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Speak Up and Be Heard!

A Comparison of Costs in the Iraq War

Here's just one example of what the war in Iraq is costing each side:

Al Quaeda gets free donations from just about all other Islamic lands.  They buy an IED explosive bomb and a remote control from Iran for about $150 in current US dollars. With it they blow up and destroy
a U.S. Army Humvee vehicle which costs $150,000. If any of the soldiers inside are still alive, their hospital and rehab treatments will cost $ millions for decades to come.

The U.S. military spends $250,000 of the American taxpayers money to purchase an air to ground missile. With it they blow up an old junk car or truck that costs about $250 in current US dollars. None of the terrorists (real or suspected) inside are still alive, and so don't cost anyone anything, anymore. They may, however, each get a martyr's place in Paradise (with 72 virgins to wait upon each of them).

Now the final equation is: Which side can outspend the other? And which side will get bankrupted first?

Just thought I'd ask. - PIVTR http://internetvoicesradio.com                      

The Terrorists Are Coming!

Has United States Security, the White House, and the Security Advisor cried wolf one too many times?

Which national monument will the Terrorists strike first?

The Statue of liberty?  The Empire State Building?  Holland or the Lincoln Tunnels?  The Port of New York City?

Chicago?  Los Angeles?  Perhaps New Orleans since they're not back on their feet yet?

Do you fear for your lives or your family's lives?  That's how President Bush got re-elected.  By playing on the fears of his constituents and the citizens of this country.  By the way, how do you like the way the President is handling the war in Iraq.  Does the war leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside?  Do you think the war time boom has anything to do with our present prosperity in this country?

What do you think?  King George II.  Has a pleasant ring to it. 

The Bush Dynasty.  It could happen.

People who take their freedoms too lightly often let it slip by and under their noses without doing anything to keep hold of it.  What do you think of Thomas Jefferson's famous misquote:

A nation should have a revolution every twenty-five years to clean it up.  Of course, when he became President, he stated for the record that he really didn't believe it now that he was President of the United States.  Still...it's not such a bad idea.  Peal S. Buck said it differently.  When the rich get too rich and the poor get too poor.

Which side of the fence are you on?

Lillian

Presidential Hopeful Declines Internet Radio Interview

One of Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio's Talk Show Hosts invited a presidential hopeful to her show and be interviewed.  His senior staff advisor declined the invitation, but sent this blurb instead.

What do you think of their so-called "Call to Action Plan."

PIVTR would like to know.

Rewarding Work and Helping Families Get Ahead
   
  With Washington dominated by powerful special interests, it is no coincidence that the benefits of economic growth are enjoyed by increasingly few individuals.  Over the last 20 years, American incomes have grown apart: 40 percent of the income growth in the 1980s and 1990s went the top 1 percent.  The top 300,000 individuals now make more than the bottom 150 million.  [EPI, 2006; Saez, 2007]
   
  Today at the United Steelworkers conference, John Edwards outlined his agenda to create One America where everyone’s hard work is rewarded and families can build a better life. 
   
  ·                     Raise the Minimum Wage to $9.50 an Hour: a national goal of a minimum wage that equals half the average wage.  The minimum wage will raise by 75 cents a year until it reaches $9.50 in 2012.  Restoration of the minimum wage to tipped workers to half the full minimum wage – the minimum wage for these workers has stood at $2.13 since 1997 – and extend wage and hour protections to home health care workers. 
   
  ·                     Strengthen Workers’ Right to Organize:  Unions are essential to building the future middle class. The right to choose a union is poorly enforced, full of loopholes, and routinely violated by employers.  The Employee Free Choice Act will be reenacted, it will vigorously enforce labor laws and ban the use of permanent replacements for striking workers.
   
  ·                     Help Low-Income Families Find Work and Join the Middle Class:  A national goal will be set by eliminating poverty within 30 years.  Taxes will be cut  on low-income workers by expanding the earned income tax credit for single workers and reducing its marriage penalty.  It will create 1 million Stepping Stone jobs to help people struggling to find jobs gain skills and work experience.  It will also expand affordable housing near good jobs, rather than concentrating it in high-poverty neighborhoods far from opportunity.
   
  ·                     Make College Affordable for Everyone: College tuition and debt is escalating.  To help students work their way through college, Edwards will pay one year of public-college tuition, fees, and books for more than 2 million students who take a part-time job.
   
  ·                     Enact Smarter Trade Policies:  Trade deals need to make sense for American workers, not just corporations.  Insistance on strong labor and environmental standards, vigorously enforce American workers’ rights, and help workers and communities hurt by global competition. 
   
  ·                     Guarantee Universal Health Care: An universal health care plan will be put in place that will guarantee affordable coverage to every family.  Employers will have to help cover their employees, the government will make insurance affordable with new reforms and subsidies, and all Americans will buy insurance.
   
  ·                     Fight Abusive Debt and Help Families Save:  Cracks down on abusive credit card companies, predatory mortgage lenders, and payday loan shops that take advantage of working families.  To help families save, he will provide matched savings accounts for low-wage workers.
   
   Well, are you convinced that this presidential hopeful is the ONE that the US of A is looking for?

Comments?

Rap Music & Its Negative Influence

I received this email yesterday and thought I would pass it on to see how the rest of the world would react to criticism about RAP music.  As I see it, RAP music almost equals the "N" word that the NACCAP buried yesterday to rid the world of its negativism.

What do you think?

*I am sending this to my entire list for a couple of reasons. Number one, rap music is purchased the world over; the primary audience is no longer solely the African American community. Since it has become an international phenomenon that means we all are at risk; we all are at risk for the fallout from the negative messages and negative images these artists are promulgating.*

It is not just Black people who suffer when our own artists negate us or denigrate us or present images of us that are less than dignified; those who do not know Black people begin to think that is how we are. Or even worse, those who DO know us fantasize about our remaining in the ways they have always felt we should be.

Negative images of any race hurt the global community; they misinform or they confirm the deepest darkest fantasies one group may have about another.

Don't participate. Yes, raise your own children, but think very carefully about how far that moniker reaches.

What's your opinion? 

Do you agree?  Disagree?  Have no opinion?