Tell MasterCard, Visa, JCB, AmEx, PayPal To Stop Facilitating The Mail Order Bride Business

To: Mr. Robert W. Selander

Started by: Hannah Prager

To continue the success demonstrated by the elimination of Diners Club from the Bride Trafficking Industry, effort must now be directed toward the next obvious targets: major credit card companies.

The facilitating of payments used in the recruitment and sale of mail-order brides is unregulated. All the major credit card companies are involved and have been for years. The international on-line matchmaking business appears to be thriving largely because of increased Internet use worldwide, low overhead and start-up costs, and the seemingly endless supply of eligible foreign women. Today, any man with Internet access, an electronic photo (even ten years old) and a credit card can shop. Do these card companies really need this business badly enough? Diners Club proved that the answer is no. Other card companies must now be directed to the same conclusion. The following is a very small sample of Bride Trafficking sites that have teamed up with MasterCard, Visa, AmEx, and PayPal.


http://www.laobabes.com/
http://www.sweetsingles.com/thai/thai_girls.htm
http://www.thailoveletters.com/home.html
http://www.exoticasianwomen.com/
http://sunshine-girls.com/
http://www.filipinasplendor.com/


While legitimizing the purchase of a human being by way of business relationships with respectable US-based corporations is ethically and philosophically disgusting, it also reduces the logistical barrier to buying a bride. Removing that barrier allows trafficker husbands to more easily acquire women. It opens the door to an ever increasing class of criminals to buy and exploit these women.

This petition ends on Jun 13, 2010.

PLEASE sign HERE.

The War Party and its Faux-gressive Minions

by Cindy Sheehan

For years now, I have been writing about the duplicity of the Democrats and the shocking similarity between the two parties when it comes to the use of state-sanctioned terrorism against innocent populations.

This past week, after the betrayal of every American who elected Democrats to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, I am wondering if there is anyone still in this nation who thinks that there’s any significant difference between the war ideologies of Democrats and Republicans.

I know many faux-gressive entities on the “left” whose silence on this matter is so loud it’s hurting my eardrums. Where was MoveOn.org over these past few weeks when the Dems were bludgeoning their caucus to vote “Aye” to extend the war crimes in the Middle East? Where were Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) and his bloggers that day? The day the funding bill passed, I wandered over to The Daily Kos and saw that it was all a-twitter about Senator Ensign (R) having an extra-marital affair. Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Harry Reid may, or may not, be loyal spouses, but their calumny will kill, maim, torture or displace thousands of people over the next 4-8 years. I am not so interested in what happens in bedrooms as what happens in Democratic war zones.

Faux-gressives MoveOn.org and The Daily Kos supported me, and my work, as long as it solely focused on the Bush regime and the Republicans. However, when I had a late in life epiphany and figured out that the Democrats were abusing the energy of the anti-war movement to regain power, and I started to speak out against the entire War Party, not just one-half of it, I was kicked off blogging for The Daily Kos and ostracized by the fully co-opted MoveOn.org. Nathan Diebenow of the Lonestar Iconoclast then accused me of “alienating” my friends, to add insult to injury.

I think that I have unfortunately been vindicated by almost every single action that the Democratic Party has taken since 2006 when impeachment was taken “off the table,” but “blank-check” war funding was served up to the Military Industrial Complex on a bloody platter dripping with the flesh and blood of real human beings.

Our politicians have no integrity partly because the organizations in the movements that have the largest emailing lists have no integrity. Wars that were wrong under Bush become acceptable under Obama and the stain of torture fades into the woodwork or is hidden from sight like a demented relation because a Senator has an affair. As I understand it, MoveOn.org was founded to oppose the impeachment of Bill Clinton for the same thing Ensign did…now the gatekeepers of the War Party are going to crucify Ensign to distract their subscribers from real issues?

MoveOn.org sent this out in April 2008 in a fundraising email to its 5 million person list: No matter what happens in Iraq, the Bush Administration and John McCain always have the same answer: 6 more months. They're at it again this week, asking for six more months. But six months won't change anything—except the body count and the price tag.

They were not talking about the Democratic war funding this week. Apparently it’s fine to fund wars if we have a Democratic Despotism, but dangerous for our troops if we have a Republican Regime.

Hey MoveOn.org: ComeBack.org. Come back from the dark side of partisan politics. You look like Move America Forward, now:( a reich-wing organization that irrationally and blindly supports Republicans and unquestioningly supported BushCo). CODEPINK supported Barack Obama, but at least CODEPINK is over in Gaza trying to call attention to that crime, while MoveOn.org ignores the situation and most of the bloggers at The Daily Kos just like to sit behind their computer screens and snarkily criticize anyone who is actually on the streets doing the work.

What Pelosi and her Wrecking Crew did last week was disgraceful, but it’s shameful that people who opposed the exact same policies under BushCo support the same crimes of ObamaCo.

Author's Bio: Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother's Child and Dear President Bush.