Phil and Tweeters,

Concerning the below post from Sunday: Greater than the threat to
birdwatchers, I believe arming the Venezuelan public would be a threat to
those in the U.S. government that want to overthrow the democratically
elected Hugo Chavez and install a dictator that will give U.S. oil companies
control all of their oil, while leaving the kind of ecological and social
devastation that the Shell Oil company has left in the Niger delta and
Nigeria. I highly doubt that Venezuelans are interested in attacking North
American birdwatchers, unless some CIA types trying to overthrow their
government masquerade as bird-watchers. This administration has made it
clear that they want to overthrow the Venezuelan government and this
administration has shown its disdain for protecting anything environmental.
If our current government has its way we will get a governmnet in Venezuela
like the one in Columbia - no comfortable, safe place to go birdwatching.

Also remember that a larger portion of the U.S. population is armed than the
large majority of countries. Do birders from other countries hesitate to
come here for that reason? (I expect a small minority actually do.)

I'm well aware that this post is within the banned political category, but I
feel it is too important to make sure the political post below got an answer
that made it clear that people may not agree with the this post. It is
additionally important to me that people see what the effect of this kind of
post may be. I strongly believe that silence is complicity in this kind of
case. I believe we must respond when someone (likely unwittingly) echos
something used as propaganda by this administration. (Sadly, since the BBC
fired it's director for covering the ugliness of the Iraq war, I have often
found it to be part of the propaganda machine of the Bush-Blair
administrations) By speaking up we say no to the next war or coup that this
administration wants to get sufficient support to be able to carry out.

Stewart Wechsler
West Seattle
mailto:ecostewart at quidnunc.net

-----Original Message-----
From: vogelfreund at comcast.net [mailto:vogelfreund at comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 4:32 AM
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Venezuela unfriendly to birders?


=====================
6/4/06

Looking at BBC on-line nws, it looks like every last person in Venezuela
will be armed with the latest model Russian AK47! That sure doesn't make it
very inviting for American birders, it seems to me.

Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA
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