The National Free Press - World Edition: Free Speech, Free Press and Human Rights

'We charge the United States government with the crime of genocide against the negro people' were the words cried out by the silent voices of those who had suffered those who had died and those left to speak on the behalf of the former and latter. 

Even more distressing than the message was the non-response of that international assembly for whom this message was intended. Those silent voices still exist and, to this day, reverberate across the span of decades, unanswered. 

Nearly 60-years ago, an unprecedented event took place at the fifth session of the United Nation’s General Assembly. William L. Patterson presented a petition to the aforementioned international body in hopes of bringing to light crimes against humanity as propagated by the United States Government. It was also the first time in its history that the United States of America faced a formal and albeit international accusation of genocide. 
 

Surely we’ve reached the stage of Information Dyspepsia. Thanks to that old movie Midnight Cowboy, and Harry Nilsson’s haunting lyrics, ‘Everybody’s talking at me, I don’t hear a word they’re saying …’ are turning in my brain.

We’ve had information overload for a while – the term was popularised in the 1970s by Alvin Toffler in his landmark book Future Shock. More recent researchers agree: we all take in so much stuff these days that we don’t have time to think it through. We’re not digesting it!

Instead, pressured, busy, confused, we brush it all away with cynicism and anger. “Information out the door, can’t be dealing with you,” is our mental response. We have Information Dyspepsia.
 

An Answer to the Tea Party - In the beginning it was a simple concept: majority rule. Whether it claims root in ancient Athens or some unknown tribal community, it has survived the millennia as the democratic ideal and remains today a powerful force in the governance of nations.

Modern democracy emerged in the eighteenth century as an alternative to monarchy, aristocracy, dictatorship and other forms of tyranny. The founding of the American nation, with all its flaws and inequities, was civilization’s first marriage of the nation state to the democratic ideal.

Rightwing cynics will point out that America is not and has never been a true democracy; it is rather a republic. They are of course literally correct yet fundamentally misguided. Democracy is an ideal that has never been attempted on the scale of nations and until the advent of advanced technology has never in fact been possible. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries no nation could afford to wait for a poll of the franchise before making a critical decision. 
 

As the nation’s children return to elementary and secondary schools, it is increasingly essential that their parents and communities coast to coast realize how poorly served they are and how their learning environment is increasingly tainted by a socialist agenda.

Our nation’s schools have long been factories of boredom, centers of academic incompetence. High school graduation rates have been in a fairly steady decline. At its peak in 1969, the rate was 77 percent. By 2007 it was 68.8 percent.

In mid-August, The Wall Street Journal reported that “New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S. high school students in the last few years.” 
 

Fetuses all across the Virginia are smiling on their sonograms this week in the wake of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s opinion that concludes the Commonwealth can legally resume oversight over “clinics” that abort the unborn.

Now Missy — on the way to abort her child — will be comforted by the knowledge that she will soon enjoy service and thoughtful attention from the same type of competent, licensed professionals she encounters at the veterinary hospital when she takes Fifi in to be spayed.

Curiously enough, the thought of a safer abortion outrages the unborn death lobby. They are so angry it makes you thankful they are opposed to personal ownership of handguns.
 

As a child in the 1950s, I learned how to 'duck and cover' in order to protect myself from an atomic bomb explosion. Little did I know that the instruction should have been 'Kiss your asterisk goodbye.'

The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Soviets wanted to put nuclear-tipped long range missiles there, led to a confrontation between President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev that had both sides changing their underwear after it was over.

What do the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea in common? They all have nuclear weapons and, of course, Iran has been working toward that goal and is now very close to achieving it.