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17 February 2006
Volume 3, Issue 1
Free Voices
eZine of the People
Shout the
Truth....
Finding the
Strength for a True Revolutionary Movement
By Tony Deland
Kenya
Recently, I have been thinking about the U.S. "movement"
and the ideas that I hold about nationalism. More precisely I've
been thinking about the historical context of nationalism in successful
revolutions. Comparing in my mind the lack of success that revolutionary
movements in the U.S. have had and the place of nationalism in all
those historical revolts. The movement in the U.S. is like a simmering
pot, which lacks the fuel and heat to actually boil. The land for
which people are fighting is the fire, which brings the pot of their
ideals to a boil. Without the "motherland" the ideas that
they hold are just that, ideas. But when you give them a home in
which these ideas can be expressed they become very dangerous; tie
them to the land and they become grounded and worth fighting for.
Continue Reading
The Unitary
Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush
Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?
By Jennifer Van Bergen
When President Bush signed the new law, sponsored by Senator
McCain, restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees,
he also issued a Presidential signing statement. That statement
asserted that his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority
to bypass the very law he had just signed. This news came fast on
the heels of Bush's shocking admission that, since 2002, he has
repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic
surveillance without a warrant, in flagrant violation of applicable
federal law. And before that, Bush declared he had the unilateral
authority to ignore the Geneva Conventions and to indefinitely detain
without due process both immigrants and citizens as enemy combatants.
All these declarations echo the refrain Bush has been asserting
from the outset of his presidency. That refrain is simple: Presidential
power must be unilateral, and unchecked. Continue
Reading
Calculating the
Risk of War in Iran
By F. William Engdahl
In the past weeks media reports have speculated that Washington
is ‘thinking the unthinkable,’ namely, an aggressive,
pre-emptive nuclear bombardment of Iran, by either the United States
or Israel, to destroy or render useless the deep underground Iranian
nuclear facilities. The possibility of war against Iran presents
a geo-strategic and geopolitical problem of far more complexity
than the bombing and occupation of Iraq. And Iraq has proven complicated
enough for the United States. Below we try to identify some of the
main motives of the main actors in the new drama and the outlook
for possible war. Continue
Reading
Imprisoned in New Orleans
By Jordan Flaherty and Tamika Middleton
New Oleans, Loisiana
When hurricane Katrina hit, there was no evacuation plan for 7,000
prisoners in the New Orleans city jail, generally known as Orleans
Parish Prison (OPP), or the approximate 1,500 prisoners in nearby
jails. According to first-hand accounts gathered by advocates, prisoners
were abandoned in their cells while the water was rising around
them. They were subjected to a heavily armed “rescue”
by state prison guards that involved beatings, mace and being left
in the sun with no water or food for several days, followed by a
transfer to state maximum security prisons. Although their treatment
brought national attention to the condition of prisoners in Louisiana,
and comparison to prison abuse scandals from Attica to Abu Ghraib,
local government officials have attempted to dodge accountability
and continue with business as usual. Continue
Reading
Germany Beats the Drums
of War
Wladek Flakin
Berlin, Germany
Did you ever have deja vu? It feels like we've seen this before:
The Bush regime is mobilizing public opinion against a Middle Eastern
country. The arguments of the neocons' aren't new: this country
has connections to international terrorists, it is trying to build
weapons of mass destruction. And most importantly: it has a lot
of oil. If we changed the "n" in "Iran" to a
"q", we could be watching news broadcasts from 2002. Claiming
that the ruler of an oil-rich country "could be the new Hitler"
isn't new either - George Senior used it back in 1990 to justify
the first US attack on Iraq. But when this dramatic comparison comes
from the mouth of a German politican, it sounds even more dramatic.
Continue
Reading
Storytelling....
Nightmares in Exile
By Brandon Batzloff
Editor, Free Voices
When sleep comes, i find myself
at home
with family,
enjoying the mundane pleasures of life.
But that is another place
and another time.
Continue
Reading
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