Vanessa Kachadurian, How much are you willing to spend on your Freedom of Speech?

First Amendment to the United States Constitution From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search "First Amendment" redirects here. For other uses, see First Amendment (disambiguation). United States of America This article is part of the series: United States Constitution The Bill of Rights in the National Archives.The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress. However, starting with Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court has applied the First Amendment to each state. This was done through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has also recognized a series of exceptions to provisions protecting the freedom of speech. I propose a question to all of my readers on this blog. Would you be willing to spend chump change say $500.00 or maybe just $1,000.00 to insure your freedom of speech and the truth be spoken? When someone or some entity is trying to squash the truth and violates the First Amendment - Freedom of Speech and the Truth;is is our duty to oppose this nonsense censorship or should we just allow one opinion without fair balance? My answer has and always will be, Let Freedom of Truth ring on even if it costs $1.00 or $1,000.00 there is no price to be put on your rights to exercise your civil liberties. Sometimes Freedom isn't "Free" when there are people with deep pockets who wish to silence you. Stand tall and stand firm. Individuals get threatened all the time. Curious why the dozen of MSM that print articles never get a Complaint filed? Thank goodness that most judges in Federal Court protect our rights to the first amendment. This sounds like what the Ottoman Empire tried to do to their minority subjects, the would try and stop Armenians from printing the truth. Then tried to destroy us, in the end it made us stronger. Because we are now writers, lawyers and in the position of power to ensure the wheels of justice move for everyone not just those who have money, power or write with a poison pen. The Truth prevails now and will always!!! Reported by Vanessa Kachadurian

This isn't Turkey folks!!!

Vanessa Kachadurian and the Congressional recognition of Peter Balakian

Vanessa Kachadurian giving Congressman Jeff Denham's Congressional Recognition to author Peter Balakian. Author, Humanitarian, and Historian Peter Balakian was honored at UC Merced and at CSUF Fresno. What do a Turk, a Kurd, a Polish War hero and some Assyrians have in common? They all showed up at the event in Merced and Fresno to honor Peter Balakian and his quest for the world to understand the Armenian Genocide. There were several honors beside the Spendlove Prize, my friends at Congressman Sal Cannella's office, Dennis Cardoza, several state honors and local government. My buddies at Hye Riders, an international Armenian motorcycle club sent me a Hye Rider motorcylce shirt for Peter, and he was more jazzed about being an honorary Hye Rider. The Hye Riders have expanded to Armenia and Lebanon, they have gathered over 1,000 toys for children in orphanages in Armenia and over 1 ton of blankets for seniors. http://hyeriders.com/ Dr. Balakian was also given a bottle of Ararat Brandy in a sabre shaped bottle. He had a great time and met some outstanding people from very diverse backgrounds.

Peter Balakian with Dr. Bryzla a Polish resistance fighter, who reminded Peter about Hitler's infamous speech before he marched into Poland "Who after all today remembers the Armenians?"

Turkish professor who is seeking more dialogue with Armenians and other indigenous groups of the Republic of Turkey. She is a classy and delightful woman with a handsome husband who talked about his Greek lineage. We discussed the Turkish education on the Armenian Genocide as justified homocide against a nation as the Turkish government portrays the Armenians as "traitors" so apparently women, children, elderly, and our intellectuals had to be punished as well. Today, the Republic of Turkey still bares the darkness of their many Ottoman era genocides throughout the Ottoman Empire.

This is a group of Assyrian men who came to the UC Merced talk, Larry Piro's son George is a high level FBI agent who was in charge of Saddam Hussein. George was also on "60 Minutes" talking about his assignment with the late Saddam Hussein. Assyrians were the indigenous people of Iraq (formerly called Assyria) and are now being forced to close their churches and organizations. Saddam Hussein had no issues with his Christian population and in fact, his right hand man Tariq Aziz is a Christian Chaldean Assyrian. After the Turkish Ottoman cleansing of the Assyrian populations there was barely 1 million left in the world.

Peter Balakian on 60 Minutes the Armenian Genocide

Will have more photos from tonight's reception later enjoy!!

Vanessa Kachadurian- Peter Balakian to receive Spendlove Prize at UC Merced

Dr. Balakian fights for writing the truth and will not be censored by politics, Turkey, media or anyone else. Truth and history always prevails. My client and friend in Merced, Dr. "O" is on the board of regents at UC Merced, he asked me back in January to help facilitate this honor for Dr. Balakian. Today we leave Fresno (with a truck and carload of hummous, yalanchi (stuffed grape leaves) Armenian Wine and other goodies to honor Balakian at a private reception at Dr. "O"'s home. This is an honor for Merced and Fresno but more particularly to the ARmenians, Assryians and Greeks in the Central valley. As Dr. Balakian is the voice of Genocide and telling our story and the story of our ancestors. I have a special gift for Dr. Balakian from my friends in the Armenian motorcyle group "Hye Riders" which I will present to him. We will have more pictures later. http://www.ucmerced.edu/news/leading-voice-armenian-genocide-receive-spendlove-prize Peter Balakian, who brought renewed attention to the Armenian Genocide, will be the 2012 recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Peter Balakian, an author who has become a leading voice of Armenian Genocide recognition, will be the 2012 Spendlove Prize recipient. The Spendlove Prize each year honors an individual who exemplifies the delivery of social justice, diplomacy and tolerance. Balakian has received several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Peter Balakian, an award-winning author and a leading voice of Armenian Genocide recognition, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance. The University of California, Merced, will award the prize to Balakian during an evening ceremony April 12. The following day at 10 a.m. in the Classroom and Office Building, Room 105, Balakian will give a talk that's open to the public. No RSVP is required. The Spendlove Prize was established through a generous gift to the university from Sherrie Spendlove in honor of her parents, lifelong Merced residents Alice and Clifford Spendlove. The prize every year honors an individual who exemplifies the delivery of social justice, diplomacy and tolerance in his or her work. "Peter Balakian has been called 'the American conscience of the Armenian Genocide,'" Sherrie Spendlove said. "Our world history is incomplete without the full story of the Armenian Genocide being inscribed therein for all to see. Genocide in any part of the world in any epoch is an affront to humanity everywhere, in every time." Balakian is the author of the memoir "Black Dog of Fate," winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir and a New York Times Notable Book. In the book, Balakian writes about learning what his family and ancestors experienced with the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of his relatives. The massacre led to the creation of the word "genocide" and served as a template for Nazi Germany's Holocaust. In "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response," Balakian chronicles the massacres of the Armenians in the 1890s and genocide in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Balakian used rarely seen archival documents and remarkable first-person accounts to present the chilling history of how the Young Turk government implemented the first modern genocide behind the cover of World War I. He also resurrects an extraordinary lost chapter of world history. The book won the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book and New York Times best seller. Balakian, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English at Colgate University, is the recipient of many awards and prizes and civic citations, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Emily Clark Balch Prize for poetry from the "Virginia Quarterly Review." He has appeared widely on national television and radio including "60 Minutes," "ABC World News Tonight," "Charlie Rose" and "Fresh Air." Foreign editions of his work have appeared in a dozen languages including Arabic, French, Dutch, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish. "For decades, Peter Balakian has spoken with personal knowledge and great courage about the Armenian genocide," said Mark Aldenderfer, dean of the UC Merced School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. "Through the award of the Spendlove Prize, we are honored to help him in his efforts to bring to light the horrors experienced by the Armenian people in the 20th century so that they may never be forgotten or repeated by others." The Spendlove Prize Selection Committee is chaired by Aldenderfer and includes a representative from the Spendlove family or a designee; an undergraduate student; a graduate student; a faculty member; and representatives from the UC Merced community. The Spendlove Prize includes an $8,000 award. Previous recipients of the award are:  2006 - Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Merced native, professor of law and founding executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University.  2007 - John Y. Tateishi, a civil rights activist who led the successful redress campaign for Japanese-Americans in the aftermath of World War II internment.  2008 - Sara O'Meara and Yvonne Fedderson, founders of Childhelp, a nationwide organization devoted to the prevention and treatment of child abuse. O'Meara and Fedderson have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work with abused children.  2009 - Faye J. Crosby, a professor of psychology at UC Santa Cruz and expert on affirmative action and inclusiveness.  2010 - Jimmy Carter, a former United States president who made the global quest for basic human rights a central platform in his administration.  2011 - Cruz Reynoso, a former California Supreme Court Justice and civil rights lawyer who has spent his life fighting for immigrants' rights.