Yesterday, Dr. Rowan Williams made a blistering criticism of Tony Blair's and George "Howdy-Doody" Bush's drumbeat of war against Iraq. His speech was to have been broadcast just after midnight last night to co-incide with an appeal for peace in the Holy Land and the Middle-East by Pope John Paul II.
Follow the link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=364419
for the full text of the article.
Further exerpts from his Christmas message can be found here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2606971.stm
It is a refreshing contrast to see the leaders of two of the world's great churches standing against the seemingly inevitable war in Iraq. It is a stark contrast to the Southern Baptist Convention here in the US, which is all in favor of bombing Iraq back into the stone-age, regardless of the cost. After all, they're just godless heathen over there. And besides, America is blessed by God, and George "Howdy-Doody" Bush is one of us. "Us" being white, wealthy, and giving only the most fleeting of lip-service to Christian ideals.
But we must remember that war with Iraq is not inevitable, and we the people must speak out to stop it before Howdy and his merry band take action unilaterally. Call, e-mail, snail-mail, do whatever you can to make your congressional representatives understand that the course being plotted by the adminstration is the wrong one. It is not too late...yet.
Thursday, December 26, 2002
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
The Bush Administration's Christmas Gift to the Third World:
"Dick Cheney, the U.S. vice-president, last night blocked a global deal to provide cheap drugs to poor countries, following intense lobbying of the White House by America's pharmaceutical giants.
Faced with furious opposition from all the other 140 members of the World Trade Organization, the US refused to relax global patent laws which keep the price of drugs beyond the reach of most developing countries.
Talks at the WTO's Geneva headquarters collapsed last night after the White House ruled out a deal which would have permitted a full range of life-saving drugs to be imported to Africa, Asia and Latin-America at cut-price costs.
'The United States has announced that it cannot join the concensus'..." - Larry Elliot and Charlotte Denny, The Guardian, 12/21/2002
For the full text: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1221-01.htm
Bush's Christmas gift to the third world?...A big, fat "Fuck you!"
Merry Christmas.
"Dick Cheney, the U.S. vice-president, last night blocked a global deal to provide cheap drugs to poor countries, following intense lobbying of the White House by America's pharmaceutical giants.
Faced with furious opposition from all the other 140 members of the World Trade Organization, the US refused to relax global patent laws which keep the price of drugs beyond the reach of most developing countries.
Talks at the WTO's Geneva headquarters collapsed last night after the White House ruled out a deal which would have permitted a full range of life-saving drugs to be imported to Africa, Asia and Latin-America at cut-price costs.
'The United States has announced that it cannot join the concensus'..." - Larry Elliot and Charlotte Denny, The Guardian, 12/21/2002
For the full text: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1221-01.htm
Bush's Christmas gift to the third world?...A big, fat "Fuck you!"
Merry Christmas.
"By raising the specter of nuclear use, President Bush is already defining the war he is about to initiate as a war without moral limit. Having imagined choices and consequences to that extent, alas, he does not seem to have considered what follow from an American return to the exercise of power by nuclear terror: a savage century. To his credit, though the president has given the world and his nation a fair description of what he imagines he might do. A fair warning, and not only to Hussein.
Have we heard it? On this Christmas Eve, which is nearly the eve of an aggressive American war, the nation goes down on its knees to pray for peace. We worship memories of our own virtue. What lies we tell ourselves! Santa Claus is coming tonight. We are the forces of good arrayed against evil. Yes, and Nixon's Christmas bombing brought us peace with honor." - James Carroll, The Boston Globe, 12/24/2002
In the face of President Bush's doctrine of preemption, his claims of Jesus being his "role model" ring hollow, especially at the celebration of Christ's birth. He, like so many others in both Democratic and Republican ranks, don the garb of sanctimonious piety so that they may appear as good and decent people. People who share a common set of values represented by the teachings of Jesus. But nothing could be further from the truth, they simply give a wink and a nod towards Christian values in order to secure the votes of those masses who fail to truly understand Christ's message of peace, tolerance and charity.
Being a Buddhist, I can only shake my head sadly, and wish them success on the path to enlightenment, for it seems certain that they will not reach it for many lifetimes yet.
I wish you, and the world, peace in the coming year.
Have we heard it? On this Christmas Eve, which is nearly the eve of an aggressive American war, the nation goes down on its knees to pray for peace. We worship memories of our own virtue. What lies we tell ourselves! Santa Claus is coming tonight. We are the forces of good arrayed against evil. Yes, and Nixon's Christmas bombing brought us peace with honor." - James Carroll, The Boston Globe, 12/24/2002
In the face of President Bush's doctrine of preemption, his claims of Jesus being his "role model" ring hollow, especially at the celebration of Christ's birth. He, like so many others in both Democratic and Republican ranks, don the garb of sanctimonious piety so that they may appear as good and decent people. People who share a common set of values represented by the teachings of Jesus. But nothing could be further from the truth, they simply give a wink and a nod towards Christian values in order to secure the votes of those masses who fail to truly understand Christ's message of peace, tolerance and charity.
Being a Buddhist, I can only shake my head sadly, and wish them success on the path to enlightenment, for it seems certain that they will not reach it for many lifetimes yet.
I wish you, and the world, peace in the coming year.