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.
by Dave Lindorff It's been 25 years now since Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot dead in a Center City, Philadelphia red-light district. Since then, Faulkner has become a rallying point for the nation's death penalty advocates. It's been 25 years, too, since the man convicted of killing Faulkner, Philadelphia radio journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, was arrested for the crime at the scene. Since July 1982, Abu-Jamal has been in solitary confinement on Philadelphia's death row, from hich lonely spot he has become a world-famous prison journalist, and a rallying point for those opposed to capital punishment.
The debates over Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence have raged now for an astonishing quarter of a century, through the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Battles have raged, too, within the loose-knit group of people who have backed Abu-Jamal, between those who argue that he is an innocent man, a political prisoner condemned for his politics, and those who simply argue that he never received a fair trial. Politicians at the local, state and even federal level, many without any real knowledge about this complex case, have prostituted themselves by pressing for Abu-Jamal's execution, while others, sometimes equally ignorant of the facts, have lionized him and honored him with honorary citizenships and street names.
Whatever one's views on this case, however, the reality is that it for the first time in 25 years, Abu-Jamal is finally going to get a chance in the second highest court in the land to make the case that his 1982 trial was fatally tainted by unconstitutional error, judicial bias, race-based jury selection and prosecutorial misconduct. The reality also is that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which will be hearing arguments on Abu-Jamal's appeal early next year (barring any unanticipated delays), could conceivably end up ordering a new trial for Abu-Jamal--a trial that, because of better defense counsel, a changed political climate, shifting demographics, the deaths of some witnesses, and the likelihood of new defense witnesses, would most likely end up setting him free, or having him released for time served. At the same time, the same three-judge panel hearing this appeal will also be considering a counter appeal by the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, which seeks to overturn a lower Federal District Court decision which five years ago tossed out Abu-Jamal's death sentence. So at the same time that the Third Circuit could end up giving Abu-Jamal a new chance to prove his innocence, or at least to leave prison a free man, it could ironically also end up sending him back onto death row and to a date with the needle.
It would be nice to believe that the U.S./British invasion of Iraq may have
been horribly mishandled but the motivation behind it was sincere. After
all, it's a timeless classic: toss out a depot and introduce democracy.
However, even the most perfunctory glance at previous U.S./British ventures
would promptly expose the lies. An excellent example is post-WWII Greece.
Before the (so-called) Good War, Greece was a right-wing monarchy and
dictatorship, but German occupation gave birth to a civil war. The National
Liberation Front (EAM), an extremely popular left-wing group, and the
People's Liberation Army, the guerilla resistance wing of EAM, gained the
support of the masses and were largely responsible for Greece being
relatively Nazi-free by the time the British army arrived in late 1944.
Viewing EAM's early support by the Greek Communist Party and its tendency
towards unrealistic slogans like education for the illiterate and welcoming
women as soldiers as a precursor of what post-war Greece may be like, a
British army of intervention promptly stepped in to restore the right-wing
dictatorship.
In response to the inevitable jailing and repression of regime opponents and
trade union leaders, a left-wing guerilla movement sprang forth. By the fall
of 1946, this friction led to civil war. Great Britain, no longer able to
extend itself globally, was unable to handle the rebellion and called on the
U.S. for help. "Thus it was," explains author William Blum, "that the
historic task of preserving all that is decent and good in Western
Civilization passed into the hands of the United States."
9:15 a.m. ET, 12/5/2006 -- The hearing hasn't started yet. Ray McGovern is sitting in the front row. If the questioning is lame, he and I will try to get everyone chanting "You won the elections! Now ask real questions!" unless one of you has a better chant idea. That's the best we've thought of on our own so far. Out on the street in front of the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington DC, the World Can't Wait is protesting along with the Bush Chain Gang. I have a video camera, but anything I shoot won't be posted until tonight at the earliest.
9:45 a.m. Sen. John Warner, Chair of Senate Armed Services, introduced Gates, saying that he became director of the CIA after 21 witnesses produced 2500 pages of testimony and he was confirmed by the Senate. He then "served with distinction." Then Warner started bragging on his own military service. Now he's quoting his own recent muddled pseudo-tough words on Iraq: "no option off the table." To further clarify, he quoted Gen Peter Pace from yesterday: "We're not winning but we're not losing."
Warner plans a hearing at 9:30 on Thursday following Wednesday's release of the Baker-Hamilton plan to support the war before opposing it while supporting it. Warner urged the President to consult with Congress, even while using Bush's new euphemism: "the way forward." Warner refers to Gates as his longtime friend.
9:55 Carl Levin spoke next. Didn't say much, but did so at length. Praised Warner's service as chairman. Now, former Senator and Viagra salesman Bob Dole is speaking.
“[It] is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based suppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.”
Nancy Pelosi
One might hope that the newly elected Democrats that constitute the majority in both houses would be able to think for themselves on the issue of Israeli apartheid and not be led by the prejudicial opinion of their presumed House leader. Pelosi’s statement denies the reality that exists in Israel now on two counts: first, she denies the reality of the present government in Israel because with Olmert’s acceptance of Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party into his government, he, and therefore his government, has acknowledged what this man and his party endorse, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land and the denial of citizenship of Palestinians living in Israel; secondly, she denies the reality of the Jewish state’s “Declaration of Independence,” as noted by Dr. Uri Davis in his work, Apartheid Israel, “The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel – known as Israel’s Declaration of Independence – does not declare Israel an independent State, nor does it declare Israel a sovereign State, it rather declares Israel a Jewish State … the Jewish State in the political Zionist sense of the term was to be an apartheid state.” Dr. Davis’ work records the acts of “ethnic cleansing of the majority of the native indigenous Palestinian Arab people from the territories that came under the control of the Israeli army and razing some 400 Palestinian rural and urban localities to the ground …” and the plantation of Jewish settlements and subsequent annexation by the State in “violation of both the UN Charter and of international law.”
Last week, someone slippedNew York Times reporters Michael R. Gordon and David S. Cloud the secret memo finished by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld just two days before he "resigned." It was the last in a flurry of famed Rumsfeldian "snowflakes" that have fluttered down upon the Pentagon these past years. This one, though, was "submitted" to the White House and clearly meant for the President's eyes. In it, the Secretary of Defense offered a veritable laundry list of possible policy adjustments in Iraq, adding up to what, according to Gordon and Cloud, is both an acknowledgement of failure and "a major course correction."
Think of this last zany, only semi-coherent Rumsfeldian document -- part of Washington's grim ongoing silly season over Iraq -- as Rumsfeld's last stand. In it, he quite literally cycles (as in bicycles) back to the origins of the Bush administration's shredded Iraq policy. It is, in a pathetic sense, that policy stripped bare.
Here are just three last-stand aspects of the memo that have been largely or totally overlooked in most reporting:
1. "Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start ‘taking our hand off the bicycle seat'), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."
Writings
It's been 25 years now since Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot dead in a Center City, Philadelphia red-light district. Since then, Faulkner has become a rallying point for the nation's death penalty advocates. It's been 25 years, too, since the man convicted of killing Faulkner, Philadelphia radio journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, was arrested for the crime at the scene. Since July 1982, Abu-Jamal has been in solitary confinement on Philadelphia's death row, from hich lonely spot he has become a world-famous prison journalist, and a rallying point for those opposed to capital punishment.
It would be nice to believe that the U.S./British invasion of Iraq may have
been horribly mishandled but the motivation behind it was sincere. After
all, it's a timeless classic: toss out a depot and introduce democracy.
However, even the most perfunctory glance at previous U.S./British ventures
would promptly expose the lies. An excellent example is post-WWII Greece.
Last week, someone 
