Posted by Lilly from ? (160.129.27.22) on Saturday, July 13, 2002 at 2:51PM :
In Reply to: Re: Gandhi, did you ever hear about this? posted by panch from pool0417.cvx25-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.217.162) on Saturday, July 13, 2002 at 12:28PM :
: It may be unpleasant to admit...but I think there is little concern over people in Africa and Bangladesh dying. It's better than world wide birth control programs... especially if you are a Protestant who believes that starvation and disease are brought on from up high because you have displeased the Deity.
xxx The ELCA & Episcopalian Church does not stand against birth control &/or abortion. There may be other Protestants who do, or members within Protestant congregations, but let's not categorize things so crudely. It's like saying all Assyrians are like Firas.
: To these people death from AID's is a cure for the disease of Homosexuality or promiscuity...same reason they don't want birth control or abortions made 'easily" available.
xxx The Episcopal Church ordains homosexual priests. The Norwegian Lutherans do, too. I think these churches have moved beyond this issue. The ELCA is becoming more progressive... they have groups that openly advocate the homosexual lifestyle for both clergy & lay persons... it's not yet been made "official," though.
: They know damn well an infected mother who gives birth to an infected child will die for her "loose" ways. How else have these people enforced "morality" than by punishment...and starvation and disease a lack of resources to combat these growing ills..may just signal a shift in Nature...hardly the sort of thing you can blame a corporation for...I mean come now...".let's be reasonable"!
xxx One of my closest friends from undergrad (who, incidentally, is white & who is currently seriously dating a black Zimbabwean) was involved in a program on educating women in Zimbabe about birth control for the past 2 years. For these people, birth control is not a church issue, so much as a cultural issue. Men have the ultimate say in the home, so if a woman advises that her husband or lover use a condom, she is accused of attempting to usurp the man's power. &, in Zimbabean culture, men can have a wife & several lovers, despite their wives' decisions. Divorces are hard to obtain, for these women.
: I even suspect it is seen as a positive thing...a "natural" adjustment in Nature...the weak etc. The strong etc.
xxx I don't know a single scientist who thinks that. In fact, for a while, there was suspicion that HIV was a man-made disease... but that's no longer debated.
: We do wrong I think to keep running in breathlessly announcing some "awful thing" our governments might not know about. Let's instead work on the basis theat they do know...
xxx That's *exactly* what I was insinuating in my post. Thanks for pointing my assertion out! The 1 question I posed was rhetorical.
: that if they don't know...they aren't going to care to know...and that the death of millions of people who can't buy anything, who can't produce anything, and yet who take up space and use up resources and leave behind garbage, producing hordes of ill cared for babies who can all spread disease and serve no usefull purpose in a world where great numbers of laborors are no longer needed..
xxx That's exactly what I think about certain (if not all) governments & industries.
: the death of all these people is not seen as a bad thing at all. They wouldn't want to exterminate them outright, as if they were bugs...but who mourns when bugs die?
xxx Certainly not certain industries & associates.
: The UN and other agencies may wish to to know, and may care and even try to do something. But they receive their funds and operate at the pleasure of a few powerful nations...performing the "window dressing" tasks of an otherwise too obviously out of countrol and rampant Death machine economy.
xxx EXACTLY!
-- Lilly
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