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Fantastic!
Last Post 05/02/2014 06:38 PM by 79 pmooney. 8 Replies.
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huckleberry

Posts:824

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05/02/2014 10:11 AM
Courageous and inspiring on so many levels... http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/05/02/308353109/afghan-female-cyclists-breaking-away-and-breaking-taboos
ChinookPass

Posts:809

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05/02/2014 12:25 PM
That is cool! In the short term, you have be concerned for their safety. But in the long term, that is the path to freedom and sustainability for societies. Liberate the women.

Makes all of our struggles to have "freedom" on the road seem so much smaller.
79pmooney

Posts:3180

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05/02/2014 12:37 PM
I've just been reading Jimmy Carter's "A Call to Action: Woman, Religion, Violence and Power". He talks about the women of these societies and how it must be the women who start the change; that men cannot do it for them no matter how well intentioned.

I suspect he would be a fan of these women.

Ben
Pin0Q0

Posts:229

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05/02/2014 01:17 PM
Last week he was a guest on Bill Mahr on HBO and that's exactly what he talked about. I have the utmost respect for that man and believe he undeservedly got a bad rap when he was in office. The World would be a much nicer place if we had more politicians like him, but since there is no money in it it's not a option. It's all about religion and war now.
huckleberry

Posts:824

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05/02/2014 05:15 PM
Pin0Q0 - I'm in total agreement. His reputation is so far from what he is - a truly good human being who has marginalized by the appearance of Reagan.
vtguy

Posts:298

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05/02/2014 05:30 PM
I heard the NPR piece on the Afghan woman's cycling team this morning. Really inspirational!

Totally agree about Jimmy Carter. His stature has been incredibly enhanced since leaving the presidency.
Orange Crush

Posts:4499

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05/02/2014 05:40 PM
I think there's still a few road signs with kilometer distances between Santa Cruz and Monterey honoring Jimmy Carter.

I bet he had the cycling rules in mind when he started that drive. But, kidding aside, the guy was sofar ahead of his times, people didn't understand him. I hate to point it out but when he was voted out of office and replaced by trickle-down-economics, that's the precise moment that the long downhill slide started.

And to bring it back to those Afghan women, isn't that also the moment that we started supporting that resistance group that is known as the Taliban, to give the royal boot to the Russians?
79pmooney

Posts:3180

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05/02/2014 06:28 PM
I have believed a long time that Carter has done more good since leaving office than all the other ex-presidents of my lifetime combined. And that's despite no longer being used by our government as an ambassador, overseer of votes, etc. because our government knows full well if Jimmy Carter sees something that isn't right, he will speak up.

I see him as a Christian in the mold of the man Jesus of Nazareth, not as a follower of any dogma. The humblest man to have ever been in the position of the most powerful man on earth perhaps? A man who uses his power and influence of an ex-pres to do pretty amazing things. Getting one of the high end pharmaceutical companies to donate millions of vaccines and others to loan well digging equipment for use in Africa. With those tools, the women of his Carter Foundation have spent the last 25 years vaccinating and teaching villagers, almost all women, the hygiene required to eliminate the Guana worm. It is almost done. That will be the 2nd or 3rd elimination of disease mankind has ever done.

Ben
79pmooney

Posts:3180

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05/02/2014 06:38 PM
OC, and it was the Taliban who eliminated poppy production for opium from Afganistan. Under the Taliban, that country went from #1 in the world to zero. They picked it up again after we drove them underground as a means of income. (And farmers found that with the roads destroyed, the promised market economy growing food and other legitimate crops didn't work. No way to get them to market. But a small, light, very high value crop worked well.

Had we not messed with the Taliban, things would be very different. Not entirely better. This example probably would still be 50-100 years away. But far more Afganis would be alive and not addicted.

Ben
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