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TMA Articles and Commentary -
Current Issue
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Written by George W. Nicholson
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Sunday, 15 April 2007 |
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Kindred Spirits, Humble Heroes: Branch Rickey and William Wilberforce
April/May 2007 - The Abolitionist Examiner
by George W. Nicholson Originally published by The Independent Institute.
Branch Rickey was a baseball man, through and through. During more than a half century in the game, he brought remarkable players and World Series championships to three great cities, St. Louis, Brooklyn, and Pittsburgh, and countless innovations to the game of baseball, many of which still abound. Rickey’s story, however, is not just a baseball story. It is a story of vision, courage, and service, a story not unlike that of the great abolitionist William Wilberforce as became evident on March 30th, when an historic panel was held at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. The distinguished panel, moderated by Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, focused its attention on baseball and freedom. Rickey’s grandson, also Branch Rickey, is president of the nation’s top minor league, the Pacific Coast League. He was on the panel too.  Be first to comment this article |  Add as favourites (48) |  Quote this article on your site | Views: 2653
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 April 2007 )
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TMA Articles and Commentary -
Current Issue
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Written by Emily Monroy
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Sunday, 15 April 2007 |
Amanda Martinez’s SolaA Canadian musical artist reaches out to her Latin rootsApril/May 2007 - The Multiracial Activistby Emily MonroyLately, it seems, we are witnessing an increased interest in Latin music. Much of this interest has occurred in the field of popular music – most of us are familiar with the names Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, and Marc Anthony. But now other Latin musical genres are attempting to stake out their own territory as well, including bossa nova, jazz, and folk. One artist seeking to combine all these genres is Latin Canadian singer and songwriter Amanda Martinez, who in 2006 released her first album, Sola. Amanda Martinez was born in Toronto, Canada, to a father from Mexico and a South African Jewish mother in a household she describes as “the best of both worlds.” For example, while as a child Amanda celebrated Christmas with her father, she also observed Jewish high holidays with the maternal side of the family. English was her first language, but she learned Spanish by spending time with her Mexican relatives and studying it at high school and university. In addition, she was exposed to both parents’ musical heritages. She grew up listening to her father’s Latin albums and her mother’s South African record collection (even here she sees a connection, as much of Latin American music draws its roots from Africa). Amanda learned to love styles like Brazilian bossa nova, Afro-Cuban rhythms, Mexican folklore, and Latin jazz. Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (41) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 2528 |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 22 April 2007 )
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TMA Articles and Commentary -
Current Issue
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Written by Jonathan J. Bean
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Sunday, 15 April 2007 |
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Wilberforce and the Roots of Freedom
April/May 2007 - The Abolitionist Examiner
by Jonathan J. Bean Originally published in the Orange County Register and at the Independent Institute William Wilberforce is one of the great forgotten men of history. But, all that is about to change as America marks Black History Month with Amazing Grace, the remarkable new film that opened nationwide on February 23rd. Amazing Grace commemorates the bicentennial of the British ban on the slave trade (1807), an antislavery movement led by Wilberforce. Without him, there would have been no end to the slave trade, certainly not in his time. And without his life-changing conversion to Christianity, Wilberforce might have lived a forgettable life as a rich man’s son. Instead, he helped give birth to new freedom in the British Empire, hope in America, and inspiration to abolitionists everywhere. Today, with slavery spreading in Africa and Asia, and, according to Amnesty International, an estimated 27 million in slavery worldwide, Amazing Grace is more than a period piece: it is a timely and enduring lesson on what one man can do to stop the spread of evil. “Religion in politics” is a topic hot enough to spark a barroom brawl, or knock over cubicles in the modern workplace. Yet there is no getting around the religious passion that fed abolitionism, and later civil rights movements. For better or worse, Americans inherited both slavery and Christianity from the British. While slavery mocked the rhetoric of our Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal”), a few people in Britain and America felt passionate about ending slavery because it violated the moral teachings of Jesus Christ and also the spirit of the Declaration: each of us “endowed by our Creator” with the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Comments (1) | Add as favourites (40) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 2252 |
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TMA Articles and Commentary -
Current Issue
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Written by Adam Abraham
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Wednesday, 14 March 2007 |
Racial Divisiveness Convenient Ploy to Mask Larger Health IssueIt’s About Love DeficiencyApril/May 2007 - The Abolitionist Examinerby Adam Abraham An ABC News Health story trumpets, “Blacks Continue to Lose the Health Care Battle”. The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard and Brown Universities, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Its ostensive intention was to show a need to continue collecting racial data for the purposes of policing equality of treatment. Sounds like a good idea, right?
Wrong. Its real effect is to maintain divisiveness, keeping both blacks and whites thinking that a “fight” is still needed (or will occur), with one group on the offensive, and the other on the defensive. It passively and insidiously portrays blacks as continued “losers” in the game of being American. None of these postulates are true. The only thing this really accomplishes is to maintain the status quo. Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (47) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 2541 |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 April 2007 )
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The News -
Press Releases Sent By TMA and Coalition Partners
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Written by Coalition
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Monday, 12 March 2007 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Jesse R. Benton
March 12, 2007 202-246-6363
Stop National Security Letters, Says Transpartisan Coalition
In light of abuse, longtime critics of Patriot Act provision call for end to this highly intrusive practice
WASHINGTON, DC - The Liberty Coalition, a transpartisan public policy group dedicated to preserving the Bill of Rights, personal autonomy and individual privacy has called on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller to end the use of National Security Letters (NSL's) after a newly released Department of Justice (DOJ) audit confirmed fears that the FBI has improperly and unlawfully misused the controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act.
Upon taking his post, FBI director Robert Mueller pledged to uphold the United States Constitution. Civil liberties advocates have long argued that these secret, coercive demands for privacy records violate people's fundamental privacy rights because they allow the FBI to require telephone companies, internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus, insurance companies and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers without any evidence the person whose records are demanded has done anything wrong and without any judicial or independent check to protect individual rights.
"National Security Letters are a clear and dangerous violation of Americans' expectation of privacy in their financial, communications and insurance records unless they have done something wrong," said Liberty Coalition national director Michael Ostrolenk. "If Director Mueller wants to uphold both his word and duty, he will not oppose reforms of this intrusive, unchecked power."
NSL's were created in 1978 to circumvent the Right to Financial Privacy Act, but were limited strictly to foreign agents. Compliance was voluntary, and states' consumer privacy laws often allowed institutions to decline these requests.
In 2001, section 505 of the USA Patriot Act greatly expanded the use of NSL's, allowing their use in scrutiny of US residents who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. It also granted the privilege to other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security. Patriot Act reauthorization in 2005 added specific penalties for companies that failed to comply, giving FBI agents powerful tools to further coerce business owners to turn over customer information. The customers whose records are turned over to FBI databases is never told their private records are now held and distributed across the federal government, even if they have not done anything wrong and are never charged with any crime or other violation.
The DOJ audit, conducted by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, found that FBI agents demanded individual's personal data without proper authorization and improperly obtained telephone records under the guise of "emergency" in non-emergency circumstances. In addition, the FBI significantly underreported to Congress for three years how it forced businesses to turn over customer data. The Justice Department also misled the American people and Congress about the explosion in the use of these intrusive demands, at one point denying investigative reporting that over 30,000 requests had been made in a single year—this report documented that, in fact, over 50,000 had been made in a year for a total of almost 150,000 in a three year period. .
"The Inspector General's report, which was required by the Patriot Act reauthorization over the administration's objections, serves to underscore the danger when any government agent, regardless of intention, is given unchecked power to secretly gather the private records of people who have done nothing wrong," continued Ostrlolenk. "Congress must truly reform the National Security Letter power to focus these intrusive demands on those conspiring with al Qaeda and subject such demands to judicial checks to ensure that innocent people's privacy is not swept away by false claims of emergency or other inappropriate grounds."
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