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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (137)	11/3/2000 7:13:12 PM
From: robnhood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37073

Just saw on my elevator news yesterday, that billions were spent on corporate welfare last year. A billion here, a billion there, it adds up.... Outside having a smoke this aft. Two cops pull up out front. One on a motorcycle, the other in a cruiser. They're standing beside each other. Billys down to their ankles, guns on their hips, bullet proof vests on, jack boots up to their knees. Now I know where "Yo is da man " comes from. ho ho ho PS; I kinda looked to see if their faces matched the policeman's on the Simpsons.

To: robnhood who wrote (137)	11/3/2000 8:18:31 PM
From: Gulo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 37073

rrman, You have a point. Or two. Or three. >The drug war is an excuse to meddle in the affairs of these countries. That may be true of Columbia, and certainly was true for Panama. It brings in money to other less legitimate regimes, however. The U.S. is not going to meddle in the affairs of Syria to any great extent. The U.S. is far more concerned about limiting Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbolla. >The drug cartels treat the peasants much better then the USA backed regimes in power. Also true to some extent, at least in Columbia. The cartels do build schools and the odd clinic to build support among the peasants. Are they better off overall? I would suggest not, because they will never advance as long as their internationally recognized government and their de facto government are at war. And they certainly can't speak out against drugs. The government also builds schools and clinics, without the threats. > It's also used to launder money as in the North episode for funding more covert involvement in these countries. That was true in at least once instance - Olly North's "Iran Contra" scandal. One would assume it has happened many other times. >REBELS, is a word we see often. Hmmmmm, I guess that means that they are inherently evil, right? No. It means they are rebelling. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the common assumption that what they are rebelling against is legitimate, that makes one assume they are not. I would say the government in Columbia still has more legitimacy than the FARC, but that is a mute point. I wouldn't want to be ruled by either, thank you very much. The FARC has gained some legitimacy by virtue of its possession of the DMZ and the government is rapidly losing legitimacy through its human rights abuses. As far as I know, drugs are not a major issue in the Chiapas conflict. It is largely a peasant revolt fanned by a few socialist idealists, and fueled by extreme poverty. -g BTW, welcome to the thread.

To: robnhood who wrote (137)	11/4/2000 3:17:09 PM
From: marcos	Respond to of 37073

Actually for a few years in our corner of Chiapas the newest structure was the baseball stadium, very well designed and built to the same plan as so many in the smaller cities of the country, and funded quite federally i believe ... but then, first game i'd ever had a chance to see in the new stadium, half a dozen state cops behaved extremely poorly in dealing with a drunk whose sin was, believe it or not, to refuse to return a foul ball he'd caught ... crowd of about 3.000 begins to vocally defend the drunk, cops get nervous or petulant or both, they fire tear gas into the crowd [right in front of me] and send several hundred assault rifle rounds into the roof [right above me, i had a great seat, got there early -g-] ... so, then cops run for their pickup, race to la Casa de Hierro [house of iron, in Canada it would be called the police station] and hole up there, where they have steel shutters and heavy machineguns ... crowd is incensed, at least a thousand march the eight blocks to laCdeH, then meditate on the armament, then march back halfway to el Palacio de Gobierno, the state government building, which they proceed to invade, ransack, and burn ... i was sitting in a secondfloor restaurant kittycorner to elPdeG drinking beer and giving an interview to a journalist [whose paper was obviously owned by a priísta, as the article never appeared] as we watched them burn a brand new Dodge pickup truck [they don't burn like in the movies, you have to work at it] and throw computers, chairs, desks, etc out the windows ... and the paper - wooo-hoo, many records were lost this day, right now my brother-in-law is having a hard time marrying his new wife as he can't readily get divorced from the old one without the records of that marriage, which seem to have disappeared along with the filing cabinet they were in ... ah, politics ... got to be careful who you piss off in some places. Anyway, point being - the newest structure in our area is the remodelled Palacio de Gobierno -g- ... they don't put much money into the prisons, the state prison is called Cerro Hueco, in english that would be 'Hole Hill', and it is aptly named imho ... the drainage from it runs through the zoo of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, which is the only thing imho worth seeing in the capitol, one thousand five hundred species of mammals alone all indigenous to the estado, combined with at some points a view of what has been the stronghold of the priísta species. So in comparison, even if Day turns out to be a bible-thumper, give thanks -g-