Did you see Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's response to the President's State of the Union address last night? Here's the text. The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two…
Never try to do such a foolish thing. It could never work. It just makes things worse. War is a chainsaw. Reconstituting social structures is akin to brain surgery. So here's a question: In what major city were the following photos taken? (These photos were sent to me by an American friend who once lived…
The following remarks were delivered by Bernie Sanders to the National Conference for Media Reform. Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He is an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats. Amy Goodman describes Sanders’ speech as an “alternative State of the Union.”
The full text to Sanders’ speech can be found here. Video of his presentation can be found here. Here are excerpts of Sanders’ speech to the NCMR in Memphis:
…[W]e will not succeed unless you are there, unless there is a strong grassroots media, which demands fundamental changes in media today and the end of corporate control over our media. We’ve got to work together on that.
Now, you are going to hear from a lot of folks who know more about the details of the media than I do, but what I do know a lot about is how media impacts the political process, what media means for those of us who day after day struggle with the major issues facing our country and a goal of trying to improve the quality of life for all of our people.
And I want to spend just a minute in telling you what I suspect most of you already know. If you are concerned, as been said, about healthcare, if you are concerned about foreign policy and Iraq, if you are concerned about the economy, if you are concerned about global warming, you are kidding yourselves if you are not concerned about corporate control over the
Check this out, from Iraqslogger: The New York Times and Washington Post are stuffed with Iraq-focused reporting, analyses, and commentaries – 25 in all. Yet, amazingly, not a single one of those original stories comes from Iraq itself (in fairness, there’s a Baghdad-datelined AP report in the NYT). Why? With…
It wasn’t on the original schedule of the National Conference for Media Reform, but Dennis Kucinich agreed to hold a press conference tonight. Kucinich ran for president of the United States in 2004. He has indicated that he plans to run again in 2008.
I hadn’t ever before been to to a press conference of a presidential candidate. I learned of it at the last minute. I packed my press credentials (the media reform conference granted these to me on the basis of this blog), my video camera, a still camera, a pad of paper and a couple pens and dashed to the designated area.
In his prepared remarks, Kucinich pounced on the issue of media reform. He demonstrated himself to be familiar with many aspects of media reform and the Internet. In the not-too-distant future, he intends to hold Congressional hearings on media reform (“for an entire week, if necessary”). He believes that media issues are among the most important issues facing this country today. In response to a question I asked, Kucinich said he considers the media reform to be closely related to the possibility of campaign finance reform. At the point when we have more of the former, he said, we will have the opportunity to implement the latter. Campaign finance reform should take the form of public financing, he asserted.
He invited those attending to submit their ideas for issues to explore at his media reform hearings. Foremost among those topics will be media ownership. In …