Archive for July, 2004

Vatican Says Modern Feminism Dangerous for Family

Saturday, July 31st, 2004

Reuters
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Modern feminism’s fight for power and gender equality is undermining the traditional concept of family and creating a climate where gay marriages are seen as acceptable, the Vatican said Saturday.

In a 37-page document “On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World,” the Vatican said women should be respected and have equal rights in the workplace, but differences between the sexes must be recognized and exalted.

“Recent years have seen new approaches to women’s issues” including a tendency “to emphasize strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism,” it said.

The document, which re-stated Catholic Church positions, including the ban on female priests, said that many women felt they had to be “adversaries of men” in order to be themselves.

“Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power. This process leads to opposition between men and women … which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of the family.”

The document is a booklet-letter to bishops by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department in charge of safeguarding and interpreting doctrine.

It criticizes feminism’s attempt to erase gender differences.

This has “inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality,” it says. full article

Pope warns feminists Guardian UK
…According to a leaked extract, the document accuses feminists of “blurring the biological difference between man and woman”…

This is so funny on so many levels. My 92 year old dad tells me how his sisters used to run screaming from the confessionals in their little Spanish town when the monks from the nearby monastery came down off the mountain periodically to grope them. Then there’s the gay pedophile internet porn so popular these days on the monastery scene. ‘Polymorphous sexuality:’ it’s all the women’s fault. Wait a minute:what women??

Powell uses Iraq visit to sound Iran warning

Saturday, July 31st, 2004

Guardian UK
Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, made a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday and admitted that Washington was becoming increasingly concerned about Iran’s attempts to gain influence in the south of the country.

His warning came with pressure mounting on Tehran because of evidence that the regime has flouted pledges to the International Atomic Energy Agency and has re-embarked on a programme to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr Powell’s intervention appeared to have been prompted by repeated warnings from western diplomats that weapons and money have been crossing the border with Iran. Several Shia political parties in southern Iraq are known to maintain links in Iran. full article

A.C.L.U. Board Is Split Over Terror Watch Lists

Saturday, July 31st, 2004

by Adam Liptak New York Times
The American Civil Liberties Union is in turmoil over a promise it made to the government that it would not knowingly hire people whose names appear on watch lists of suspected supporters of terrorism. Those lists are the very type it has strongly opposed in other contexts.

In April, for instance, the group filed suit to block the use of “no fly” lists of people barred from air travel or subject to heightened scrutiny, saying the lists were often inaccurate and violated the constitutional rights of some people.

The group made the promise not to employ people it knew to be on similar terrorism lists so that it could continue participating in a program that allows federal employees to make charitable contributions through payroll deductions. full article

Sunday Aug. 1
Well I guess this story from the Times made the ACLU change its mind. They are unsigning their agreement with the feds to check watch lists. I heard exec. dir. Romero on the radio this morning all worked up in a moral outrage that non-profits were expected to comply with an agreement they had SIGNED. Well if these are the watchdog lawyers tending the people’s civil rights, signing an agreement to check watch lists if it means $ to them, while they are challenging the feds on watch lists in court…

Nations eye Africa’s oil supply***Analysts urge steps to avoid corruption

Saturday, July 31st, 2004

by John Donnelly boston.com
JOHANNESBURG — The world’s growing demand for oil and the fears of supply interruption is expected to force the United States and other nations to increasingly rely on another volatile region — central and western Africa.

Several sub-Saharan African nations, notably Nigeria and Angola, are in the early years of an extended oil boom that could supply the United States with 20 percent of its imported oil in the next decade, analysts predict.

But analysts warned in recent interviews that the United States and other nations, and multilateral groups such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, should insist the countries publish oil receipts and how they spend that windfall. Otherwise, massive unrest may follow and billions of dollars of oil wealth will continue to be snatched by a corrupt few. full article
O yeah. A bunch of great white fathers wagging their fingers about African corruption, when they promote it and literally bank on it. Please. This core notion that the US and Europe are ‘the light of the world’ is on display everywhere. A ‘moral’ justification for corporate piracy.

Why Sudan?

Saturday, July 31st, 2004

by Karen Kwiatkowski lewrockwell.coml
By this time, we have all learned a lot about the current Bush administration, its predecessors and sadly, its successors. Let’s review.

Oil is important to Washington.

Leverage of oil production and policies is important to Houston and New York, and Washington.

Illusions of national financial security must be maintained, at all cost.

Holy worship of the Federal Reserve and cultish market obsession with the mental and physical health of Alan Greenspan is “a good thing.”

Propaganda works even better in the information age than before it. Before TV and Internet, people tended to believe their own eyes and trust their own experience. Today, we consume without assessment massive amounts of “government” and other misinformation.

Americans like to be good guys, doing “good things.”

Using these “rules” one may explain Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, neo-conservatism, much of the American left, and of course, Sudan and the recent bill passed by the House “Declaring genocide in Darfur, Sudan.” full articlel

Johnnie Been Good?

Friday, July 30th, 2004

by Greg Palast zmag.org
[Boston] The millionaires are dancing now. The balloons are falling on John Kerry, John Edwards and their nuclear families. They’re playing “Johnnie B. Goode” over the loudspeakers. Democrats are hopping up and down like JFK never went to Dallas; like Bill Clinton didn’t blow it for us; like there’s a chance to bring the boys home alive; like America can crawl out of Dick Cheney’s bunker and look at the sun again.

But has Johnnie Kerry been good so far?

He told us tonight about some poor bastard in Ohio whose job evaporated when his company unbolted the equipment and sent it south. Hey, Johnnie, didn’t you vote for NAFTA?

I applauded when he said the White House should stop treating teachers and school kids like fugitives from justice and help them out. But, Johnnie, didn’t you vote for George Bush’s “No Child’s Behind Left” assault on public education? full article

The Pathology of George Bush***By FIDEL CASTRO

Friday, July 30th, 2004

counterpunch.org
[Castro begins the article by exposing the source of Bush’s bogus ‘Cuba is the center of the international sex trade’ story.]
…This obliges me to give a most serious and honest explanation of the causes, which in my view, give rise to these inconceivable, irresponsible statements by the President of the most powerful nation on the planet, the same who is threatening to wipe the Cuban revolution from the face of the Earth.

I shall do this as objectively as possible, making no arbitrary statements or shamelessly misconstruing other people’s words, sentences and concepts. I shall avoid any petty sentiment of vengeance or personal dislike.

A theme that has been widely documented in several books by outstanding American scientific authors and other personalities is the current US President’s alcoholism which lasted two decades when he was between 20 and 40 years old. This feature has been rigorously and impressively dealt with, from a psychiatric point of view and using scientific criteria, by Dr. Justin A. Frank in a now famous book called “Bush on the Couch”…full article

Castro goes on to cite a number of other books to give a psychological explanation for Bush’s freaky behavior. It must be nice to have a president who can write and speak and actually reads books

Mbeki’s Plan for Land Redistribution Brings Angry Response From Whites

Friday, July 30th, 2004

by Basildon Peta UK Independent
The South African government is considering new regulations to limit foreign ownership of property in South Africa, in a move that would directly affect British investors.

The proposed measures, which are still being worked out by the government, are an attempt to deal with soaring property prices caused by rich foreigners buying properties in South Africa, pushing local people out of the market. A large number of Britons, have bought homes in Cape Town, taking advantage of the strong pound against the South African rand.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance yesterday attacked the proposed move on the ground that limiting foreign property ownership would discourage investment. full article
Everything is nice nice until blacks start demanding economic justice

Sudan Rejects U.N. Sanction Threat Over Darfur

Friday, July 30th, 2004

Reuters
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – The Sudanese government rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution passed on Friday threatening to impose sanctions on Khartoum in 30 days if it does not prosecute and disarm militias in western Sudan. full article

CFR to Bush: Stop Israeli strike on Iran’s nuke sites**

Friday, July 30th, 2004

World Tribune
A report by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations urged the Bush administration to stop any Israeli attempt to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. The council warned that such an Israeli attack would be blamed on the United States and hurt its interests in the region.

“Since Washington would be blamed for any unilateral Israeli military strike, the United States should, in any case, make it quite clear to Israel that U.S. interests would be adversely affected by such a move,” the report, entitled “Iran: Time for a New Approach,” said.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the United States supports Israel’s right to what he termed weapons of deterrence, regarded as a reference to nuclear weapons, Middle East Newsline reported. He said the United States was also pressing Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program. full article

Israel’s Sharon Ties Disarming WMDs to Mideast Peace New York Times