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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Campaigners decry Rio slum wall |
| 2004-04-12 |
| Plans to ring two slums in Rio de Janeiro with a 3-metre (10-foot) wall have been condemned by human rights groups and the city’s own mayor. Officials in Brazil’s main city are pushing the idea after a drug-related turf war at the weekend left two policemen and six others dead. Umm ... no. This isn’t Berlin and neither is it the West Bank. If your country’s government is involved in shooting street children for sport, you don’t get to cage them like animals. Let’s see Brazil make a bit of social progress before trying such an exclusionary tactic. The gap separating wealthy people from the underclass is far too wide to justify such obvious isolationism. Any unwillingness to adjust such a blatant discrepency should be met with routine breaches of this proposed wall. They’re not terrorist Arabs seeking to demolish civilization as we know it. These happen to be actual human beings seeking some sort of stable life. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #8 Phil B, I'm obliged to interpret your support for the Rio wall as a similar approval for American cities to section off their own slums. So, when are you going to openly advocate walling off Compton from greater Los Angeles? How about Bedford-Sty or Harlem from New York? Your thinking is about as American as Mao Tse Dung. PS: Name calling is not only a grade school occupation, it usually relects an inability to adequately prove one's point without resorting to personalities. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-13 10:40:08 AM |
| #7 Zipster, go buy a dictionary. It would help you make sense. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-04-13 4:36:38 AM |
| #6 "... cos there was nothing wrong with my grammar." I rest my case. Jen, when you finally realize that the misogynistic Loya Jirga has a lot in common with a gang-rape-ordering Pakistani jirga, your head won't be anywhere near as close to exploding. Until then, walling off the impoverished portion of a city's population still reeks. As our anonymous contributor pointed out, if Brazil is rich enough to go nuclear, they have the money to spend on bettering their nation's poor. I've yet to see any reports about poverty stricken Brazilian slum dwellers strapping on bomb vests. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-13 3:23:22 AM |
| #5 Zipster, I think you need to find a new grammar checker, cos there was nothing wrong with my grammar. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-04-12 10:33:03 PM |
| #4 Phil B is right, Zipster. You can tell you're a Liberal--Only Leftie Libs like you and Clintoon would want to run down to Rio and "intervene" on the behalf of the USA(with peacekeeping troops perhaps?) while we're fully engaged in the WOT. And we've cleaned up messes of late in Liberia and Haiti in addition to the war, while we continue to have troops stationed in Kosovo. This wall and the problems of Rio's poor aren't really our problem and Lula hasn't exactly asked for our help in his own backyard. The world is full of problems, if you go looking, which you obviously did. The United States, as rich, prosperous and benevolent as it is, isn't God and cannot clean up every mess on the globe just because someone decries the abuse of "human rights." America was attacked on 9/11 and in an abandonment of our traditionally isolationist policy we went to war against those who attacked us, i.e. Islamist terrorists and their rogue state sponsors. Now, get your sh*t together and decide who and what you believe in and support and precisely why and then decide after long meditation if you still want to continue being RB's most avid, yet vapid poster. |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-04-12 10:20:58 PM |
| #3 Isn't Brazil going nuclear? If they have enough money for the bomb, they have enough money to help their people. Saddam-lite in some respects. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-04-12 10:12:54 PM |
| #2 "Or is it us conservatives are annoyingly well informed and have no difficulty debunking your leftist tripe?" [KMart Voiceover] Grammar clean up on aisle five. Get a clue, Phil B. I advocate the most severe measures against terrorist actions. Do you honestly encourage major efforts directed in opposition to those who fight unfair isolationism? The Brazilian protesters deserve to be heard when it comes to their arguments against elitism. PS: Distorting someone's screen name is a grade school tactic. Continue to do so if you see fit. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-12 9:29:48 PM |
| #1 Wassa matter Zipster? Tired with pretending to be a conservative? Or is it us conservatives are annoyingly well informed and have no difficulty debunking your leftist tripe? People have been building walls and fences for a very long time and for very good reasons. But then those nasty Joooos build one to keep out those nice palestinians, and suddenly walls and fences are baaad! |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-04-12 8:33:11 PM |