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.
There is, in America, a potentially powerful, but presently only nascent (if even that), force for positive change. I submit that if that force is not unleashed in the coming months, there is no hope for reversing a catastrophic path toward what will be the final world war. The political terrain is now littered with explosive devices and our government, all of it, carries around the ignition engines, just looking for an opportunity to push the little buttons.
That force is the American political Left. At present, though, it's just a sleeping giant. What will it take to wake it up, feed it, and unleash its power to drive positive change?
For new readers here, let me clarify that by "American Left" I do not mean the so-called "progressive" or "liberal" wing of the Democratic Party. There are indeed several members of Congress, such as Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, and John Conyers, who take a decidedly leftist position. For the most part, however, those who now call themselves "progressive" are really classical, middle-of-the-road politicians who have consistently supported the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies.
Keeping abreast of the new Congress's plans for the upcoming session, it is clear that the Democrats will not take up the issues that the "Hard Left" sees as critical priorities: an immediate exit from Iraq, demilitarization of our society, rescinding the PATRIOT Act, reversing the attack on civil rights, rescinding tax breaks for the richest citizens and corporations, and impeaching Bush and Cheney.
The
Channel tunnel has been targeted by a group of Islamic militant
terrorists aiming to cause maximum carnage during the holiday season,
according to French and American secret services.
The plan,
which the French DGSE foreign intelligence service became aware of
earlier this year, is revealed in a secret report to the French
government on threat levels. The report, dated December 19, indicates
that the tip-off came from the American CIA.
Remember this.
British
and French intelligence agencies have run a series of checks of the
security system protecting the 31-mile tunnel but the threat level, the
DGSE warns, remains high. British security services remain on high
alert throughout the holiday period.
According to the French sources, the plan was put together in Pakistan and is being directed from there.
I recently had the privilege of conducting a “cyber interview” with one of the preeminent domestic critics of the American Empire. Despite his relatively recent start, Stephen Lendman has rapidly become one of the most ubiquitous and well-respected chroniclers of truth in the alternative media community. Asserting unflinching support for social democracy, Hugo Chavez, and the countless victims of US foreign and domestic policy, Lendman has penned a growing stack of essays assailing the brutality of American Capitalism and the genocidal crimes of unbridled United States militarism.
Recently receiving a well-deserved page on Third World Traveler (1), Stephen Lendman is taking his place amongst the likes of Petras and Chomsky, men he cites as his inspirations.
Here is a glimpse of Stephen and his worldview:
What is your educational background and what type of work did you do in your “former life”?
During my formal working life I read moderately as able and followed with horror and revulsion many world and national events but never wrote or spoke out about them. That began changing when I retired at the end of 1999 at age 65. I began reading heavily and now have an extensive library that includes many of the renowned giants I revere like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ed Herman, James Petras, Edward Said, Gore Vidal, Michel Chossudovsky, John Pilger and dozens of others including many not as well known to the greater public like June Jordan, now passed much too young and terribly missed. Her very name inspires me for who she was and what she stood for and did in her life. A truly remarkable and courageous woman.
I tell people I never wrote anything other than business reports, memos and such since finishing my master's thesis in 1959 till, by accident, late last year I wrote a long letter to Norman Finkelstein praising one of his books. He asked permission to post it on his web site and requested I submit it to other sites which I did, got a few postings, and it all took off from there but slowly at first.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a radio show to Virginia, and after that one in Minnesota, that was framed by these questions:
What are your feelings toward humanity, meaning toward people in general? That is, what do you feel when you look at, or think about, the mass of humankind? What has shaped your feelings? Have they ever changed, and if so what changed them? Are you glad about what you feel toward people generally, or do you wish you felt something different?
In general, my choice of topics for discussion on my radio shows is largely shaped by what issues are alive for me, and this one was no exception. For more than two years, I have struggled with a subtle but deep-seated shift in my underlying sense of people in general.
This was the result of two profound, evidently somewhat traumatic, experiences that came close together.
One was local, where a group of people –and an institution– whom I trusted and for whom I’d had very high regard shocked me by acting in a way that was altogether without integrity and honesty.
Back on October 9, I wrote in the Atlantic Free Press and The Nation that it looked like the Bush-Cheney gang, worried about the November election, was gearing up for an unprovoked attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, with a carrier strike group led by the USS Eisenhower being ordered to depart a month early from Norfolk, VA to join the already-on-station USS Enterprise. That article was based on reports from angry sailors based on the Eisenhower who had leaked word of their mission.
There was, thankfully, no attack on Iran before Election Day, but it is starting to look like I may have been right about the plan after all, but wrong about the timing.
As the threat of a catastrophic US election-eve attack on Iran started to look increasingly likely, reports began to trickle out of the Pentagon that the generals and admirals were protesting. They knew that the US military is stretched to the limit in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that a war with Iran would be a disaster of historic proportions. To bolster their blocking efforts, the Iraq Study Group, headed by Republican fixer and former Secretary of State (under Bush Pere) James Baker, which had been slated to release its report on what to do about Iraq in January, 2007, pushed forward its report. Baker, together with co-chair Lee Hamilton, went prematurely public with the group’s conclusion that the Iraq war was a failure, and that the US should be trying to negotiate with Iran, not attack that country.
That joint effort appeared to have blocked Bush and Cheney’s war plan, but the reprieve may have only been temporary.
Writings
There is, in America, a potentially powerful, but presently only nascent (if even that), force for positive change. I submit that if that force is not unleashed in the coming months, there is no hope for reversing a catastrophic path toward what will be the final world war. The political terrain is now littered with explosive devices and our government, all of it, carries around the ignition engines, just looking for an opportunity to push the little buttons.
Jason Burke, writing for 
I recently had the privilege of conducting a “cyber interview” with one of the preeminent domestic critics of the American Empire. Despite his relatively recent start, Stephen Lendman has rapidly become one of the most ubiquitous and well-respected chroniclers of truth in the alternative media community. Asserting unflinching support for social democracy, Hugo Chavez, and the countless victims of US foreign and domestic policy, Lendman has penned a growing stack of essays assailing the brutality of American Capitalism and the genocidal crimes of unbridled United States militarism. 
A couple of weeks ago, I did a radio show to Virginia, and after that one in Minnesota, that was framed by these questions: 
Back on October 9, I wrote in the 
