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ALASKA FREEDOM NEWS |
Second Edition February 28, 2010 |
These are the times that try
men's souls.
Thomas Paine
The argument for liberty
is not an argument against organization, which is one of the
most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument
against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization,
against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better. Friedrich Hayak |
America's Lasting Dishonor |
As early as the 17th Century Renaissance it was resolved by
many European nations that the use of torture is inhumane, immoral and
largely useless for purposes of proving the actual truth of events.
Over centuries medieval nations developed practices of war that
avoided attacks on non-combatants.
After World War I, under the Third Geneva Convention, modern nations
banned the use of torture under international law, including false
drowning and many other torture methods used over the
millennium. After Germany
and Japan were defeated in WWII, it was further resolved by the Fourth
Geneva Convention that the indiscriminate killing of civilians even in
the direct course of war is a serious crime.
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Russia Made Huge Mistake in Selling Alaska |
Russia and the
United States signed a treaty
selling
Alaska to the U.S. for $7.2
million on March 30, 1867. The deal was considered a great achievement
of diplomacy at the time. The Russians began exploring the northwestern coast of North America in the first half of the 17th century. By and large, Russia discovered the region, and thus owned it for the next 126 years. |
Private property
Saying that the Russian Empire actually owned Alaska would be a sort of
exaggeration. In actuality, Alaska Territory was owned by a
transnational corporation called “Russian-American Company.” Founded by
Siberian merchants in 1799, the
corporation had a monopoly on all trade,
business, and natural resources in
Russian America i.e. Alaska and California, the Island of Sakhalin and
Kurile Islands. The reason why the company held sway over the vast areas
was clear and simple: the Russian-American Company operated under
auspices of the tsarist family.
On the one hand, the Russian-American Company took full advantage of the
situation. For instance, the Russian managers cut a fictitious title
transfer deal with their U.S. partners in the midst of the Crimean War.
The agreement was designed to keep Russian assets from being seized by
Russia’s enemies e.g.
Britain. On the other hand, the
company’s close relationship with the Russian elite eventually
backfired. A threat began to loom on the horizon.
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….Passing Events and People …. Alaska's Courts Pass on Secession from the Union |
It is a maxim in the law that courts are ill-suited to decide politically-charged cases. But sometimes they must. The Alaska courts were faced in consecutive lawsuits with the question of whether it would be lawful for a citizens' vote to mandate independence as a Nation for Alaska. The Alaska Constitution is silent on the question of secession from the United States, just as the US Constitution is. The eleven Southern states that seceded in 1861 were forcibly returned to the Union years later under military occupation. In 1865 the US Supreme Court unsurprisingly held that secession somehow was unconstitutional. If the Dred Scott decision helped launch the Civil War, the secession case had no effect at all on the war. The matter of secession has not been addressed in substance again by the federal courts. One would expect this question would have instead been resolved through a constitutional amendment as the abolition of slavery and civil equality for all citizens were enacted in the wake of the Civil War. Full Story |
A Socialist Indictment:
America, the Land of Inequality
13 February 2010
Reprinted from the World Socialist Web Site,
http://wsws.org |
New studies reveal that the social divide between rich and poor in the
US has grown much starker in the current economic crisis, and that even
before it hit the country was the most unequal of the advanced
economies, with great wealth and extreme poverty having become virtually
hereditary conditions.
President Barack Obama has done nothing to reverse decades of wage
stagnation, mounting poverty, and attacks on the social welfare system.
On the contrary, following George W. Bush, he has seized on the crisis
to redistribute wealth to a tiny financial elite through the ongoing
bailout of the finance industry.
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class, independently mobilized behind a socialist program.
Unemployment in the fourth quarter of 2009 for those in the bottom 10
percent of household earnings was at the Depression level of 31 percent.
A broader measure of unemployment, the labor market underutilization
rate—which combines unemployment, underemployment, and those who have
fallen out of the workforce because they have ceased actively searching
for work—was over 50 percent among the bottom decile of earners, for the
second decile, 37.6 percent, and for the third and fourth lowest income
deciles, 17.1 percent and 15 percent, respectively. For the top 10
percent of earners, the underutilization rate was 6.1 percent.
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Restoring the Constitution |
More and more, people are in favor or returning to the historic meaning
of the United States Constitution, a small federal government limited in
its powers to those directly granted by the words of the Constitution. Having gone so far away from this model of government, such a return seems an impossible dream. So, how could the United States restore its Constitution in the wake of the present economic meltdown? |
Therefore, once
a majority in Congress in 2012 or 2016 is ready to make the leap back
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