~a column by Colleen O’Brien
The leader-types of the world – presidents and prime ministers and the wanna-bes of those positions, other elected representatives and military fellas, celebrities, pundits, CEOs, dignitaries, wise guys and smart women, fashionable folks and partiers — may be in the news, thinking they’re making the news; but the people who make the necessary things happen are us.
We are the common people, the ones not in the news but doing something about something, sometimes the news itself, which doesn’t always do its job, anymore than Congress does. The common people make things happen for the common people because too often the rulers/leaders/bosses don’t care.
Amy Goodman, a commentarian herself and a common gal, published a book this year called Democracy Now! Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America.
“Democracy Now!” is the name of a TV/radio show Goodman’s been hosting for 20 years. She does not go for fanfare and self-aggrandizement; she just wants to tell a story. Her newscast is shown and heard on more than 1,400 public stations around the world; many others follow it online (democracynow.org). Its original point was to cover the 1996 general election in the U.S., maybe nine months of work.
It never went off the air. After that election, it began to cover issues and movements in the country and throughout the world that were getting no ink, no air. All of us watching network news and reading corporate-owned newspapers were oblivious of unknown commoners doing brave things under our noses . . . until Amy and her inquisitive and intrepid band came along.
The book’s blurb explains that this stealth news bureau led us to “where the silence is.” In 10 chapters, Amy tells the stories of the wars we are involved in; of bombings in which we have killed civilians right and left in the middle East; the plight of undocumented immigrants; giving voice to the voiceless who are under the death penalty; the media shunning of the long range of the 99 percent movement; the big money against discussing – not to mention doing something about — climate change; the death-defying activism of LGBTQ people working for equality; police brutality, shooting, killing and incarcerating; the long story of the Confederate flag coming down for good; health professionals sanctioning torture.
All of these topics are difficult to read about, sickening in most cases and still ongoing even with a powerful presence against them in the name of the courageous crusaders who fight on. Because it seems that “power over” will always be affecting us, what Amy Goodman has to say in her final chapters is most important:
“Independent media is the oxygen of a democracy. It is not brought to you by the oil or gas companies when we talk about climate change. It is not brought to you by the weapons manufacturers when we talk about war and peace. It’s not brought to you by the insurance industry or big pharma when we talk about health care.
“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.”
When I finished the book, I found myself wishing that all media acted like this – speaking truth to power and giving a voice to the silent; at the very least finding out for us where the money’s going as we sell old armaments, for example.
News does not have to be fun or funny, although it can be; news doesn’t have to be about sports – don’t we have dedicated sports stations? For the century and a half of our early history when news was not easy to disseminate – the late 1700s to the early 1900s — most of the population never knew what was going on unless it was time to vote for a new president or go to war. Once radio came on the scene, and then television, we had the means invented for us to become informed of the daily machinations of Congress and the President, as well as learning which corporations and manufacturers were charging too much, paying too little, polluting our rivers and air. Too quickly it all turned into sandboxes for adults – play boxes to amuse us, titillate us and keep us as stupid as we’d ever been.
Too bad.
But, there is still “Democracy Now!” And the handy book of the same name that catalogues 20 years of investigating and sharing the news of remarkable change through grassroots movement — the little people taking on the wealthy, the powerful, the Goliaths who would hurt us because we are not informed enough to fight back.
