Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
On an otherwise quiet street in Istanbul, this morning, a 53 year old Turkish citizen of Armenian descent was gunned down outside his office on his way to work. Hrant Dink, the editor of Turkey's one and only Armenian language newspaper, "Agos," and an honorary member of PEN American Center, now joins the swelling ranks of reporters who have been killed in Russia, Mexico, Iraq, and Turkey this year alone. An eyewitness to the murder said only that he saw a young man, in his late teens, who wore a pair of jeans and a cap, run from the scene screaming, "I shot the non-Muslim." (Reuters) So, this is the sorry state we, as a planet, are in when our teenagers turn our weapons back on us.
Just last year, Mr. Dink was convicted of profaning his mostly Muslim country based on remarks he made about the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians before World War I, a crime the Turkish government insists never occurred. His appeals led nowhere, and Dink was sentenced to six months in jail. Like last year's Nobel Laureate, Orphan Pamuk, he was charged with "insulting Turkish identity," section 301 of Turkey's penal code. But, unlike Nobel Laureate Pamuk, the indictment against Hrant Dink led to conviction,and today he paid with his life, reportedly at the hands of someone young enough to be his grandchild.
Given that Turkey wants to join the European Union, they may be forced to reconsider their revisionism and denial of the Armenian holocaust. Ironically, and tragically, Mr. Dink's was among the few voices, in Turkey, calling for democracy and appealing to the European Court of Human Rights. In the last article he published in "Agos," he wrote: "Who knows what kind of injustices I am yet to encounter? ...Yes, I might see myself living in the timidity of a pigeon, but I know in this country people do not touch pigeons. Pigeons can live in the depths of the city, even among the human crowds. Yes, perhaps in a little timid way, but also in liberty." Clearly, his request to live in liberty was more than some could bear.
We’ve heard a lot about the bombing of Samarra’s Golden Mosque lately. Bush has brought it up twice in the last week alone. It’s a critical part of the administration’s rationale for the occupation of Iraq, so we can expect to be reminded of it nearly as often as 9-11.
The destruction of the Golden-dome Mosque took place in February 2006 and has been identified as the “catalyzing event” that plunged the country into sectarian violence. That, at least, is just the official version. No one knows really what happened because the administration refused to conduct an independent investigation and the media excluded any account that didn’t square with the Pentagon’s spin on events.
What we’re left with is mere speculation.
Here's what we know: Less than 4 hours after the explosion, the Bush public relations team cobbled together a statement that the bombing was the work of Sunni extremists or al Qaida terrorists. But, how did they know? They didn’t have witnesses on the ground in Samarra and they’ve never produced a scintilla of evidence to support their claims. It may be that the administration simply saw the bombing as an opportunity to twist the facts to suit their own purposes?
Traditional conservative, William F. Buckley was once asked how he would describe a “liberal.” He thought for moment, his snake-like tongue darting about just behind open lips, then spoke.
“A liberal is someone who over-waters their house plants.”
Ouch! That hurt. Because he was right. I knew exactly what he meant. Why would a liberal over-water a house plant? Because they were mean? No. Quite the opposite. They were just trying to help. Because liberals are nice people – sometimes too nice. Liberals have over-developed empathy glands. When a liberal tells you he or she “feels your pain,” they mean it — even if at that particular moment you're not feeling it.
Now, before you jump all over me, I'm a liberal. (Well, a social liberal anyway, though I tend to be more conservative when it comes to things like balancing the federal checkbook.) But on social issues I'm right there – choice for women, equality for everyone and more than a little suspicious about what the domestic Axis of Evil — corporate/political/media nexus – are up too.
by Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
FALLUJAH – (IPS) A stepped up military offensive that targets mosques,
religious leaders and Islamic customs is leading many Iraqis to believe
that the US-led invasion really was a "holy war."
Photographs are being circulated of black crosses painted on mosque
walls and on copies of the Quran, and of soldiers dumping their waste
inside mosques. New stories appear frequently of raids on mosques and
brutal treatment of Islamic clerics, leading many Iraqis to ask if the
invasion and occupation was a war against Islam.
Many Iraqis now recall remarks by US President George W. Bush shortly
after the events of Sep. 11, 2001 when he told reporters that "this
crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while."
"Bush's tongue 'slipped' more than once when he spoke of 'fascist
Islamists' and used other similar expressions that touched the very
nerve of Muslims around the world," Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubayssi of
the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), a leading Sunni group, told
IPS in Baghdad. "We wish they were just mere slips, but what is going on
repeatedly makes one think of crusades over and over."
“The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theater, go dancing, go drinking, think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater will become that treasure which neither moths nor maggots can consume — your capital. The less you are, the less you give expression to your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life … So all passions and all activity are submerged in greed”
– Karl Marx, notebooks, 1844
If one looks at the historical record, in times of severe social upheaval almost without exception, societies respond in remarkably similar ways, most often by resorting to apocalyptic visions most often accompanied if not actually delivered by messiahs of one kind or another, who offer salvation if and only if, we accept the word. The alternative is presented as being too horrible to contemplate and/or an afterlife consisting of essentially more of the same.
Today’s world is no exception, depressing I know but the failure of the socialism to offer a viable alternative to the ongoing capitalist disaster has left many millions of people not only vulnerable to the offerings of all kinds of ‘solutions’ whether one of a variety of religious fundamentalisms or even nuttier alternatives (is this possible?) which I won’t bother to go into here, but also desperate for a solution. The net result is a vicious cycle, for even those who adopt one of the ‘solutions’ on offer find that things do not change, except for the worse which in turn drives many to seek even more extreme alternatives.
And it is also this vulnerability that gives the ruling political class their raison d’etre for the various ‘solutions’ they have to offer, whether it be the endless ‘war on terror’ scenario or the increasing clampdown on civil and political rights, all of which appear to offer stability in a world of uncertainty and increasing chaos.
Writings
On an otherwise quiet street in Istanbul, this morning, a 53 year old Turkish citizen of Armenian descent was gunned down outside his office on his way to work. Hrant Dink, the editor of Turkey's one and only Armenian language newspaper, "Agos," and an honorary member of PEN American Center, now joins the swelling ranks of reporters who have been killed in Russia, Mexico, Iraq, and Turkey this year alone. An eyewitness to the murder said only that he saw a young man, in his late teens, who wore a pair of jeans and a cap, run from the scene screaming, "I shot the non-Muslim." (Reuters) So, this is the sorry state we, as a planet, are in when our teenagers turn our weapons back on us. 
We’ve heard a lot about the bombing of Samarra’s Golden Mosque lately. Bush has brought it up twice in the last week alone. It’s a critical part of the administration’s rationale for the occupation of Iraq, so we can expect to be reminded of it nearly as often as 9-11.
Traditional conservative, William F. Buckley was once asked how he would describe a “liberal.” He thought for moment, his snake-like tongue darting about just behind open lips, then spoke.
