CIVILIANISM PODCAST

Respected journalist Amy Goodman was finally able to give her talk in Vancouver, Canada, in late November, 2009, after and despite serious harassment by Canadian police. She discussed this on her show Democracy Now in late November, but this is the actual talk. She discussed health care, her mother’s health care before death, media, Obama, Afghanistan, our military, feminism, and more. It’s often funny too.

She also talks about how she feels getting involved and dissent are very important. It’s an incredible talk, very revealing as she talks about her mother, and completely unedited.

Great line (among many): “What do I think of the mainstream media? I think it would be a good idea.”

“Information is power”, she said, something any student of journalism could tell you instinctively, but something many people don’t usually think about.

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Credit for the original recording: Radio4all.net

Music: (I Wish I Had a) Wooden Heart, by David Holmes

Our capitalist system is falling apart. Bush and portions of Congress want to nationalize our banking system.

McCain and Obama star in the McCain-Obama debates. They were not presidential debates because the other presidential candidates were not invited. All “major” party candidates should have been on that stage, including the candidates from the Green Party, the Nader party, the Socialist party, the Libertarian party, the Independence party, etc. Would that really crowd the stage so much? No, the American people are at a disadvantage when the corporate media presents us with only two people and says “pick one.”

As for the “bailout” — I support free money for everyone. Let’s just print a few trainloads of $1,000 dollar bills and hand them out to everyone. Why not? We hand out money in Iraq and Afghanistan like pizza coupons; might as well hand money out here in the U.S. And yes, go ahead and bail out the homeowners, but those greedy investment banks that prey on people and make money from nothing and add nothing to the world? Someone tell me how they deserve a bailout. What we really need is single-payer, universal health care. Bail us into THAT.

Is Bush turning into a dictator? I present a somewhat circuitous route to my theory that Bush is going to give John McCain the presidency via a manufactured economic meltdown, provoked riots, and some seriously unethical methods involving martial law, the suspension of the posse comitatus act, and the Army.

This is all related to the March on the RNC and the police state that we saw in St. Paul in the first week in September. I interview the coordinator of that protest march and Katrina P. explains to me what REALLY happened during that mini police state in St. Paul.

Support the RNC 8.

Want to write letters to support a candidate? Here is how the McCain campaign tells people to do it.

Foreclosure: They Were Preyed Upon, a very sad story. One family of 28,000 Minnesota families who are losing their homes through foreclosure this year.

And I forgot to mention this, but thanks to Donna who told me that Thom Hartmann is available for free on Green 960

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The state of American corporate media is in bad shape. The state of independent media is good and getting better! I attended the National Conference on Media Reform last weekend and tell you about it in this podcast. It was fantastic, and I’m so grateful I got to go. THANKS AGAIN to everyone who contributed to help me attend! You can read more about it here, and you can find my photos here and a link to more in a blog entry below this, and find more audio and video at Freepress.net/tune-in

I play two of the speeches and panel talks I heard in this podcast, and will be playing more in the next one. Media reform is essential to our democracy as more and more of our media is being bought out by corporations that are interested in only one thing: profits.
Fortunately, we can all be a part of the media. Podcasting, blogging, making videos, writing stories, communicating information in all ways that is shared IS media. Be your own media, share what you know and get active in the media reform movement.
People from all around the country, regular people and media professionals, shared their stories and methods for creating media and supporting independent media at this conference. Independent media is the future because corporate media has lost its integrity.
I also cover some news: Iraq, Afghanistan, the treaty Bush is trying to force on the Iraqis that they don’t want that would take away their autonomy, and what is happening to an LA news magazine. Also, a man handing out RNC protest information in the form of a piece of paper was arrested on June 5th outside the very convention hall where Republicans will meet to plot in September!

But this is important: Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment. It’s now been sent to the Judiciary Commmittee. His main co-sponsor is Robert Wexler. Call his office, call the Judiciary Committee, call Nancy Pelosi and tell them to impeach George W. Bush! 202 225-3121
It’s important that everyone call Nancy Pelosi’s office and also John Conyer’s office — I just did. It’s easy. Ask for Speaker Pelosi’s comment line. You can then demand she put impeachment back on the table.

Watch the video of O’Reilly calling us crazy and fascists!

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Music played: Andy Pratt, Masters of War

[tags]podcast, liberals, media, reform NCMR2008, National Media Reform Conference, CODEPINK, Keith Ellison, Minneapolis, podcasting, progressives, impeachment, Kucinich[/tags]

I have added lots of photos to my flickr account from the conference. Feel free to look at them here.

If the link doesn’t work, let me know.

[tags]ncmr2008, media reform conference, minneapolis[/tags]

Too tired to write a real blog post, but the National Media Reform Conference is going great. This morning started out with a bang. Congressman Keith Ellison was extremely enthusiastic. Tonight I saw the movie, Body of War, with Amy Goodman and Phil Donahue and about 500 other people. Really! I think I scared Amy Goodman earlier in the day, (in any case, she sort of ran away from me.) However, I am surrounded by people who think like me and are furious about Iraq and the fact that George Bush isn’t in jail. It’s wonderful. Here are some pictures, and tomorrow is going to be just as wall-to-wall stuff happening so I won’t be writing much at all until I get home on Sunday. The first picture here is of Keith Ellison this morning, the rest of Minneapolis and inside the outside the convention center tonight.

[tags]national media, reform conference, media, NCMR, minneapolis[/tags]

Today, a discussion of some reasons republicans have to go. They cannot take over the White House in 2009, or we might as well succumb to the next asteroid. It’s over for life as we know it if Republicans continue to run the country. Hillary and Obama: this is what’s left. For me, this leaves no choice, but at the same time, a bigger choice:Â Â Can I even support a Democrat who’s not really a liberal? The answer might surprise you.
Social and economic justice issues are but one reason that Republicans have to go! Royal Dutch Shell made 26.7 Billion dollars in 2007, while the poor people of Haiti are literally eating dirt.

In order to start battling climate change, we have to get out of Iraq. NOW.
And cap and trade is probably past its prime as an idea

Juancole.com — The surge is not working. Are you kidding me?
Polls: Most Israelies want Olmert to resign

Bush misleads on Troop withdrawals

The candidates refused to fight in the debate on Thursday night, so I fight for them! Hillary voted to authorize the war, sure, but she’s not alone. Barack Obama wasn’t ALL THAT against the war, either — more that he thought it was a bad strategy. And eventually, Obama got on board with AIPAC: see How Obama learned to love Israel and AIPAC.

One million Iraqis dead in war:

“MORE than one million Iraqis have died because of the war in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to a study.

The study based its findings on survey work involving the face-to-face questioning of 2414 Iraqi adults aged 18 or above, and the last complete census in Iraq in 1997, which indicated a total of 4.05 million households. “We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been in the order of 1,033,000,” ORB said in a statement. The margin of error for the survey was 1.7 per cent, making the estimated range between 946,000 and 1.12 million fatalities.”

Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) went to Norway to study a Department of Peace because he’s smart, so I guess that makes him Islamointelligentsia.

The surge is hampering Iraq reconciliation. Bush bragged that this is great. It’s not. All these stories and more in Civilianism episode #45, which you can directly download right here.

Thanks to AJ of the 2Cents Worth podcast for his weekly Eco Moment. Next one: Your voicemails and comments.

[tags]obama, debate, hillary, media, Ellison, Norway, Department of Peace, end the war, anti-war, progressive, liberal, podcast[/tag]