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22 December 2005
Volume 2, Issue 11
Free Voices
eZine of the People
Shout the
Truth....
I'm Just Not
the Same Person I Was Before Iraq
Interview with Spc. Michael Harmon, OIF Vet
and Combat Medic
By Jay Shaft
Coalition for Free Thought in Media
“I don’t see any solution for my PTSD. As of right now
I can’t see any end to it. I don’t have anything now,
because the medical benefits ran out 90 days after my discharge.
As of right now I have no medical benefits, nothing I can use for
counseling. I’m hoping that if I get into the VA I’ll
be able to start really dealing with it. Like I said, as of right
now I don’t see an end to it; it will be a lifetime of problems
if it is not addressed. I don’t see any solution being offered
to me to help put an end to it.” This interview was conducted
on Monday, November 30th, 2005. This was the day Bush gave his speech
at Annapolis Naval Academy and presented the 35-page white paper
“National Strategy for Victory In Iraq”. Over the last
two weeks I have been in contact with Michael to get his general
thoughts and to follow-up on some additional questions. I would
like to introduce America to Specialist Michael Harmon. Michael
served as a combat medic with the 4th Infantry Division in the initial
year after the invasion of Iraq. Michael is suffering from severe
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a host of secondary problems
related to the PTSD.Michael has experienced extreme difficulty getting
treatment and access to medical and disability benefits that he
is supposed to be entitled to as a veteran of combat in a foreign
country. Continue
Reading
The Anarchist
Movement as a Church and Its Dogmas
By Bas Moreel
Netherlands
Anarchist bookfairs are usually like literature tables in the backs
of churches: everything is written from unshakeable premises. If
everything in the world were based on these premises everything
would be better. The premises are never questioned. On display are
writings of the Fathers of the Church(Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta)
and of the Doctors of the Church (Stirner, Proudhon), elaboration,
interpretation and defence of their ideas, critique of other ideas.
Questions such as whether other ideas (for instance authoritarian
ideas, the State, passive and active participation in parliaments,
city councils, company councils and other representative bodies)
may possibly yield better results in certain cases or as a rule,
or whether somebody like Bakunin was very reliable in money matters
and in personal relationships are not discussed seriously. Continue
Reading
When the FBI Comes a Knockin’
By Stephen Polk
Denver, Colorado
“Aren’t you guys a bit old to be trick or treating?”
“No ma'am, we really are the FBI.” It was Halloween
around 4:00 p.m. My mom was cradling a large bowl of candy for the
neighborhood kids. To this day, I can't even begin to imagine the
shock that these two FBI agents delivered to my mother. It happened
once before; only this time it hit lot closer to home, literally.
In July of 2004, I was contacted by the FBI when they were making
their chilling rounds to activist and anarchist households here
in Denver and across the Midwest. Their timing was deliberate: as
we were preparing for the protests of the Republican National Convention
in New York, so were they. A faculty advisor to our student group,
Creative Resistance, informed us that FBI and the Joint Terrorist
Task Force visited his house in the suburbs with two photos, of
them was of myself. They asked that question made famous by private
detectives in those old Hollywood mystery movies: “What can
you tell us about these two people?” At which point our student
advisor retorted with a curt and indignant, “Fuck off!”
My mother, however—who is a respectable, law abiding suburbanite—does
not have the audacity, knowledge or experience to handle two FBI
agents with such, oh I don’t know how to say it, spunk. Continue
Reading
Evil Racist Children and
the Media Who Love Them
By Margaret Kimberly
New York, New York
Americans need to know more about white supremacist organizations.
Too often the corporate media either deny their existence or diminish
the danger they pose. Even when they gather a cache of bombs and
machine guns, we get little if any information about their activities.
In 2003 a group of white supremacists near Tyler, Texas were discovered
with 500,000 rounds of ammunition, bomb making equipment, canisters
of cyanide and a KKK calling card. There was little if any media
coverage of this terror plot in the making. The same journalists
who saw no need to tell us about plots involving deadly poisons
think that we need to know about white supremacists who are cute,
at least according to European beauty standards. Lamb and Lynx Gaede
fit that description. The 13 year old twins, always described as
blonde and blue eyed, come from a family who unleashed them on the
public singing paeans to Adolf Hitler and Rudolph Hess. They spend
their time vicariously killing black people via video games and
raising money for white hurricane Katrina victims. Continue
Reading
Peeing in Peace: A Resource
Guide For Transgender Activists And Allies
Transgender Law Center
San Francisco, California
Started in 2003, our Safe Bathroom Access Campaign (SBAC) focuses
on the real world problems that are created for transgender people
and our partners, families and friends because of the way that society
views gender and the stereotypes associated with it. Working closely
with People in Search of Safe Restrooms (PISSR), SBAC has been able
to open a dialogue in California about this important issue. Many
of the lessons we have learned through that work and the solutions
that we have helped to devise are encompassed in this resource guide.
It is our hope that the hundreds of people who have contacted us
about this issue since we opened our doors in 2002 will be able
to take all or some of the information in this guide and share it
with friends and allies who are also interested in challenging the
current bathroom situation. Continue
Reading
Death, Abundance and New
Orleans
By Jordan Flaherty
New Orleans, Louisiana
On Sunday, I drove past streets named Abundance, Pleasure and Humanity
to a memorial for Meg Perry, a 26 year old Common Ground Collective
volunteer from Maine. Meg died on Saturday when the bus she was
in crashed near downtown New Orleans. She had come to New Orleans
in September, then left and returned with more volunteers. The memorial
was in a community garden she had been working on in the Gentilly
neighborhood. All around were empty houses. It was a small
moment of mourning, in a city of mourning. Mourning that feels like
it won’t end, because the disaster hasn’t ended. Continue
Reading
Crying Art....
Mall Culture - Jakarta Indonesia
by Jonathan McIntosh
New York, New York
When viewing the photo collection below, keep in mind that it is
in no way representative of the lifestyle of everyday people. The
vast majority of the population of Jakarta live in abject poverty
and face pandemic unemployment. Despite this, Jakarta is home to
a staggering number of towering western style mega malls. These
lavish shopping centers are brimming with western branded goods
whose price tags are far beyond the reach of any ordinary citizen.
They are built mainly for westerners and Jakarta’s small affluent
over-class, which grew rich through four decades of rampant corruption
during the burial regime of General Suharto. Across the city western
mega chain stores, like Carrefour, are wiping out traditional street
markets and devastating the local economy. Those Indonesians lucky
enough to find employment inside the malls, serving the rich, cannot
hope to afford anything sold in those store. Most are paid poverty
wages and cannot afford to eat in the food court. Continue
Reading
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