Hi guys, My sis recently sent me this e-mail about our president. We all know how Bush feels about women and protecting our reproductive rights. He doesn't think it is as important as blowing things up I guess. Below is an excerpt from a book called "Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America" by Molly Ivins and Lou DuBose. Give this a look and if you would like to contribute to this cause, please do. Also, please pass this e-mail along to anyone else who you think may be interested. Thanks guys,
[Name omitted to protect the naive.]
P.S. The bit below is for forwarding. Please add a little personal message, as this would be more warmly received.

>From Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, by Molly Ivins and Lou
DuBose, pp 260, 261:

...Meanwhile, the Bushies continued their pattern of sending career ideologues
rather than career diplomats to international conferences. They stripped $34
million out of the United Nations Population Fund and withheld $3 million from
the World Health Organization's Human Reproduction Program. The United Nations
estimates that this will eventually result in 800,000 additional abortions
around the globe, since it cuts money for family planning.
The move against the Population Fund has become the focus of a rather
extraordinary effort among American women to replace the money dollar by dollar.
Two women, Lois Abraham, a lawyer in New Mexico, and Jane Roberts, a retired
schoolteacher in California, decided that American women needed to act to
replace the money. They announced, starting by e-mail to their own friends,
that they wanted 34 million women to send a dollar to the fund. As Jennifer
Block noted in The Nation, Bush has since earmarked almost exactly that amount
-- $33 million -- to encourage abstinence-only sex education here at home. At
the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Bush was the only major leader who
did not attend) and at the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference,
American delegates again and again gave the impression they thought it was "my
way or the highway".

For more information on 34 Million Friends Campaign, visit www.unfpa.org, where
you can also view their FAQ's.

34 Million Friends Campaign
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017

Thanks for your help!

And, running the risk of narcissism, my response:

There are a number of issues with the excerpt quoted.

First, 'meanwhile.' We have no context. We step in without the background that
the linking word makes paramount. And from there we are told, without
supporting data, that 'the Bushies' nominate 'ideologues' in lieu of
'diplomats.' This statement contains two ad hominem attacks. Both terms,
'Bushies' and 'ideologues,' are meant to derogate and succeed without any
factual clarification. The opposition 'ideologue <-> diplomat' does not hold
unless one accepts the authors' definition of diplomat, which, while not
stated, must be in some way antithetical to 'ideologue.' In point of fact a
diplomat is an an appointed representative of a government and is never an
independent thinker with the authority to choose whether or not it counters
the prevailing thinking of an administration. Diplomacy is a handshake, a
face, and the toeing of the line.

But regardless of how you feel about reproductive rights or anything else, you
should be very careful of supporting the U.N. in anything, particularly in
financial matters. The U.N., including that fraud Kofi Annan (the personal
hero of [personA 1] and [person 2*]), is currently embroiled in a web controversy
surrounding the Food for Oil Scandal in which many members profited
financially through secret deals with Saddam Hussein. There is vast
corruption, and UNSCAM (as it's being called) is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here is a link to only the latest piece on a story that is being underreported
because of the damage it can potentially do to people around the globe and
across the political spectrum (both democrats and republicans):

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/9139587.htm?1c

Politics and world affairs are too complex to be distilled to hot-button
issues like abortion. And whether you support Bush or not, it's important to
maintain integrity--not to sink to sarcasm or moral superiority--, and to
fight the right battles. In giving $34 million to the U.N., how much would
escape the sharks at this feeding frenzy?

Take care.

(* Two Belgian nationalists with whom I've butted heads in the past.)

I didn't even address the odd suggestion that Bush is bad for opposing abortion, while he's even worse for potentially ensuring an increase in the numbers of abortions worldwide. One might expect them to draw the conclusion that such a policy is motivated by racism, which is typical of the left in commenting on internal versus external expenditures, as if the U.S. were home only to white people. The real issue here may not be that 'the Bushies' are racists or hate women but, if anything, that they do not accept responsibility for the sexual conduct of the rest of the world, nor do they accept the doctrine of universal entitlement.

And here we come back to the start of the quote. The Bushies have appointed ideologues, we're told. And yet this whole assessment makes sense only if one accepts leftist ideology as a valid criterion.

The United Nations Population Fund makes its goals clear, and some of them--particularly universal access to reproductive health services and universal primary education--are socialist to the core and will never find the support of a capitalist nation.

ps: the best bit of the message is the post scriptum, which informs us how we might be more successful in our efforts at spreading propaganda:

"P.S. The bit below is for forwarding. Please add a little personal message, as this would be more warmly received."