As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You may not have heard much lately about the disaster in the Gaza Strip. That silence is intentional: The Israeli government has barred international journalists from entering the occupied territory.
Filed under Weekly Column
Evo Morales knows about “change you can believe in.” He also knows what happens when a powerful elite is forced to make changes it doesn’t want.
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Alice Walker is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But Monday, I called her to talk about a true story. The Obamas had just visited the White House. The first African-American elected president of the United States had visited his soon-to-be residence, a house built by slaves.
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Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat writes, “To all those for whom America has represented generations of racial injustice, the election of America’s first Black president marks the beginning of a new era…But unless the inspired millions who brought him to power continue to believe their demands matter and insist on holding him accountable each step of the way, it will be Obama’s corporate and hawkish friends who determine the domestic and foreign policies of the coming administration and our collective future.”
Filed under D.N. in the News
You could almost hear the world’s collective sigh of relief. This year’s U.S. presidential election was a global event in every sense. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, represents to so many a living bridge—between continents and cultures.
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The legendary radio broadcaster, writer and oral historian Studs Terkel has died at the age of 96 in Chicago. Over the years Terkel has been a regular guest on Democracy Now!
In 2005, Studs Terkel appeared on Democracy Now! shortly after undergoing open heart surgery. He told Amy Goodman, “My curiosity is what saw me through. What would the world be like, or will there be a world? And so, that’s my epitaph. I have it all set. Curiosity did not kill this cat. And it’s curiosity, I think, that has saved me thus far.”
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Election Day approaches, and with it a test of our election system’s integrity. Who will be allowed to vote; who will be barred? Who will get paper ballots; who will use electronic voting machines? Will polls be open long enough to accommodate what is expected to be a historic turnout?
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Longtime Republican fundraiser Cheryl Halpern was elected the new chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting earlier this week. Halpern has overseen such government-funded media projects as Voice of America, Radio Marti in Cuba and Radio Free Iraq. She has also accused National Public Radio of anti-Israel bias. We speak with Celia Wexler of Common Cause. [includes rush transcript]
Local public access television across the United States is being threatened by legislation introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Critics say the bills could eliminate the only source of funding public access providers receive and would take away control from local governments. We speak with Anthony Riddle of the Alliance for Community Media and George Stoney, who many consider the father of public access. [includes rush transcript]
A month after hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, displaced New Orleans residents at the Radisson Hotel in New York City speak out about the lack of aid they have received and the continued difficulty of receiving any type of relief from the Red Cross. [includes rush transcript]
We speak with Richard Walden, president and founder of Operation USA, a Los Angeles-based relief agency. In an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times this week titled “The Red Cross money pit,” Walden writes that despite, “Giving so high a percentage of all donations to one agency (The Red Cross) that defines itself only as a first-responder and not a rebuilder is not the wisest choice.” [includes rush transcript]