I feel bad for Anderson Cooper

[question everything]

CNN has been promoting his tour to Africa, the Sudan, Darfur, the misery. Yet everyone is hooked on Mark Foley.

Here is how the Republicans can cleanse themselves: start talking about the genocide in Darfur. Start committing resources: money, people. Use a special levey - preserving humanity - on everyone making more than $200K.

You'll do this and you may just save your sorry ass.

It is not as if any Democrat is talking about Darfur, is there?

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/

[stop the bleeding]

1. no money in Darfur = no concern by the rethugs n/t

[rodeodance]

5. oil is there.

[stop the bleeding]

6. my bad

then it should be on their list, but does Darfur pose a fake threat so that we can invade them for their liberation/oops I mean OIL?

[Selatius]

2. The Republicans already have a plan

No, it's not talking about Darfur or the cluster-fuck in Iraq. It's not about balancing the budget or trying to increase spending on poverty relief and other social programs.

Their plan is to blame Democrats. That's their only plan.

[nam78_two]

3. yes -talk about Darfur/nt

[eleny]

4. "...the Republicans can cleanse themselves..."

:rofl:

[Bluebear]

7. Republicans? CLEANSE themselves?

Ain't enough bleach on Mother Earth.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Darfur has a sane form of Islam--Sufi. The Bushes want it made extinct.

So do the Sauidi Royal family. So does Osama Bin Laden and so do the Shias.

The poor people of Darfur really, really need some non-muslim assistance if they are going to survive, because the muslim fundamentalist crazies are scared to death that a more moderate form of their religion could become popular in this more secular world. Plus the Bush administration wants muslims to look like crazy ass Terra-ists, not norma people.

Also, the war in Darfur is part African vs. Arab so there is an ethnic cleansing aspect.

There is also an economic/ethnic/social aspect like in Rawanda that makes it really dangerous. The people being killed are agriculturalists. That makes them easy targets. The goverment hired herders and armed them to get rid of the farmers. That rivalry is as old as Cain and Abel or Seth and Osiris . It leads to bloodshed

[question everything]

15. Thank you for the detailed explanation

It sounds a bit like the former Yugoslavia.

Obviously helping the people there would require thinking outside the box - a task that is sure beyond this administration. It would require a mind like that of.... Bill Clinton.

[City Lights]

9. No elected Dem that I'm aware of is talking Darfur, but George Clooney

is a Democrat, and he's been trying to raise awareness too. Seems like there is so much suffering these days, it's hard to get anyone to pay attention. :-( Maybe people have suffering fatigue. :shrug: It's very sad.

[question everything]

16. Yes, there is a lot of suffering

but I cannot think of another place where a government forces brutally kill "their" own people. Saddam Hussein was the last of them.

Correction, just because I cannot think of a similar brutality does not mean it does not exist; it just means that it does not get enough exposure.

[City Lights]

19. Good point. They're also using rape as a weapon.

As many as 40 percent of the women interviewed by Physicians for Human Rights for its recent study, Darfur: Assault on Survival, had been raped or sexually assaulted.

The consequences of rape are complicated and multi-faceted; rape victims suffer physical, psychological and social scars. In Darfur, a conservative Muslim society, rape victims suffer from stigma and shame. Some married women who are raped are disowned by their husbands, while unmarried rape victims may never marry because they are considered by society to be "spoiled."

http://www.phrusa.org/research/sudan/slideshow-women/one.html

[question everything]

20. I think that something like that took place in Bosnia

Yes, it all boils down to oppressing the women - one way or the other.

In this country is keeping the women subservient to their husbands and, of course, keep carrying babies, in Muslim world it is keeping them wearing burkas and, again, keep carrying babies. So what is the difference? Big hair and sexy gowns vs. burkas?

[malaise]

10. and now Rove via the Susan Ralston

resignation.
Sp.

[SoCalDem]

11. Darfur is a loser issue for repervicans

They don't give a crap about poor black people.. They disn;t care about AMERICAN poor black people (remember New orleans?) and those folks, at least, in theory, could have voted for them some day...


There are few if any dems who are wishing for reperviacan "redemption"..

CNN will need to try again when the Foley issue dies down.. like after the election..

[RB TexLa]

12. The t-shirt I have almost worn out

http://www.agreatergift.org/PromotionalMaterials/CRS/WorkofHumanHands/SudanUnisexT.aspx

For those not up to date here is a quick overview from people on the ground.

http://sudan.crs.org/crisis.htm

[question everything]

17. Thank you for the link

Is this the group behind the recent TV ads? I think that they are very effective, will be more so if they will get some action.

[Lisa]

13. yes -- I think he, and Sanjay Gupta, and Jeff Koinage

... are going to be rather frustrated when they get back to the States -- if they aren't already -- and see how much air time is being spent on Foley and the endless excuses being made for the man.

Obviously they put a lot of time and effort into their Africa coverage, and are out there reporting at all hours (just to make sure that they are on live when America turns on its TV sets in the evening). They're seeing some awful things, and reading their accounts in their online journal, I keep remembering Cooper's description of how he got back to New York after covering Katrina last year, and was upset by how shallow some people's concerns were -- about fashions or celebrity gossip.

http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/

[Berry Cool]

14. I wasn't crazy about the post-Katrina hype Anderson attracted

just for (in my opinion) having EMOTIONS about what was going on. But he has to be given credit for what he's been doing. And it's a sad thing that no, it won't get much attention, because people are paying attention to sex.

Remember Rwanda? People were paying attention to Tonya and Nancy, and then OJ.

[Sugarcoated]

18. On Faux Special Report

Kristol was talking about the Bush doing this very thing. I got the strange feeling it was foreshadowing. Would smirky actually do a wag the dog humanitarian move? He's desperate, Rove is desperate. Anything is possible. One thing's for sure, nobody would expect that kind of October surprise.