My Africa Today

10 REASONS WHY THE VOTE SHOULD NOT BE FOR RAILA!!!!!!!!


WOULD YOU MAKE PRESIDENT A MAN WHO NAMES HIS SON AFTER A DICTATOR?
Raila�s son, Fidel Castrol Odinga, is named after the world�s longest serving dictator. Fidel Castrol (the Cuban head of state) is the communist who turned Cuba into a third world slum. Why should this be a point of concern for Kenyans? Fidel Castrol (the Cuban head of state) is Raila�s role model. Raila is a communist and a dictator at heart. If we make the mistake of giving him the presidency now he will never let go. This guy will be a life president.


RAILA IS A TRIBALIST AND PARTICULARLY HATES KIKUYUS PASSIONATELY
When someone says something is not about money, it usually is about money, when they say something is not about power, it is about power. Raila is denying -without being accused, at least publicly - that he hates Kikuyus. His earlier comments tell a different story. Remember the comment he made that Uhuru was the only good Kikuyu when they were both in ODM?

Raila tries to defend himself with quips such as �even my son (Fidel) is married to a Kikuyu�. Lets all remember the rumors that were flying around that Raila was actually opposed to the wedding/marriage on tribal grounds! He saw it as a betrayal by his own son. When the young Odinga held his grounds, Raila had no option but to play along to avoid a public spectacle.

Raila is accusing the PNU of creating Raila-phobia among the Kikuyu. Raila is creating Kikuyu- phobia among everyone else as did Moi throughout his rule.

A SYSTEM IS ACCEPTABLE TO RAILA ONLY WHEN IT FAVORS HIM
Let�s go back to Kanu�s infamous Kasarani One. The blatant Injustices were being done to Kamotho, Saitoti and the rest; they were being robbed of their positions in what Kamotho referred to as �uchaguzi wa kupiga makelele�. Since things were going Raila�s way, the great defender of the oppressed did not raise a finger. A few weeks later when the same injustices were to be done to him � Raila � in Kasarani Two, he was running all over the place crying foul. Had he been President Moi�s choice, would he have said anything?

A more recent case is when Kalonzo and Raila were both in ODM-Kenya and the party was trying to come up with the best formula to pick its presidential candidate. Kalonzo favored consensus while Raila said delegate were the only way. He made all manner of threats if the delegates system was not going to be used. Then, Raila and Ruto ambushed Kalonzo at Ruto�s house and tried to arm-twist him into agreeing that Raila be president, Kalonzo be VP and so forth. Kalonzo refused, but Raila and Ruto mischievously went ahead and leaked news to the media that Kalonzo had agreed to a �winning formula�. The point is that Raila was ready to agree to the consensus method only if he was going to be the presidential candidate. After Kalonzo�s refusal, Raila was latter insisting on delegates while Kalonzo stuck to consensus. Kalonzo later intelligently posed, �The meeting in Ruto�s home, was that a delegates conference?�

Ask yourself this: would there have been �the pentagon� is Raila had not been made the presidential candidate. The only reason why Raila agreed to the nominations at Kasarani was because everything had been agreed upon beforehand. The �Nominations� were just for show.


�KIBAKI TOSHA� WAS JUST A STRATEGIC MOVE
�Kibaki Tosha� statement was not an act of martyrdom as Raila would like to have us believe.

When Raila and the LDP brigade left Kanu, they had two choices: either join forces with the best established opposition outfit at the time, NAK or become politically irrelevant. Why Raila chose to go �Kibaki Tosha� way had nothing to do with his love for Kenya or his love for Kikuyus as he claimed during the launch of his presidential bid in Uhuru Park . It was the most appealing (and may be only) choice he had at the time. Consider this:

i) Raila and the LDP team could not have gone it alone � they had tried in �97 before the �Cooperasion� � and failed.

ii) The then opposition � NAK perceived Raila as a traitor. The only way he could change this perception was through a seemingly selfless act.

iii) Raila wanted to take his revenge on Moi � the only way to do this was to make sure that Moi�s �Project� did not succeed � even if it meant joining forces with the tribe he hated most. An enemy of my enemy is my friend.

iv) Raila felt he could extract his pound of flesh from the tired and desperate Mwai Kibaki�s NAK group � as he did through the infamous MOU, which was simply unimplementable.

DON�T POINT YOUR DIRTY FINGERS AT MY SPOTS
ODM is a story of a corrupt family that brought down the molasses plant among other ills. It is a story of bishops who lie without battling an eyelid. It is about people who brought down parastatals such as the Kenya National Assurance. Now since all the scum is defecting to ODM and ODM has no vetting policy for its civic and parliamentary candidates � how can ODM tell us they are going to make a difference?

RAILA SEES CAPTURING THE PRESIDENCY AS AN END UNTO ITSELF
If you have ever listened to Raila�s famous football commentaries, the �goal� is usually Raila getting the presidency not what he plans to do for the people of Kenya with the presidency.

Raila has been consistent about one thing: his hunger for power. This should not be confused with struggle for the country or for the people of Kenya . Raila has never told us how he plans to use power to better our lives. All Raila is doing now is to make all manner of promises to everyone. Here are some of them:

a. Constitution within 6 months

b. Make Ruto Executive prime minister within 6 months

c. Majimbo

d. Free primary and secondary education

e. 13% economic growth (he promises double the current growth rate)

f. Reduce taxes

g. Make Mombasa a free port like Dubai

h. Dual carriage way roads throughout Kenya

i. Free housing for slum dwellers

j. Employment for all

k. Eradication of poverty

Quite a nice list, isn�t it? But there is no mention about how he is going to achieve these things. Saying that he �knows where the money is going to come from� is not enough.

Take the constitution for example. If its making is going to be a people driven, all inclusive process, how can he guarantee that all the interested parties are going to agree on one document within six months? Is he going to ram whatever he likes down our throats in the name of giving us a new constitution? Remember Kenyans are not going to accept any constitution without a referendum.

Take the free secondary and primary education. How are we going to pay for the education and reduce taxes at the same time without running to the donors? And if we go to the donors, isn�t that what we are trying to run away from?

Let�s be wary about these extravagant promises. Remember: a pessimist is an optimist on his way back from the casino.

RAILA WILL MESS UP THE NSE AND THE ECONOMY
Raila sees the NSE as a symbol of the Kikuyu dominance of the economy. He would like to bring it down as soon as possible. This is why he labeled it a hub of insider trading and money laundering. His reason of doing this is that he will have enough justification when tearing it apart.

ODM is portraying the PNU as a bunch of people who know nothing about constitution making. The PNU is painting the ODM group as a bunch of people who know nothing about the economy. I don�t know much about constitution making, but I know that Raila appears to understand very little about the economy.

�Chungwa ni chungu�

RAILA�S SUPPORTERS A DANGEROUS BUNCH
"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

These are the words of Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Anybody who is not pro Raila is seen as an enemy by Raila�s supporters. Several cases in point are what happened to Tuju, Nasleem and Livondo in different instances in Kisumu and Kibera. Just imagine that happening in the whole country. All the democratic space we have gained over the last few years will go down the drain. Any anti-Raila comment in the radio, on the street or on TV will earn you a proper beating if this man was president.

The tragedy here is that Raila has never condemned this behaviour by his supporters which means he condones it,i hate to say he is tribalist!!!.

Now imagine such people in positions of power. If you need a preview, remember how Gor Sunguh handled Nicholas Biwott during the Sunguh read committee on Ouko. Sunguh shouted down Biwott and hardly allowed him to say anything. In the end all he managed to do is to make Biwott appear like a modern day saint.

I LOVE KENYA
Giving the government to this Raila will be the biggest mistake of our lives. We will be throwing away the gains made so far. Raila�s extremism is not good for the Country. With Raila in power, tribalism will be felt in every aspect of our lives starting with the plot or kijiji we live in. The words �our government� will no longer mean what it means now. The bragging has already started with utterances like �the government is going to be ours� being said by members of a certain community. The cartoonist Gado captured the mood perfectly in a recent issue of the Daily Nation. Whatever you do, make sure you vote. Make sure you vote against Raila. Vote for anyone but Raila. Let�s block this communist from ruining our country. The age of dictators in this Kenya is over. Let�s keep it buried.

RAILA CANNOT BE TRUSTED

We know very well that thousands of Kenya lost their lives in the 1982 attempted coup and that raila was involved somewhat,his toture by moi was called- for,for this reason i mean which sitting president wuldnt want to punish such an act of over throwing the govt.
The controversial Armenian brothers Artul margayan were his friends he knew them first introduced them to kibaki's kinsmen.
Raila studied i russia ,he is famous even in countries you wuldn't magin like the balkan states,with communist systems of governing a principle that he adores.

I would like to know how Raila feels about the following issues. If he became president will he:

Assure John Githong�o of his security and give him his job back?
Put his portrait on our money?
put to bars or pardon all alleged corrupt leaders some of them in Odm like Hon. Ruto?
How will be his relationship with u.s.a and u.k?
What will be his relationship with Kenyan muslim??he seems to be confused religiously.



Some advice for Raila and ODM:

"If the attack is going well, it probably means you are walking into an ambush."

- Murphy�s Law:


"IS THE WORLD PREPARED FOR TWO LOU PRESIDENTS? RAILA .ODINGA AND BARRACK OBAMA?".........Quoted Prof. ALI MAZRUI



The writer is a very concerned Kenyan.



Sambaza this people. May God bless Kenya and rescue us from the jaws of Raila and ODM.
.........AMEN


SOURCE: http://www.kenyanlist.wanderi.com/klist-view-listings.php?listings_by=5

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater contractors, during a complex confrontation in downtown Baghdad, shot and killed Iraqis in the crowded Nisour Square.

The FBI and State Department are currently investigating the incident, yet it further sheds light upon a growing private sector security force in Iraq and elsewhere, that many fear has not been held accountable to the same degree as have US military officials.

Jeremy Scahill has been covering Blackwater for THE NATION and other publications for more than three years. He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, and is the author of BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY, published by Nation Books. He is also an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for DEMOCRACY NOW!.

According to THE NEW YORK TIMES, there are between 160,000 and 180,000 private contractors in Iraq, including about 30,000 armed security forces. Blackwater employees represent about 1000 of these armed contractors. There were only about 9,200 total private contractors during the Persian Gulf War.

Few Americans had even heard of Blackwater before March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and brutally killed in Falluja, and days later, a US siege of the region began. It was "what would be one of the most brutal and sustained US operations of the occupation," explains Scahill, who believes the US Military response to the killings sets a dangerous precedent.

Before the September 16, 2007 confrontation, Blackwater employees had been implicated in similar incidents involving questionable force, including in December 2006, when a drunk Blackwater contractor allegedly shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. The contractor was subsequently fired by Blackwater, yet was sent back in the region with another private firm.

"[State Department] officials said that Blackwater's incident rate was at least twice that recorded by employees of DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, the two other United States-based security firms that have been contracted by the State Department to provide security for diplomats and other senior civilians in Iraq," writes THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Still, as Blackwater's founder Eric Prince reminded Congress a few weeks ago, "Blackwater personnel are subject to regular attacks by terrorists and other nefarious forces within Iraq." As the WALL STREET JOURNAL reports, "The company has said it has done 16,000 missions for the State Department since June 2005, using its weapons just 1% of the time." And recently two Blackwater helicopters helped evacuate the Polish Ambassador to Iraq after his convoy was attacked.

But questions about accountability still abound: when mistakes are made, to which rule of law should contractors answer, military or US criminal law? Officials in the State and Defense Departments are currently debating this very question.

Blackwater's State Department contract expires next May, and according to the AP, officials in the Department intend to "ease out" Blackwater since many share "a mutual feeling that the Sept. 16 shooting deaths mean the company cannot continue in its current role." Yet according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, even if Blackwater was forced to leave Iraq, they would simply be replaced by another private security firm, since the State Department does not have the personnel available to step in:

"'There's just no way our system could handle trying to get hundreds of new people trained and sent to Iraq,' said a State Department official. 'That would be a multiyear process.'"

Guest photo by Robin Holland

Published on October 19, 2007

MYTH 1: The US was founded on Christian principles.

TRUTH:

This is incorrect.

The Constitution never once mentions a deity, because the Founding Fathers wanted to keep their new country "religion-neutral." Our Founding Fathers were an eclectic collection of Atheists, Deists, Christians, Freemasons and Agnostics.

George Washington, the Father of our country, and John Adams (Second President of the USA) CLEARLY stated in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.”

G.W. rarely attended church and instead followed a popular 18th century philosophy called Deism—a Star Wars-esque philosophy that believed in a cosmic energy or big-ass universal "Force." The dictionary says that Deism is "a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation," that had nothing to do with Christian principles.

James Madison, original mastermind of our Constitution, was an Atheist to the core who loved skewering Christianity. In 1785 he wrote, "What have been [Christianity’s] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

Thomas Jefferson, who sat down and authored The Declaration of Independence, rarely missed an opportunity to laugh at Christianity. In a letter to John Adams in 1823, he wrote: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

More ammo: In 1814, Tommy J. wrote about the Bible's Old and New Testaments, "The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful -- evidence that parts have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.”

In fact, it was President Jefferson himself who first wrote (to a Baptist church group in 1802), "The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State." Therefore, when Jefferson talked about “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “divine Providence ” in the Declaration that he wrote, he was being a hippie and referring to a general cosmic energy-- not the Christian God.

America is not a Christian nation. Period. Our Constitution derived from the post-Christian Enlightenment values of reason and truth...never from the paranoid yammerings of that otherwise compassionate cult leader who fucking died in the Middle Eastern desert 3000 years ago.

MYTH 2: US Conservatives tend to be patriotic, ethical Americans; liberals tend to hate America and are immoral.

TRUTH:

Liberals aren't the traitors to America. In fact, conservatives who insist on sending American troops into the Iraqi slaughterhouse to watch some blood-n'-guts "towelhead" ass-kickin' are the traitors. Most of them could care less about our troops, no more than Mao or Stalin cared about the safety of their own soldiers. In the neocons' view, these young boys and girls are expendable test dummies. They're dying for virtually nothing, so that the hicks in the Bush Admin can make good on their campaign promises to their buddies from the petroleum and infrastructure-rebuilding industries. By revving up the Arab threat, these MFs can scream "national security" and "freedom" as smokescreens, while getting their hands on a diminishing resource: Middle Eastern fossil fuels, which power everything from your lightbulbs and computer that you leave on all night, to your stupid gas-guzzler pickup truck.

Pro-war conservatives are the traitors to America. With only 29% of the public approving of Bush's policies now, it took a full 5 years for America to finally wake up in bed next to this disgusting fact.

Do liberals hate America? No, in fact they care so much about the USA that they fight so aggressively to make it better. They're not anti-American; they're just anti-stupidity. Do liberals hate American policies? Sometimes, but only the self-destructive ones that threaten human rights, liberty, democracy, justice, inquiry, excellence and reason-- the values that our country was founded upon.

As for conservative moral superiority? Frauds. Think of the child-molesting priests, money-scamming televangelist preachers, Jack Abramoff's friends in the Bush Admin, gay-hating Jesus lovers, the Christians who beat up the professor who opposed intelligent design, human rights violators like Lynndie England and her Abu Ghraib hick officer pals, Tommy "Scandal-icious" Delay, Scooter "Leaky" Libby, the entire K Street Project meant to hire only Republicans, FEMA's Michael "Yer doin' a heckuva job" Brownie, and so on.

Oh and by the way, conservative Red states have a divorce rate 27% higher than the liberal Blue states, the per capita rate of violent crime in Red states is 49 per 100,000 higher than in Blue states, the top 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse are Red states, and the per capita rate of gonorrhea in Red states was 41 per 100,000 higher than in the Blue states. Time to unshelf the antibiotics for our "ethical," "God-fearing" conservative friends with their "traditional family values."

MYTH 3. The US has a liberal media.

TRUTH:

This is a paranoid Republican myth.

Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10 corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the American public. Evidence:

1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that." Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that "coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.

3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.

4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.

5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review, etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC, WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.

6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%, Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? " Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs: 1152.

7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the 'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view."

MYTH 4. The US doesn’t need improvement compared to other countries; it is the greatest country in the world.

TRUTH:

Wrong again. I'll only cite the statistics here.

USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9

(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD

USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37

(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003

USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12

(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26

(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24

(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19

(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17

(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report

USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)

(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen

USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29

(#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005

USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32

(#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters Without Borders 2005

USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17

(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005

USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13

(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.

USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45

(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005

USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)

(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro

USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32

(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006

USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10

(#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005

So much for those "socialist" Europeans and those "backward" Asians, hm?

We can do better than this.

Miscellany:

*Only 18% of Americans own passports and bother to travel outside of the US.

* 85% of US soldiers in Iraq believe that they are there to get revenge for 9/11.

* New international student enrollment in US grad schools has decreased by 6%, because of xenophobic post-9/11 US visa restrictions, jacked-up tuition fees and better educational opportunities in the EU and Asia. So no, not everyone wants to come here anymore, because it's become a land of incredibly limited opportunity, and we've lowered our educational standards.

MYTH 5: The US government loves to help other countries.

TRUTH:

This is a myth. The US government tends to be motivated by interests, not humanitarian principles.

Denmark gives the most amount of its GDP (1.01%) to developing countries; Norway gives 0.91%; the Netherlands give 0.79% and so on until the end of list, where the USA sits. Yes, America ranks DEAD LAST in foreign aid at a pathetic 0.1% of its GDP, compared to the other 21 nations listed as developed nations. The idea that the US government is a heroic bunch that runs around the world helping the poor and the disempowered is not backed up by the evidence. We have one of the stingiest governments on earth.

Most Americans believe the US spends 24% of its budget on aid to poor countries; the actual amount is well under a quarter of 1%. Our country also ranks #5 on asylum-seeker acceptance rates (#1 is Denmark and #2 is Canada).

For you self-congratulatory, redneck-inspired conservative fuckwads who will start to say, "B-b-b-but you're anti-American! M-m-m-moonbat! G-g-g-god bless the USA!" I answer, "Go fuck yourself. We can do better." Stop blindly believing everything your president tells you. Come back to us only when you start realizing that the $400 billion your president has allocated to his Roman Empire-style military overstretch could be better spent on correcting the sociopolitical and economic problems in the arenas that I've listed above