Friday, October 28, 2016

Human rights hypocrisy

The other day, the US abstained from voting on a UN resolution condemning our decades-long trade embargo on Cuba.  The US ambassador to the UN (I think) commented after the vote while we didn't veto the resolution, we are necessarily still concerned about Cuba's human rights abuses.  And just to be clear, I'm sure that Cuba does commit human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, in the United States, people continue to be denied access to health care for not having "insurance."  People continue to be overwhelmed by the costs of education and the debt they must accumulate to make themselves more competitive in the "job market."  And also meanwhile, workers in "right to work" states as well as in the country more generally find themselves at the mercy of a system that denies them the right to bargain collectively with their employers for better working conditions and benefits.

Make no mistake: these are human rights abuses carried out by the United States on a massive scale, and apparently with no end in sight.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Where's the firearms recall?

OK, so all yesterday they've been mentioning on the News that an 11th person has been killed by those defective Takata airbags, which are already under recall. Meanwhile, Thursday on the Diane Rehm program, a British journalist, in a really heartbreaking story, reminded us that every day, about 7 children and teens are killed by firearms in the US. That's over 2500 a year. Where's the recall notice for these goddam firearms?

Word of the day

I know I'll get pummeled for this, but: I keep seeing children in Gaza being pulled, some dead, some alive, out of rubble created by bom...