Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Gli USA sono una democrazia?

Nella stessa settimana in cui e' stato pubblicato l'articolo sotto, il
senato USA ha votato, all'unanimita', 100 A ZERO, di dare a Bush 82
miliardi di dollari da spendere in Iraq.       Risolvere i problemi di
cui parla questo articolo richiederebbe circa un ventesimo di questa
somma.
Se il governo degli USA riflette l'opinione pubblica, significa che il
100% degli Americani pensa che risolvere il problema dei propri
concittadini che patiscono la fame non vale un ventesimo dei fondi da
gettare via in Iraq.
Ovviamente, non e' cosi' (francamente, sarebbe razzista pensare che e'
cosi').
Il che fa concludere l'ovvio, e cioe' che il senato che ha votato gli
82 miliardi e' rappresentativo esattamente quanto il Soviet Supremo
bulgaro.
Ero in Arizona durante la campagna per il congresso nel 2002.
L'opponente
al congressista in carica (Jim Kolbe, repubblicano) gli ha chiesto,
durante un dibattito, come giustifica il suo voto per la guerra
considerato che il 95% delle chiamate che il suo uffuicio ha ricevuto
erano contrarie.
Il congressista ha risposto che non puo' certo basare le sue decisioni
su cio' che dicono i cittadini che telefonano al suo ufficio.
Coincidentalmente, Kolbe aveva circa 10 volte i fondi elettorali della
sua avversaria.
E, sempre coincidentalmente, ha vinto.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/print/the_cruelest_cuts/
As Congress haggles over food stamp cuts, soup kitchens fear longer
lines
By Mark Winne May 2, 2005
The line for food starts forming at 7:30 each morning. Mostly women,
many
small children and some single men are shaking off daybreak's chill
hoping
to be one of the first 100 people let into the Storehouse, New Mexico's
largest emergency food pantry. It isn't that this free food
distribution
center, located just off Albuquerque's historic Route 66, is stingy;
it's
just that the Storehouse has enough donated food to feed only 100
families
per day.
"In 1999, we served the equivalent of 200,000 meals each year," says
Lee
Maynard, the Storehouse's executive director. "Right now, we're serving
1.4
million meals per year, 45 percent more than last year. Things are
getting
worse." And if the Republican majority in the U.S. House of
Representatives
has its way with essential safety net services like the food stamp
program,
things will be getting much worse for Maynard and thousands of his
counterparts at emergency food sites across the nation.
To comply with President Bush's budget proposal, which includes tax
cuts for
the wealthy and more money for the Iraq war, both houses of Congress
issued
separate budget resolutions that prescribe how much money each of its
committees must cut. Where those cuts will come from is up to the
respective
committees. For instance, the House and Senate agriculture committees
oversee tens of billions of dollars in expenditures for programs like
conservation, food stamps and crop subsidies for commodities like corn,
wheat and cotton. According to their respective resolutions, the Senate
Agriculture Committee is required to cut $2.8 billion over five years
from
these programs while the more aggressive House must chop $5.3 billion.
Whatever differences emerge between the two committee's budgets-and
there
will be differences-will be resolved by a House and Senate conference
committee.
So where will the cuts come from? The president's budget showed
uncommon
courage by proposing a much-needed limitation on crop subsidies,
considered
sacrosanct by American agriculture's commodity producers. Republican
congressional leaders don't appear to be so bold. Rather than face the
ire
of the likes of the American Corn Growers Association, House and Senate
leaders may find it easier to meet their budgetary reduction quota by
cutting food stamps, a program whose recipients don't have access to
the
well-heeled lobbyists of "Big Ag."
Bush did propose a $600 million cut in the food stamp program over five
years. While not a kingly sum by Washington standards, it's still
enough to
eliminate 300,000 lower-income Americans from the nation's most
important
nutrition program. But Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of the
Senate Agriculture Committee, and Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.),
chairman of
the House Agriculture Committee, may not be content with making only
300,000
people hungrier. Both chairmen have made statements to the press
indicating
that a disproportionate amount of agriculture program cuts will come
from
food stamps, especially if a conference committee favors the House's
higher
budget resolution figure.
The impact of such cuts on lower-income families would be enormous.
Created
by executive order in the early days of the Kennedy administration, the
Food
Stamp Program is far and away the nation's most important safety net.
For
millions of households, food stamp benefits-now encoded on an
electronic
card that can only be used to purchase food at retail food outlets-are
literally the only thing that stands between them and hunger. According
to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the number of people who
receive
food stamps now stands at 25.5 million-2 million more than just a year
ago.
Are these freeloading welfare cheats? To the contrary, about half of
all
food stamp recipients are children and about two million are elderly.
The
average food stamp benefit equals $1 per meal per food stamp recipient.
Hardly enough for that filet mignon food stamp shoppers are so often
accused
of purchasing.
At the same time that Congress is looking for ways to cut benefits for
the
most needy, the Senate wants to provide $129 billion in tax cuts over
the
next five years to households making more than six figures (the House
tax
cut target is a miserly $106 billion). To put these tax cuts in
perspective:
According to the Center for Budget Policy Priorities, if the full $5.3
billion in program cuts recommended by the House came out of the Food
Stamp
Program, this reduction would equal half the benefits that households
with
incomes over $1 million would receive by extending the current capital
gains
and dividend cuts through 2010.
The cuts would also unreasonably increase demands on private charity.
"If
people lose food stamps, the first place they'll show up is emergency
food
programs, which are already overburdened," says Gina Cornia, executive
director of Utahns Against Hunger. Utah, which would lose $26 million
in
food stamp benefits over five years if the full House cut goes through,
is
ranked by the USDA as having the fifth highest rate of hunger and food
insecurity in the country. Like other food banks around the country,
Utah's
rely primarily on donations of food to serve needy families. In fact,
Utah's
emergency food system spent only $106,000 in cash to buy food for its
warehouses in 2004. But food donations have been flat for some time
now,
says Cornia, who simply can't imagine how food banks would provide an
additional $26 million worth of food to people who formerly relied on
food
stamps.
Two thousand miles away on Ninth Avenue in New York City, more than
1,100
hungry people line up every day at the Church of the Holy Apostles, one
of
the largest of the 1,300 soup kitchens and food pantries serving New
Yorkers. Echoing the alarm sounded by his Western counterparts, the
soup
kitchen's director, the Rev. Bill Greenlaw, recently told the New York
Times, "It's a desperate thing. Every level of government seems to have
the
same mantra, that these programs are vulnerable."
The president wants budget cuts, tax cuts and more money for the
military.
Republican congressional leaders will follow their president. The
Senate may
try to minimize the pain inflicted on the poor with severe but less
drastic
cuts on food stamps, while the House, led by Rep. Goodlatte, appears
more
interested in protecting crops subsidies than worrying about the
hungry. In
the meantime, Maynard, Cornia, Greenlaw and thousands of other
emergency
food program operators and anti-hunger advocates see nothing but longer
lines and more pain.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/print/the_cruelest_cuts/

bulgaro.
Abbiamo sentito la ca***ta del giorno dl caro disinformartore Torrieri
:)
-Stefano

> pensa in quel modo.
Visto che il membro del congresso in questione NON ascolta quello che 
pensano i cittadini che rappresenta.

pensano i cittadini che rappresenta.
Non ascolta quello che pensano ... I CITTADINI CHE LO CHIAMANO AL
TELEFONO.  Cosa ben diversa.
-Stefano


Tu invece lo conosci bene, vuoi parlarci di cosa succede
a chi non lo rispetta ?-) 


Che si tratti di una dittatura dei gruppi economici e' evvidente.
Solo nel dopoguerra gli USA hanno sofferto tre colpi di stato, due con i
Kennedy e uno con Nixon, un tentativo e' stato fatto anche con Clinton.
Trattasi di una nazione in mano al sistema militar-industriale come la ex
URSS dove vota meno del 50% degli aventi diritto, per due partiti che hanno
la stessa valenza politica.
Dove i media sono controllati e chi non si allinea viene licenziato.
Il potere economico sceglie i propri candidati e questi sono ostaggi dei
finanziamenti elettorali, semplice meccanismo.
Che poi ci siano 25 milioni di poveri che vanno avanti con buoni pasto e' un
dettaglio, questi non si ribelleranno, si va in galera, il paese con il piu'
alto rapporto di carcerati per abitante, freedom only for someone.
Saluti Cad Ali'
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 -Stefano
...disse il bue all'asino...

 Diciamo che tu lo sfrutti a tuo uso e consuno...
Se lo dici tu... :)
*LOL*
-Stefano

http://www.lefthook.org/Charts/CSIS.jpg
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7670
Does the Resistance Target Civilians?
According to US Intel, Not Really
by M. Junaid Alam; Left Hook; April 18, 2005
    The ceaseless demonization of Iraqis committed to ending foreign
control of their country is a key ideological crutch for maintaining
the American occupation. Smearing the armed resistance as a band of
murderous thugs is well understood by American war planners to be a
crucial part of effective counter-insurgency work. (1) Obviously,
brutal and horrific attacks on Iraqi civilians have been carried out by
some forces claiming to be a part of the resistance. But there is
strong evidence from US government and independent intelligence data
suggesting that this phenomenon has been wildly exaggerated and torn
out of context, creating a false public perception that serves to prop
up domestic support for the occupation.
    Consider the intelligence report produced on December 22, 2004, by
the prestigious Center for Strategic and International Studies, headed
by Anthony Cordesman, titled "The Developing Iraqi Insurgency: Status
at end-2004." (2) Cordesman issues a blunt critique of US government
blindness about the scope and nature of the insurgency: "[The U.S.]
was slow to react to the growth of the Iraqi insurgency in Iraq, to
admit it was largely domestic in character, and to admit it had
significant popular support."
    The most intriguing portion of the report, though, is a set of
statistics compiled about attacks carried out by the resistance from
September 2003 to October 2004, organized by type of target, number of
attacks, and number of people killed and wounded. The data, described
as having been collected by an "NGO coordinating committee" is
organized into a table in the report. I have culled the data
specifically concerning "number of attacks/incidents" and presented
it as a chart graphic contained in the clickable link below:(
http://www.lefthook.org/Charts/CSIS.jpg
 )
    One can clearly see that the number of attacks on "Coalition
Forces" far exceeds that of any other category on the list. Indeed,
attacks on military occupying forces, and by extension mostly US
military forces, accounts for 75% of all attacks. Meanwhile, civilian
targets comprise a mere 4.1% of attacks. This reality is at striking
odds with the general picture painted in the press of a narcissistic,
mindless and sinister insurgency simply bent on chaos and destruction.
    It should also be noted here that while the CSIS is widely
recognized and Anthony Cordesman regularly appears in the mainstream
press, not a single one of the usual liberal outlets has picked up on
the report, mentioned this statistic in particular, or discussed its
political implications. This is probably because it poses a threat to
their pro-occupation line and White Man's Burden philosophy which
posits Iraqis as too helpless to save themselves. The only publication
to have examined this now more than three-month-old document is the
Marxist monthly International Socialist Review. (3)
    It is not possible to dismiss the statistics as a fluke. An April
11th New York Times article titled "U.S. Commanders See Possible
Troop Cuts in Iraq" is accompanied by a graph representing resistance
attacks by number and by proportion for the period of March 2003 to
March 2005, broken down into the following categories: attacks on U.S.
and allied forces, civilians, Iraqi forces, and other targets. The
source of the data is the Defense Intelligence Agency. Because there is
no direct link for the graph and because the Times' online graphic is
somewhat blurry, I have sharpened the image and posted it here for
reference, again as a clickable link: (
http://www.lefthook.org/Charts/NYTimes.jpg
 )
    Once more it is manifestly clear that attacks on civilians make up
only a small fraction of overall attacks, on a consistent basis and
over a sustained period of time. Notice also that even though the past
few months has seen a massive effort to train new Iraqi security forces
to fight the insurgency, the proportion of attacks aimed at the nascent
US-trained Iraqi forces has hardly increased, if at all. Given that the
formation of these new forces is largely composed along ethnic lines,
the graph belies the notion that there has been some kind of massive
outburst of sectarian attacks by the resistance.
    Why have these developments gone largely unnoticed? One reason --
or rather, excuse -- is that even though military forces are the focus
of an overwhelming majority of attacks, civilian casualties
predominate. Looking at deaths and injures in the period examined by
the CSIS report, we see that 451 "Coalition Forces" were killed and
1,002 injured, whereas 1,981 civilians were killed and 3,467 injured.
The most obvious reason for this discrepancy is that bombing a group of
Iraqi civilians in a marketplace will yield far more casualties than
assaulting professionally trained soldiers backed by sophisticated
military armor.
    Cynical observers would insist that the discrepancy between
distribution of attacks and casualties explains that distribution, as
if there is some sort of overarching plot by the resistance to focus
attacks on the military precisely because less resources are needed to
kill civilians. Such a view assumes, first and foremost, a central,
unified command structure, and that does not exist. It also assumes
that insurgents who are motivated to carry out careful, coordinated
attacks in ways specifically designed to minimize their chances of
death would gladly blow themselves up in the suicide attacks which have
characterized the most deadly assaults on civilians: a ridiculous
proposition unless we assume the insurgents are also schizophrenics.
    Far more likely is that nationalist currents within the resistance
confront and attack US forces and other symbols of the occupation
whereas fanatical, opportunistic elements on the margins conduct
spectacular, sectarian attacks which invariably garner sensationalistic
media coverage. Indeed, Patrick Cockburn's recent April 11, 2005
report from Iraq bears out precisely this assessment. He writes: "The
split is between Islamic fanatics, willing to kill anybody remotely
connected with the government, and Iraqi nationalists who want to
concentrate on attacking the 130,000 US troops in Iraq." Noting that
"Posters threatening extreme resistance fighters have appeared on
walls in Ramadi," Cockburn quotes a Ramadi Sunni imam as saying,
"[The fanatics] have tarnished our image and used the jihad to make
personal gains." (4)
    And these fanatics are generously aided in their endeavor by an
American government all too eager to characterize the entire resistance
as beyond the pale. US intelligence agents in Iraq have admitted, for
instance, to paying people off to make up stories about the fanatically
anti-Shiite sectarian Zarqawi:
        "We were basically paying up to $US10,000 ($A13,700) a time
to opportunists, criminals and chancers who passed off fiction and
supposition about Zarqawi as cast-iron fact, making him out as the
linchpin of just about every attack in Iraq," one agent said.
        "Back home this stuff was gratefully received and formed the
basis of policy decisions. We needed a villain, someone identifiable
for the public to latch on to, and we got one." (5)
    The assessment that most resistance forces are not engaging in
sectarian and brutal attacks on civilians is further supported by a
major political event. On April 9th, a group of mostly Shiite
demonstrators numbering perhaps 300,000, according estimates cited by
the LA Times, flowed into Firdos Square where Saddam's statue was
removed two years ago and vociferously demanded an end to the American
presence in Iraq. In what Juan Cole describes as "the largest popular
demonstrations in Iraq since 1958" (6) (assuming only 150,000
demonstrated), protesters burned Bush, Blair, and Saddam in effigy,
chanting, "No, no to America! No, no to occupation!" One
demonstrator captured the popular mood succinctly, declaring:
"America is the mother of terrorism. All the explosions are happening
because they are here." (7)
    Would such a massive number of Shiites have shown up to protest the
occupation if they thought that most of the Sunni-based armed
resistance, also opposed to the occupation, was trying to kill them?
Indeed, a number of Sunnis joined the demonstrations, as some Sunni
imams exhorted their followers to do so during Friday prayers. (8)
    Ultimately, the combination of intelligence data, political
realities on the ground, and some basic common sense point to the fact
that the resistance is not the stereotypical horde of incompetent,
crazed brown barbarians so often conjured up in the Western
imagination. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can end the
barbarism of the war itself.

attacking the 130,000 US troops in Iraq."
E se lo dice lui allora....! :)
*LOL*
Infatti tutti i civili uccisi, specialmente quelli nei mercati erano
"remotely connected with the government" :)
*LOL*
-Stefano