Like I said... if you actually own stock in them, then sure, pressure the damn companies.

Why? Fidelity is involved in consumer goods, and is publicly owned.

Spend just 5 minutes actually reading about the situation, links were provided for a reason.

But I forgot, you would rather have people die in Africa, then to pass up a moment to argue with me.

Why? You're amusing when you're in over your head.

Exactly. Let me repeat: A company that is not involved in consumer goods.

I am not "in over my head" I don't have time to get invovled in your inanity.

If you want to know which companies divested there is a large list on the internet, just waiting for you to look at. You can use whatever criteria you want.

I would hope though, that people can spent 15 seconds to put their voice behind a petition used in negotiations with Fidelity to help in the proven efforts to reduce Sudan's capacity to continue the genocide.

Sorry, but the burden of proof is on you. I'm not going to bother with doing research to prove your point, as I don't have time for your inanity either. I asked for a simple example - A 1) Privately owned company that 2) Disinvested from Sudan, and 3) Is not in any way directly involved with marketing consumer goods to the public, specially one that 4) is no publically traded... and you haven't done so. I think such companies may exist, but they are a minority - and how many of those companies actually had sizeable assets in Sudan in the first place?

I'm just saying the whole thing is rather quixotic.

Sadly, I believe thermonuclear annihilation with clean nuclear weapons is the only way to solve this problem.

There just aren't any clean fusion based weapons yet.

Linderman, is that you?

Huh?

Heroes allusion.

EDIT: I kind of like the villains like Linderman actually. Konda from CHK was pretty good too.

Just thought I'd post this.

Fidelity has divested.

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessN...mat=&page=1

Wow.

Looks like I was wrong. Pressuring companies and making their employees feel miserable because they are collaborating with wanton genocide does work. And every child does get a pony! Sunshine and flowers forever and ever! Rain has just turned chocolatey in Africa!

I still don't believe this will have it's full intended effect, or any effect at all.

http://ga6.org/campaign/enough_ad/forward/i85xnxk29went6t?

Hm, yeah I thought Darfur was pretty well known actually. I went to a rally in spring 2006 in DC and there was a huuuuge turnout. I'm glad you're taking such an interest in it though, it really is terrible what is going on over there.

I may sound a bit bitter on this one... Darfur is not unique; what happens there is certainly not uncommon in the world. I think it gets attention because liberals like to point to any sort of crisis in Africa and conservatives like to point to any case where Christians are getting killed, so it gets bi-partisan support. I don't recall anyone caring too much about the various past genocides in the Middle East when they were happening. My guess is it's because they weren't in Africa and they didn't involve Christian victims.

My personal opinion is Sudan is a lost cause, and meddling in it will be risky as meddling in Yugoslovia and the Middle East has been. If we're going to stop the violence and oppression in Sudan, to be consistant it is also necessary to also lobby for ending the violence and oppression in China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela (I know it's not spelled right), the Balkans, N. Korea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the rest of Africa, and pretty much the entire Middle East.

I tend to doubt pressuring companies will have much of an impact since they have a much better source of funding. Examine dictators and oppressive regimes throughout history.
* Egypt's oppressive government receives billions in US tax subsidies.
* Saddam received billions in US tax subsidies.
* The USSR received billions in US tax subsidies even during the Cold War.
* China receives billions in US tax subsidies (by means of government bonds).
* Some people think Israel is oppressive; some don't. If you are of the opinion they are a problem rather than a solution then bear in mind they receive billions in US tax subsidies. And if you like Israel then bear in mind that the Palestinians receive hundreds of millions in US tax subsidies.
* The oppressive government of El Salvador in the 1980s received millions in US tax subsidies while its government wrecked their nation and economy.
* Al Qaeda in Afghanistan received millions in US tax subsidies during the Cold War.
Etc.

I don't know if Sudan gets much from in US tax subsidies, but if they don't then it'd be an exception to the trend!

Actually, it is.

ETA: Was. Apparently they renamed it "Chavezland" this week.

Well, golly gee. I apologize - back when I made my first post here, I didn't really understand everything that was going on. Let me restate!

Let's blame the dumb black people from Africa for killing each other. Or better yet, pretend that the 'Arabs' in Darfur are the same as the ones in 9/11 and Iraq, just to make it more black-and-white. Or we can just realise that, from a honky western perspective, they're all black as sin. And while sure, it's ethnic conflict/genocide, it's between tribes rather than colors, and the essential tensions are not ideological but material - food and land. See, used to be the Africans (Farmers) and Arabs (Nomads) - the differences are really cultural - could live together in peace. The farmers kept their land, and the nomads wandered about, trading with the farmers and resting on their lands for some days before moving on. 'Course, the land isn't fertile enough to do that anymore. We can blame changing local conditions, a long shallow drought, global warming, or the long-forgotten lizard-gods of Kal'kissin Fen. But anyway - the nomads want to eat, and since westerners are far more concerned with feeding cereals to their cows for hamburgers and steak then they are with feeding the stupid black people, they can't get food at the local market at any practicible price. So they kill the farmer's villages and take the land. Curiously enough, there are Arab tribes that aren't raping and pillaging everything they see - the ones with land. Of course, even the raping and pillaging would be hard if the janjaweed didn't have the support of the Khartoum clique. You know, the government in the far north of the country, put inexplicably in charge of Darfur and the southeast because of the drunken lines of a connected British cartographer - or was it German? Mhmm, somebody pasty, I'm pretty sure. And since everyone's attention is handily focused on Darfur - the Darfur they can't touch because of the Khartoum clique's inexhaustible diplomatic legitimacy - no one notices the voices of villagers in the southeast who are asking why the squinty-eyed yellow people get to dig big holes in the ground and pull out truckloads of black liquid without the village seeing any of the money. Of course it's terribly insensitive to suggest the West be responsible for something like this - clearly, the only problem is that they're not paying enough attention.

So let's...uninvest! Without jobs, everyone will be freer to commit bloodshed!

I have to disagree here.

It is not the most unique event, certainly such things have happened in the past, however it does not compare to normal opression. None of the situations you mentioned (except maybe the balkans 20 years ago) are doing a systematic killing of an ethnic population.

Billions of dollars of tax subsidies doesn't quite sound the same to me as actual money being sent there, however I recently found out that with all the sanctions against sudan, Gum Arabic is an exception.

Its one thing to have a war, it is another thing to trap a people, then when they try to get food, you either rape them or kill them, and if they don't get food, then they kill 10 people.