Re: Off Topic: Basic Assumptions

["Laura Walker" <LJW6626@worldnet.att.net>]

Margaret,

>From this perspective, I'd have to agree.  The issues aren't off-topic when
you put them in that context.  My question is, at what point do the
corporations/government agencies/extremely wealthy decide that it's no
longer just the "utterly poor" and defenseless, but the very 'solid' middle
class folk?  It reminds me of the poster:  "When they came for the Jews, I
said nothing because I wasn't one; when they came for the gypsies, I said
nothing because I wasn't one; when they came for the homosexuals, I said
nothing because I wasn't one; when they came for me, there was nobody left
to say anything..."
-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret Tarbet <tarbet@swaa.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list NOPRIVACY <noprivacy@essential.org>
Date: Monday, February 22, 1999 6:38 AM
Subject: Re: Off Topic: Basic Assumptions


>
>[A]nalysts say the [Asian] financial crisis has led to increases in
>child labor,  prostitution, drug trafficking, domestic violence and
>suicides.
>
>"The economic meltdown and what it's doing to the people I see and
>the children is absolutely terrible," said the Rev. Joe Maier, a
>Roman Catholic priest from Longview, Wash., who has worked in
>Bangkok's Klong Toey slum for more than two decades.
>
>"And no one has the slightest idea how bad it is," he added.
>
>http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9902/22/AsiaCrisis-Coping.ap/
>
>As usual, the folk who suffer most are those who can least afford
>to, and who had no part in the decisions that are ruining their
>lives.   Similar things are already happening here -- will we wake
>up before we become as weakened and ineffectual as Bangkok
>slum-dwellers?
>
>(I'd argue that these issues are not at all off-topic.  The only
>folk who have privacy are the very wealthy and the utterly poor --
>and the latter only because nobody cares, not because their privacy
>rights have any substance)