Author: R J Adams

One might think that America couldn’t possibly sink any further into the mire of violence and irresponsibility. It’s eight year administration has plunged this nation deep under the armpit of world opinion by its lust for militarism over diplomacy; its inability, or lack of desire, to control the ever-increasing gun crime on America’s streets and campuses, and its reckless economic policies that have damaged not just the US, but much of the world.

Now, however, America is stooping even lower in its bid to become the world’s principal pariah.

Remember those girlish get-togethers of the sixties and seventies? There was at least one in the neighborhood every week or so. Tupperware started the craze. Housewives would meet up in a neighbor’s house for a good old gossip, a cup of coffee and a few cookies, and maybe lash out a few dollars on the latest plastic food container or liquid dispenser.

It was all good innocent fun, made the ‘Tupperware’ brand famous, and was the perfect excuse for some female socializing.

Not any more. Now, Tupperware parties have been superseded by Taser parties.

Not content with marketing these vile devices to police forces throughout America, the Taser company jumped on an idea devised by Dana Shafman, founder of Shieldher Inc.,^[1] to market their product to women as the new female self-defense tool, using “Tupperware-style” parties to do so.

          

According to Shafman, her new ‘Lady Tasers’, in a choice of colors, including pink, are in great demand. They retail for $350, have all the stunning capacity of the police weapon, but unlike those manufactured for law enforcement, the ‘Lady Taser’ has the capacity to stun for up to thirty seconds. Police tasers are limited to five seconds.

Taser parties are great fun, says Dana Shafman. Woman get to fire the weapons at cardboard cutouts, amid much merriment and mirth even though alcohol is definitely off the menu.

Some young moms, thinking to purchase a taser for their handbag, expressed concern that children may think its a toy because of the color. General consensus concluded that it’s probably best to explain to toddler why Mommy carries it, and what its for. That will ensure they leave it alone – just exactly as they leave Daddy’s bevy of rifles and handguns alone, as the statistics of dead and injured children from firearms accidents aptly demonstrates.

There was a time in this country when ‘neighborliness’ was part and parcel of American life. People were happy to help each other out; strangers were not automatically assumed to be violent criminals and rapists. Those times have gone, washed away by a diet of violent movies, violent TV programs, violent video games, violent wars, violent government.

The American people have been systematically drugged on violence. It permeates every facet of their lives. Even the US government is hooked on violence. Twenty years ago, how many Americans would ever have considered their country capable of justifying water-boarding as an acceptable interrogation technique?

Take a moment to think about that, any of you old enough to remember.

From Tupperware to Tasers in one generation.

Violence breeds violence. This nation is the living proof of that. Adding more weapons to the arsenal is not the answer.

^{[1] ‘Shieldher Inc.’ website}

^{NOTE 1:Taser use, except by authorized police officers, is prohibited in DC, HI, MA, MI, RI, NY, NJ, WI.}

NOTE 2: On its website, Shieldher Inc., emphasizes the Taser is not a weapon, but a “personal protection system”. So is an M16.

Filed under: Too many Annie Oakleys

My thanks to ‘WiseWebWoman’ for sending Sparrow Chat this award as an intellectually stimulating blog. It is much appreciated.

          

WWW’s own blog is well worth a visit, and not just for the fine views of Newfoundland with which she occasionally delights our eyes while strolling with her camera.

“The Other Side of Sixty” has some excellent reading. It’s link is available in the “Blog Nest” of Sparrow Chat’s sidebar.

In answer to a question from a member of the House of Commons in the British Parliament, Douglas Alexander, the Minister of State for International Development, told the House that with regard to the Iraqi health service:

“There were literally decades of under investment and mismanagement within the health system ..’ (under Saddam Hussein.)

The truth is that thirteen years of sanctions by the west, following the first Gulf War of 1991 and led by Britain and the USA, reduced the Iraqi health service to a shambles, causing severe shortages of drugs, syringes, and the parts necessary to repair vital machines. Thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children died because there was no way to treat them.

This was the misery our politicians inflicted on an innocent population in an attempt to force Saddam Hussein to heel. The misery was finally compounded in 2003 when those same countries invaded Iraq, magnifying the suffering of that populace to an even greater degree.

Douglas Alexander probably wasn’t too aware of the suffering his nation, and its bully-buddy, were inflicting on Iraq around that time. He was only twenty-four years old in 1991, and had spent a number of years at US Ivy League universities, and working for Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential election, returning to Britain as a speech writer for the man who is now Britain’s latest prime minister.

Apparently fond of his books, our Douglas returned to university to study law and graduated in 1993, whereupon he joined a firm of lawyers.

It’s easy, then, to understand why Douglas Alexander should be ready to blame Saddam Hussein, rather than his own nation’s politicians (at the time a Tory government led by John Major) for the state of Iraq’s health service.

Thankfully, some of us are more qualified to know the truth, and perhaps none more so than Felicity Arbuthnot, a freelance journalist who has spent long periods in Iraq and is an expert on the Iraqi health service.

She found Alexander’s remarks to be at odds with her own opinions, and wrote to him with the following observations:

“….The United Nations State of the Nations Report of 1989, recorded Iraq as having over ninety percent access to ‘free high quality health care’ (based on the British National Health Service, incidentally) and to clean water and an educational system so exemplary (free from kindergarten through university) that two years running, Iraq was awarded a special U.N., prize for its excellence. Hence the high qualifications of the country’s professionals. The medical profession was one aspired to especially, by students. On qualification, many were paid for, by the Iraqi government, to also undertake post-graduate studies in the West, thus benefiting from expertise in both Iraqi and Western practices. Many of the students came to Britain, who benefited greatly financially from the Iraqi government’s policy.

Thirteen years of the most draconian embargo ever imposed by the United Nations (driven by the US and UK) after the 1991 bombing, led to disaster in a country which had (on the advice, ironically,, of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization) imported – broadly – seventy percent of everything. The forty two day carpet bombing defied the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention, which states: It is prohibited to ‘ attack destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population… including : foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations … irrigation works.’ All the former were about seventy percent destroyed. Water and irrigation facilities, were totally destroyed, at the behest of US Central Command………

…….. Iraq’s heath care system is not ‘ .. the result of decades of under investment and mis-management’, but of thirteen years of draconian sanctions and bombings, an illegal invasion and five years of further destruction and decimation. Given Britain’s pivotal role in the all, the country has a duty to right an appalling wrong. With a change of Prime Minister, [Gordon Brown] an electorate which has never been more cynical, which was promised a change of direction., Iraq will for ever be Labour’s nemesis. Such a policy of reparation on Iraq’s health care, might just win back a few British hearts and minds.^[1]

These are excerpt’s from a long letter worthy of further perusal. It has been posted in full on the website of the Center for Research on Globalization, and the Iraqi site Gorilla’s Guides.

It is so easy to twist and alter the tales of history, whether by accident or design. It behooves all of us to ensure the stories that are eventually passed down to future generations are correct, and not deformed by those who would seek advantage from such manipulations.

Over the centuries, much of world history has been distorted beyond recognition. While it is taught in our schools today, mostly as unassailable fact, the majority is tainted and tinged by lies, exaggerations, and political convenience.

Douglas Alexander was guilty of just such ‘political convenience’ in the British House of Commons recently.

He, and his like, should not be allowed to get away with it.

^{[1] Public Health Crisis in Iraq – Felicity Arbuthnot, February 16th 2008.}

^{(My thanks, as ever, to TOB for bringing the matter to my attention).}

Filed under: Iraqi sanctions