During the holidays, the atmosphere of goodwill and mercy traditionally
extends all the way to the nation’s highest leaders, with presidents
typically pardoning more prisoners than any other time in the year. On
Friday, actors, musicians and activists are uniting to renew calls for
clemency for one of America’s most well-known and longest incarcerated
prisoners: Leonard Peltier. The Native American activist and former
member of the American Indian Movement was convicted of abetting the
killing of two FBI agents during a shootout on
South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. Peltier has long
maintained his innocence; Amnesty International considers him a
political prisoner who was not granted a fair trial. We air a
never-before-broadcast video of Peltier from an interview by German
journalist Claus Beegert.
Democracy Gone Astray
Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.
All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.
[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]
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