COMMENTARY: Rethinking our place on this planet
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- Written by Abe DeJamminen
In December 2004, Ran Prieur offered these nine pieces of advice on "how to survive the crash and save the earth." ...
POEMS: Three new poems by R.P. Ericksen on the Iraq war
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- Written by Fran Lucientes
Robert P. Ericksen has given permission to the Tacoma group People for Peace, Justice, and Healing to post three new poems relating to the Iraq war: "Phony Cowboys and Their Consequences,"[1] "Losses,"[2] and "Seeing Is Believing, or Is It Vice Versa?"[3] -- Ericksen, a professor of history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, is the author Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch (Yale University Press, 1985) and is the co-editor of the collection Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust (Augsburg Fortress, 1999). -- Several other poems by Ericksen on the Iraq war are available on the PPJH web site. -- In May 2004, Ericksen gave a lecture setting the Iraq war in historical context; he titled his talk "The Illusion of Overwhelming Force." ...
DOCUMENT: The draft Iraqi constitution
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- Written by Madeleine Lee
Below is the complete text of Iraq's draft constitution, as presented in a 13,434-word translation by the Associated Press. -- (The original text of the U.S. Constitution has about 4,400 words.) -- See chapter 5, beginning with Article 113, for a description of the federal system, which Sunnis are rejecting en masse. -- It provides for the creation of "regional authorities" which have the "right to practice legislative, executive and judicial powers according to this constitution, except in what is listed as exclusive powers of the federal authorities," the "right to amend the implementation of the federal law in the region in the case of a contradiction between the federal and regional laws in matters that do not pertain to the exclusive powers of the federal authorities," the delegation of "the authorities practiced by the federal government to the regional governments and vice versa, with the approval of both," transfer of "a fair share of the revenues collected federally . . . to regions," and "offices for regions and provinces are to be established in embassies and diplomatic missions to follow up on cultural, social and local development affairs." ...