Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/13

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Sinclair article (was For You George)
From: Teresa299@aol.com
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:19:47 EDT

In a message dated 9/13/01 9:18:49 AM, henryambrose@home.com writes:

<<Blaming the worlds problems on America has to stop.

Henry Ambrose
>>



Agreed.  But realistically, we as American's HAVE to become more educated 
about what role we do play in controlling others lives.  At best we have a 
misinformed public, at worst we have a populace that can't even find Canada 
much less, the Middle East on a world map.

Geographic impairments aside, do you want a few examples of why perhaps there 
are folks who might have a "beef" with the US?

We waive the banner of democracy and yet we overthrow freely elected 
democracies or governments we disagree with.    Example.  Salvador Allende in 
Chile in 1973 in which a military dictorship was installed in its 
place--dictatorship which wantonly killed THOUSANDS of innocent Chileans who 
dared to speak out for democracy and democratic rights.

We talk about freedom and human rights but then (as an example) we run a 
military training facility (School of the Americas now known as the Western 
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) which tends to teach it's 
700-1,500
Latin America/Caribbean soldiers about how to use military tactics for 
eradicating movements of change in their home countries.  Graduates of the 
School of Americas have a distinguished resume.  They have been connected 
with murdering 4 US nuns in el Salvador, the assassination of Archbishop 
Oscar Romero, the murder of 6 Jesuit priests in El Salvador, death squads in 
Honduras, as well as numerous massacres of Latin American citizens--in the 
name of "freedom."

 I could go on for a long time, the point though is for Americans to actually 
educate themselves about what our government does in the name of our country. 
   We can be a good people and a good nation when we choose to act in ways 
that are truly moral and good.  Unfortunately, our people are often sold a 
not so honest bill of goods by our corporate media and thus we aren't truly 
aware (or worse, don't really care) about what is really going on.

I'm not using any of this as a justification for what happened this week, but 
rather a gentle suggestion to those who are seemingly perplexed as to how 
America is perceived from off-shore.

Just my opinion.
Kim