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Romney: Must Look at the Party and the History of the Party
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Annie Birdsong
Sep 25, 2012, 4:09:12 PM9/25/12
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In a presidential election, you must look at the party and the history of
the party, because there is a shadow government behind the scenes still there
who has purchased the candidate with immense sums of money.
In the essay below, take a very close look at the contrast between Ronald Reagan -- a conservative (radical) and Jimmy Carter -- a liberal (idealist):
Reagan's mean spirited actions and deregulatory policies thrust us into an era of crisis and instability still sending shock waves today.
While Jimmy Carter balanced his budget, Reagan was the father of fiscal irresponsibility. He squandered $750 billion in tax cuts, mostly to the super rich, and though it meant quadrupling the deficit and robbing the Social Security Trust Fund to do it.
Reagan tried to make deep cuts in Social security but was forced to
back down due to strong opposition from congress and the public.
Reagan then made a substantial increase in payroll taxes, which
increased the tax burden on the majority of workers.
His massive deficits were worsened as he dramatically increased
military spending.
The rich got special favors. There were big tax breaks to the oil
industry and corporations, but his housing budget was only 15% that
of Carters, which hurt the elderly and unfortunates. He also cut
unemployment insurance and the food stamp program.
He tried to cut student loans but was rebuffed by Congress.
When cornered about his proposed cuts to the student loan program, he
lied, saying he was just trying to end aid to families with a
combined income exceeding $100,000. In truth, under his proposal, no student
could get more than $4,000 loans, pell grants and work study and
families with a combined income of $25,000 could get no grants, work-
study jobs or loans.
He opposed the minimum wage.
Indeed, it seems his very goal was to exaserbate income inequality.
Carter had plans to bring about a nationalized health insurance plan,
whereas in the 1960s, Reagan went around the country opposing
medicare, saying it would introduce socialism into the country.
Reagan tried to cut 20 billion from Medicare.
What about the great dilemma of our dependence on foreign oil -- a
shrinking resource?
Carter was a real leader with regard to our energy debacle, warning
Americans that their growing dependence on foreign oil represented a
national security threat. He encouraged Americans to wear a sweater
and reduce their thermostat and he established the Department of
Energy, along with a goal that 20 percent of the nation's energy
would be solar by the year 2000.
His administration created the Solar Training Institute, put solar
panels on the White House, worked with General Motors to develop
electric cars and trucks and developed schemes for increasing the
energy efficiency of buildings.
His administartion also wrestled with the automobile industry,
forcing auto makers to steadily raise fuel-efficiency standards.
There were plans for increasing fuel efficiency standards to 48 mpg
by 1995 -- along with technical details about how this could be done.
These grand schemes and others resulted in a remarkable 25 percent
decrease in reliance on imported oil by the United States -- in just
one term of office.
But Carters energy plans were undermined with the election of Ronald
Reagan. In fact, Reagan pledged in his campaign for office to do away
with the Dept. of Energy.
The Reagan Administration withdrew the notice to continue increasing
fuel efficiency standards and expressed faith that market pressures
would bring about fuel efficient vehicles.
Those on the far right like Reagan say government should be lasseiz
faire, keeping hands off business.
But this free market principle did not work.
Not only did fuel efficiency standards not increase. The automakers
asked for a rollback in federal fuel-economy standards and it was
granted by the Reagan Administration.
By 1988, automotive fuel economy, on average, was going down by
about 1 MPG a year, which meant a massive increase in dependency on foreign
oil.
Reagan's laxness allowed the Japanese automakers to out compete
American automakers, for the Japanese government stood for stiff
regulation, announcing that the fuel-efficiency standard will be set
some measure above the level reached by the company with the highest
attainment.
Reagan even took down the solar panels that carter had put on the
white house and eliminated the tax credit for putting solar panels on
your roof.
He slashed Carter's renewable energy research and development budget
by 85 percent. This eliminated the wind investment tax credit in
1986 and virturally eliminated funds for ocean thermal systems, wind
energy and passive solar buildings.
There were also massive cuts in money for demonstration projects for
renewable energy devices.
It all set the country back a decade in our transition to renewables.
Starved of government support, many of our scientists who were doing
research on renewable energy for the Department of Energy were forced
to sell their expertise to oil companies, who bought out many solar
technologies.
Reagan even tried to end federal subsidies for Amtrak passenger rail
service and eliminate grants and loans for mass transit systems but
was rebuffed by Congress.
It's like he didn't realize that it is a matter of national security
to break our dependence on foreign oil.
There were also sharp differences in the way Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Reagan managed the protection of the water, land and air from toxic
substance.
While Carter put environmentalist in control of the environmental
protection agency, Reagan put staunch anti-environmentalists in
control who waged war against the clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
The case load of EPA offices declined by 79 percent.
Across his two terms, Reagan, who once said trees cause pollution,
cut
the EPA budget by 66 pcercent. and he vetoed efforts to strengthen
the Clean Water Act but was overridden by Congress -- the same
scenario as happened under Nixon when the Clean Water Act was passed.
Had these two presidents gotten their way, we'd still have fecal
matter floating on waterways and children drinking tap water from
rivers so full of solvents and other toxic industrial pollutants that
they catch afire.
Even with our clean water legislation, one in two men will contract
cancer at some point in their lives. For women, it is one in three,
according to the American Canver Society.
Reagan put a lawyer with a reputation for working against
environmentalists in the Dept. of Interior which oversees national
treasures and other lands needing federal protection such as scenic
trails, national wildlife refuges, wild and scenic rivers, national
forests and national parks.
This man, James Watt began selling off these public lands at bargain
prices, allowed fisheries to be drilled for oil and cut funds for
endangered species protection. The money in the federal Land and
Water Conservation Fund that was supposed to be used to increase the
size of National Wildlife Refuges and other protected land was used
instead to rehibilitate existing parks.
He even resisted accepting donations of private land to be used for
conservation purposes.
The Sierra Club was so enraged over all this that they began a "dump
Watt Petition Drive." The angry public gathered 1.1 milion
signatures, forcing Watt to resign in 1983.
Yet another scandel involved hazardous substances.
While the Carter's administration issued an executive order to
prevent pesticide manufacturers from selling other countries dangerous
pesticides that had been banned or serverly restricted in the United
States --- such as Chemicals that cause sterility, cancer and birth
defects -- Ronald Reagan -- a great lover of the unregulated market
-- revoked the ban, allowing pesticide companies to sell these chemcials
in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
The chemicals then made their way back to the United States as
residues inside or on food we imported from these countries, such as
coffee, bananas and cotton.
Perhaps the greatest blow to this country -- one still felt today --
was Reagans impact on the free and balanced flow of information.
When he took office, a fairness doctrine was in place that had
profoundly impacted the coverage of news for 30 years.
It was there to ensure that debate on public issues is robust and
wide open -- that powerful individuals did not use their wealth to
monopolize the media as a tool of propaganda, airing biased
information to promote their own narrow interests, telling only one
side of vital issues that affect people's lives.
Broadcasters were not allowed to to use their stations to promote
their own political, social or economic views. Instead, they operated
as a sort of community smorgasbord airing all shades of opinion on
public issues.
But Reagan revoked the fairness doctrine. His main justification for
doing this was that the supreme court decision that upheld the
fairness doctrine -- the Red Lion Supreme Court Decision -- is
defunct since it was justified by the scarcity of broadcast frequencies. Now
we have cable and internet, said the Reagan administration.
However, 7 years later, the Supreme Court justices ruled that they
still regard broadcast frequencies to be a scarce resource, but no
one seemed to notice.
So today, the rich, who own almost all of the broadcast stations,
have virually overturned democracy, churning out yellow journalism in 2000
programs. The democrats have only 50
One broadcastaer, Rush Limbaugh, who makes $50 million a year,
promoting the narrow interests of the rich to 20 million people.
"People from other industrial democracies are shocked and puzzled by
our right wing propaganda machine," said Dr. Ben Bagdikian, former
dean of the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley
and author of the book, "The New Media Monopoly."
Dr. Bagdikian said since 1980, "The political spectrum of the United
States has shifted radically to the far right."
picture:
Reagan also had a real impact on the financial sector in the United
States.
When Jimmy Carter left office, Americans saved approximately 10
percent of their income.
But Reagan changed this by scraping precaustionary regulations
pertaining to lending.
This reregulation led to "radical changes in American behavior" -- in
a "near zero savings rate," explained Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel
Prize-winning economist at Princeton, who writes a column for the New York
Times.
The resulting "explosion of debt made us vulnerable," he said. This
along with deregulations that gave the financial sector a "license to
gamble with taxpayers money -- or simply to loot it" led to "utter
catastrophe" 25 years later -- "the worse economic crisis since the
great depression," said Krugman.
"Collapse was only averted by huge infusions of taxpayer funds," said
Krugman.
In a speech he called the teaching profession a "a resting place for
the unmotivated and the unqualified." In the same speech he called
for eliminating "unduly restrictive certification" requirements that
"prevent good people from entered the profession."
The Reagan administration also imposed ill-advised policies on other
countries by instituting structural adjustments policies -- All
kinds of reforms countries must undergo to get loans from the World Bank
and IMF.
For instance, countries may be required to privatize communal lands;
privatize their government-owned enterprises, such as telephone
companies providing revenues for health and education, as well as
nursery-schools, day-care centers and school dormitories; reduce their
tariff barriers; enact flexible labor laws, which some have interpreted to mean repressing labor unions, s enacting minimum wages and giving no overtime pay.
Some of the other structural adjustment reforms include deregulating
financial services; restricting access to credit; lowering tariff
barriers, which has flooded countries with cheap imports, leading to
a loss of small farmers and small businesses; eliminating subsidies to
farmers--unless the subsidies are for export production; who couldn't
compete; devalute their currencies; freeze wages, and more.
In short, policies once determined by democracy is now dictated by
Washington. More than 100 countries have lost their freedom.
And he sure didn't care about the free of Nicaraguans, who are among
the poorest people in Latin America -- people who were yearning for
democracy, the right to speak out without risk to their lives and
the rights to education, land to grow food for their children and medical
treatment. Their hungry children were dying of diseases we've had
cures for for years.
Reagan said he was going to inaugurate "a new era of freedom," but he
didn't much care about the freedom of Nicaraguans, who are among the
poorest people in Latin America, and who were yearning for democracy,
the right to speak out without risk to their lives and the rights to
education, land to grow food for their children and medical
treatment.
Their hungry children were dying of diseases we've had cures for for
years.
In 1979, when Jimmy Carter was in power, a revolution took place in
Nicaragua to overthrew Somoza, one of the most corrupt and brutal
regimes in Latin America, though embraced by every U.S. president
since Calvin Coolidge. He was installed 46 years earlier by the U.S.
marines who occupied the country for 21 years.
Almost the whole country was involved in the revolution to destroy the
dictatorship.
Everyone took to the streets. The children, the women, the men.
Involved was the socialist party, the christian democratic party, the
liberals, the conservatives -- everyone. Even members of Samosa's family.
Christians at the same time with marxists took part in this
insurrection. The church -- many priests and nuns took part in the insurrection -- even fought in the insurrection. Now, after 4 years, this is a country that has 60 percent of the GDP in the hands of the private sector. After 4 years of revolution.
President Jimmy Carter watched the revolution very closely. When he
was firmly convinced that it was democratic and sound, he and the
U.S. Congress blessed the Nicaraguans on their way with $75 million in aid
to help rebuild their war-shattered economy.
But when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he appropriated funds for
Nicaragua too -- but not exactly for development.
Reagan's funds and CIA expertise (covertly, without the
knowledge of the American people) raised up mercenary terrorists from
Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua called the Contra Rebels who
carried out wholesale, indiscriminate killing of civilians: children,
nuns, teachers, men walking to work on agricultural cooperatives -- as well
as 50,000 soldiers, many who were barefoot, hungry and ragged
14-year-olds. Thousands of children had to drop out of school when
the buildings were bombed or their teachers murdered.
The money appropriated by Reagan funded the destruction of health
centers, day care centers, construction vehicles and food stocks.
Sweden doubled its aid to Nicaragua, Reagan funded the destruction of
bridges, dams and communication towers.
As the Sandinistas expanded daycare and psychiatric services, Reagan
had ports mined and funded the destruction of crops and fuel storage
tanks. As health care dramatically improved and the World Health
Organization and UNICEF declared Nicaragua, under the new government,
to be a model country in health, Reagan
funded the destruction of trucks bringing milk into the city,
electric power plants and radio stations. When the World Court ordered
the United States to cease and desist immediately from all use of
force ... against Nicaragua Reagan funded the destruction of lumber mills. As
UNICEF praised the new government's National Campaign for the Defense of the
Life of the Child program, Reagan funded the placement of bombs aboard passenger planes.
As UNESCO awarded Nicaragua an honorable mention for its
phenomenal success in its literacy and adult education programs in
which 40,000 people learned to read, Reagan funded the partial
destruction of a hydroelectric dam.
In another mean-spirited move,Reagan also tripled its military aid to
Nicaragua's hostile neighbor, Honduras, and asked its army to harrass
Nicaragua.
Then in 1985, to ensure the cippled country didn't survive, Reagan
impeded their access to loans from the Inter American Development
Bank and World Bank.
The Nicaraguan Congress was "held in the midst of repression so
fierce that it seemed a hallucination," said Thomas Borge, Sandinista
Minister of the Interior.
See more about this on my website at http://www.anniebirdsong.info
Please email this to people in your church directory.
Come to my website to see more videos: http://www.anniebirdsong.info
Here are youtube videos for you to view and email to others:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Former President Jimmy Carter telling how many times USA has invaded
other countries:
http://youtu.be/dREiIzgDZbY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How the hawk, George W. Bush, won the presidency promoting peace, like
Ron Paul:
http://youtu.be/yAnjrwP2cxo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quotes by Nobel Prize-winning Republican on the radical agenda of
Republicans:
http://youtu.be/tnRokoy5hlA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interview with Thomas Frank, author of "Pity the Billionarie" about
the financial collapse
when Republicans deregulated, unleashing Wallstreet:
http://youtu.be/5ePxNziHw9c
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Republicans Hawks for war:
http://youtu.be/DDYKGFCM0rk
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas Kristof, an author with the New York Times, tells about the
huge disparities in wealth in the United States:
http://youtu.be/3fUkzCs_S4M
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Annie Birdsong
See my website at http://www.anniebirdsong.info
the party, because there is a shadow government behind the scenes still there
who has purchased the candidate with immense sums of money.
In the essay below, take a very close look at the contrast between Ronald Reagan -- a conservative (radical) and Jimmy Carter -- a liberal (idealist):
Reagan's mean spirited actions and deregulatory policies thrust us into an era of crisis and instability still sending shock waves today.
While Jimmy Carter balanced his budget, Reagan was the father of fiscal irresponsibility. He squandered $750 billion in tax cuts, mostly to the super rich, and though it meant quadrupling the deficit and robbing the Social Security Trust Fund to do it.
Reagan tried to make deep cuts in Social security but was forced to
back down due to strong opposition from congress and the public.
Reagan then made a substantial increase in payroll taxes, which
increased the tax burden on the majority of workers.
His massive deficits were worsened as he dramatically increased
military spending.
The rich got special favors. There were big tax breaks to the oil
industry and corporations, but his housing budget was only 15% that
of Carters, which hurt the elderly and unfortunates. He also cut
unemployment insurance and the food stamp program.
He tried to cut student loans but was rebuffed by Congress.
When cornered about his proposed cuts to the student loan program, he
lied, saying he was just trying to end aid to families with a
combined income exceeding $100,000. In truth, under his proposal, no student
could get more than $4,000 loans, pell grants and work study and
families with a combined income of $25,000 could get no grants, work-
study jobs or loans.
He opposed the minimum wage.
Indeed, it seems his very goal was to exaserbate income inequality.
Carter had plans to bring about a nationalized health insurance plan,
whereas in the 1960s, Reagan went around the country opposing
medicare, saying it would introduce socialism into the country.
Reagan tried to cut 20 billion from Medicare.
What about the great dilemma of our dependence on foreign oil -- a
shrinking resource?
Carter was a real leader with regard to our energy debacle, warning
Americans that their growing dependence on foreign oil represented a
national security threat. He encouraged Americans to wear a sweater
and reduce their thermostat and he established the Department of
Energy, along with a goal that 20 percent of the nation's energy
would be solar by the year 2000.
His administration created the Solar Training Institute, put solar
panels on the White House, worked with General Motors to develop
electric cars and trucks and developed schemes for increasing the
energy efficiency of buildings.
His administartion also wrestled with the automobile industry,
forcing auto makers to steadily raise fuel-efficiency standards.
There were plans for increasing fuel efficiency standards to 48 mpg
by 1995 -- along with technical details about how this could be done.
These grand schemes and others resulted in a remarkable 25 percent
decrease in reliance on imported oil by the United States -- in just
one term of office.
But Carters energy plans were undermined with the election of Ronald
Reagan. In fact, Reagan pledged in his campaign for office to do away
with the Dept. of Energy.
The Reagan Administration withdrew the notice to continue increasing
fuel efficiency standards and expressed faith that market pressures
would bring about fuel efficient vehicles.
Those on the far right like Reagan say government should be lasseiz
faire, keeping hands off business.
But this free market principle did not work.
Not only did fuel efficiency standards not increase. The automakers
asked for a rollback in federal fuel-economy standards and it was
granted by the Reagan Administration.
By 1988, automotive fuel economy, on average, was going down by
about 1 MPG a year, which meant a massive increase in dependency on foreign
oil.
Reagan's laxness allowed the Japanese automakers to out compete
American automakers, for the Japanese government stood for stiff
regulation, announcing that the fuel-efficiency standard will be set
some measure above the level reached by the company with the highest
attainment.
Reagan even took down the solar panels that carter had put on the
white house and eliminated the tax credit for putting solar panels on
your roof.
He slashed Carter's renewable energy research and development budget
by 85 percent. This eliminated the wind investment tax credit in
1986 and virturally eliminated funds for ocean thermal systems, wind
energy and passive solar buildings.
There were also massive cuts in money for demonstration projects for
renewable energy devices.
It all set the country back a decade in our transition to renewables.
Starved of government support, many of our scientists who were doing
research on renewable energy for the Department of Energy were forced
to sell their expertise to oil companies, who bought out many solar
technologies.
Reagan even tried to end federal subsidies for Amtrak passenger rail
service and eliminate grants and loans for mass transit systems but
was rebuffed by Congress.
It's like he didn't realize that it is a matter of national security
to break our dependence on foreign oil.
There were also sharp differences in the way Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Reagan managed the protection of the water, land and air from toxic
substance.
While Carter put environmentalist in control of the environmental
protection agency, Reagan put staunch anti-environmentalists in
control who waged war against the clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
The case load of EPA offices declined by 79 percent.
Across his two terms, Reagan, who once said trees cause pollution,
cut
the EPA budget by 66 pcercent. and he vetoed efforts to strengthen
the Clean Water Act but was overridden by Congress -- the same
scenario as happened under Nixon when the Clean Water Act was passed.
Had these two presidents gotten their way, we'd still have fecal
matter floating on waterways and children drinking tap water from
rivers so full of solvents and other toxic industrial pollutants that
they catch afire.
Even with our clean water legislation, one in two men will contract
cancer at some point in their lives. For women, it is one in three,
according to the American Canver Society.
Reagan put a lawyer with a reputation for working against
environmentalists in the Dept. of Interior which oversees national
treasures and other lands needing federal protection such as scenic
trails, national wildlife refuges, wild and scenic rivers, national
forests and national parks.
This man, James Watt began selling off these public lands at bargain
prices, allowed fisheries to be drilled for oil and cut funds for
endangered species protection. The money in the federal Land and
Water Conservation Fund that was supposed to be used to increase the
size of National Wildlife Refuges and other protected land was used
instead to rehibilitate existing parks.
He even resisted accepting donations of private land to be used for
conservation purposes.
The Sierra Club was so enraged over all this that they began a "dump
Watt Petition Drive." The angry public gathered 1.1 milion
signatures, forcing Watt to resign in 1983.
Yet another scandel involved hazardous substances.
While the Carter's administration issued an executive order to
prevent pesticide manufacturers from selling other countries dangerous
pesticides that had been banned or serverly restricted in the United
States --- such as Chemicals that cause sterility, cancer and birth
defects -- Ronald Reagan -- a great lover of the unregulated market
-- revoked the ban, allowing pesticide companies to sell these chemcials
in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
The chemicals then made their way back to the United States as
residues inside or on food we imported from these countries, such as
coffee, bananas and cotton.
Perhaps the greatest blow to this country -- one still felt today --
was Reagans impact on the free and balanced flow of information.
When he took office, a fairness doctrine was in place that had
profoundly impacted the coverage of news for 30 years.
It was there to ensure that debate on public issues is robust and
wide open -- that powerful individuals did not use their wealth to
monopolize the media as a tool of propaganda, airing biased
information to promote their own narrow interests, telling only one
side of vital issues that affect people's lives.
Broadcasters were not allowed to to use their stations to promote
their own political, social or economic views. Instead, they operated
as a sort of community smorgasbord airing all shades of opinion on
public issues.
But Reagan revoked the fairness doctrine. His main justification for
doing this was that the supreme court decision that upheld the
fairness doctrine -- the Red Lion Supreme Court Decision -- is
defunct since it was justified by the scarcity of broadcast frequencies. Now
we have cable and internet, said the Reagan administration.
However, 7 years later, the Supreme Court justices ruled that they
still regard broadcast frequencies to be a scarce resource, but no
one seemed to notice.
So today, the rich, who own almost all of the broadcast stations,
have virually overturned democracy, churning out yellow journalism in 2000
programs. The democrats have only 50
One broadcastaer, Rush Limbaugh, who makes $50 million a year,
promoting the narrow interests of the rich to 20 million people.
"People from other industrial democracies are shocked and puzzled by
our right wing propaganda machine," said Dr. Ben Bagdikian, former
dean of the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley
and author of the book, "The New Media Monopoly."
Dr. Bagdikian said since 1980, "The political spectrum of the United
States has shifted radically to the far right."
picture:
Reagan also had a real impact on the financial sector in the United
States.
When Jimmy Carter left office, Americans saved approximately 10
percent of their income.
But Reagan changed this by scraping precaustionary regulations
pertaining to lending.
This reregulation led to "radical changes in American behavior" -- in
a "near zero savings rate," explained Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel
Prize-winning economist at Princeton, who writes a column for the New York
Times.
The resulting "explosion of debt made us vulnerable," he said. This
along with deregulations that gave the financial sector a "license to
gamble with taxpayers money -- or simply to loot it" led to "utter
catastrophe" 25 years later -- "the worse economic crisis since the
great depression," said Krugman.
"Collapse was only averted by huge infusions of taxpayer funds," said
Krugman.
In a speech he called the teaching profession a "a resting place for
the unmotivated and the unqualified." In the same speech he called
for eliminating "unduly restrictive certification" requirements that
"prevent good people from entered the profession."
The Reagan administration also imposed ill-advised policies on other
countries by instituting structural adjustments policies -- All
kinds of reforms countries must undergo to get loans from the World Bank
and IMF.
For instance, countries may be required to privatize communal lands;
privatize their government-owned enterprises, such as telephone
companies providing revenues for health and education, as well as
nursery-schools, day-care centers and school dormitories; reduce their
tariff barriers; enact flexible labor laws, which some have interpreted to mean repressing labor unions, s enacting minimum wages and giving no overtime pay.
Some of the other structural adjustment reforms include deregulating
financial services; restricting access to credit; lowering tariff
barriers, which has flooded countries with cheap imports, leading to
a loss of small farmers and small businesses; eliminating subsidies to
farmers--unless the subsidies are for export production; who couldn't
compete; devalute their currencies; freeze wages, and more.
In short, policies once determined by democracy is now dictated by
Washington. More than 100 countries have lost their freedom.
And he sure didn't care about the free of Nicaraguans, who are among
the poorest people in Latin America -- people who were yearning for
democracy, the right to speak out without risk to their lives and
the rights to education, land to grow food for their children and medical
treatment. Their hungry children were dying of diseases we've had
cures for for years.
Reagan said he was going to inaugurate "a new era of freedom," but he
didn't much care about the freedom of Nicaraguans, who are among the
poorest people in Latin America, and who were yearning for democracy,
the right to speak out without risk to their lives and the rights to
education, land to grow food for their children and medical
treatment.
Their hungry children were dying of diseases we've had cures for for
years.
In 1979, when Jimmy Carter was in power, a revolution took place in
Nicaragua to overthrew Somoza, one of the most corrupt and brutal
regimes in Latin America, though embraced by every U.S. president
since Calvin Coolidge. He was installed 46 years earlier by the U.S.
marines who occupied the country for 21 years.
Almost the whole country was involved in the revolution to destroy the
dictatorship.
Everyone took to the streets. The children, the women, the men.
Involved was the socialist party, the christian democratic party, the
liberals, the conservatives -- everyone. Even members of Samosa's family.
Christians at the same time with marxists took part in this
insurrection. The church -- many priests and nuns took part in the insurrection -- even fought in the insurrection. Now, after 4 years, this is a country that has 60 percent of the GDP in the hands of the private sector. After 4 years of revolution.
President Jimmy Carter watched the revolution very closely. When he
was firmly convinced that it was democratic and sound, he and the
U.S. Congress blessed the Nicaraguans on their way with $75 million in aid
to help rebuild their war-shattered economy.
But when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he appropriated funds for
Nicaragua too -- but not exactly for development.
Reagan's funds and CIA expertise (covertly, without the
knowledge of the American people) raised up mercenary terrorists from
Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua called the Contra Rebels who
carried out wholesale, indiscriminate killing of civilians: children,
nuns, teachers, men walking to work on agricultural cooperatives -- as well
as 50,000 soldiers, many who were barefoot, hungry and ragged
14-year-olds. Thousands of children had to drop out of school when
the buildings were bombed or their teachers murdered.
The money appropriated by Reagan funded the destruction of health
centers, day care centers, construction vehicles and food stocks.
Sweden doubled its aid to Nicaragua, Reagan funded the destruction of
bridges, dams and communication towers.
As the Sandinistas expanded daycare and psychiatric services, Reagan
had ports mined and funded the destruction of crops and fuel storage
tanks. As health care dramatically improved and the World Health
Organization and UNICEF declared Nicaragua, under the new government,
to be a model country in health, Reagan
funded the destruction of trucks bringing milk into the city,
electric power plants and radio stations. When the World Court ordered
the United States to cease and desist immediately from all use of
force ... against Nicaragua Reagan funded the destruction of lumber mills. As
UNICEF praised the new government's National Campaign for the Defense of the
Life of the Child program, Reagan funded the placement of bombs aboard passenger planes.
As UNESCO awarded Nicaragua an honorable mention for its
phenomenal success in its literacy and adult education programs in
which 40,000 people learned to read, Reagan funded the partial
destruction of a hydroelectric dam.
In another mean-spirited move,Reagan also tripled its military aid to
Nicaragua's hostile neighbor, Honduras, and asked its army to harrass
Nicaragua.
Then in 1985, to ensure the cippled country didn't survive, Reagan
impeded their access to loans from the Inter American Development
Bank and World Bank.
The Nicaraguan Congress was "held in the midst of repression so
fierce that it seemed a hallucination," said Thomas Borge, Sandinista
Minister of the Interior.
See more about this on my website at http://www.anniebirdsong.info
Please email this to people in your church directory.
Come to my website to see more videos: http://www.anniebirdsong.info
Here are youtube videos for you to view and email to others:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Former President Jimmy Carter telling how many times USA has invaded
other countries:
http://youtu.be/dREiIzgDZbY
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How the hawk, George W. Bush, won the presidency promoting peace, like
Ron Paul:
http://youtu.be/yAnjrwP2cxo
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Quotes by Nobel Prize-winning Republican on the radical agenda of
Republicans:
http://youtu.be/tnRokoy5hlA
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Interview with Thomas Frank, author of "Pity the Billionarie" about
the financial collapse
when Republicans deregulated, unleashing Wallstreet:
http://youtu.be/5ePxNziHw9c
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Republicans Hawks for war:
http://youtu.be/DDYKGFCM0rk
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Nicholas Kristof, an author with the New York Times, tells about the
huge disparities in wealth in the United States:
http://youtu.be/3fUkzCs_S4M
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By Annie Birdsong
See my website at http://www.anniebirdsong.info
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