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04 October 2006
Volume 3, Issue 7
Free Voices
eZine of the People
Shout the
Truth....
Game
Over: The US Government Has Turned Against the People
Brandon Batzloff
Editor Free Voices
Passage of the Military Commissions Act by both houses of Congress
last week was a frightening and telling indicator of the state that
the US is currently in. US citizens are now subject to being imprisoned
and tortured by their own government. This fact alone has horrified
much of the public, but the implications of the law go much deeper.
The passage of the Military Commissions Act is evidence of a fatal
flaw in the current government of the United States. Legislative
bodies that rubber-stamp serious crimes and abuses of power by the
Executive are Legislatures that have ceased to function and have
abdicated their Constitutional authority. Continue
Reading
Forget the Anal Probes. The
Bush Administration Weighs in on Conspiracy Theory
SusieQ
Denver, CO, USA
I’m on fire after reading several Bush administration documents
that hitch together terrorism and conspiracy theory (CT). I understand
it’s hard to wrap your mind around the connectivity of “conspiracy
theory,” “terrorism,” and “Bush.”
An oxymoron you say?! Pshaw! Thanks to Shelly over at Citizen Against
Lies for discussing the Bush docs on her 9/7/06 podcast. I’d
otherwise be in the dark about the Bush foray into CT, that subterranean
world of anal probes, aliens, men in black, secret underground bases,
the Illuminati, Bilderbergers, the Lone Gunman, and covert assassinations.
Continue
Reading
Michigan Women's Music
Festival Ends Policy of Discrimination Against Trans Women
Emilia Lombardi
Camp Trans
The Michigan Women's Music Festival began admitting openly trans
(transgender/transsexual) women last week, bringing success to a
longstanding struggle by trans activists both inside and outside
the festival."Seeing trans women inside the festival for the
first time brought me to tears," said Sue Ashman, who attends
the festival every year. "It's restored my faith in women's
communities." Continue
Reading
War on Apathy, a Media
Campaign to Benefit Nonprofit Organizations Worldwide, Asks Us to
Resist the Urge to Do Nothing
Bambi Weavil
San Francisco, CA, USA
CURVE, the nation’s best-selling lesbian magazine, announced
today that they and their partners declare War on Apathy (WoA),
a battle against widespread reluctance to acknowledge the basic
needs of the world’s populations. WoA is a community-based,
interactive media campaign that calls for everyone to band together
to help those who are in need. For more information, visit myspace.com/waronapathy
or curvemag.com/waronapathy. Continue
Reading
WTO:
Best Left For Dead?
Mark Engler
New York, NY, USA
With the failure of the Doha round of negotiations in late July,
some optimistic defenders of corporate globalization will tell you
that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is taking a "time out."
Most observers, however, are calling the suspension of talks a "collapse."
India's trade minister, Kamal Nath, has judged that the trade negotiations
are now somewhere "between intensive care and the crematorium,"
and the future of the organization itself is in question. The question
for progressives is: What does this mean for the future of the "free
trade" agenda? Continue
Reading
Screaming On the Inside....
One of the most under-represented populations in the
US is the prison population. Considering that the US has the largest
prison population in the world, this is a rather large group of
people who have no voice. There will be many more new prisoners
as the Bush regime continues to attack political opponents and communities
that have different values than their own. For this reason, the
"Screaming On the Inside" section has been initiated to
publicize the writing of prisoners in the United States. Please
contact Brandon
with submissions for this section.
Anarchy
In Chains
Steven Woods
Death Row, Polunsky Prison, TX, USA
I’ll not go quietly. Morning. A few thoughts? Sure why not?
Check this out....You're sitting there at a vegetarian kiosk in
Northern California. You've spent the last several weeks squatting,
hitch hiking, protesting, kicking it with some good, free thinking
people. You're taking a small break, heading down to San Francisco
to see what's up with the city life before getting back into the
forest to continue the fight against the logging industry. An old
friend is there, and you reminisce about some old people in an old
place. Continue
Reading
Murdered by the State
Steven Woods
Death Row, Polunsky Prison, TX, USA
I'll not go quietly. We watch the clocks, stare at our calendars,
mark down the passage of time as we witness our lives slowly fade.
We count the minutes, hours, months, years.....You can see the progression
of time etched into the lines of our faces. The light of our eyes
wane along without hope, and yet........It's 2006. An election year.
Now they will forget we are human and start turning us into statistics.
Governor Perry is up for re-election, and so are the judges presiding
over our cases. Of course, they want to appear tough on crime. That's
what we all want, right? Continue
Reading
Crying Art....
Lebanon, Writing Home
Basil Shadid
I’m a Lebanese American filmmaker who has been so moved by
what’s been happening in Lebanon that I’m leaving my
apartment in Olympia, Washington to make a documentary about stories
of loss, survival, struggle and hope as Lebanon recovers from war.
On July 12, 2006 the Israeli military initiated a bombing campaign
inside Lebanon. As a Lebanese-American, with family in Marjeyoun
and Beirut, I grew increasingly concerned. Day after day, while
bombs fell and civilian casualties mounted, I looked for signs of
hope and safety for my family as well as other people in the region.
Continue
Reading
Talking About....
In Our
Own Voices: Learning and Teaching Toward Decolonisation
Review by: Tamara Hendrix
Phoenix, AZ
In Our Own Voices: Learning and Teaching Toward Decolonisation,
students, teachers and activists share their personal experiences
through theoretical essays, poetry, autobiographical analyses, and
art work. The narratives that pulse throughout this anthology echo
daily occurrences of isolation, invisibility, silencing, violence
and erasure to which “people of colour” and Indigenous
peoples confront at universities primarily in Canada and in the
US; with each contribution directly challenging racism, colonialism
and other forms of injustice pervasive within the learning environments
of western culture. Continue
Reading
Storytelling....
Haunted
Chad Goller-Sojourner
Seattle, WA, USA
I am haunted by images: the date 1955, the setting Selma, Alabama.
I am standing between two water fountains. One is marked coloreds,
where stained waters stir and creep forth from within. One is marked
whites only, where streams of luminous water unite and burst forth
into the bright daylight. And I am thirsty and colored yet very
fair skinned. Two fountains, each offering temporal relief, neither
without compromise, wounds or scars. Continue
Reading
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