| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2005 July 13 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 9 Number 6 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Indian Ocean Rim Still Wrecked |
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Half a year after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami killed 178,000 people in 11 countries and left another 50,000 missing and presumed dead, Asian nations held ceremonies to mourn those lost, while survivors struggled to pick up the pieces. The pace of rebuilding has been slow and thousands of people remain homeless in spite of the $13 billon in aid pledges from around the world. The UN has said that reconstruction work across the whole affected region will take up to five years and could cost $9 billion.
India: Along its tsunami-battered eastern shore, fisherman Ravi Shankar burned incense sticks before a coconut sapling named after his niece, one of 207 trees planted and named in memory of children who died on this spot six months ago. Later in the day (June 26), about 1,000 children from India's hardest-hit Nagapattinam district planned a candlelight march. Some people in Nagapattinam were shunning memorials near the shore out of fear another tsunami might strike. Villagers on Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where 10,000 are thought to have died, have complained that not enough is being done six months on. Oxfam said that much of the international aid donated after the tragedy was distributed among wealthy landowners instead of to those worst hit. Sri Lanka: A deal with Tamil Tiger rebels to distribute aid in guerrilla-held areas wasn't signed until late June. The two camps agreed to share Sri Lanka's international aid to ensure that Tamil-controlled areas would not be overlooked. The scale of the tragedy continues to haunt survivors, many of whom have yet to rebuild their homes and lives. In the rebel-controlled Vakarai hamlet near the eastern city of Batticaloa, volunteers collected debris for an exhibition to mark the anniversary. School bags, books, shoes, tea cups, even television parts scattered by the waves were taken to the area's government school. Organizers said the exhibition would help survivors work through their suppressed pain. Indonesia: At a ceremony in Banda Aceh on June 25, Bo Apslund, coordinator of UN relief efforts in Aceh, insisted that victims were now seeing real improvements in their situation. "We're at a stage now [that] within the next month or so we'll really begin to see recovery and reconstruction changes physically in Aceh." Aid and reconstruction in the country, where at least 128,000 people died and bodies are still being found, has been hampered by concerns over corruption and domestic political concerns. But Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, Indonesia's aid director for Aceh and Nias, where another deadly earthquake struck in March, said $2.8 billion had been released by international donors. Signs of hope filled the grounds of the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh as wedding parties took place throughout the provincial capital. But attendance at Koran classes, said teacher Mutia Wati, numbers only 250 a day, down from a pre-wave 850 to 1,000. Malaysia: The death toll here was 68. Aid has been slow to reach the affected coastal areas. Thailand: The southern tourist beaches, once thronged with foreigners, were eerily quiet on the half-anniversary, with luggage still buried in the sand and posters for missing victims hanging on palm trees as somber reminders. A British forensic team is continuing a grim effort to identify up to 2,000 victims. In the Khao Lak resort area, once crowded with tourists, only a few visitors could be found. Partly buried bags and clothes wrapped around driftwood littered the beach. At the country's top tourist destination, Phuket, visitor arrivals have plunged and hotel vacancies have soared. Source: BBC Source: Associated Press |
| Disney Personality Promotes American Aggression |
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Disney/ABC radio personality Paul Harvey, one of the most widely listened to commentators in the US, shocked listeners on June 23 with this:
He began by lamenting the decline of American wartime aggression: "We're standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive because we've declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies -- more moral, more civilized." Drawing a contrast with what he cast as the praiseworthy nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Harvey said, "We sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq and kept our best weapons in their silos," suggesting that America should have used its nuclear arsenal in its invasions of both countries. In conclusion: "We didn't come this far because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever. "And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which, feeling guilty about their savage pasts, eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy." The Disney/ABC media conglomerate syndicates Harvey to more than 1,000 radio stations, where he reaches an estimated 18 million listeners. Disney recently signed a 10-year, $100 million contract with the 86-year-old commentator. To Respond: ABC Radio Networks |
| Trade Deal Far From Free |
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The Central America Free Trade Agreement is likely to destroy far more Central American and Dominican jobs in farming than it creates in maquiladoras (factories). NAFTA barely created enough manufacturing jobs in Mexico to keep pace with lost agricultural jobs, according to a Carnegie Endowment report, and Mexico started with a much lower percentage of its population working on farms. Central America will have to compete for factory work with China, where labor is even cheaper and where more and more garment jobs are headed now that WTO restrictions are killing the previous national quota system.
Without manufacturing jobs, many of the displaced Central American campesinos are likely to risk the dangerous desert crossing of the militarized US border. CAFTA will have given them the desperate choice to leave their families or watch them starve. Meanwhile, US workers will be forced to swallow more pay cuts by employers who threaten to export their jobs. What about the displaced campesinos who do find work in maquiladoras? According to a report which the Labor Department commissioned (and then kept secret for a year), labor laws and sanctions in Central America are inadequate to prevent workers from being fired or worse whenever they try to unionize. CAFTA simply requires member nations to enforce their own laws, so it's no step forward. In this "free trade" deal, trade is not free: While CAFTA lowers trade barriers to agribusiness, it prevents free trade in generic medicines by enforcing new monopoly rights for drug companies -- privileges that surpass WTO patent protections, threaten low-cost drugs for impoverished AIDS patients, and expose the world to public health disaster. The decade after NAFTA saw a rise in income inequality in Mexico and in the US. Let's not repeat this mistake in Central America and the Dominican Republic. To Act Against CAFTA: Stop CAFTA! |
| The Prosperity Heresy |
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Adapted from a piece by George Marshall:
The prosperity doctrine that is being spread by some televangelists and a few Pentecostal factions is outright heresy. I wish that sound Bible teachers would win the day on the airwaves and in our churches so erroneous teachings like this would not be propagated. But this is America, after all, the land of the greedy and the home of the grave, where preaching a cosmic bellhop who makes one rich draws a bigger crowd than sermons about a King who commands us to surrender all, empty ourselves, deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him. A Savior, God Himself, emptied Himself 2,000 years ago and became the stepson of a poor carpenter. Mary and Joseph were upstanding and holy but of humble means. We would call them poor. Jesus at 30 became an itinerant preacher, walking from town to town. It appears that He was homeless, as He Himself said: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Luke 9:58) He was poor, too: Once He had to perform a miracle to pay the Temple tax for Himself and Peter. (Mat. 17:24-27) Now if Jesus was poor and homeless, is it right to say that God was not the center of His life? Of course not! Were the apostles rich? No again. Read Acts. Paul had to take up a collection for the failing church in Jerusalem. Read Paul's letters. He didn't fare much better, but he sets the example for the real Christian when he writes, "Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need." (Phil. 4:12,13) Now Paul was poor a good deal of the time. Was His life not Christ-centered? Seems pretty focused to me. So exactly what was Jesus' position on the pursuit of material wealth? "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." (Mat. 6:19) "Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. ... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Lk. 12:15,34) Here's another tip: If you give in order to realize a heavy return on some investment you are making in the Kingdom, God will not honor your offering. If offerings are not given with a clean and cheerful heart for the purpose of blessing God, they are unacceptable. How anyone could dare to try to manipulate God with feeble little pennies makes me shudder. I have studied and observed first-hand that, more times than not, wealth is a stumbling-block to people who seek Christ. The most Christ-like people I know are almost all of limited means. I am presently a man of limited means myself, but you know what? Life is simpler this way. I don't have accounts and possessions to trip me up. I "seek first the Kingdom", and God supplies my needs. My bills are always paid. I always have enough food, a few creature comforts, and a little mad money. I don't need my offerings to be multiplied. God has already granted me happiness, so why would I run the sweaty race for riches when I already have what the racers ultimately seek? Source: ChristiansOfNewJersey |
| Tuition Break for Illegal Aliens Survives Challenge |
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A Kansas law provides in-state tuition to illegal aliens. On July 5, Judge Richard Rogers of Topeka dismissed a lawsuit challenging that law. Rogers said the plaintiffs -- 24 out-of-state students and their parents at Kansas universities -- were not harmed by it.
The plaintiffs' attorney, University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Kris Kobach, says Kansas is one of nine states violating a 1996 act of Congress which said no state can give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. "The judge's decision is somewhat troubling," he says. "He's claiming that US citizens suffer no injury when illegal aliens are given subsidized tuition, even though the US citizens' tuition goes up to compensate for the tuition break given to the illegal aliens." The attorney, who was former US Attorney General John Ashcroft's chief advisor on immigration law enforcement, says the Kansas law not only rewards lawbreakers but also forces citizens of the state to subsidize the tuition of those who are breaking the law. "It's just unfair to make so many US citizens who are working hard, mortgaging themselves to the hilt, and really having a tough time paying for college ... pay even more just so some illegal aliens can have a subsidized tuition," Kobach exclaims. "So it's a pretty hard argument to swallow ... that somehow there's a compassion-based reason to provide this subsidy." "The judge has ignored evidence of severe financial strain on the affected law-abiding families, the plain language and intention of federal law, and the brazen appearance of unfairness such an unjust result would seem to suggest," says David Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The Kansas law, he adds, "treat[s] illegal aliens even better than legal, nonimmigrant students." Source: AgapePress |
| # LNN # Small # Hauls # |
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| Life-Net News Extra |
| Operation Weed and Seed: Social Cleansing |
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Operation Weed and Seed is a joint federal, state, and local coordinated law enforcement and community investment initiative sponsored by the US Department of Justice under the local leadership of the Office of the Mayor and the US Attorney. It's a multi-agency strategy that weeds out socially undesirable people living in local communities. Local steering committees are formed that decide how best to accomplish this weeding out process.
These local steering committees consist of the US Attorney, private business owners, union representatives, residents (including youth and elderly), corporations, police chiefs, religious groups, school administrators, teachers, nonprofit leaders, prosecutors, military outreach staff, etc. Harassment groups have been equipped with sophisticated surveillance technology and non-lethal weapons to target undesirable people living in communities. Military and police technology has been given to private citizens who are members of these harassment groups. The groups are using this technology to place people considered undesirable by the communities under surveillance and attack them with non-lethal weapons. People with mental disabilities may be prime targets for these harassment groups, which may be the direct result of operation Weed and Seed. The government and military connection is there, and so are the funds. A person's race, sexual orientation, past history, mental state, political views, attitude, or ideas can make him or her a target of these groups. They operate above the law, so they are free to target anyone they desire. They're a magnet for racist cops who blame minorities for America's woes. They must be investigated. More: Sound Weapon |
| Rules for a Fun Workplace |
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| Most material here is adapted, not quoted. Views expressed do not |
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