{"id":836,"date":"2008-08-12T03:13:27","date_gmt":"2008-08-12T03:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=271"},"modified":"2008-08-12T03:13:27","modified_gmt":"2008-08-12T03:13:27","slug":"81108","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=836","title":{"rendered":"8\/11\/08"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia is escalating it’s assault on bordering Georgia, at the time of this writing. \u00a0 The New York Times<\/em> reports that Georgia serves as a major conduit for oil flowing from Russia and Central Asia to the West. \u00a0 So the widening conlict, it would seem, is partially about control and monetary gain for Russia (not just retaliation against an aggressive action)… \u00a0 With the inevitably rough transition to a free-market economy in Russia, times have been hard for many there. \u00a0 Some of this Russia\/Geogia conflict, I believe, could have been averted with much more of a proactive humanitarian outreach into Russia when it initially converted to democracy. \u00a0 At the time, I proposed the U.S. set up a “Sister City Program” with most of the towns in Russia. \u00a0 Besides cultural exchange, and the like, this program could have included a regular outpouring of Sister City donated money into each town. \u00a0 This would have not only helped the Russian people, but it would have helped stem \u00a0(or at least temper) things like this incursion into Georgia because, well, the Russian economy would have been doing much better by now — \u00a0with our help. \u00a0 Not to mention this would have gone a long way toward diminishing lingering Cold War tensions between Russia and the U.S. \u00a0 In fact, the window of opportunity for this massive Russia\/U.S. Sister City Project is still there, but it seems to be \u00a0closing fast. \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0The average American is much more well off than the average Russian at this point. Yet we are lavishing ourselves with extras \u00a0(several televisions in the house, central heating and cooling, three full meals a day and snacks…) in the face of the Isrealite\/manna story in the Bible. \u00a0 Author Richard Lowry writes \u00a0about the concept of “Sabbath economics” and he says of the manna story. \u00a0 \u00a0 Families were told to gather just enough manna for their needs each day. \u00a0 In God’s economy there is such a thing as too much or tool little, as opposed to capitalism’s infinite tolerance of wealth and poverty, Lowry writes… We in America are confusing “wants” with “needs” in this country, out of self indulgence. \u00a0 As a result, others starve elsewhere, others are plunged into war, others…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia is escalating it’s assault on bordering Georgia, at the time of this writing. \u00a0 The New York Times reports that Georgia serves as a major conduit for oil flowing from Russia and Central Asia to the West. \u00a0 So …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}