posted on April 29, 2007 01:09:03 PM new
Here is the site, Hometown Baghdad, that CNN focused on with the young university people of Iraq speaking out with video about daily life there.
It was set up through Chat the Planet. These young people as well as Riverbend's periodic journal entries slice through in seconds the years of propaganda from others about conditions over there because they are actually living the experience.
Hopefully open dialogue between the young people in all countries worldwide will help them to gain a better understanding of one another so ignorant power-happy leaders can no longer wage war.
Chat the Planet is a global dialogue company. We connect young people from around the world to talk about everything from politics, prejudices and war to sex, music and life in general.
Chat the Planet is uncensored, unscripted and unlike anything else in the mainstream media.
In 2007, we are launching an innovative internet platform that will transform the way people engage globally. It will transcend both cultural differences and long distances.
Founded by celebrated media executives Laurie Meadoff and Kate Hillis in 2001, Chat the Planet has produced award-winning video, internet, and radio programming that continues to reach millions of people around the world
posted on April 29, 2007 01:36:51 PM new
The article below is a little old but it gives you the mindset of the Republicans - all talk and not willing to fight for what they believe in.
Young Republicans Support Iraq War, but Not Willing to Join the Fight
By Adam Smeltz
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Wednsday 01 September 2004
NEW YORK - Young Republicans gathered here for their party's national convention are united in applauding the war in Iraq, supporting the U.S. troops there and calling the U.S. mission a noble cause.
But there's no such unanimity when they're asked a more personal question: Would you be willing to put on the uniform and go to fight in Iraq?
In more than a dozen interviews, Republicans in their teens and 20s offered a range of answers. Some have friends in the military in Iraq and are considering enlisting; others said they can better support the war by working politically in the United States; and still others said they think the military doesn't need them because the U.S. presence in Iraq is sufficient.
"Frankly, I want to be a politician. I'd like to survive to see that," said Vivian Lee, 17, a war supporter visiting the convention from Los Angeles,
Lee said she supports the war but would volunteer only if the United States faced a dire troop shortage or "if there's another Sept. 11."
"As long as there's a steady stream of volunteers, I don't see why I necessarily should volunteer," said Lee, who has a cousin deployed in the Middle East.
In an election season overwhelmed by memories of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military's newest war ranks supreme among the worries confronting much of Generation Y'ers. Iraq is their war.
"If there was a need presented, I would go," said Chris Cusmano, a 21-year-old member of the College Republicans organization from Rocky Point, N.Y. But he said he hasn't really considered volunteering.
At age 16, Chase Carpenter has.
"It's always in the back of my mind - to enlist," Carpenter, a self-described moderate Republican visiting Manhattan this week from Santa Monica, Calif., said Wednesday on the convention floor. He said he's torn over whether he'd join the military if he were 18.
Others said they could contribute on the home front.
"I physically probably couldn't do a whole lot" in Iraq, said Tiffanee Hokel, 18, of Webster City, Iowa, who called the war a moral imperative. She knows people posted in Iraq, but she didn't flinch when asked why she wouldn't go.
"I think I could do more here," Hokel said, adding that she's focusing on political action that supports the war and the troops.
"We don't have to be there physically to fight it," she said.
Similarly, 20-year-old Jeff Shafer, a University of Pennsylvania student, said vital work needs to be done in the United States. There are Republican policies to maintain and protect and an economy to sustain, Shafer said.
Then there's Paula Villescaz, a 15-year-old from Carmichael, Calif. who supports Bush and was all ears Wednesday afternoon at the GOP's Youth Convention in Madison Square Garden. She doesn't support the war, but she supports the troops and thinks the United States "needs to stay the course" now that it's immersed.
If Iraq is still a U.S. issue when she's 18, Villescaz added, she'll give serious thought to volunteering.
"I'm in college right now, but who knows?" said Matthew Vail, a 25-year-old from Huntsville, Ala., who works with Students for Bush. He said he might consider enlisting after he finishes his degree at the University of North Carolina, but not until then.
"The bug may get me after college," he said.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on April 29, 2007 01:49:03 PM new
Gee....maybe that should be made a requirement before anyone can be elected to ANY office. Including the congress.....majority of liberals/dems many who NEVER served either.
BUT they sure as heck VOTED to send our young men and women to war THEY supported and believed in.
Now they've flip-flopped and are organizing a groups of SURRENDER NOW leaders. tsk tsk tsk
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on September 5, 2007 08:49:55 PM new
The last we heard of Riverbend was in April but she has now updated her blog with an account of her adventures.
The last few hours in the house were a blur. It was time to go and I went from room to room saying goodbye to everything. I said goodbye to my desk- the one I’d used all through high school and college. I said goodbye to the curtains and the bed and the couch. I said goodbye to the armchair E. and I broke when we were younger. I said goodbye to the big table over which we’d gathered for meals and to do homework. I said goodbye to the ghosts of the framed pictures that once hung on the walls, because the pictures have long since been taken down and stored away- but I knew just what hung where. I said goodbye to the silly board games we inevitably fought over- the Arabic Monopoly with the missing cards and money that no one had the heart to throw away.
I knew then as I know now that these were all just items- people are so much more important. Still, a house is like a museum in that it tells a certain history. You look at a cup or stuffed toy and a chapter of memories opens up before your very eyes. It suddenly hit me that I wanted to leave so much less than I thought I did.
