Why we won’t solve any other major problem confronting the U.S. without media reform.

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

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Reporting on Iraq – from afar

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…

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Dennis Kucinich on A) Media Reform and B) How Bush is Scaring the Republicans

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 …

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Laying out a new agenda? For which America?

Lewis Lapham served as editor of Harper's Magazine from 1976 until his retirement in from those duties in 2006.  But he has continued on in his writing.  In the January 2007 "Notebook" he bristles at the suggestions of Nancy Pelosi and others that impeachment hearings are "off the table."  Lapham…

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Why did only a few of us oppose the Iraq invasion?

This question is misleading.  In 2003, approximately 40% of us opposed the invasion.   But it felt like there were only a handful of us.

I was looking through my 2003 writings to recall my rational for opposing the Iraq invasion.  I don’t see that I wrote anything much about Iraq back then.  I do remember thinking the invasion was a big mistake.  I do remember thinking that Colin Powell was blowing smoke at the U.N. 

Though I didn’t find much in writing from 2003, I found this 2004 email I wrote to a friend who was very much in favor of the war:

I’ve been working a lot of hours lately, but I can’t help but feel deep gnawing need to pry myself away periodically to do my small part to stop this insane movement that goes in the name of “conservatism.”  Squandering the budget is only one part of it for me.  Every day, this lunatic’s rhetoric and actions are causing 100 talented young men from the Middle East to dedicate their entire lives to lighting a nuclear fire so as to melt New York.  I truly believe that the short term temporary good that Bush has accomplished in the Middle East is far outweighed, not only by the blood spilled to accomplish it, but by the horrors we will be facing 10 and 20 years from now.  This country would never have gone to war had Bush and his team not bald-faced lied about the alleged urgent need

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