Free Burma!!

[strider@xxxxxxxxxxx]

/* Written  9:42 am  Feb 16, 1994 by alan.dawson@xxxxxxx in igc:soc.cult.burma */
/* ---------- "Free Burma!!" ---------- */
O>Did anyone suggest SLORC would collapse if PetroCan left Burma?  No,
O>merely that SLORC would have less money to buy arms & pay off

SLORC has *enough* money to buy arms and buy loyalty. With or without
PetroCan. This we know. Is there any reason to believe a Pepsico
pullout would change *enough* into *not enough*? If not, is there a
list of companies to go after one by one, and at the end of that
process do we (you) believe *enough* will have changed into *not
enough*?

Those aren't rhetorical questions. I'm interested in the answers.

O>supporters.  PetroCan's departure also involved increased media
O>attention on SLORC and Burma; that campaign also served more than one
O>purpose.

To tell the truth, I'm fairly close to Burma geographically, I read
the papers every day, I'm fairly but semi-interested in SLORC's Burma
as kind of a worst-case, nearby dictatorship, and I get roughly an
inch of clippings on Burma from a wide variety of sources including
Rangoon Radio every month. I WRITE about SLORC's horribleness in very
public (and dare I say influential?) places, although my name doesn't
appear on those articles. Despite that, I'd never heard PetroCan was
in, or that PetroCan had got out of, Burma. Nor had the editors (who
get the credit/blame for my great/awful writing) who I talk to about
what to write, and when to write it.

I'm glad PetroCan got out, good on them. But I've seen nothing on
PetroCan until a couple of days ago, and I'm certainly unaware of any
effect on the spotlight at all. On that part of the spotlight I
control, it had zero effect either way.

Nor would I expect it to, really. SLORC's record speaks for itself
without reference to any outside powers which may or may not
influence it.

O>I think it was Flesch who first wrote about "hopefully" being an
O>adaptation of the German word "hoffentlich"; he was talking about
O>English's flexibility.  (No, I can't be bothered to look for a cite.)

A minor joke, and semi-attempt at some mild levity. My apologies if
it came across seriously. I don't flame people on their grammar in
serious discussions. Except serious discussions about grammar of
course. '-)

 - Alan Dawson (president@xxxxxxx)


 * The Tagline you save, maybe your own.

 - from Alan Dawson