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11 August 2006
Volume 3, Issue 6
Free Voices
eZine of the People
Shout the
Truth....
Bait and Switch:
Reflections on the State of Israel
by Barbara Karens
The State of Israel is not primarily a Jewish state. Not in terms
of power. In terms of power, it is at the very least an Ashkenazi-run
Jewish state. More precisely, it is a European project and it is
deliberately misnamed as Jewish for a particular purpose. Naming
Israel as a "Jewish state" is perfect positioning for
the bait-and-switch -- part of the dance of oppression, assimilation,
and terror between Euro-white Jews and the Euro-white Christian
imperialist powers that are always happy to use us as cover. The
state of Israel is a European project, but on the world stage it
is located as "Jewish." This is the bait and switch. Continue
Reading
World Gay Pride in
Israel Limited by Ethnic Constraints
by Jessica Rechtschaffer
New York, New York, USA
Once again, NYC celebrated Gay Pride in all it glory and geared
up for what is possibly the largest Pride parade in the world. All
celebrated their lifestyles in a myriad of ways. Gay Armenians have
an organization? Who wuddathought? Pride is all about celebrating
a victory: That victory which was the successful Stonewall riot
against cops by a community sick of being beaten down and brutalized
on a regular basis. NYC Gay Pride is more of a victory parade with
undercurrents of "the fight goes on". Unfortunately, victory
parades assume the battle for our rights is finished. As the float
of dancing men sponsored by Coors goes past, one has to wonder for
whom the victory is for: Is it for the corporations who now found
a new niche to market? Or is it for us queers who have demonstrated
that we have power of numbers and our own lifestyle which we should
be allowed to live. Continue
Reading
Rampage: The
Life of a Political Prisoner
by Matthew Lamont
Chino State Prison
Chino, California, USA
A lot of people have been talking about the PATRIOT Act, NSA, FBI
sweeps, etc. A certain chosen few of us have faced these realities.
Of the few that have told their stories and made their statements,
I have not. So today I’ve decided to do so. Right now I sit
in a prison cell in AD-SEG (the hole) in a 7 x 10 space. The wall
beside my bunk is covered by photos of my wife and I in our happiest
moments in the outside world. On the rare occasions that I leave
my cell, I am handcuffed through the tray slot and escorted until
I am securely behind a door again and then my cuffs are unlocked
once again through the slot. Usually, these are the hour-long visits
I get on Sunday with my wife. I remember a time when we wouldn’t
even spend an hour away from each other. So, how did I get here?
Continue
Reading
Beyond Same-Sex Marriage:
A New Strategic Vision for all Our Families & Relationships
Beyond Marriage
USA
We, the undersigned – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists,
lawyers, journalists, and community organizers – seek to offer
friends and colleagues everywhere a new vision for securing governmental
and private institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships,
households, kinship relationships and families. In so doing, we
hope to move beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics as
they exist in the United States today. We seek access to a flexible
set of economic benefits and options regardless of sexual orientation,
race, gender/gender identity, class, or citizenship status. We reflect
and honor the diverse ways in which people find and practice love,
form relationships, create communities and networks of caring and
support, establish households, bring families into being, and build
innovative structures to support and sustain community. Continue
Reading
Lunar Rights Unassured
by Dan Zechmeister
New Jersey, USA
Millions of people, from the United States to Denmark, have purchased
property on the moon. But their claims may spin out of orbit in
the crest of International Space Law.About a year ago I read an
online news report about some folks in Sauerland Germany who were
upset about President Bush’s plan of building a deep-space
launch pad on the moon. They were upset that “their property”
would be damaged. I thought, “their property...on the moon?”
I discovered that they bought lunar real-estate from the Lunar Embassy,
a company that has sold parcels of the moon since 1980. I thought
it would be cool to purchase a lunar plot of my own – none
of my friends or family owned lunar property, so this would give
me something to brag about next time I see them. However, I was
skeptical that for $31.50 I could own a piece of that gorgeous white
satellite in the sky. So, like any inquisitive young adult, I began
researching this so-called lunar real-estate business. Continue
Reading
New and Unknown Deadly Weapons
Used by Israeli Forces
by Prof Paola Manduca
Genova, Italy
By now there are countless reports, from hospitals, witnesses, armament
experts and journalists that strongly suggest that in the present
offensive of Israeli forces against Lebanon and Gaza 'new weapons'
are being used. New and strange symptoms are reported amongst the
wounded and the dead. Bodies with dead tissues and no apparent wounds;
'shrunken' corpses; civilians with heavy damage to lower limbs that
require amputation, which is nevertheless followed by unstoppable
necrosis and death; descriptions of extensive internal wounds with
no trace of shrapnel, corpses blackened but not burnt, and others
heavily wounded that did not bleed. Continue
Reading
Video shows Ghraib-like
torture by sheriffs lead to man's death, say groups, family
by Jennifer Van Bergen
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
On Feb. 6, 2006, Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., a 40-year-old black man
in a Southern Mississippi jail, was allegedly hooded and hog-tied
by police, beaten about the head and testicles and ultimately died
from blunt injuries to the head. The coroner determined the death
was a homicide. The local sheriff indicated law enforcement agencies
were investigating and that the individual targeted by the investigation
is “no longer employed by the Harrison County Sheriff’s
Department.” Despite the fact that the beating was videotaped,
no arrests have been made. Continue
Reading
Crying Art....
In Our Own Voices: Learning
and Teaching Toward Decolonisation
Editor: Proma Tagore
The struggle of marginalised peoples to set the terms through which
we define, understand, and express our selves has been a crucial
and recurrent theme in anti-racist activism, in movements for decolonisation,
independence, or self-determination, and in social justice movements
more generally. The title of this anthology, In Our Own Voices,
is meant to invoke this desire and this insistence: that we, as
marginalised people, have the right to name our own experiences,
to claim our own knowledges, and to speak our own stories, as opposed
to having others speak for us, describe our realities to us, or
produce knowledge about us. Continue
Reading
Letters From Young Activists
Editors: Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin, and Kenyon Farrow
USA
Dear Stephen, Is this what they call “globalization”?
We live half a world from each other, we have led quite different
lives, and yet we are both in the same situation: conscientious
objectors to imperial war and occupation, we are both standing military
trial this summer. Reading your statement, I couldn’t help
but smile at the basic sameness of military logic around the world,
including its inability to understand how anybody could be enough
against a war to resist going to kill and die in it. In case you
aren’t familiar with my situation, let me fill you in briefly.
I was slated for induction into the Israeli army in December 2002.
After a year of volunteer work in a Jewish-Arab youth movement,
I had made up my mind to refuse to enlist. Together with other young
people in my situation, I signed the High School Seniors’
Letter to PM Sharon, and to make myself absolutely clear I sent
a personal letter to the military authorities notifying them that
I was going to refuse. Continue
Reading
In Debt We Trust
by Danny Schechter
New York, New York, USA
IN DEBT WE TRUST started out to be a film about what I thought were
other people’s problems. I came to realize how deeply they
affect me as well. The experience of making this film has led me
to understand how many ways policies and practices are tied to a
growing national debt burden and have an impact on my personal finances.
Even as a former network journalist and long-time investigative
reporter, I was shocked and outraged when I started probing the
roots of these issues. This is a problem involving millions of people
and billions of dollars yet it is downplayed and rarely discussed
in all of its disastrous dimensions. Continue
Reading
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