The Humanist July/August 2001 Volume 61, Number 4

Cover Story: Building Bush's "Hemisphere of Liberty"

Chronicle of a Protest

by Fred Edwords

What really happened in Quebec City when the third Summit of the Americas convened to discuss a free trade agreement for the Western Hemisphere? And how peaceful or violent was the activism of the tens of thousands of demonstrators who showed up to voice their concerns and opposition? A day-by-day chronology of the summit meetings, the protests, and the police response provides a context in which to place news reports, editorials, eyewitness accounts, and discussion of the issues.

Amnesty International Calls for Public Inquiry into Alleged Police Brutality

A press release issued by the international human rights watchdog calls for an investigation of police tactics and alleged excesses in securing the Summit of the Americas.

On the Front Lines at the FTAA Protests

by Sara Ahronheim

A volunteer medic, who braved repeated police onslaughts as she aided the injured among the peaceful demonstrators in Quebec City, tells her frightening story and, in the process, explores how her front-line experience with urban warfare and government oppression has and hasn't changed her.

Hiding Out in Cyberspace

by Norman Solomon

In the wake of the recent protests over international economic summits, the World Bank is trying out a new method for keeping democracy at bay: holding meetings in cyberspace. So much for the notion of Internet empowerment of the dispossessed!

Plan Colombia: The Hidden Front in the U.S. Drug War

by Sharon Fratepietro

Going beyond U.S. government reports of coca and poppy fields destroyed, one humanist gets a firsthand look at the effects of the Drug War on the people of Colombia. It's a view of a nation impelled to destroy itself.

Articles:

Extreme Measures

by Paul Kahn

Humanists are known for their advocacy of the right to die and the right of close family members to refuse heroic measures for the treatment of those in a persistent vegetative state. But what unexpected questions and issues are raised when a humanist mother freely chooses to keep her comatose son alive at almost any cost?

Beyond the Quest for Certainty

by Pat Duffy Hutcheon

John Dewey laid the foundation for modern humanism when he challenged Kant's rationalism and transcendentalism, set aside Platonic dualism and idealism, and urged philosophers to give up the quest for certainty. But his ideas remain controversial as some of today's thinkers rally anew against him.

H.P. Lovecraft: Prophet of Humanism

by Robert M. Price

Many wonder how one of the most famous horror, fantasy, and science fiction writers of the twentieth century could have been a humanist. But H.P. Lovecraft's work demonstrates the paradoxical attraction that the occult and religious aesthetics, when woven into literature, can have for thinking people.

Features:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

UP FRONT:

Bush's Compassionless Conservatism

Jail Time for Jenna

THE SKEPTICAL EYE:

Demystification of Belief Systems

HUMANISTIC ECONOMICS:

Reflections on TiVo

BOOK REVIEWS

CHURCH AND STATE:

Report from Norway

WORTH NOTING

FIRST PERSON:

Listening to Anthony

Copyright © 2002, the American Humanist Association