Friday, January 29, 2010

So much for Helping Haitians

Here we go again. We'll let the thousands of Haitians who are already here in the U.S. stay under the TPS (Temporary Protected Status), but if any come by boat, or otherwise, we'll send them back, or maybe even detain them in immigration prisons. Is this humane? What should the U.S. do? Obviously, it cannot let all Haitians move to the U.S, but is this the most humane/just policy?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

US Citizenship and Immigration Services Outlines TPS for Haitians

The U.S. Government is offering Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians ALREADY in the U.S. This status will expire in 18 months, unless the government renews it. What would be interesting is to see, 1) what the government does after 18months, 2) what the government does with Haitians trying to escape Haiti by boat. Will it relax its position re. Haitian Boat People, or will those people be sent to places like Guantanamo Bay?

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Google may leave China: Breaking free of the "Green Handcuffs"

The United States has consistently tiptoed around Chinese human rights issues. An American politician may occasional issue a condemnation of China and use strong language to urge the Chinese government to give its people more rights. The demand is almost always met with little reaction. 
I use the word tiptoe because America is financially bound to China. China with its large market is a place that American companies look to get rich. Even if getting rich means sacrificing values. Google entered the Chinese market looking forward to financial success even though it would require them to censor material on its Chinese search engine google.cn. The people at google struggled with allowing their search engine to be censored as it went against their company slogan of "Don't be evil." However, get rich prevailed of over "Don't be evil." Google created the search engine and censored topics such as "“Tiananmen Square massacre” and the "Dalai Lama." 
After the Chinese government recently hacked into a number of prominent Chinese human rights activists gmail accounts Google is threatening to withdraw from China. Google should no longer be complicit in denying human rights by censoring the internet in China. Google should only stay in China if the internet becomes uncensored. Google should break free of the "Green Handcuffs" that China has placed on American companies and the U.S. government because human rights is more important than dollars and cents. 

War against Euphoria

  Hate Hope and Human Rights  At least that's what the addicts describe it as. In 2020 alone, an estimated 9.5 million Americans, just A...