Global
The Free Press community mourns the recent loss of our good friend, Art Strauss.
Art Strauss was a magnificent human being who made this community--- and the world---a better place.
He was warm, funny, smart, effective and completely dedicated to the causes of social justice, environmental preservation and much more.
Art, with his equally dedicated wife, Cindy – were recipients of the Free Press “Libby” Award for Community Activism several years ago.
It was always a joy to work with Art, who knew how to get things done in a graceful, enjoyable way.
He will always be with us, helping to make the world a better place.
With Love & Appreciation....Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
Art Strauss was a magnificent human being who made this community--- and the world---a better place.
He was warm, funny, smart, effective and completely dedicated to the causes of social justice, environmental preservation and much more.
Art, with his equally dedicated wife, Cindy – were recipients of the Free Press “Libby” Award for Community Activism several years ago.
It was always a joy to work with Art, who knew how to get things done in a graceful, enjoyable way.
He will always be with us, helping to make the world a better place.
With Love & Appreciation....Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
The parallels between the 1933 coming of Franklin Roosevelt and the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama must include the issue of Prohibition: alcohol in 1933, and marijuana today. As FDR did back then, Obama must now help end an utterly failed, socially destructive, reactionary crusade.
Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of many of the nation's economic problems. It now costs the U.S. tens of billions per year to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who pose little, if any, harm to society. The social toll soars even higher when we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and damaged families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the U.S. for mere possession of this ancient crop, according to the FBI’s uniform crime report.
Like the Prohibition on alcohol that plagued the nation from 1920 to 1933, marijuana prohibition (which essentially began in 1937) feeds organized crime and a socially useless prison-industrial complex that includes judges, lawyers, police, guards, prison contractors, and more.
Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of many of the nation's economic problems. It now costs the U.S. tens of billions per year to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who pose little, if any, harm to society. The social toll soars even higher when we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and damaged families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the U.S. for mere possession of this ancient crop, according to the FBI’s uniform crime report.
Like the Prohibition on alcohol that plagued the nation from 1920 to 1933, marijuana prohibition (which essentially began in 1937) feeds organized crime and a socially useless prison-industrial complex that includes judges, lawyers, police, guards, prison contractors, and more.
We don't see the images. They are neatly censored from our view in this country. But everywhere else around the world the carnage that is Gaza is being seen and the people are revolted by what they see.
They see dead babies, decapitated bodies, defenseless relief workers killed. Maimed men, makeshift morgues, mortified mothers.
They see exploding white phosphorus shells, cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions.
They see what is reportedly the world's fourth most powerful military using all of its power against a defenseless people.
In fact, they are witnesses to 15 days of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
They see Hugo Chavez expel Venezuela's Israeli Ambassador and they see lawmakers in Ecuador condemn Israel's actions, calling for an investigation into Israel's crimes against humanity.
They see dead babies, decapitated bodies, defenseless relief workers killed. Maimed men, makeshift morgues, mortified mothers.
They see exploding white phosphorus shells, cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions.
They see what is reportedly the world's fourth most powerful military using all of its power against a defenseless people.
In fact, they are witnesses to 15 days of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
They see Hugo Chavez expel Venezuela's Israeli Ambassador and they see lawmakers in Ecuador condemn Israel's actions, calling for an investigation into Israel's crimes against humanity.
Ironically, it was in Palestine, 20 years ago, that I concluded that there is no God. For how could a God, who claims to love all and treat all with impartiality, allow such horrors like those in Palestine to happen?
This unbelief grew stronger with each curfew, with each strike that mourned the death of yet one more martyr, with a decapitation induced by gunfire in the main square on a sunny Ramallah afternoon so many years ago. But it was cemented the day I had to tell one of my fifth grade students that his brother had just been taken away by the Israeli army. His expression, his body going limp, the shuddering of his shoulders as he wept with his classmates…that’s what finally did it.
Nearly 20 years have passed since that day, and I have now married into a Gazan family. I am a wife and mother, the sister and aunt of so many kids living the horror of what Gaza has become. As we watch the footage of Israel’s onslaught, I hear myself, whispering as I see one more martyred child, “Run to the angels….run.” After so many years, this living nightmare is fostering a burning desire to believe once again in the afterlife.
This unbelief grew stronger with each curfew, with each strike that mourned the death of yet one more martyr, with a decapitation induced by gunfire in the main square on a sunny Ramallah afternoon so many years ago. But it was cemented the day I had to tell one of my fifth grade students that his brother had just been taken away by the Israeli army. His expression, his body going limp, the shuddering of his shoulders as he wept with his classmates…that’s what finally did it.
Nearly 20 years have passed since that day, and I have now married into a Gazan family. I am a wife and mother, the sister and aunt of so many kids living the horror of what Gaza has become. As we watch the footage of Israel’s onslaught, I hear myself, whispering as I see one more martyred child, “Run to the angels….run.” After so many years, this living nightmare is fostering a burning desire to believe once again in the afterlife.
Bob Fitrakis discusses the facts behind the Columbus Dispatch's misleading journalistic angle, the one concerning the so-called election reform bill, which was vetoed by Ohio governor, Ted Strickland.
A nuke power bailout must NOT be part of the hundreds of billions of federal dollars about to pour out of Washington to revive our Bush-whacked economy.
If the huge Obama stimulus package we all know is coming includes money to build new reactors, the whole venture could turn to radioactive dust.
This is the last gasp both for American prosperity and atomic energy. Nuke promoters are lobbying frantically to get some of that cash for a dying business in which Wall Street would not invest even before the last crash.
In 2007 a national grassroots campaign, led in part by Nukefree.org, helped get a proposed $50 billion loan guarantee boondoggle removed from the Energy Bill. In 2008 a blank check was on its way just as Wall Street tanked.
Now, with renewables booming ahead, this may be the last gasp for a desperate industry. Cut off from Wall Street, hordes of nuke lobbyists will descend like radioactive locusts on this gargantuan stimulus package. They must be stopped.
If the huge Obama stimulus package we all know is coming includes money to build new reactors, the whole venture could turn to radioactive dust.
This is the last gasp both for American prosperity and atomic energy. Nuke promoters are lobbying frantically to get some of that cash for a dying business in which Wall Street would not invest even before the last crash.
In 2007 a national grassroots campaign, led in part by Nukefree.org, helped get a proposed $50 billion loan guarantee boondoggle removed from the Energy Bill. In 2008 a blank check was on its way just as Wall Street tanked.
Now, with renewables booming ahead, this may be the last gasp for a desperate industry. Cut off from Wall Street, hordes of nuke lobbyists will descend like radioactive locusts on this gargantuan stimulus package. They must be stopped.
"Surely, they say, there must, there has to be another way of doing this."
OK, let's start here, with this flicker of anguish, this quick stab of despair and disbelief that war is a rational means to an end. These words, from an essay by Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the Jewish peace lobbying group J Street, describe the complex discomfort felt by what he surmises to be a "third stream of Jews" in the U.S. and elsewhere -- neither committed peaceniks nor "Pavlovian flag wavers" -- over Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip.
"There has to be another way . . ." Let's sit with it for a moment, nurture it before it passes, because it is awareness at the earliest noticeable stage, and most of us on this planet, I think, can no longer repress it, no matter how much we want to and no matter how alone we feel with it. This awareness may be the fire we must harness if we are going to survive.
I say this mindful of how difficult life is without an enemy to blame for our suffering, for everything that's wrong. I say this mindful, also, of the hell that others do create, as we crouch in the hallway with Lubna Karam.
OK, let's start here, with this flicker of anguish, this quick stab of despair and disbelief that war is a rational means to an end. These words, from an essay by Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the Jewish peace lobbying group J Street, describe the complex discomfort felt by what he surmises to be a "third stream of Jews" in the U.S. and elsewhere -- neither committed peaceniks nor "Pavlovian flag wavers" -- over Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip.
"There has to be another way . . ." Let's sit with it for a moment, nurture it before it passes, because it is awareness at the earliest noticeable stage, and most of us on this planet, I think, can no longer repress it, no matter how much we want to and no matter how alone we feel with it. This awareness may be the fire we must harness if we are going to survive.
I say this mindful of how difficult life is without an enemy to blame for our suffering, for everything that's wrong. I say this mindful, also, of the hell that others do create, as we crouch in the hallway with Lubna Karam.
