Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Spanky]

Republicans turn into Protectionists? Not if I can help it.

For once Rangel is on the right side and Thomas is dropping the ball....


:brick:


A Small Step With Big Consequences

The renewal of a central provision of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, coupled with a new trade benefit for Haiti and renewal of a broader developing-country program known as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is under threat. The bill is a rarity these days, earning support from most Democrats and most Republicans. Though less generous than a Democratic proposal introduced two weeks ago, it can be improved in time and is likely to do some good for some of the world's poorest people. But now the House Republicans seem to be giving up on the idea.

AGOA was one of the unquestioned trade policy successes of the late 1990s. Launched at the inspiration of President Clinton and Representatives Charles Rangel (D-NY), and Jim McDermott (D-WA), it provides duty-free treatment for African-made clothes, flowers, manufactures, and hundreds of other products. Its result has been the creation of jobs for as many as 300,000 young African women, some extra money for African farmers, and footholds in the global economy for some countries that most need it, such as Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland, who are struggling (as a recent PPI trade fact observes) with one of the world's most devastating AIDS epidemics. AGOA has also been of great benefit to countries like Ghana and Uganda, who are examples of stability and good governance, along with larger countries like Kenya and South Africa as well.

But one of the major AGOA benefits -- the right for African factories to buy cloth from worldwide sources and use it in duty- free clothing -- is soon to expire. Much of the continent's industrial growth could vanish with it. Congress should not let this happen. For Americans the imports the program involves are tiny, amounting to about $6 billion out of $2 trillion in annual imports.
For Africans they mean hope.

There should be little controversy over the renewal of this program; nor over an associated bill to give Haiti -- the poorest country in the western hemisphere -- a comparable benefit. We now note with dismay that while House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) pledged to pass both before the end of this Congress, the House leadership suddenly pulled it off the schedule at the beginning of this week. The apparent reason is a letter from a small group of Republican House members apparently afraid that textile mills in their districts cannot compete against Haiti and Swaziland.

That's no excuse for irresponsible inaction on this legislation. We urge the House leadership to bring up the package, and both the House and Senate to act upon them quickly. As Rep. Rangel aptly says, "emergency continuation of trade benefits to Haiti, African and other developing countries is more important than politics."
For its part, the Bush administration -- struggling in any case with trade policy, after the July collapse of the WTO's Doha Round -- should be insisting that its congressional allies get the job done, and soon.

:poke:

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Wow. Such a high level of ignorance on so many fronts. Proof once again that no religious or political perspective has a monopoly on stupidity.

Are you referring to Hitchens or Benedict?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Are you referring to Hitchens or Benedict?

Hitchens there. Benedict displayed a number of issues of his own in his speech, but Hitchens really one-upped him there.

[Spanky]

Another view of Mother Theresa....

Mommie Dearest
The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Oct. 20, 2003, at 4:04 PM ET
Mother Teresa: No saint

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism.

It's the sheer tawdriness that strikes the eye first of all. It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope nominated MT a year after her death in 1997. It also used to be that an apparatus of inquiry was set in train, including the scrutiny of an advocatus diaboli or "devil's advocate," to test any extraordinary claims. The pope has abolished this office and has created more instant saints than all his predecessors combined as far back as the 16th century.

As for the "miracle" that had to be attested, what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery. A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine. Was he interviewed by the Vatican's investigators? No. (As it happens, I myself was interviewed by them but only in the most perfunctory way. The procedure still does demand a show of consultation with doubters, and a show of consultation was what, in this case, it got.)

According to an uncontradicted report in the Italian paper L'Eco di Bergamo, the Vatican's secretary of state sent a letter to senior cardinals in June, asking on behalf of the pope whether they favored making MT a saint right away. The pope's clear intention has been to speed the process up in order to perform the ceremony in his own lifetime. The response was in the negative, according to Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who has acted as postulator or advocate for the "canonization." But the damage, to such integrity as the process possesses, has already been done.

During the deliberations over the Second Vatican Council, under the stewardship of Pope John XXIII, MT was to the fore in opposing all suggestions of reform. What was needed, she maintained, was more work and more faith, not doctrinal revision. Her position was ultra-reactionary and fundamentalist even in orthodox Catholic terms. Believers are indeed enjoined to abhor and eschew abortion, but they are not required to affirm that abortion is "the greatest destroyer of peace," as MT fantastically asserted to a dumbfounded audience when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize*. Believers are likewise enjoined to abhor and eschew divorce, but they are not required to insist that a ban on divorce and remarriage be a part of the state constitution, as MT demanded in a referendum in Ireland (which her side narrowly lost) in 1996. Later in that same year, she told Ladies Home Journal that she was pleased by the divorce of her friend Princess Diana, because the marriage had so obviously been an unhappy one …

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.

One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith, and the cult of a mediocre human personality. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

:shrug:

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Another view of Mother Theresa....

Mommie Dearest
The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Oct. 20, 2003, at 4:04 PM ET
Mother Teresa: No saint

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism.

It's the sheer tawdriness that strikes the eye first of all. It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope nominated MT a year after her death in 1997. It also used to be that an apparatus of inquiry was set in train, including the scrutiny of an advocatus diaboli or "devil's advocate," to test any extraordinary claims. The pope has abolished this office and has created more instant saints than all his predecessors combined as far back as the 16th century.

As for the "miracle" that had to be attested, what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery. A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine. Was he interviewed by the Vatican's investigators? No. (As it happens, I myself was interviewed by them but only in the most perfunctory way. The procedure still does demand a show of consultation with doubters, and a show of consultation was what, in this case, it got.)

According to an uncontradicted report in the Italian paper L'Eco di Bergamo, the Vatican's secretary of state sent a letter to senior cardinals in June, asking on behalf of the pope whether they favored making MT a saint right away. The pope's clear intention has been to speed the process up in order to perform the ceremony in his own lifetime. The response was in the negative, according to Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who has acted as postulator or advocate for the "canonization." But the damage, to such integrity as the process possesses, has already been done.

During the deliberations over the Second Vatican Council, under the stewardship of Pope John XXIII, MT was to the fore in opposing all suggestions of reform. What was needed, she maintained, was more work and more faith, not doctrinal revision. Her position was ultra-reactionary and fundamentalist even in orthodox Catholic terms. Believers are indeed enjoined to abhor and eschew abortion, but they are not required to affirm that abortion is "the greatest destroyer of peace," as MT fantastically asserted to a dumbfounded audience when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize*. Believers are likewise enjoined to abhor and eschew divorce, but they are not required to insist that a ban on divorce and remarriage be a part of the state constitution, as MT demanded in a referendum in Ireland (which her side narrowly lost) in 1996. Later in that same year, she told Ladies Home Journal that she was pleased by the divorce of her friend Princess Diana, because the marriage had so obviously been an unhappy one …

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.

One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith, and the cult of a mediocre human personality. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

:shrug:

If you keep this anti-Catholic skree up, Spanks, I'm going to torch the nearest Serbian Church.

[Shape Shifter]

Spanky, because you're interested in reading the opinions of those with knowledge on the subject, I thought you might be interested in this letter, sent to the Judiciary Committee by former intellegence officials from the CIA, FBI, Army, Air Force, and Department of State.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
If you keep this anti-Catholic skree up, Spanks, I'm going to torch the nearest Serbian Church.

I thought these articles were interesting. I didn't realize that Hitchen's had it in for the Catholic Church. If you have a problem with something he said, why don't you explain it to us. Point out where the flaw in his logic is. General criticisms might be appropriate for the FB but not here.

Either pick a line of reasoning and dispute it or just shut the hell up.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
I thought these articles were interesting. I didn't realize that Hitchen's had it in for the Catholic Church. If you have a problem with something he said, why don't you explain it to us. Point out where the flaw in his logic is. General criticisms might be appropriate for the FB but not here.

Either pick a line of reasoning and dispute it or just shut the hell up.

Wow. I thought you were posting them to display what a fool he is.

Here goes:

He pretends that the word Logos can mean either "the word" or "reason," which it can in Greek but never does in the Bible, where it is presented as heavenly truth.

Well, let's see. Disagreeing with this position I have (i) the Pope; (ii) my Greek professors (two different ones, both athiestic as hell and damn good scholars); (iii) my Religion professor; and (iv) the Priest (Episcopal - I've since converted) who confirmed me. But, apparently, Hitchens' knowledge of Biblical Greek is Infalliable.

He mentions Kant and Descartes in passing, leaves out Spinoza and Hume entirely,

I didn't realize the Pope was required to name all Western Philosophers fast - it should have been a longer speach!

and dishonestly tries to make it seem as if religion and the Enlightenment and science are ultimately compatible, when the whole effort of free inquiry always had to be asserted, at great risk, against the fantastic illusion of "revealed" truth and its all-too-earthly human potentates.

Has he missed the last century and a half of Catholic theology? It's nice to know he thinks religion is bunk and the Enlightenment is the balls. But, uh, so what?

So, there's the idiocy expressed in two sentences of his skree. But the rest is more of the same.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Spanky, because you're interested in reading the opinions of those with knowledge on the subject, I thought you might be interested in this letter, sent to the Judiciary Committee by former intellegence officials from the CIA, FBI, Army, Air Force, and Department of State.

Its a powerful letter but it is almost completely based on the fact that torture doesn't work. It seems that it did on that Mohammed guy. If torture does work these guys would be better off admitting that and saying that even if it does sometimes work the costs outweigh the benefit.

Of course if torture does not work there is no reaso to use it, but I am not convinced of that. If these guys had taken a specific example of where it was claimed to work and why it didn't I would be more inclined to believe them.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Its a powerful letter but it is almost completely based on the fact that torture doesn't work. It seems that it did on that Mohammed guy. If torture does work these guys would be better off admitting that and saying that even if it does sometimes work the costs outweigh the benefit.

Of course if torture does not work there is no reaso to use it, but I am not convinced of that. If these guys had taken a specific example of where it was claimed to work and why it didn't I would be more inclined to believe them.

It worked on Savanarolla. He confessed to heretical views after just a few days of torture.

As a matter of fact, I think it was a remarkably effective tool for the Inquisition in general. Think of how many people confessed their errors and were saved thanks to torture!

I believe Stalin used torture to similar effect.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
It worked on Savanarolla. He confessed to heretical views after just a few days of torture.

As a matter of fact, I think it was a remarkably effective tool for the Inquisition in general. Think of how many people confessed their errors and were saved thanks to torture!

I believe Stalin used torture to similar effect.

why can't we bring liquids on planes?

because a captured AQ guy, while tortured, gave up the plot. 6 or 7 planes could have blown up a few weeks ago. you making your funny jokes just shows why people who think like you can't be in charge of much anymore.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
why can't we bring liquids on planes?

because a captured AQ guy, while tortured, gave up the plot. 6 or 7 planes could have blown up a few weeks ago. you making your funny jokes just shows why people who think like you can't be in charge of much anymore.

Fact check time -- my understanding was that the information about the plot came from a British agent infiltrating not from the use of torture. Cite please?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Has he missed the last century and a half of Catholic theology? It's nice to know he thinks religion is bunk and the Enlightenment is the balls. But, uh, so what?

So, there's the idiocy expressed in two sentences of his skree. But the rest is more of the same.

Here is my opinion of the Catholic Church. From a practical point of view the Catholic Church is a force for good all over the world. It was very helpful in fighting communism and has played an extremely important role in defending human rights in Latin America. In fact, withithout the Catholic Church human rights abuses would have been and would be much worse everywhere in the world. The Catholic Church has also done much to pick up the slack created by our screwed up public schools across the nation.

The major negative influcence of the Catholic Church is its position on contraception. And unfortunately many people in Latin America follow the church teachings on this. Even worse has been the church's position effecting the spread of AIDS in Africa. That is a big negative but the positive definitely outweights the negative.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Here is my opinion of the Catholic Church. From a practical point of view the Catholic Church is a force for good all over the world. It was very helpful in fighting communism and has played an extremely important role in defending human rights in Latin America. In fact, withithout the Catholic Church human rights abuses would have been and would be much worse everywhere in the world. The Catholic Church has also done much to pick up the slack created by our screwed up public schools across the nation.

The major negative influcence of the Catholic Church is its position on contraception. And unfortunately many people in Latin America follow the church teachings on this. Even worse has been the church's position effecting the spread of AIDS in Africa. That is a big negative but the positive definitely outweights the negative.

Aww, come on. I want to see you defend Hitchens now.

I should have known that when you changed the subject to defend torture rather than Hitchens you had soured on the guy.

I hope I helped you see the light.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Spanky
Even worse has been the church's position effecting the spread of AIDS in Africa.

Heh. Does this make the Church a racist fuck?