You're probably right considering that the democratic party is the "party for the poor." Unfortunately most people in poverty are completely out of touch with the US political world because they believe it plays little or no importance to them... It's been said by democrats and republicans alike that the dems failure to get out the poor vote cost them the election and there is no one to blame for that but the democrats themselves. Conservatives are the political minority but they are also much more organized at reaching the crucial swing votes... and in that aspect I'm happy the dems failed although I do wish Americans in general would wake up and realize that anyone can make a difference.
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" --Voltaire
You think the networks want Democrats in charge. You need to dig a little deeper. Both parties have the same agenda. Bush pays lip service to his voters and then passes socialist crap like no child left behind and the perscription drug entitlements.
Speaking of PBS, I'm pissed that I can't find a dvd of Sesame Street with episodes shows/cartoons from the early-mid '70s. It's all about stupid Elmo these days.
I do some but I should more. Is PBS, being public, paid for w/ gov't grants? Honest question, no hidden bombs. It's weird, I love Discovery and National Geographic Channels and Nova and all that crap but I disagree with most of the environmentalists agendas. I'm glad they are there and I am glad they are fighting because capitalism would run amock without them there but I disagree with their stance usually.
Whoever thinks PBS is a neutral channel is kidding themselves (not directed towards you Chance, just in general). Public Broadcasting is there as a "means" for people with opinions to air said opinions... public broadcasting is and always has been a haven for liberal views and those views far outweight conservative views. I'm not saying that is a bad thing but it hardly makes it the balance that some people might think. While some of the "big" shows on PBS such as Nova and Frontline are filled with facts many of the talk/discussion shows and documentaries are really no different then what is seen on other mainstream channels. While it is a "public" channel and much if it is funded by the various government organizations it is still a business that employs thousands of people and they are constantly trying to improve upon that by offering controversial programming that "gets the buzz up"... their revenue just comes from donations rather then commercials.
Stating the MSM would rather have democrats in charge isn't supported by their coverage. The NY Times had to apologize for not looking into the Bush administration's claims prior to the war in Iraq. They gave Bush a free pass. There was Judith Miller running around Iraq claiming that the army found WMD's, weapons labs, and things like that were not only inaccurate, but helped the Republican administration. Even before that when the Bush administration was leaking false reports that the Clinton's trashed the whitehouse before leaving, the MSM did not seek corraboration or confirmation, and ended up with egg on their face once it was found out that the Clinton staff did not trash the whitehouse. When Cheney got on television and lied by claiming he never made certain statements regarding Iraq and Al Qaeda, it wasn't the MSM(who supposedly want all Democrats in charge) that found the clip of Cheney saying exactly what he claimed to not have said. It was a comedy show. Then there was Bush's claim that the U.S. had tripled aid to Africa. This was perhaps the most glaring. That claim is a matter of facts. Either those facts are accurate or they are not. Yet nobody in the MSM checked them. They repeated Bush's claim as if it was fact. When some people said it wasn't true the media presented as a matter of one person's word vs. the whitehouse's word. Surely at that point you would have thought the MSM would have just checked the figures and found out who was telling the truth. Finally a media watchdog group did check, and it turned out that Bush was lying or exaggerating, and the figures show that the U.S. has not tripiled aid to Africa. Yet you still dont' hear from the MSM on that issue. Prior to that there was the media that fell asleep and reported that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet. Many people today still erroneously believe that Gore made that claim. There were small apologies and retractions made, but it received nowhere near the coverage the original false story about Gore received. Yes there was Rathergate, and the MSM didn't correct figures that John Kerry was using about unemployment during the campaign which weren't the most recent. I think MSM has done a very poor job lately, but it can hardly be said that they have done a poor job in an effort to help only the Democrats. I think it is good to keep a skeptical eye on the media, but isn't accurate to keep a skeptical eye on the media with the idea that they are out to help democrats. For the record I don't think they are out to help the GOP either. I think they only want what they believe makes a good story, and will follow the pack over the truth, try and break a story to lead the pack, and all of that happens at the expense of acccuracy or good journalism at times.
Are you serious? You're telling me that Saddam was giving his people their fair share of the oil money? They had nice schools, hospitals, parks and the like? Shall I point you to the countless oil for food scandals?
PBS is as neutral as it gets. They do have liberals on there, and those liberals are balanced with opinions presented from thoughtful conservatives. William F. Buckley had his show on there for years, programs like Frontline talk to people from every side of an issue, and their coverage goes indepth. It allows people to see many viewpoints and decide for themselves.
You are kidding yourself with the statement like this: FYI, from USAID.gov's own fact sheet: "Prior to the 1990s, Iraq had one of the best education systems in the Middle East with universal primary school enrollment and high rates of literacy among women."
Debunking the myth of the Iraqi War is bringing good health care to Iraqi people Iraq health care 'in deep crisis' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4054105.stm Tuesday, 30 November, 2004, 16:08 GMT Iraq's health system is in a far worse condition than before the war, a British medical charity says. Doctors from the group Medact conducted surveys with international aid groups and Iraqi health workers in September. They exposed poor sanitation in many hospitals, shortages of drugs and qualified staff and huge gaps in services for mothers and children. Medact, which monitors healthcare in post-conflict areas, called for an inquiry into the situation. It has also challenged the British government to set up a commission to establish the level of civilian casualties in Iraq. Damaged hospitals "The war is a continuing public health disaster that was predictable - and should have been preventable," the group says. "Excess deaths and injuries and high levels of illness are the direct and indirect results of ongoing conflict." Groups like the medical charity Merlin and the UN aid organisation Unicef were among those whose staff provided information. They paint a picture of a health service struggling to cope and, because of the continuing violence, a population often afraid to leave their homes to seek medical help. Twelve percent of Iraq's hospitals were damaged during the war and the country's two main public health laboratories were also destroyed, the report says. However, Iraq's deputy prime minister Barham Saleh told reporters in London that the health situation in Iraq was "not good" but it was improving not deteriorating. He said "the level of devastation that Saddam Hussein has left us with was unimaginable" and added that health budgets were increasing. UK foreign secretary Jack Straw pointed out that since the conflict 95% of children under five had been immunised, some 150 primary health care centres were planned and a string of hospitals in the south of the country had been renovated. He said the great mistake the report made was blaming any problems with healthcare on the Iraqi government and health ministry rather than terrorists and insurgents. "In those many areas of Iraq where there are no terrorists and no insurgents there is no problem whatsoever with the delivery of health care." Medact accuses the UK and US governments and Iraqi authorities of denying "the true extent of harm" to Iraq's civilians. It also says health relief and reconstruction efforts have been bungled through mismanagement and corruption.
More cold, hard, unpleasant facts: Iraqis Endure Worse Conditions Than Under Saddam, UN Survey Finds http://newstandardnews.net/content/?items=1816 A major study by the UN and Iraqi officials found that life in Iraq has decayed significantly since foreign forces invaded, following a general trend seen in most sectors since the imposition of a global embargo in 1990. May 18 - Responses to a detailed survey conducted by a United Nations agency and the Iraqi government indicate that everyday conditions for Iraqis in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion have deteriorated at an alarming rate, with huge numbers of people lacking adequate access to basic services and resources such as clean water, food, health care, electricity, jobs and sanitation. "This survey shows a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq," Barham Salih, Iraq's minister of planning, said in statement, adding: "If you compare this to the situation in the 1980s, you will see a major deterioration." The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducted the far ranging survey, titled "Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004," in cooperation with Iraq’s Ministry of Planning. Researchers determined that some 24,000 Iraqis died as a result of the US-led invasion in 2003 and the first year of occupation. Children below the age of 18 comprised 12 percent of those deaths, according to survey data. The study also indicates that the invasion and its immediate aftermath forced more than 140,000 Iraqis to flee their homes. The 370-page report evaluating the survey, which was in turn based on interviews conducted with more than 21,000 Iraqi households during the spring and summer of 2004, might not end the controversy over civilian casualty figures, but the study’s authors drew a narrower range of estimated deaths. They report that the total number of war dead is between 18,000 and 29,000. But they also acknowledge that their numbers are derived from a question -- posed to household members concerning dead and missing relatives -- that "underestimates deaths, because households in which all members were lost are omitted." Other sources have reported widely varying figures for civilian deaths. Iraq Body Count, a website that tracks reported civilian deaths in Iraq, put the total number of civilians killed by military intervention at somewhere between 14,619 and 16,804 during the time covered by the UN survey. A survey published last fall in The Lancet, a renowned British medical journal, extrapolated that 98,000 "excess civilian deaths" had occurred in Iraq during roughly the same period covered by the UN study, compared to the number of deaths to be expected in relative peace time. The authors of that study, who based their findings on interviews with fewer than 1,000 Iraqi households in various regions, were also careful to note that based on the same confidence level as the UN report, the possible range ran from 8,000 to 194,000 deaths. Child Malnutrition Worsens In addition to deaths attributed to warfare, Iraqi children have suffered from a lack of adequate nutrition since 2003, the survey reports. Data from the survey indicates that 23 percent of children between six months and five years suffer from chronic malnutrition, while 12 percent suffer from general malnutrition, and 8 percent experience acute malnutrition. The malnutrition figures are consistent with statistics from previous, smaller surveys cited earlier this year by Jean Ziegler, the UN’s expert on malnutrition. Ziegler drew harsh criticism from US officials in March when he told the UN Commission on Human Rights that child malnutrition rates in Iraq had nearly doubled since 2003. Ziegler said the rise was "a result of the war led by coalition forces." In addition to war, the new UN report suggests that more than a decade of harsh economic sanctions against Iraq, enthusiastically supported by the US and British governments, has had a major impact on the health of Iraqi children. "Most Iraqi children today have lived their whole lives under sanctions and war," the study says, noting that "the suffering of children due to war and conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed by military activities." The survey notes that children under the age of 15 make up 39 percent of the country’s total population. Health Care Facilities Dilapidated, Doctors Frustrated Years of sanctions and war have also had a major negative impact on Iraq’s health care system, once considered among the best in the Middle East, authors of the survey observe. The list of "current major problems" includes "lack of health personnel, lack of medicines, non-functioning medical equipment and destroyed hospitals and health centers." Iraqi health officials express a great deal of frustration at their limited capacity to provide services to those who are chronically ill and to the increasingly high number of people wounded in attacks by rebels, foreign occupation troops and Iraqi security forces. In interviews with the Christian Science Monitor, doctors at Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital, said the main problem at is funding for basic medical services. In fact, they say the money needed to run the facility, which has the biggest patient load in Baghdad, has run just out. "The health ministry does not have money to spend until July," Tala Al-Awqati, a pediatrician at Yarmouk, told CSM. "A lot of things have stopped," she said, "People are not getting what they need from the health services. Money for disinfectant is not there anymore; sometimes we must buy it ourselves." Iraq’s Health Ministry had requested $2 billion for health care services in 2004 from US controlled funding sources, but reportedly received less than half that amount - only $950 million. Doctors told CSM that due to poor funding and the slow pace of the US-led reconstruction effort, projects to repair hospital water pipes and sewage systems are left undone. In addition to poor facilities and the lack of medicine and personnel, Al-Awqati suggested that poor security is one reason the infant mortality rate in Iraq remains high under the US-led occupation. "Women can’t reach the hospital at night," she said, referring to the lack of safety near her own facility. The UN survey reports 32 deaths per 1,000 births during infants’ first year. The report further indicates that "infant and child mortality rates appear to have been steadily increasing" during the last 15 years of war and sanctions. The number of mothers who die during labor was 93 for every 100,000 births, far worse than the rates of maternal mortality in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Iraqis Lack Safe Water, Sewage Treatment, Electricity The condition of Iraq’s health care infrastructure is mirrored by that of the country’s larger civilian infrastructure, which the UN report says is marked by "degraded or disrupted electricity supply, sanitation, and communications." In comparison with earlier statistics from Iraq on key measures of daily living conditions - such as reliability of electrical service, access to safe drinking water and sanitation systems and access to health care -- the report concludes that "an alarming deterioration in the indicators is apparent." Of the households surveyed, 51 percent of those in urban areas of southern Iraq live in neighborhoods "where sewage could be seen in the streets." Nationwide, 40 percent of families in urban areas and 30 percent in rural areas reported living in neighborhoods where they can see sewage in the streets. Iraqis are not fairing much better with respect to clean sources of water. The survey indicates that only 54 percent of households nationwide have access to a "safe and stable" supply of drinking water. An estimated 722,000 Iraqis, the report also notes, rely on sources that are both unreliable and unsafe. Conditions are worse in rural areas, with 80 percent of families drinking unsafe water, the report says. According to researchers, "the situation is alarming" in the southern governorates of Basra, Dhi Qar, Qadisiya, Wasit, and Babil, located near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. A large percentage of the population in this region relies on water from polluted rivers and local streams, the report says. Although 98 percent of Iraqi households are connected to the electrical grid, 78 percent of them report "severe instability" and low quality in the service, according to the survey. As a result, about one in three Iraqi families now relies on alternative sources of electricity such as generators, most of which are shared between households. Literacy in Decline The past two decades of war and sanctions have also taken a heavy toll on Iraq’s education system, the report states. The literacy rate among those between the ages of 15 and 24 is just 74 percent, the survey reveals - a rate researchers note is only "slightly higher than the literacy rate for the population at large." But this figure is lower than literacy rates for those 25-34, "indicating that the younger generation lags behind its predecessors on educational performance." The survey also indicated that the literacy rate for women in Iraq has stagnated in the past two years. In some governorates, however, the level of female illiteracy is very high. Overall, the gender gap in literacy is diminishing in Iraq, according to the report - but this appears due more to a drop in the literacy levels of men rather than gains made by women.
A great big THANK YOU to Mr Max for embedding that song in my head There's simply no way to recover your dignity when you're caught humming Twisted Sister toons in 2005...
Once again, even within this article, you have the press saying the situation sucks and the gov't saying its better than it was. How does that debunk anything?
dude. Are you brain dead? Seriously. Are you a Chormosome short or something? That's like posting "facts" against Isreal from an Al-Queda Website. A little info on the people that started the, um, new standard news.
