Darfur - Money Not Spent

It just blows me away to think about how the situation in Darfur gets no attention and things like Iraq and Afghanistan get daily attention. It also blows me away that such a war like the on in Iraq can have have Trillions of U.S. dollars spent on it, even though it is an unnecessary war. What do we have to do to get nations like the United States to do something about Darfur? How can a nation spend so much money on Iraq and spend so little on something that really matters, so much human life lost yet it gets little or no attention on the world stage. Similarly recently in Myanmar (Burma) with the cyclone that hit, instead of helping the people, we pick at the government for being a military dictatorship. I believe in a crisis such as this it should not matter who runs the country, people are dying and thats all that matters! So help the people, sort out the issues later! Why is it so hard for people like us (in the west) to spend a little money and share a little compassion? why are we so stuck up and ignorant? Is this maybe why the rest of the world hates us?

Oil Prices - Everyone Elses Fault?

As we all know oil prices have been rising steadily for some time, everyone is paying through the nose for something that we practically live on. This is a problem and it is everyones problem but watching the news I hear Americans going on about how its not their fault and that the reason why this is happening is because of developing nations such as China and India taking from the worlds global supply of oil. The United States does not believe they are the problem even though they use more oil then anyone else in the world. They say that the only way to fix it is to curb the use of oil in China and India, this is completely untrue. If the United States wanted to solve the problem they would start with themselves instead of casting blame on other nations, but the United States does not want to fix the problem because of the fact that most of the worlds richest oil companies call the United States home and they are making record profits!! You can blame Hugo Chavez in Venezuela for holding back oil supplies you can blame China and India for using too much oil but in the end the United States needs to worry about the United States not everyone else!

Free Speech An Illusion?

I’ve noticed people going on about how were so lucky here in North America to be free and have the right to free speech but I don’t see it that way, sure were lucky to be relatively free but were not completely free. I believe that our right to free speech is slowly being taken away from us, It’s allowed in small dosages as long as it doesn’t cause any real harm to the government but when free speech actually starts to take off and there is enough people to actually create change, thats when the government tends to crack down on free speech or use the media to discredit it. I remember this one time, I was watching the news and President Bush was visiting somewhere and he had all these people around him praising him and then one guy saying bad things about him, that one guy was quickly arrested and taken away. Are we not allowed to speak against the president in his presence? It always seems we have a choice to do what we think is right but in the end we realize that we have no choice at all and whenever we speak out against the government we are the ones that suffer. This is not how democracy and a free society should work and I’m not saying that we don’t have the right to free speech because we do, we just seem to be losing what little rights we have recently in the name of ’security’ and the ‘war on terrorism’ which seem more and more like ways to control the population then to protect it.

Christianity And Those Who Embrace It

I was reading a part in a history book about Emperor Constantine of Rome who was the first roman emperor to truly embrace Christianity and spread it throughout the Roman Empire, some scholars believe that he wasn’t truly Christian that he just anticipated that Christianity would begin to spread with or without him so he decided it was in his best interest to be on the Christian side. History also dictates that he did not truly become a Christian until the day he died, anyways, this got me thinking…how many people claim to be religious because of the status and power of it? After all if you don’t have much to lose embracing religion to get ahead in life in some form of another probably isn’t such a bad idea. There are those who truly believe in Christianity and they have every right to do so but do we have the right to claim religious ties for personal gain? I’m not usually one to defend the sanctity of religion but I can’t help believing its wrong to use religion for personal gain and I know this is happening but on what scale? How many people are truly in it just for the benefits? I suppose in the end everyone is using Christianity for personal benefit, I mean they all want to get into heaven, so I guess the people who use Christianity for other reasons are just following what they are taught. Religion is a perfect tool for those who hunger for power and wealth, it’s incredibly easy to manipulate people if you say it’s the word of god. I’m not saying that Christians or members of any other religion should be watching each other to see if someone is misusing religion, but you should take a step back and wonder if your following the ‘right’ word of god.