I don’t have a point of view on this other than to say, my freedom is important to me and I as an American feel as though our freedom’s have eroded since JFK. Arrogance and the Presidency have been inherent since the Kennedy administration. Maybe is was necessary at the time of the cold war, maybe not. Executive power has become THE opportunity for abuse and imperialism in the modern world. Thank God for the natural fallability of man, or else we would have destroyed democracy by now. I have to remember to write a post of quotes by Dick Cheney, that contrast the stewardship of Vice Presidency to the abuse of Vice Presidency, the service of public office to the ‘rights’ of those who hold public office. I say there are no rights for those who hold public office. It is a choice to run, there is no privilege to winning an office, only the honor of serving.
Amy Goodman is a public servant, she has no sense of significance about this, just an ‘in reality’ approach to saying what is so and speaking what is necessary. I admire her. She lives in reality, she stands for reporting on reality “what happened, when, where and by who”. Not what is means. That is for the reader to determine. She reports what happened and then asks you to ask yourself what you think about it. But, then you (we, I) have to think. The following is a speck of an introduction to Amy Goodman’s work and her stated purposes.
Five Minutes with Amy Goodman,
Jessica Newman, Campus Progress publication network.
Excerpt
CP: On the topic of protests and activism, you’ve been described by some as being too much of an advocate and not enough of an objective journalist. In your opinion, what line as journalists should we draw between advocacy and objectivity, or is there a line?
AG: You really can’t become more of an advocate than the corporate press. They provide the model. Just look at the lead-up to the invasion. All of the networks over and over again beating the drums for war. I know what every one of those journalists think because they talked about it all the time. The group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting did a study of the four major nightly newscasts on the two weeks around Colin Powell when he was secretary of state giving his push for war at the United Nations before the invasion. [On] NBC, ABC, CBS and the PBS News Hour there were 393 interviews done about the war. Three were done with anti-war leaders. Three [out] of almost 400. This is a time when the population was almost fully divided. Three of almost 400. That’s no longer even a mainstream media. That’s an extreme media beating the drums for war. When you bring in a different point of view—different points of view, I should say, because it’s not always two-sided. The issues are not just Democratic and Republican. There is a vast majority of people outside of that spectrum. That’s very narrow. As we saw in the lead-up to the invasion, the spectrum was almost nil. You had a few outspoken critics of the war, like Robert Byrd of West Virginia. But the main, leading Democrats—John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards—they joined with the Republicans in pushing for war, and the media reflected that. But the media should go beyond that because that’s where most people are and that’s our job. We advocate for bringing in more voices.
CP: Barack Obama has now taken office and the media has turned him into a super celebrity, if not a rock star. This is obviously a big shift from eight years of the Bush administration. How will the role of the media change, or should it change?
AG: The media has to be critical. The media has to ask serious questions. The media has to hold those in power accountable, whoever they are. There are massive issues to deal with, from global warring to global warming to the global economic melt down. The media has to bring many voices in. It’s not about one person. People are working on these issues in their communities in this country and around the world. We are now fully globalized around the world. Hearing what people are doing on different issues, not reinventing the wheel, but outside of the small power elite in Washington is very important. That’s the role of the media, to bring out those voices, bring out the voices of people who think outside the box because we’re talking about crises that challenge the fate of the earth. It’s got to go much bigger than the very narrow partisans that we’re used to hearing, that small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong.
CP: You were actually described by Bill Clinton as being hostile and at times disrespectful. What is your take on that?
AG: I thought it was just interesting that he was surprised in talking to a journalist that I would ask tough questions. We didn’t make an agreement with him before. He was calling into radio stations on the morning of the 2000 election trying to get out the vote for Hillary [for Senate], for Al Gore. We had a few minutes notice. They said the president was calling in, and that was it. He wanted to talk about getting out the vote. Well that was interesting to know what he wanted to talk about. That doesn’t determine what I ask him about. But that is why he was calling. So I asked him about that. I said some people are asking why vote. They believe corporations have captured both parties, and then give him a chance to speak. I mean that’s important, that he has a chance to express his point of view. And then I asked him about Leonard Peltier because it was the first time he was being asked publicly about whether he would be granting him executive clemency. He answered that question. In the end he did give clemency to Mark Rich. I guess Peltier wasn’t rich enough. Then I asked him about the bombing of Puerto Rico. He had called in during a Latino music show, so I was doing it with a guy who hosted the music show, Gonzalo Aburto. We were just asking about many different issues. I asked him about racial profiling. Al Gore had said that the first executive order he issued would be to ban racial profiling. So I said, “You guys have been in office for eight years, why haven’t you done it until now?” I asked him about the sanctions against Iraq and the number of people who died. And that was it. It was about a half-hour interview.
The next day the White House called and said that I would be banned from the White House. I said, “Why? He called me, I didn’t call him.” They said, “We said he would talk about getting out the vote.” I said, “That’s true. But I didn’t agree that those were the only questions I would ask.”
“We told you he only had a few minutes.” I said, “True.” I said, “How many stations did he call?” They said, “40.” I said, “Nobody took more than a few minutes?” They said, “No.” I said, “Well, that’s just a sad comment on the media. He is the most powerful person on earth; he can hang up if he wants to.”
‘Democracy Now’ host Amy Goodman hashes out ideas
Journalist to speak on importance of grassroots activists By Molly Gilmore | For The Olympian
And with Goodman on the trail, those organizations get their moment to be heard.
Amy Goodman
What: The journalist and host of the syndicated radio show “Democracy Now” will speak. The event, in support of Goodman’s book “Stop the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” is a benefit for KAOS Radio and TCTV.
When: 5:30 p.m. Sunday (doors open at 4:30)
Where: Capitol Theater, 416 Washington St. S.E., Olympia
Tickets: $10 at www.buyolympia.com, Rainy Day Records, Traditions Cafe & World Folk Art and at the box office the night of the show.
More information: http://kaos.evergreen.edu
“Stop the Madness” traces Americans who made a difference, from Rosa Parks to psychologists who stood up against their own association to fight against its involvement in military interrogations.
“It’s about ordinary Americans who don’t go looking for trouble, but when it comes to them, they stand up. People you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley if you had violated someone’s civil liberties.”
Goodman, who also writes a syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country, has become a voice for the beleaguered press itself.
“Newspapers are under siege,” she said, rattling off a long list of defunct and troubled papers. “We’ve never seen anything like this. It is essential to the functioning of democratic society to have a media that is supposed to hold those in power accountable.
“Whether it just transforms into an Internet media remains to be seen,” she said. “It seems to be very different online, with less resources committed to actually doing investigative reporting. We are supposed to be the watchdogs.”
Goodman herself has experienced an attack on freedom of the press in a much more dramatic way: She and two colleagues were arrested outside of the Republican National Convention last year.
Their press credentials were ripped off, she said.
“That is not only a violation of freedom of the press, it’s a violation of the public’s right to know,” she said. “It’s not just the convention floor we are supposed to cover. We’re supposed to cover what’s happening in the boardroom and on the streets.
“Democracy is a messy thing, and we’re supposed to capture it all.”
