Posted on 12/08/2006 7:40:22 PM PST by goldstategop
RUSH: Remember a couple weeks ago, I had this most unbelievable press release from Russell Simmons. Russell Simmons had arrived in Africa, nobody cared, but he put the press release out, "I have arrived in Africa," on my charter jet or what have you, and, "I'm here to promote jewelry, the right kind of jewelry." He's promoting his own. He's got a jewelry line now. I thought this was the most self indulgent press release I've ever read. I wish I could remember the thing because it really needs to be read. I don't have it here at my fingertips.
Lo and behold, now some of you may have heard of this, but it's new to me this week, the whole concept of conflict free diamonds. I'm sure it's not new. It has just escaped me. "This holiday season some diamond retailers say they are seeing heightened consumer concern about conflict diamonds. The gems mined in war zones sold to fund armed conflict in Civil War. Sales of so called conflict diamonds have helped finance wars that killed millions in Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia over the past several decades. Efforts to address the problem have been made within the diamond industry. Human rights groups are now taking the issue straight to consumers. With Friday's release of Warner Brothers Pictures' new film, Blood Diamond, diamond retailers are preparing to face more scrutiny than ever before." So they're going to do to the diamond business what they've done to the fur coat business.
We have a couple of sound bites on this. First off from the Today Show today, co host Al Joker was interviewing the writer Sally Morrison about diamonds and Al Joker said, "Look, we're hearing a lot about conflict diamonds. The movie Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio--" who is a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance in real life "--and Djimon Hounsou. For people who don't understand this, what, quickly, Sally, is a conflict diamond?"
MORRISON: A conflict diamond is a diamond that comes from a part of Africa where there's Civil War going on and the diamonds are being used to fund illegal activity against the government. The good news for consumers is that, thanks to the Kimberly Process, 99.8% of all diamonds in the marketplace now are conflict free. Clearly one conflict diamond is one too many. We all have to work as an industry to eradicate that last .2%, but people can be very confident going to the stores that the Kimberly Process is working and it's a great achievement. Makes it illegal to import conflict stones, and 68 countries around the world are party to this agreement with the UN.
RUSH: All right. I guess this is where I separate myself from this. I'm sorry, I don't relate to this. I think this is just mindless twaddle. This is typical of a bunch of weak kneed liberals trying to make a difference, and trying to make themselves feel, the new castrati on display, make themselves feel noble and moral and superior. "I'm not going to wear stones that come from conflict." Let's not address the whole idea of wearing jewelry in the first place. For crying out loud, folks. I don't even want to go there. I'll really get separation. But this is just nonsensical. This is a world governed by the aggressive use of force. How many of these products are these people not going to be able to buy once they learn about them? I mean, oil leads to the product that powers jet bombers. What, Mr. Snerdley, what?
Am I missing something here? What? How can I say what? This is like, "We've got to divest in South Africa. I'm not going to invest here; I'm not going to invest there." The world is at conflict at all times. The world roils in conflict. Consumers do have collectively a power. But are you telling me that the diamond industry is going to fall for this? Conflict free. And precisely because they're worried sick about it, they'll find a way to market conflict diamonds that aren't conflict diamonds. It's just going to be like buying Priuses, it's not going to make any difference. Not going to stop the wars. Not going to stop the funding for the wars. If the diamonds and their mining result in wars being funded, the funders of the wars will find somewhere else to go to get the money. William Jefferson, Congressman Democrat Louisiana. Who knows? There's any number of places that these people that want to wage war can go get the money. What these people think they're doing is going to stop conflict. "I'm not going to support war. Mr. Limbaugh, I'm not going to support it."
Anyway, if you think I'm wrong about this, we have some advocates. We've got another sound bite. A montage of the actress Jane Fonda and the actress Jennifer Connelly talking about their diamonds.
FONDA: This is not about we don't like diamonds. It's that we have to be conscious of what we're buying and not buying, and buy them only if they're blood free.
Conflict-free Diamonds? Bunkum!
CONNELLY: You know, if I wear diamonds to insist that the diamonds that I wear are conflict free.
FONDA: I'm wearing diamonds. They're conflict free. I have the certificate.
RUSH: Yippee. How can you trust it? "Oh, I have a certificate." Neville Chamberlain had a letter. You talk about white guilt. I mean, that's exactly what this is. Now these Hollywood actress types who don't have time to shave their underarms, two week old growth there, Maggie Gyllenhaal and whoever else, forget what was the other name? Maria Bello. Don't have time to shave their armpits, but this is important, Mr. Limbaugh. This is important. Not only do men have to buy diamonds for women, now they have to make sure they're conflict free. I'm going to go out and I'm going to make it my objective to buy conflict diamonds. Somebody has to be able to support these wars because that's how conflicts are solved.
RUSH: Conflict diamonds. I know exactly what this is. The challenge is going to be exposing it to you as the fraud that it is. So how about this? How about, folks, I spearhead a new movement: Terrorist free oil. Yes, it's a lofty goal. Why should we be buying oil or using any derivatives or refined products from oil where the profits end up in the people who bankroll and fund terrorism? Why, that's war. That's war against us. Well, I guess that's okay. But in all these places where we have no vital interest whatsoever, like Kofi Annan, our old boy Kofi Annan. Listen to this. (story) "Outgoing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will ask on Friday how the international community can allow the 'horror' in Sudan's Darfur region to continue and say there is more than enough blame to share around the world." No, I will not resign. "'Above all we must not wait to take action until genocide is actually happening, by which time it is often too late to do anything effective about it,'" except burn the bodies.
So Kofi Annan. No mention of Iraq. No mention of North Korea. This is not quite his farewell speech but it's close. Nothing about Iraq. Nothing about North Korea. Nothing about Iran. No, we got to go to Darfur. Why? No US vital interests are at stake.
I was talking to a friend of mine on an instant message chat this morning. Don't worry, nothing in it for you Foley hunters. This guy says, "You know what really bugs me about this war and this whole study group is if the President were a Democrat, the Democrats would be all for the war in Iraq." I said, "No, they wouldn't. It's different now." He cited Kosovo and Clinton. I said, well, the difference, with Kosovo, we had no vital interest in Kosovo. We were humanitarian. Meals on wheels. In Iraq, US vital interests are at stake. The Democrats cozy up to our enemies: Ortega, Hugo Chavez, the Soviets. We start defending ourselves where there are vital interests, and they get upset. Here's Kofi, Darfur. We have to go to Darfur. We don't have enough troops. We're short. Gotta go to Darfur. Have to stop the genocide there. Kofi Annan. Ladies and gentlemen, it is plain to see here what the purpose of the Left is, and it is not anything to do with building this country up or protecting it. So oil for terrorists. No oil for terrorists. Conflict diamonds. No conflict diamonds. No oil for terrorists. Or no terrorist oil, however you want to put it.
There's a way to do that, by the way. And the way to prove my point about this is, our own. ANWR, Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of California. Can we do it? No way. We'd destroy the environment, destroy America. We’d pollute. No, we will use oil for terrorists. Now we've got conflict diamonds. This is not the first time this has come up, ladies and gentlemen.
(Playing Dolphin-free tuna spoof)
Remember this? We couldn't eat tuna that was caught in a net. It wasn't fair and they caught dolphins at the same time and the dolphins drowned in the net. Dolphin free tuna. Conflict diamonds. These things just repeat, ladies and gentlemen. And remember, the objective here is to stop conflict. If you think a bunch of gaudy baubles being worn by a bunch of women who are mined in a non conflict area are going to stop wars, then you don't understand men.
This Russel Simmions guy? Is he Richard Simmions dad?
Heard this today and it was very funny and so right on.
Nope, he's the brother of Rev. Run of Run DMC. Got into Hip-Hop early, made some big bucks from it.
I read an article a while ago about how scared DeBeers is of artificial diamonds. I'd be more impressed with something whipped up in a lab than something that sat underground for a million years.
Not necessarily traditional full-length mink coats, but lots of fur trim on wool coats, parkas, leather jackets, and capes/ponchos. Also fur vests.
(I always have to laugh at women who would never wear fur, but wear leather jackets and shoes, and carry the latest expensive leather handbag...)
And so yummy!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
ping
I heard that, too. What bothered me the most was something Rush overlooked. The assumption behind "conflict-free" diamonds is that all conflict is bad. True, often, especially in Africa, conflict takes the form of one group of thieves overthrowing another group of thieves. In that case, the problem is not so much that there is conflict, the problem is that both sides are fighting over who will rob the population. If conflict involved overthrowing a tyrant and replacing the tyrant with something better, then conflict would be a very good thing. I think the point of "conflict-free" diamonds is to defund any group that might overthrow a UN-approved communist or Islamist dictatorship.
Critics are greeting Blood Diamond, a film that tells how the diamond trade supported brutal civil wars in Africa during the late '90s, with an unexpected backlash. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, for example, writes: "If films were judged solely by their good intentions, this one would be best in show. Instead, gilded in money and dripping with sanctimony, confused and mindlessly contradictory, the film is a textbook example of how easily commercialism can trump do-goodism, particularly in Hollywood." Kyle Smith, who at times flaunts his conservative leanings in his reviews, goes all-out with his appraisal of Blood Diamond, calling it "Lefty voodoo: the belief that anytime anyone in the world is hurting, America must be sticking a pin in a doll." Likewise Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution comments that the movie "often does itself in with its own bleeding-heart liberalism." Still, the movie does find much favor among some critics who apparently share the filmmakers' viewpoint that "conflict diamonds" have been responsible for untold misery in Africa. Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post describes it as "an extraordinary achievement in American cinema, one that combines visceral thrills, high production values and morally serious ideas." (She does find fault with its ending.) Claudia Puig in USA Today calls the film simply "a gem" and says that Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as a South African mercenary "is his finest role in an impressive career." And Amy Biancolli in the Houston Chronicle writes that it is "powerful, well-acted and undeniably persuasive."
Did you read what Rush said about him? I'm sure he speaks from first hand knowledge! Yes, he is a fine actor. You knew it from WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE...a performance that was nothing short of incredible.
Ended up at 59% on Rottentomatoes. I still plan to see it. Movies don't really hold a lot of sway over how I feel about things. And generally like Leo and Djimon Honsou. Plus it is supposed to be really violent which usually helps.
OH, I see, they are *both* into music and preaching.....
Thanks, one can never *really* stay ahead of the entertainment scene.
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