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Marijuana

2007-05-24T17:15:25Z

Stefve:

'''Marijuana''' es un [[Schedule I]] [[Controlled Substance]] sobrosa en los Estados Unidos, and it is subject to various degrees of legality in different parts of the world. It comes from the ''Cannabis'' [[plant]].

The effects of marijuana can include short-term memory loss, mild hallucinations, and an impairment of physical and mental functioning. Proponents of marijuana have claimed that it has medicinal benefits although other treatments can also deliver these benefits to various ailments without hallucinations and the impairments to judgment. Some have advocated for decriminalization. <ref>[http://www.leap.cc Law Enforcement Against Prohibition]</ref>. Many people of varying political alignment advocate its legalization. <ref>http://www.lp.org/issues/lp-oss.shtml</ref>

A religious or sacramental use of marijuana is reported in various cultures such as those of the Rastafari movement or the Sadhus of India. Use of marijuana in a religious capacity is legal for members of the Native American Church, however, members must be registered with the Church and government.{{fact}}

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Illegal substances]]

Bill Clinton

2007-05-24T17:08:56Z

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{| border="1" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="250" style="margin-left:5px"
|align="center" colspan="2"|[[Image:billclinton.jpg|200px|United States President Bill Clinton]]
|-
!colspan="2" align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: indigo no-repeat scroll top left;"|Bill Clinton;
Forty-second President of the United States
|-
|Born
|August 19, 1946
|-
|Term
|1993-2001
|-
|}

'''William Jefferson''' "Big Bill" '''Clinton''' '''(August 19, 1946 - present)''' served as the 42nd [[President of the United States of America]] from 1993-2001, following [[George H. W. Bush]] and preceding [[George W. Bush]].

== Early Life ==

Good ol' Billy was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946 AD in Hope, Arkansas. His father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr. died in a car accident while his mother was pregnant with him. Clinton's mother later married Roger Clinton, and the four year-old William was given his stepfather's name.[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html]

Cliton was active in high school, participating in various student government organizations as well as playing the saxophone. Roger Cliton, however, made Bill's family life unpleasant by repeatedly abusing Cliton's mother and her children. Bill Clinton would eventually stand up to his stepfather in high school, forcing his stepfather to stop beating his mother and kicking him out of the house. [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50652] After Roger Clinton underwent alcohol rehabilitation, he would eventually rejoin the family.

Cliton attended [[Georgetown University]], then [[Oxford University]] after receiving a prestigious [[Rhodes Scholarship]]. He also then earned a Juris Doctorate from [[Yale University]] in 1973. At Yale he met [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Rodham]], whom he would later marry [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html].

== Early Political Career ==

After returning to live in Arkansas, Cliton was elected [[Attorney General]] of Arkansas in 1976 AD. Two years later, he was elected Governor of Arkansas, becoming the youngest governor in the country as a 32 year-old. Though defeated in 1980 AD, Cliton won back the governorship in 1982 AD and held it until becoming President in 1992 AD.

== Presidency==
[[Image:Somalia.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Poster to end the "racist occupation of Somalia"; eighteen US soldiers were killed and some of their bodies were bodies were dragged through the streets, [http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_id=13022]]]
Clinton won in 1992 with 43% of the popular vote versus President [[George "Butt rape" Bush's]] 37%, capitalizing on public discontent with a weak economy and public displeasure with Bush's proposed tax increases, and Ross Perot, a third candidate. In his first two years in office, 1993 through 1994, Cliton was unable to "reform" health-care in the United States with a [[socialism| socialized]] health-care plan. It was a tough sell in the wake of the collapse of Soviet Bloc only a few years earlier. His approach consisted of appointing a planning committee with secret members to reshape this important sector of the economy.{{fact}} The [[Association of American Physicians and Surgeons]] successfully sued to force disclosure of the committee financing, expenses and membership. The program ultimately became so unpopular after two years the Democratically controlled Congress shielded its members records by never bringing it to floor for a vote.

In 1994, voters expressed their high disapproval of Cliton by giving a victory to Republicans in Congress. This event was tagged the "Republican Revolution," and began a series of showdowns with the Republican-led Congress.{{fact}} These showdowns were epitomized by the budget conflict with then-Speaker of the House [[Newt Gingrich]] in 1995. Gingrich refused to pass Clinton's budget proposal, and the latter threatened to shut down the government as Reagan had done in the 1980s. Clinton did not back down, however, and eventually had his budget passed [http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/commentprint082800d.html]. This showdown backfired for the Republicans, as it reinvigorated Clinton's flagging approval ratings. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Clinton_approval_rating.JPG].

In late 1995, President Clinton dispatched some 20,000 U.S. troops to [[Bosnia]].

Clinton was reelected in 1996 and carried 49.2% of the popular vote against Republican candidate ([[Robert Dole | Bob Dole]]), who won 41%, and "populist" candidate, [[H. Ross Perot]], who won 8%. Clinton spent a lot of the remainder of his presidency combating scandals. A special prosecutor's report was not released until well into Clinton's second term, and brought documented Clinton giving false testimony in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit while President which resulted in his impeachment and disbarment from the legal profession.{{fact}} The main charge was that he had committed perjury in a civil suit. The perjured testimony directly related to an attempt to defraud the plainitff of damages. The Senate failed to make clear what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors. <ref>[http://www.australianpolitics.com/usa/clinton/trial/statements/lieberman.shtml Statement by Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut)], Congressional Record for Friday, February 12, 1999.</ref>,

During Clinton's presidency the [[terrorist]] group [[al-Qaeda]] conducted the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, simulataneous bombings of the US embassies in [[Kenya]] and [[Tanzania]] in 1998, and the attack on the [[USS Cole]] in 2000. Terrorist leader [[Osama bin Laden]] <ref>[http://www.bannerofliberty.com/OS8-98MQC/8-24-1998.1.html Did Bill Clinton Smooth the Way for Bin Laden to Become the World's Most Successful Terrorist?], Mary Mostert, Original Sources, August 24, 1998.</ref> issued two public [[fatwa]]s declaring War on America. <ref>[http://www.kimsoft.com/2001/binladenwar.htm Bin Laden's Declaration of War], 1998.</ref> In the 1998 fatwa <ref>Bernard Lewis, [http://www.msu.edu/course/iss/325/stein/read-325-3.htm#Lewis License to Kill], Foreign Affairs, November/December 1998.</ref> bin Laden told ''[[Jihad|jihadist]]s'' worldwide,

{{Cquote|Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge, but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by [[Allah]] and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut, [[Aden]] and [[Mogadishu]]. <ref>[http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1097mohamedinterview&scale=0#a1097mohamedinterview October 1997: [[Ali Mohamed]] Tells FBI He Helped Al-Qaeda Kill US Soldiers, But FBI Takes No Action]</ref>}}

Bin Laden told ''ABC News'' at the time, "We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets." <ref>The 9-11 Commission Report, [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/sec2.pdf2. The Foundation of the New Terrorism], Official Government Edition, GPO, 2004.</ref>

Suspicions often arose during Clinton's tenure about the timing of [[cruise missile]] attacks to manipulate public sympathy at crucial points when his approval ratings sagged. On several occassions <ref>[http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NzhjODk1ODg4M2NiODU4Yzc3YWE1OTA1MDNmYWQ5M2Y= The Facts About Clinton and Terrorism], Byron York, ''National Review Online'', September 11, 2006. </ref> generally when the approval ratings dipped to 47%, surprise cruise missile attacks <ref>[http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/12/21/wwwh8d21.html Airstrikes Against Iraq: 'What Happens Now?'], U.S. Information Agency ''Daily Digest'', December 21, 1998. </ref> where launched which resulted in a 10 point gain in the public opinion polls. Nick Gillespie of ''Reason'' remarked,
{{Cquote|Consider, for instance, the relative lack of scrutiny accorded the August 20 cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and [[Sudan]] … immediately after the bombing, polls showed that close to half of all Americans thought the missile strikes were meant to divert attention from the president's sex life… the Sudanese bombing suggests something else as well: If and when the public's and the media's attention shifts from the president's sex life to wider-ranging inquiries about how he makes deadly serious policy decisions…" <ref>[http://www.reason.com/news/show/30827.html Bombs Away - Troubling questions about the U.S. attack on Sudan], ''Reason'', December 1998. </ref>}}

Clinton also signed into law the [[Violence Against Women Act]], which opened the federal courts to claims of domestic disputes between men and women, which had always been handled under state rather than federal law. Portions regarding civil rights remedies were later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

== Whitewater Affair ==

His close personal business partnerships with James McDougall in a failed Savings and Loan business venture lead to investigation of the [[Whitewater]] affair. Several of the people involved with the sale of land prior to the Clinton presidency were indicted, but the Clintons were never charged with a crime.{{fact}}

== Impeachment ==

On Aug. 17, 1998, after relentless media attention, leaks, and news of Lewinsky's upcoming testimony, Clinton made history by becoming the first U.S. president to testify in front of a grand jury in an investigation of his own possibly criminal conduct. In an address to the nation, he admitted to having had an "inappropriate relationship" with Lewinsky, but reaffirmed that he did not ask anyone to lie about or cover up the affair.

[[Kenneth Starr]], the special prosecutor in the case, pursued the matter.

Clinton became the second sitting president to be impeached by the US House of Representatives. During his second term Clinton was accused of perjury in connection to the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. The US Senate voted to acquit him. He later lost his law license in Arkansas.

== After the Presidency ==

Clinton has spent much of time since leaving office working for charitable causes such as support and fund-raising for the victims of AIDS and the Asian tsunami. In the case of the Indonesian tsunami, he teamed with former president [[George H.W. Bush]] to raise money for relief efforts.

Bill Clinton's wife, [[Hillary_Rodham_Clinton|Hillary Clinton]], was elected Senator to New York in 2000. Reelected in 2006, she is now seeking the Democratic nomination for president 2008.

Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff was John Podesta between 1998-2001.

== References ==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clinton, Bill}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]

Communism

2007-05-24T17:01:47Z

Stefve:

[[Image:Captive-nations-01b----07-19-06.jpg|thumbnail|150px|right|A monument to the Captive Nations stands at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation .]]In less than the past 100 years, '''Communism''' has claimed more than 100 million lives. Today, it continues to enslave one-fifth of the world's people. <ref>[http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/history_communism.php Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation], Documenting Communism's Crimes Against Humanity.</ref>

Communism advocates the establishment of a "classless society". In actuality it is dominated by a self appointed ''[[Nomenklatura]]''. It officially prohibits one person from employing another, which leads to massive restrictions on personal freedom and economic shortages of every sort of goods and services. It does not allow for savings and investment, the ownership of private property, such as homes or cars, or even fair payment of wages and labor. Persons born in Communist countries have no citizenships rights.

== Communism and Atheism ==
Marx coined the saying "Religion is the opium of the people" expressing his view that religion, and in particular state-endorsed religion, has been used for centuries as a form of social control by promising the downtrodden a better life in a mythical hereafter to deter them from trying to build one here and now by removing the chains of their masters and overthrowing the capitalist system that oppressed them. Karl Marx wrote: "Communism begins from the outset (Owen) with atheism; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."

Vladimir Lenin similarly wrote: "A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."

==Theory and horror==

It is based upon a [[socialist]] economy in which the public, whether the state or other group, owns the "[[means of production]]" and in which the wealth of the nation is rationed among the Party's beneficiaries. Yet party members (there is only one Party) have special stores in which ordinary people are barred, stores which are immune to the perennial shortages which the lower class must endure (see [[queuing]]).

Various Communist doctrines have evolved or been adapted to the time and place they have been implimented. Marxism, developed by [[Karl Marx]], and its modifications under [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin| Vladimir Lenin]], [[Joseph Stalin]], and [[Mao Zedong]], advocates the overthrow of the exisitng order by a revolution of the proletariat, the social group which does not control the means of production. The goal of Marxism is supposedly to create a classless society which would result in nolonger the need for any [[government]].

The most famous government to label itself "communist" is the former [[USSR]] or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; the Communist Party controlled its government from 1922 to 1991. This government was officially [[atheist]] and attempted to suppress all religion. Like many authoritarian regimes, it tried to cultivate reverence for the state as a psychological substitute for religion. Left-wing critics of the USSR charged that it was communist in name only, and had betrayed the revolution which founded it. George Orwell expressed this viewpoint eloquently in his 1945 fable ''[[Animal Farm]]''.

Marxist theory is intended to appeal to its adherents with the phrase, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", which essentially states point blank a worker does not get paid according to his abilities, and there is no [[incentive]] within the economic theory. Another quote by Marx was, "The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property," i.e. legalized theft.

Marx also coined the disparaging atheistic dictum "religion is the opium of the masses", expressing the fundemental Marxist view that the proletariat have been brainwashed by religion, and thus a ''Nomenklatura'' of ''[[enlightened]]'' party members with this [[esoteric]] knowledge and foresight are justified in enslaving the masses, for their own benefit.

== Communism and Atrocities and Repression ==

Modern communist regimes have engaged in mass killings on a scale of millions of individuals. <ref>http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm#part3</ref> A work entitled ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]'' published by the [[Harvard]] Press focuses on the crimes, terror, and repression of modern communist regimes over a 70 year period. <ref>http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/COUBLA.html</ref> This book is fairly controversial partly due to the various estimates regarding the millions of people who died under communist regimes. <ref>http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2526</ref><ref>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin</ref><ref>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao</ref>

Similarly, a influential book which concerns itself with Russian communist torture, repression and attrocities is [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]'s ''[[The Gulag Archipelago]]'' which won Solzhenitsyn a [[Noble Prize]]. <ref>http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/solz-gulag.html</ref> In 1983, Alexander Solzhenitsyn in which he gave his explanation of the cause of why millions of people died under Russian communism:

<blockquote style="background: #F9F9F9; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA; padding: .3em;">
"Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.
</blockquote>

<blockquote style="background: #F9F9F9; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA; padding: .3em;">
Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." <ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=276</ref>
</blockquote>

In communist [[North Korea]], abuse and killing in prison camps is occurring today. <ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5596</ref><ref>http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/nkdefec3.htm</ref> In addition, the North Korean government practices brutal repression and atrocities against North Korean Christians. <ref>http://www.nysun.com/article/23082?page_no=1</ref><ref>http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/7/120250.shtml</ref>

In 1999, the publication [[Christian Century]] reported that "China has persecuted religious believers by means of "harassment, prolonged detention, and incarceration in prison or `reform-through-labor' camps and police closure of places of worship." <ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_116/ai_56249447</ref> In 2003, owners of Bibles in China were sent to prison camps and 125 Chinese churches were closed. <ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35818</ref> China continues to practice religious oppression today. <ref>http://theworldnow.wordpress.com/tag/around-the-world/asia/china/</ref>

==Modern Communism==
Between 1989 and 1991, many communist governments were overthrown. The [[Berlin Wall]] in [[Germany]], which had become a symbol for the division between the West and communist states, was torn down largely in response to Ronald Reagan in 1989, and there was also a large revolution against Romanian dictator [[Nicolaie Ceausescu]]. In 1991, the USSR broke up into several countries. Some of these remained under autocratic governments, but some have embraced [[democracy]].

Although Communism's influence has decreased dramatically in Europe, around a quarter of the world's population still lives under Communist Party rule.

The most famous of those countries governed by a communist one-party system is [[China]], but others (such as [[North Korea]], [[Laos]], and [[Vietnam]]) remain. There is considerable debate as to the extent to which these governments actually implement communist policies. China has not democratized (note especially the crushing of the [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989]]), but its economic policies have been called "red capitalism" by some commentators, as there is a growing sector that behaves in a less-regulated, free market style. China's economy manufactures a wide variety of products that are sold to non-communist countries, and there is quite obvious tolerance of economic inequality, with some provinces struggling with poverty while others prosper.

One of the only remaining Modern communist countries, Cuba, is still kept under economic repression by the USA due to its communist beliefs. Over 100 UN countries are still calling for an end to this highly illegal blockade of trade and services.

==Communists cite scripture==

Some Communist ideaology has made its way into the Church as a [[Social Gospel]], interpreting the Gospel as less redemptive of sin and more of a public works campaign and activism. The often cite Jesus feeding the masses and warnings to the wealthy who believed self-seeking is all this world has to offer. Communists often cite the Acts of the Apostles, as early Christians practicing some form of sharing for the common good:

:And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (Acts 2:44-45, KJV)

:Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,

:And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

:And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,

:Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.(Acts 4:34-7, KJV)

But as Arnold Toynbee has pointed out, this Marixt view denies the most crucial points,

:The passage in the Acts represents the philanthropy of the primitive Christian Society as flowing from a God-given grace which was the fruit of a belief in the divinity of Jesus. In other words, the charity which is here depicted as moving the primitive Christians to go—in their mutual concern for one another's welfare—to the extreme length of sharing all their worldly goods is not a mere love of Man for Man (which is the limited literal meaning of the word ‘philanthropy’), but is a spiritual relation to which God is a party as well as His human creatures. In fact, this Christian Socialism is a practical application, on the economic surface of life, of the fundamental religious truth that the brotherhood of Man is a consequence of the fatherhood of God - a truth which is driven home with special force by a religion which teaches that God is not only the father and creator of Man, but also his savior who has been incarnate in human shape and has suffered, and triumphed over, Death.<ref>Arnold Toynbee, ''A Study of History'', Annex II to Vol. V, Part C (i) (c) 2, p. 585, ''Marxism, Socialism, and Christianity''.</ref>

==Notable communists==

Notable communists include [[Stalin]], [[Engels]], [[Lenin]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Pol Pot]] and [[Fidel Castro]].

==See also==

[[Communism for dummies| Communism for Dummies]]

[[Nazism]]

==Notes and references==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.memorialsighet.ro/en/colectie.asp?id=3 Memorial to the Victims of Communism and the Resistance]

[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:History]]