with a lecture series named after him at Oxford University’s Balliol College. Dubious honours indeed, for a man who helped to forcibly expel 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in the 1948 war.
Today, we are witnessing in Gaza the kind of ghetto the world thought it would never see again and the comparison was conjured up early this year by Israel’s deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai when he threatened “a bigger holocaust (shoah)” against the Palestinians in Gaza. Later, he explained away his use of the word as meaning “disaster”, when in fact it has emotional connotations well known to everyone. Either way, the threat was ominous enough.
The slow death that is being visited on the Palestinians in Gaza is finding its first victims in more than 400 critically ill patients who are being prevented from leaving Gaza for urgent medical attention in Israeli or Arab hospitals. Thousands of other patients are being turned away from hospitals suffering from a severe shortage of 300 different kinds of medicines.
The hospitals have been deprived of medicines and equipment for so long now, that the trickle of supplies finally being allowed through, can no longer meet the minimum daily needs of the Palestinian civilian population. Similarly, the energy fuel being shipped in, is barely enough to operate the Gaza power plant for one day.
This drip-feeding of aid was suggested by Israeli Prime Ministerial adviser Dov Weisglas who said in February 2006: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger.”
Such a malevolent policy has led to a steady increase in malnutrition as people are being starved of their staples of life. Not only have the flourmills been forced to shut down because fuel and power have run out, but now all wheat supplies have been exhausted. Out of the 72 bakeries operating in the Gaza Strip, 29 have completely stopped baking bread and others are expected to follow. This means that even the most staple of all foods – bread – will soon not be available for a hungry population.
A Red Cross report describes the effects of the siege as “devastating”. Seventy per cent of the population is suffering from food insecurity while the suspension of food aid distribution to some 750,000 refugees in the pitiful camps in Gaza since 4 November, has further devastated Palestinians with no recourse to other alternatives.
The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have all called Israel’s blockade ”cruel”. Former president Jimmy Carter makes no apology for describing the situation as “a heinous atrocity” amounting to a war crime.
In Britain, Oxfam’s CEO Barbara Stocking has strongly criticised the Foreign Secretary David Miliband for not mentioning the “human desperation” in Gaza on his recent trip to Israel and Palestine.
Israel’s tactics though may be unravelling.
So draconian has been Israel’s closure of Gaza, the world’s biggest media organisations including the New York Times are outraged that their journalists have been banned from entering the Gaza Strip and have protested in writing to Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Christian leaders have also been excluded from Gaza. Last week, Israel prevented Archbishop Franco, the Papal Nuncio in Israel, from celebrating mass to mark the beginning of Advent in the holy weeks leading up to Christmas.
And in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Minister Ehud Barak has approved the building of hundreds more illegal settlement units with a flagrant disregard of the peace process agreements, further frustrating the current US administration eager to produce a solution before the end of its term.
What is truly astonishing is the world’s silence in the face of all this. The shameful rush to grant Israel every honour and recognition so that it will be saved from the historical ignominy of having orchestrated the destruction of Palestinian society, is nothing short of unconscionable.
[Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-convener of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. She is also the editor of www.australiansforpalestine.com and contributes articles on Palestine regularly to various publications. She can be contacted at Source / CounterPunch
Our little blog’s expansion in reach and impact continues to impress (at least it impresses us!).
Our hits have increased in less then a year from 50 on a good day to around 1,000. Maybe not up there with the really big boys but — what’s important to us — we’ve gained a significant and loyal following, are attracting contributors of quality from all over the world and are being taken seriously across the web. Our stories are reposted widely and The Rag Blog is linked to from an impressive number and range of internet locations. Just one example, The Progressive Magazine’s home page has been including Carl Davidson’s Rag Blog article on Obama and the left as one of its four featured “Links from the Editors.”
On Thanksgiving, the arts pages of the New York Times had a piece on the death of New Left artist and activist Frank Cieciorka that quoted from and linked to The Rag Blog. Good to see that we’re considered a “blog of record” by the newspaper of same.
Our James Retherford comments on writer Steven Heller — himself something of an icon in the worlds of graphic design and criticism — and his Times article. Jim, a veteran of the sixties underground press is a writer and graphic designer who has also taught graphic design.
Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / November 29, 2008
‘I am greatly impressed by the indication that The Rag Blog is reaching an audience among New York creative intellectuals. I am equally impressed at how much Heller continues to pay attention to progressive undercurrents far afield from his New York City base.’
By James Retherford / The Rag Blog / November 29, 2008
Steven Heller — the writer of the New York Times Frank Cieciorka obituary in which The Rag Blog is cited — is a typography and design authority I have trusted for many many years. More than that, he is a very big force in the graphics design world — an extraordinary combination of designer, historian, and educator.
With wit, ironic detachment, firm historical grounding, Heller has deconstructed and demythologized the symbols of commerce and power in many books (beginning with Man Bites Man w/ foreword by Tom Wolfe, 1981), a vast number of magazine articles (including contributions to Mother Jones and Emigre), and major exhibits — notably “Political Art” (American Institute of Graphic Arts) and “Art Against War” (Parsons School of Design). His most recent book is Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State (Phaidon, 2008).
He currently is co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at NYC’s School of Visual Arts.
Heller was a senior art director at The New York Times and was a regular contributor to the incomparably quirky and iconic typography trade quarterly, U&lc, founded by the late great Herb Lubalin of Avant Garde font and magazine fame. From 1973 to its print demise in 1999, U&lc rocked the design world with bold, brash, and pungent visual offerings featuring type designs marketed by the International Typeface Corporation (ITC), the publication’s parent company. If the graphic design profession had its Mad Magazine, this was it! Don’t even think about asking me for a loan of any of my 15-20 years of vintage black and white U&lc back issues.
(Personal note: Years ago, a musician/drug abuser friend of mine was being offered a “career intervention” at a Houston advertising agency and came to me for advice on how to demonstrate his readiness to accept the new challenge. My first piece of advice: get a free subscription to U&lc and have it sent to his new office before he arrived to start the job. Fait accompli!)
Heller’s insight and historical perspective figured prominently as I worked with department chair Luis Guerra in the early 1980s to develop a new “History of Visual Communication” course for the Austin Community College Commercial Art program.
His scholarship also has contributed greatly to my own quirky enthusiasm for typographical minutiae.
I am greatly impressed by the indication that The Rag Blog is reaching an audience among New York creative intellectuals. I am equally impressed at how much Heller continues to pay attention to progressive undercurrents far afield from his New York City base.
Please see Frank Cieciorka, Designer for the Left, Is Dead at 69 by Steven Heller / The New York Times / Nov. 27, 2008
And Legendary Artist of the New Left : Frank Cieciorka Dead at 69 / The Rag Blog / Nov. 25, 2008
The writer and activist Michael Pollan has no interest in becoming Barack Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, thank you very much, even though there are a lot of people who think he’d be perfect for the job.
Pollan disagrees. Laughing, he told my colleague Bill Moyers on the latest edition of public television’s Bill Moyers Journal, “I have an understanding of my strengths and limitations… I don’t want this job,” then turned serious as he added, “What Obama needs to do, if he indeed wants to make change in this area — and that isn’t clear yet that he does, at least in his first term — I think we need a food policy czar in the White House because the challenge is not just what we do with agriculture, it’s connecting the dots between agriculture and public health, between agriculture and energy and climate change, agriculture and education.”
There’s been an Internet-fueled citizen’s movement to draft Pollan for the cabinet post. As the author of countless articles and such books as The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, his thorough reporting, literally getting his hands dirty working on American farms and writing about it, has made him one of our country’s greatest experts on how and what we eat.
In an open letter to whoever would become our next president — or “Farmer in Chief,” as he put it in the October 12th New York Times Magazine — Pollan wrote, “It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril…
“But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.”
In 2007, before the financial meltdown had even struck, some 32 million Americans — at least one in nine households — had trouble putting enough food on the table. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, food banks across the country are struggling to meet a surge of people uncertain about their next meal. They’ve seen a 20% increase in demand — middle class families, they say, account for most of the growth.
And the day before our annual Thanksgiving binge, the Washington Post reported, “The number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.”
Contrast this with the big bucks being shelled out in the recent $307 billion farm bill, much of it going to massive agribusinesses — “A welfare program,” as Time Magazine described it, “for the megafarms that use the most fuel, water, and pesticides; emit the most greenhouse gases; grow the most fattening crops; hire the most illegals and depopulate rural America.”
In a press conference on Tuesday, President-elect Obama cited a report released this week by the Government Accountability Office: “From 2003 to 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff to qualify for such subsidies,” he said. “If this is true, it is a prime example of the kind of waste I intend to end as president.”
All well and good, but as a senator, Barack Obama supported that monster farm bill (although he was absent for the actual roll call). He also supported the production of ethanol (a politically expedient move when the Iowa Democratic caucuses were at stake), even though using corn for fuel rather than food raises the price of grain and results in huge emissions of greenhouse gases.
Thus, where food and agriculture are concerned, connecting the dots, as Michael Pollan told Bill Moyers, is a tortuous journey involving internecine politics, international diplomacy, big business, every branch of government and every issue from morbid obesity to homeland security.
Pollan is hopeful that Obama will take advantage of his oratorical skills and bully pulpit to set an example for the American people, perhaps even suggesting “meatless Mondays” for the country — which, according to Pollan, would have the ecological effect of taking 30-40 million cars off the road for a year — and encouraging home gardening and eating locally; supporting the small farmers who grow fresh food nearby — without chemicals or subsidies.
“I think we have to figure out different solutions in different places, and it’s not all or nothing,” he said. “We need to let a thousand flowers bloom. We need to try many things in many places, and figure out what works…
“Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer’s market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden… Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
Regardless of who Obama chooses as his Ag Secretary, it will be interesting to see if the new president sees fit to make Pollan an unofficial advisor on food issues, an influential voice in his — you should excuse the expression — kitchen cabinet.
[Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.]
Source / Common Dreams
Deepak Chopra argues for a cool-headed response, saying that this is “Obama’s opportunity to actually harness the help of the Muslims.”
Mumbai Attacks: ‘If You Go After the Wrong People, You Convert Moderates into Extremists’
November 28, 2008
See Video, Below.
The Indian city of Mumbai exploded into chaos early Thursday morning as gunmen launched a series of attacks across the country’s commercial capital, killing scores of people and taking hostages in two luxury hotels frequented by Westerners.
CNN’s Larry King spoke with author Deepak Chopra about the situation.
Larry King: Where were you born in India, Deepak?
Deepak Chopra: I was born in Delhi, but I have been in these hotels many, many times. I have stayed there, so I know the scene; I know the restaurants. I have been trying to get in touch with my friends and relatives, some of whom I have spoken to, some of whom I can’t speak to. The lines are jammed. We’re texting each other.
A friend of mine from Egypt was in the restaurant at the Taj hotel when the firing started, and somehow she managed to avoid the fray, hid in a basement and is now holed up in a room which is right next to the Taj hotel and is waiting to be told what to do.
The situation is complex, Larry, because it could inflame to proportions that we cannot even imagine. It has to be contained. We now recognize that this is a global problem, with only a global effort can solve this.
And you know, one of the things that I think is happening is that these militant terrorist groups are actually terrified that [President-elect Barack] Obama’s gestures to the rest of the Muslim world may actually overturn the tables on them by alienating them from the rest of the Muslim world, so they’re reacting to this.
You know, this is Obama’s opportunity to actually harness the help of the Muslims.
You know, there’s 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. That’s 25 percent of the population of the world. It’s the fastest-growing religion in the world. We cannot, if we do not appease and actually recruit the help of this Muslim world, we’re going to have a problem on our hands.
And we cannot go after the wrong people, as we did after 9/11, because then the whole collateral damage that occurs actually aggravates the situation.
In India, this is particularly inflammatory, because there’s a rise of Hindu fundamentalism. We saw what that did in Gujarat, where, you know, Muslims were scorched and they were killed, and there was almost a genocide of the Muslims.
India has 150 million Muslims. That’s more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. So this is an opportunity right now for India and Pakistan to recognize this is their common problem. It’s not a Muslim problem right now; it’s a global problem.
King: Do you think that this is just the beginning, that there’s a potential impact, or more?
Chopra: There is a potential impact of a lot more carnage. But it can be contained. And right now, one of the questions [is, given] that there are militant groups that cross international boundaries, is who is financing this? Where is the money coming from? We have to ask very serious, honest questions. What role do we have in this? Are our petrodollars funding both sides of this war on terrorism? Why are we not asking the Saudis where that money is going that we give them? Is it going through this supply chain to Pakistan?
It’s not enough for Pakistan to condemn it. Pakistan should cooperate with India in uprooting this. They should be part of the surgery that is going to happen.
It’s not enough for Indians to blame Pakistanis. Indians should actually ask the Pakistanis to help them.
And it’s not enough for us to worry about Westerners being killed and Americans being killed. Every life is precious over there. We have got to get rid of this idea that this is an American problem or a Western problem. It’s a global problem, and we need a global solution, and we need the help of all the Muslims, 25 percent of the world’s population, to help us uproot this problem.
King: What does India immediately do?
Chopra: India at this moment has to contain any reactive violence from the fundamentalist Hindus, which is very likely and possible. So India has to condemn that by not blaming local Muslims. They have to identify the exact groups.
And the world has to be very careful that they don’t go after the wrong people. Because if you go after the wrong people, you convert moderates into extremists. It happens every time, and retribution against innocent people just because they have the same religion actually aggravates and perpetuates the problem.
King: Are you pessimistic?
Chopra: I think Mr. Obama has a real opportunity here, but a challenging opportunity, a creative opportunity.
Get rid of the phrase “war on terrorism.” Ask for a creative solution in which we all participate.
King: Is it because the war on terrorism really can never be won…?
Chopra: Because it’s an oxymoron. It’s an oxymoron, Larry, a war on war, a war on terrorism.
You know, terrorists call mechanized death from 35,000 feet above sea level with a press of a button also terror. We don’t call it that, because our soldiers are wearing uniforms. They don’t see what is happening, and innocent people are being killed. So, you know, terror is a term that you apply to the other.
Source / CNN / AlterNet
Here is a transcript of remarks by Deepak Chopra in an additional CNN interview.
Chopra: What we have seen in Mumbai has been brewing for a long time, and the war on terrorism and the attack on Iraq compounded the situation. What we call “collateral damage” and going after the wrong people actually turns moderates into extremists, and that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in Bombay. Now the worst thing that could happen is there’s a backlash on the Muslims from the fundamental Hindus in India, which then will perpetuate the problem. Inflammation will create more inflammation.
CNN: Let me jump in on that because you’re presuming something very important, which is that it’s Muslims who have carried out these attacks and, in some cases, with Washington in their sights.
Chopra: Ultimately the message is always toward Washington because it’s also the perception that Washington, in their way, directly or indirectly funds both sides of the war on terror. They fund our side, then our petrol dollars going to Saudi Arabia through Pakistan and ultimately these terrorist groups, which are very organized. You know Jonathan, it takes a lot of money to do this. It takes a lot of organization to do this. Where’s the money coming from, you know? The money is coming from the vested interests. I’m not talking about conspiracy theories, but what happens is, our policies, our foreign policies, actually perpetuate this problem. Because, you know, 25% of the world’s population is Muslim and they’re the fastest growing segment of the population of the world. The more we alienate the Muslim population, the more the moderates are likely to become extremists.
Source / Information Clearing House
Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
