PEOPLE, THEIR MONEY AND HELPING FUND A GENOCIDE...

...ALL IN A DAY'S WORK.

WHAT YOUR MONEY AND MY MONEY DOES WHEN WE LOOK THE OTHER WAY - CAN FUND A GENOCIDE. THOSE OF US WHO WANT THE HR 180 bill to pass the US Senate are once again betrayed by GW Bush. The man who wrote in the margins of the Rwandan genocide report, "Not On My Watch". And yet that is exactly what has been happening ever since Colin Powell called what is happening in Darfur, Sudan genocide. Genocide is systematic behavior that is killing off a group of people by means of murder, denial of food, justice and fair play, rape and torture with impunity.

Stolen from another:
So the world sat largely silently listening to a crazed little man rant about the abuses in the rest of the world. But his condemnation of the war in Sudan and the creation of refugees in Darfur could not blot out the reality of his war in Iraq and the millions who have fled that hell hole.

Bush declared:
Every civilized nation also has a responsibility to stand up for the people suffering under dictatorship," the president said. "In Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Iran, brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration" of the United Nations.

This was chutzpah. Just before Bush began speaking a series of car bombs swept Iraq killing and wounding hundreds. A country the United States has occupied for more than four years continues to be ravaged by violence. The Iraqi people themselves are denied the rights Bush extolled. Hell, the United States even protects mercenary armies--like Blackwater--who operate outside of any law and kill innocent civilians without any consequence.

The rest of the world sees and understands our hypocrisy. Unfortunately, many Americans share the ignorance and vacuity of George Bush and do not realize how foolish and stupid we look on the world stage. Today's performance by George Bush does nothing to win friends or influence enemies. It simply reinforces the notion that the United States is in the grips of a President who has fulfilled the prophecy of H.L. Mencken:

" . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
http://austin.craigslist.org/pol/432467425.html

The Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act (H.R. 180) passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, July 31, by a vote of 418 to one. This important bill would create a list of foreign companies helping to fund the genocide, prohibit U.S. government contracts with these companies, and provide federal protection to states that choose to divest. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) plans to introduce the same bill in the Senate, but there is opposition to critical provisions of H.R. 180. We need your help to make sure this legislation passes in its current form. Please call your senators NOW and urge them to co-sponsor or support the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act (H.R. 180) CALL 1-800-GENOCIDE and talk to your Senator about this bill.
http://www.enoughproject.org/region/darfur/what-can-be-done.php

Bush Administration Opposes Sudan Divestment Bill

By REUTERS

Published: October 3, 2007

Filed at 4:19 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill that would allow U.S. states to divest from companies doing business in Sudan could hurt international efforts to end the violence in war-torn Darfur, Bush administration officials told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
The pending Senate bill aims to put economic pressure on Sudan to stop the violence in its western Darfur region, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.
Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the Bush administration was confident its sanctions were working and warned against legislative measures that might undo progress.
"We are concerned that some initiatives to increase economic pressure on Sudan will damage our relationship with our key partners rather than increase pressure in Khartoum," Frazer told the Senate Banking Committee hearing.
But several senators voiced support for the bill and said they would work to get it passed.
Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said he did not "understand how the State Department can come before committee and say this is inappropriate."
Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a bill co-sponsor and Republican presidential candidate, said: "We have a responsibility to ensure that genocide does not continue on our watch or on our dime."
In July, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would protect investment managers who pull money out of key sectors in Sudan from lawsuits from disgruntled investors. It also calls on the U.S. government to list companies whose business in Sudan supports "genocidal practices."
The companion Senate bill would allow state or local governments to adopt measures to prohibit any investment of state assets in the Sudanese government or in any company with a qualifying business relationship with Sudan.
That bill has yet to move out of the Senate Banking Committee, a crucial step in the legislative process.
DIVESTMENT
Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury's sanctions arm, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said a list would by nature consist of foreign companies whose activities in Sudan were most likely legal in their home countries.
"Such a list likely will be viewed by our allies as a U.S. government 'blacklist'... and therefore as an unwelcome effort by the United States to expand the scope of our sanctions," Szubin said in written testimony.
"Such a list seriously risks alienating the very countries whose assistance we need to maintain and increase international pressure on the Bashir regime," he said.
U.S. companies are generally prohibited from investing in and conducting business in Sudan without a license from OFAC. Creation of a list of companies would also impose ongoing burdens on the agency that would divert resources from other activities, Szubin said.
Since 2005, 20 states have adopted Sudan divestment policies, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force.
Activists have pressured investors to divest their holdings in companies such as PetroChina Co Ltd, whose parent company, China National Petroleum Corp, is helping Sudan drill for oil. Malaysia's state-owned Petronas and India's ONGC are also targets.
(Additional reporting by David Lawder)

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

for the remainder of the article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html?