American Views Abroad

 
To say the world is in a mess is an understatement. At times wherever you turn, the news overwhelms. A 10 year old gets kidnapped, held as a slave in a good neighborhood in a
civilized, cultured city and nobody, but nobody notices anything for eight long years.
She weighs 42 kilos at age 18 and not one neighbor thought about talking to another one about who that girl might be and why was she there? How much of this story will be revealed over time and how much kept under wraps to protect all those who could not or would not notice or failed to do their jobs properly?

Keeping things under wrap is, of course, a speciality of politicians in general whatever their stripes. Take the fact that those last minute phone conversations of 9/11 are being kept from the public. Garrison Keillor on Hear the Voices of 9/11 writes:

In the end, what we crave is reality. The woman crying on the 83rd floor was real. Our countrymen died real deaths on a warm September morning, and then, to avenge them, even more have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. In our hearts, we know we're on the wrong road, the road to unreality, but the man says to stay the course. And now, as November nears, congressmen who have supported the war, no questions asked, find it convenient to admit to having 'questions' about it. 'We are facing a difficult situation' they say. They are 'troubled'. The woman who cried on the 83rd floor was more than troubled. She saw death. It is indecent for New York to stifle the voices of the people in the tower. The congressmen who deal so casually with life and death ought to sit down and listen to those phone calls.
www.commondreams.org/views06/0824-28.htm.

Keeping this close to home in New York where Senator Clinton is up for re-election, few are probably aware that she has an opponent in the primary on September 12th. Senator Clinton doesn't find it necessary to debate her opponent. Why? He isn't a multi-millionaire with tons of money to throw around nor has he giant corporations behind him. Just a rather 'normal' citizen running for office which could put him on the endangered species list these days. Read Jeff Cohen’s Hillary Still Hiding on the War; Time Warner Provides Cover at www.commondreams.org/views06/0824-33.htm

Yesterday, Women's Equality Day, commemorated the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution which gave American women full voting rights in 1920. Read the history of how women gained the right to vote, a short history of how overseas citizens gained to right to vote in Federal elections and some statistics on how many women have been elected and are running for office. There is also a link on how to register to vote via the Overseas Voting Foundation.
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=32558&name=Tea+%96+4+%96+2+%96+Vote
- posted by Gloria @ 4:56 PM