Amy Goodman Quotes

I see the media as a huge kitchen table that stretches across the globe that we all sit around and debate and discuss the most important issues of the day: war and peace, life and death...Anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society. (Epilogue)

This is not a media that is serving a democratic society, where a diversity of views is vital to shaping informed opinions. This is a well-oiled propaganda machine that is repackaging government spin and passing it off as journalism.

By stripping away the profit motive, by removing the Wall Street bankers from the picture, solid, disciplined, nonprofit journalism is possible.

It's still much the same. On any given day, you can listen to the news on CNN or National Public Radio, then tune in to a Pacifica station. You would think you were hearing reports from different Planets. We inhabit the same planet, but we see it through different lenses.

The Internet has created a seismic disruption to the balance of power in the media. It is getting easier and easier to post your thoughts, photos, or videos. Yet the Wild West of the Web is being tamed. Small Internet service providers are being driven out of business, with corporations like Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T dominating the market. Privacy, security, and the freedom to publish without fear of censorship are dwindling with each merger, with each effort by corporate lobbyists to further restrict the open Internet in favor of a narrow profit advantage.

Over the weekend, U.S. officials ramped up pressure on the Maduro government. On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Maduro’s days in office are numbered. He also threatened more sanctions are coming. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted the violence on the border, quote, “opened the door to various potential multilateral actions not on the table just 24 hours ago,” unquote. In what many saw as a cryptic threat to Maduro, Rubio tweeted an image of a bloodied Muammar Gaddafi as he was being killed following the U.S. bombing campaign of Libya. Rubio also tweeted photos of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, who was removed from power during the U.S. invasion in 1989 and remained in a U.S. jail for years.

The lesson had been learned from Vietnam-a lesson in manipulation. In Iraq, there would be no daily television images of the human toll of war. The government and the media would portray a clean war, a war nearly devoid of victims.

In this high-tech digital age, with high-definition television and digital radio, all we get is more static: that veil of distortions, lies, misrepresentations and half-truths that obscures reality. What we need the media to give us is the dictionary definition of static: criticism, opposition, unwanted interference. We need a media that covers power, not covers for power. We need a media that is the fourth estate, not for the state. We need a media that covers the movements that create static and make history.

Many have attributed low participation in US elections to voter apathy. I have never believed this. The low turnout is directly related to the many obstacles put in place that deter people from voting (for example, holding elections on just one day when most people are working, limiting hours that polling places are open, or requiring photo identification that disproportionately disenfranchises poor people and people of color). And then there are those who feel that there isn't a significant difference between the candidates, or that money distorts the process so much that their vote doesn't really count. Yet people are engaged in their communities all over the country.

A global movement is challenging the grotesque levels of economic inequality that are the hallmark of the modern age. From the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, to antiausterity campaigns in Europe, to low-wage workers in the United States fighting and winning a livable wage, each part of the movement inspires the other. (p 168)

We have a decision to make every hour of every day, and that is whether to represent the sword or the shield. Democracy now.

People across the political spectrum are outraged by the profiteering corporations-Bush's corporate criminal sponsors, including Enron, World Com, and Halliburton-robbing our treasury, raiding our pensions, ravaging our wilderness areas, and running away with the loot.

In a society where freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution, our media largely acts as a megaphone for those in power. That's why people are so hungry for independent media-and are starting to make their own.

You have not only Fox, but MSNBC and NBC-yes, owned by General Electric, one of the major nuclear weapons manufacturers in the world. MSNBC and NBC, as well as FOX, titling their coverage taking the name of what the Pentagon calls the invasion of Iraq: 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'...They research the most effective propagandistic name to call their operation. But for the [capitalist] media to name their coverage what the Pentagon calls it-everyday seeing 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'-you have to ask: if this were state media, how would it be any different?" There are "immigrants now in detention facilities, they have no rights, not even a lawyer. And we have to be there ad we have to watch and we have to listen. We have to tell their stories until they can tell their own

If you are opposed to war, you are not a fringe minority. You are not a silent majority. You are part of a silenced majority. Silenced by the mainstream media.