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Powell booed during summit speech
Environmentalists shouting "Shame on Bush" have heckled U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during his speech at the Earth Summit. "Betrayed by governments," read a banner held up by the protesters, some of whom were rapidly hustled out by security guards as they whistled and booed and shouted slogans critical of U.S. President George W. Bush. "Thank you, I have now heard you. I ask that you hear me," Powell replied, If Your Cause is Just®, you don't need good manners. You don't even need the minimum norms of civilized behavior... Bush, an ally of the oil, coal and logging industries, has been widely criticised by many poor countries for not attending the gathering. Green groups view his absence as evidence that Washington puts profits before the environment. More likely, the U.S. doesn't want to waste time playing with the children when there are more important things to do. It's often occurred to me why it's a Bad Thing™ for Bush to be "an ally" of the industries. I would guess that the practitioners of those industries know ever so much more about the subjects than "environmentalists" who've sat right down and given the subjects a couple weeks of thought before deciding to change things. They're against logging — and entire forests burn down because of brush buildup. They're against strip mining, because it's ugly and environmentally unsound — so men continue to risk their lives in deep mines. They're against the oil industry for any number of reasons, causing the price of gasoline and heating oil to go up, up, up... The United States denies the charge and has unveiled a large number of voluntary projects involving private businesses that aim to clean up the planet. "We have plans to end the despair and offer hope. Now is the time to put those plans into action to expand the circle of development to all God's children," Powell said. We'll never "end the despair" because it's in the interests of a powerful international "industry" to keep it going, no matter what progress is made... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-09-04 |
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