5
POPSNYT: US aid spending/GNP worst of developed nations "aggregate aid budget of the most developed nations amounts to 0.28 percent of their gross national income … The United States, shamefully, is at the bottom of the list, spending 0.16 percent of its income on development assistance"
18
POPSWhat percent of US budget goes to foreign aid? Most Americans drastically over-estimate it. Despite laudable recent increases in US giving to poverty, US aid as a percent of personal income is second to last among wealthy nations; most of that doesn't go to the poorest countries. We give about 25 cents per American per day ] day in foreign aid; with private giving, another dime. It's a lot, because there are a lot of us. But it's far behind the level of sacrifice made by people in most developed nations.
2
POPSThe Bush Doctrine: Preventive, Not Pre-emptive War While Krauthammer (neoconservative columnist) desperately covers for Palin in the aftermath of the ABC Gibson interview Robert Schlesinger gets it right. Palin and Gibson were both wrong, and Palin not even close. His playground analogy makes it clear and that the neocons have confused "pre-emptive war" with "preventive" demonstrates the difference between just and unjust war. For the record, Charles Gibson didn't get the Bush Doctrine right either. But at least, unlike Sarah Palin, he had an idea of what he was talking about (a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for the last six years). Read the full article. Recall Ron Paul's excellent line in the republican debates about America's greatest moral problem: "We in the past have always declared war in the defense of our liberties or go to aid of somebody... But now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war — we have rejected the Just War theory of Christianity. [/q
5
POPSMystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World
(cont.)The U.S. government has subsidized this flight of capital by granting corporations tax concessions on their overseas investments, and even paying some of their relocation expenses---much to the outrage of labor unions here at home who see their jobs evaporating. The transnationals push out local businesses in the Third World and preempt their markets. American agribusiness cartels, heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, dump surplus products in other countries at below cost and undersell local farmers. As Christopher Cook describes it in his Diet for a Dead Planet, they expropriate the best land in these countries for cash-crop exports, usually monoculture crops requiring large amounts of pesticides, leaving less and less acreage for the hundreds of varieties of organically grown foods that feed the local populations. By displacing local populations from their lands and robbing them of their self-sufficiency, corporations create overcrowded labor markets of desperate people
2
POPS$99 million health aid Personally I think this money would be better spent at home to cure our own health care crisis. This is an enormous amount of money to be giving to another country when we have our own problems to fix!
6
POPSBush Wants $1 Billion to Georgia for Attacking South Ossetia The NYT finally admits that Georgia was the aggressor: "fighting that began on the night of Aug. 7 when Georgia tried to establish control over a breakaway region, South Ossetia, only to be driven back by Russian forces". And to put that $1 billion figure in perspective the articles says: The aid would dwarf the $63 million the United States provided to Georgia last year, roughly a third of it for training its soldiers, police officers and border guards. Excluding Iraq, the infusion would make Georgia one of the largest recipients of American foreign aid after Israel and Egypt. That Dick Cheney was "sent" by Bush is indicative of the neocon agenda. Georgia did not attack without US or Israeli knowledge, but with their full support. So in essence, the US is to pay $1billion to Georgia for a defeated military invasion and attempt to capture South Ossetia--i.e. for a proxy war.
3
POPSUN: Georgians Effectively Blocked from Homes On Saturday, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the chamber's foreign relations committee, visited Gori to observe the distribution of U.S. food aid. Asked whether the United States was considering new military aid, Corker said "these subjects are part of a longer and mid-term discussion" when Congress reconvenes in September. Russia supplies the EU with about a third of its oil and about two-fifths of its natural gas. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said European nations should adopt a united energy policy to avoid becoming too dependent on Russia. He said the EU nations should "use our collective bargaining power." "Without urgent action we risk sleepwalking into an energy dependance on less stable or reliable partners," Brown wrote in The Observer newspaper. Brown said he spoke with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by telephone Saturday, and told the Russian leader "to expect a determined European response" to the crisis.
5
POPSEU Leaders To Discuss Georgia As Russia Flouts West French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that Russia could face a deterioration of relations with Europe, Moscow's largest trading partner, including ties involving energy, Russia's main export. Most of the troops left Friday, but Moscow retained its peacekeepers in Kremlin-defined security zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "They are trying to keep instruments to suffocate Georgia and create further trouble at any moment," said Giga Bokeria, Georgia's deputy foreign minister. In Ukraine, meanwhile, pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko said the conflict in Georgia showed his country needed to accelerate its bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, speaking at a military parade in honor of Ukraine's independence. Russia opposes the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, which the Kremlin views as an anti-Russian bloc.
3
POPSTurn Off Foreign Aid? The next administration should also immediately reduce U.S. support for international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations and the World Bank, which have programs that discourage economic growth.
1
POPSWhat are Political Philosophies? # Anarchism fails to minimize coercion because it favors liberty's theoretical inviolability over its practical protection. Anarchism fails to * Prevent coercion by strong persons and aggressive foreign states * Prevent aggressive use or pollution of unowned resources * Prevent unfair treatment of creditors by bankrupt debtors * Regulate natural monopolies * Prevent anti-competitive artificial monopolies * Provide aid and sustenance to the indigent * Prevent torture and extinction of organisms
7
POPSMcCain is Rapidly Emerging as the 3 A.M. President
In contrast, Barack Obama was all over the map, first equivocating Georgia and Russia as equally at fault and calling like a tired parent for all sides to just stop,making no moral distinction between an invader state and a nation invaded. "Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and avoid escalation into a full scale war," he said. It was a call for peace at any price, and implied that if Georgia should take exception to a foreign invasion, its self-defense was culpable. Jimmy Carter would be so proud. Obama then lazily called on the U.N. to take care of the problem, which ignores the U.N.'s long record of inaction. All the same, turning it over to the U.N. conveniently extricates the U.S. from any responsibility to an ally and shields Obama from peace lobby criticism. Obviously, one candidate has a superior sense of America's strategic interests and the emerging threats over the other, and Russia's invasion of Georgia has laid it out starkly.
6
POPS No Reprieve For Texas Death-Row Inmate Medellín Mr. Medellín, a Mexican citizen, confessed to police within three hours of his arrest but contends he was never afforded his rights under the long-standing Vienna Convention. The treaty guarantees foreign citizens a right to receive legal aid from their consulates when they are detained in another country.
2
POPSPickens Gives New Meaning To Self-Government At Pickens’ behest, the Texas legislature changed state law to allow the two residents of an 8-acre parcel of land in Roberts County to vote to create a municipal water district, a government agency with eminent domain powers. Who were the voters? They were Pickens’ wife and the manager of Pickens’ nearby ranch. And who sits on the board of directors of this water district? They are the parcel’s three other non-resident landowners, all Pickens’ employees. What’s this got to do with Pickens’ wind-power plan? Just as he needs pipelines to sell his water, he also needs transmission lines to sell his wind-generated power. Rights of way for transmission lines are also acquired through eminent domain -- and, once again, the Texas legislature has come to Pickens’ aid. Earlier this year, Texas changed its law to allow renewable energy projects (like Pickens’ wind farm) to obtain rights-of-way by piggybacking on a water district’s eminent domain power.
2
POPSKerry: ‘Al-Qaida Leadership Is More Capable of Attacking Today’ “So looking at all these conflicts, the big picture is this – focusing on winning a war of ideas as opposed to just killing terrorists, will not only enable us to defeat our enemies, it will restore our ability to have a positive impact on change in other areas,” Kerry said. “All of these things are connected,” according to Kerry. “ lobal climate change, AIDS, the efforts with respect to failed states, counter-narcotics efforts, consistency on human rights and understanding and defining the real relationship with the nation of Islam (sic) and our leadership role with respect to our values.” For Mr. Obama has often suggested that this is also his approach. Except that he would probably quadruple the amount of “aid” we would send the terrorists. Since, after all, terrorism is a direct result of all of the poverty in the Middle East. Just ask the billionaire Bin Laden.
1
POPSHard Power / Soft Power - Krauthammer
Solemn condemnations have been issued from every forum of soft-power fecklessness — the EU, the U.N., the G-8 foreign ministers — demanding that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stop butchering his opponents and step down. Before that, the cause du jour was Burma, where a vicious dictatorship allowed thousands of cyclone victims to die by denying them independently delivered foreign aid, lest it weaken the junta’s grip on power. And then there is Darfur, a perennial for which myriad diplomats and foreign-policy experts have devoted uncountable hours at the finest five-star hotels to deplore the genocide and urgently urge relief. What is done to free these people? Nothing. And who’s going to intervene? The only country that could is the country that in the last two decades led coalitions that liberated Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Having sacrificed much blood and treasure in its latest endeavor — the liberation of 25 million Iraqis from the most barbarous tyranny of all
5
POPSThe Luckiest Girl "The cash from the milk accumulated, and Beatrice’s parents decided that they could now afford to send their daughter to school. She was much older than the other first graders, but she was so overjoyed that she studied diligently and rose to be the best student in the school. An American visiting the school was impressed and wrote a children’s book, “Beatrice’s Goat,” about how the gift of a goat had enabled a bright girl to go to school. The book was published in 2000 and became a children’s best seller — but there is now room for a more remarkable sequel. Beatrice was such an outstanding student that she won a scholarship, not only to Uganda’s best girls’ high school, but also to a prep school in Massachusetts and then to Connecticut College. A group of 20 donors to Heifer International — coordinated by a retired staff member named Rosalee Sinn, who fell in love with Beatrice when she saw her at age 10 — financed the girl’s living expenses.
1
POPSHomeless of Frisco to receive Chinese aid... USA taxpayers can now heave a sigh of relief... and let their Govt. continue spending on the wars abroad... Foreign capital will look after their poor.... Apparently that's what the Economic shuffling game is all about....?
2
POPSIn Espionage Trial of Ex-Aipac Employees, Appeals Court Sets High Bar for Prosecution Court Says AIPAC spies cannot be convicted unless they "had a bad-faith reason to believe the disclosures could be used to the injury of the United States or to the aid of a foreign nation." Wow, the courts sold us out to Israel once again. Whose damn country is this anyway. the older I get the more likely answer seems to be Israel's country, not ours. We prosecute spies all the time, but if they happen to be from Israel the courts just step in and decide arbitrarily to make it harder than usual.
1
POPSA third of all US aid goes to Israel more than to any other nation. Our tax dollars in action, being shipped over seas to help a foreign country that needs less aid than countries like Africa. 10-15 million dollars a day to Israel! And don't you dare question it citizen or we'll brandish you anti-Semitic. Which begs the question, what other countries/races get their own term for begrudging them? If you talk disparagingly about Jews you are anti-Semitic. What are you if you talk bad about the Danes, or the Australians, or Asians? Ponder how odd it is to cherry-pick which races get terms like this and what power that carries and to whose benefit.
9
POPSWas He Lying Then Or Now? I knew Barack Obama for many years as my state senator—when he used to attend events in the Palestinian community in Chicago all the time. I remember personally introducing him onstage in 1999, when we had a major community fundraiser for the community center in Deheisha refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. I have been proud to be a part of a strong, bipartisan consensus that has stood by Israel in the face of all threats... I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world. Lie: In January 2008, a Palestinian activist named Ali Abunimah described Barack Obama’s overnight switch from Pro-Palestinian activist to supporter of Israel.
5
POPSBill Richardson on foreign policy since he may be Obama's VP, and this guy has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 5 times, here's his bio http://www.governor.state.nm.us/governor.php
0
POPSTell world leaders to ACT on the food crisis PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION "The head of the UN, Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, will receive our petition at the summit at 9:30AM on Wednesday morning. This is a huge opportunity for our voice to reach our leaders directly, but we need half a million voices heard. Sign the petition below, and watch the video appeal at right from the Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone, one of the world's worst hit nations. "
2
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update