I think what THE is trying to say is that articles like yours that address what does and doesn't stimulate employment need to pushed through grassroots efforts.
The challenge to American democracy is that it requires an educated voting public, something we lack.
I think a challenge many leftist activists have is concision. THE is trying to support your article and point out several other instances of corporate-dominated government but lacks the time, effort, audience, or eloquence to lay out a case against military alliances, privately funded elections, and others.
Great Article, though.
Honduras is just one of the Latin American countries whose leftist leaders were "unacceptable" to US corporate interests. It is also among those whose military leaders were trained at the infamous School for Assassins at our Marine base in North Carolina. We are responsible for Chile's loss of its leftist leader, for instance, and the installation of the dictator Pinochet in his place. And of two failed coups against Hugo Chavez. Now, we see US articles about the "dictators" in Bolivia and Ecuador -- two more countries with leaders who refuse to put the wants of US corporations ahead of their poor and indigenous citizens.
We talk about democracy (and congressional members of the International Republican Institute (IRI) travel the world "bringing" it to places like Haiti and Georgia -- where Russia did NOT invade South Ossetia as our media were led to believe, but came to that country's aid after Georgia's US-sponsored/supported president attacked it with his greatly enlarged US-paid army, fresh from training by our country and Israel).
I'm glad to see you take this on, and hope you'll check out the IRI and, perhaps, Mikhael Gorbachev's truthful take on South Ossetia that appeared in the NY Times a week or so after Georgia's raid. And perhaps read Mark Weisbrot's articles on Latin America at www.cepr.net, many of which detail the Bush administration's eight-year effort to discredit and/or get rid of Hugo Chavez. (Check out the 2002 documentary, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," produced by Irish filmmakers who just happened to be there to witness our first coup attempt.)
I had hoped that, when President Obama said we needed to change our foreign policy toward Latin America, that at last we would give up what seems to be an assumption that WE own it. Or at least want to run it on behalf of our and other nations' transnational corporations.
THANKS.
While I am sure there are abuses in the "we'll buy your life insurance policy" business, such businesses were literal lifelines for people with AIDS who did not know how they could afford to live until they died. It was a huge benefit to such folks to have cash in hand to pay for medications, treatments, and even the roof over their heads and the food in their mouths.
My brother did not have a life insurance policy. He chose not to take his medications so that he'd die faster, rather than depend on my dad and me to support him. I'd have had my brother a lot longer had he been able to sell his policy.
I do not agree w/ you on the "ethics" of this approach!
Frank Luntz is a PR-ostitute.
Fox is a News-corpse.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/671.php?nid=&id=&pnt=671&lb=
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