Text – Page 64 – Citizen Reporter

The Year was 2000

I sit in south jersey next to a warm fire place. I sometimes forget that it is a fake fireplace and the fire turns on with the flick of a switch.

On television I’m watching Public Broadcasting, and to my great surprise, the documentary film about Ralph Nader’s life is on. “Unreasonable Man” is an amazing film to watch, because the man himself is amazing and every bit of his life is inspiring and the definition of courage. I love that the title of this film is “An Unreasonable Man”. I hope that one day I too can be an Unreasonable Man in this tradition.

I had never seen videos, photos, and audio from the 60’s and 70’s… as Ralph took on the giant corporations and disfunctional government and became a force to be reckoned with, a force that reports directly to and represents, regular people.

My work revolves around questions of quality of life, the quality of life that humans could live versus the quality of life they are being denied, everyday, everywhere. Nader has worked his whole life effecting change in this very area. He made change when people thought it impossible, and he fought battles even when people lost the will to support him.. when people decided to settle for less than justice.. less than true democracy.

Some of the images on the screen as I type these words, are of the super-rallies back in 2000. I remember the one I attended so vividly; Madison Square Garden. I remember the Garden filled to the brim and the music and the speeches and the long list of inspiring people who took the stage that night. I found some old photos of those days in my closet here in New Jersey. I even found the old Nader/LaDuke poster from the 2000 election.

As I so often say, it is films such as this one that should be shown in high schools throughout not only the US but the world. Because when people want to understand what it means to be a citizen. Or what it means to care about your community and your neighbors… they can just look at the shining example of Ralph Nader… a true fighter and for this podcasting journalist, a hero.

Memories and Photos

As part of coming home to New Jersey for the holidays, I spend lots of time going through old photos. Scanning most of them and putting them up my flickr site.

In these photos I see faces and I see places that are sometimes overwhelming.. times when I was so happy, or unhappy as the case may be. People who meant alot to me, some of whom have disappeared from my life. I also spend time reading old letters. Letters from friends to me when I was living in France. Letters from myself that I never sent. Love letters that almost seem silly or naive all these years later.

It makes me appreciate what an amazing life I’ve lived up to now and all that I’ve done and admittedly, frequently take for granted or forget. That is one reason I blog and I post so much of my life online. I don’t want to forget and I have a hard time remembering all these adventures and all these people.. they seem to spill out of my memory and get lost in boxes and envelopes.

Naturally when I’m done looking at these photos and reading these words, I’ll put them away again, and get back to my life and my work that are so interesting and important to me. In the mean time… here are just a few places and faces that I’ve been remembering.

Bicyclemark on Off The Hook

Click here to listen to me as part of the latest episode of Off The Hook which normally airs on WBAI 99.5 in New York (or the internet). I’ve been listening to Off the Hook for more than 10 years, no matter what country I’m in or what is going on, I always have OTH on my mp3 player. Thankfully in the last year I finally met some of the boys from 2600 and last night I went up to the studios in lower manhattan and sat in as one of the many guests. It was a pleasure to see the studio and put a face to so many of those names at the station.

I digress, follow the link, and give it a listen. Its not earth shattering, but I had a fantastic time.

Happy Birthday Beeb

The BBC turns 75 today.

Why is that important?

Because in this world where everything can be privatized and no matter where you go there are commercials in your face trying to convince you to buy something, there is an alternative way to have a news channel. It is called public service, and back in 1922 some smart people in the United Kingdom realized why this would be valuable.

And while I know lots of Brits who will complain about the BBC. I also know that those same Brits don’t want to lose their public service broadcaster. They don’t want their news laced with wall-to-wall advertizing. The BBC remains a model for what mainstream media COULD be like in the world, if certain world leaders and citizens were brave enough and resourceful enough to start their own BBC’s, instead of holding telethons or hoping that some mega-media corporation will be interested in reporting the news.

Happy birthday BBC. You may be mainstream, but you serve the world… and I salute you for it!

Prison Life In Ohio

On my way back from Washington DC I was listening to a recent edition of Off the Wall, one of the two radio programs / podcasts that 2600 produces. The program featured an interview with a friend of Emmanuel and 2600 who is currently incarcerated at an Ohio state penitentiary. Besides the alarming story of how he found himself in such a place for 6 months for doing very little besides being at the wrong place at the wrong time and then misreading an order to “not leave the county” as “do not leave the country”, even more eye opening is his experience in prison.

I highly recommend listening to this episode of Off the Wall, Emmanuel does a good job asking questions and bearing with the difficulties of just talking on the phone with someone in prison, and Lurid – the friend – gives a vivid picture of what is a violent and terrible place that isn’t doing much in the way of rehabilitation as the prison system once was supposed to.

Another Journalist Dies

Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi. You’ve never heard me mention that name before. I’ve never written the name before. Yet Ali was a colleague of mine. He was someone who participated as a correspondent for one of the greatest independent news reporting projects today: Alive in Baghdad.

Like everyone who works for AiB, he reported from Iraq about the reality of people’s lives there and what they were living through under a foreign occupation, being subject to all sorts of terrible acts by their own government, the US military, or the various other types of criminals one finds in Iraq. As an independent project, they receive no funds and do what they do at great personal risk as every jounalist knows full well that if they try to expose injustice and report about war crimes that they will often be targeted by the military.

Ali was killed yesterday. Reports say it was 31 bullets from the Iraqi national guard. The national guard that was trained by the US military. The national guard that is supposed to be for the good of the people, to protect freedom or whatever nationalist slogan they’ve adopted lately.

Ali’s murder is a tragedy to add on to this neverending list of tragedies. Perpetrated while the whole world COULD be watching, but lets be honest, most of the world isn’t watching, they’re probably Christmas shopping.

This post is to offer my heartfelt condolesces to a colleague that probably did not know I existed or how much his work meant to me. This post is also to renew my pledge as an independent internet based journalist and podcaster; I will not forget the importance of his work… and if I may be so bold as to compare… of our work… I will remember Ali.