Journalist Amy Goodman Detained and Questioned at Canadian Border Crossing

Amy Goodman, Independent Journalist, author and host of Democracy Now! was traveling to Vancouver, Canada on Thanksgiving when she was detained and questioned by Canadian officials while trying to cross the border. Goodman and two colleagues were held and questioned for approximately 90 minutes while their belongings, including their notes and computers, were searched.

Goodman was on her way to speak at the Vancouver Public Library at a benefit for local community radio stations and the border guards seemed quite concerned over whether Goodman was going to speak out against the 2010 Winter Olympics which are being held in Vancouver.

To address why these border authorities were so concerned over the possibility of Goodman speaking out against the Olympics as well as the implications that this incident has on free speech, Goodman hosted a couple of guests this morning on Democracy Now!

Christopher Shaw, professor of Ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia. He is also a leading spokesperson for the No Games 2010 Coalition and 2010 Watch. He is the author of “Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games.” and David Eby, Executive Director of British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

Here is the video from the broadcast:

Lou Dobbs Continues his Post-CNN Media Tour

Lou Dobbs, freshly departed from his gig at CNN, stopped by The Daily Show last night. Jon Stewart extended the segment into a three-part conversation that is posted at The Daily Show's website and also right here:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Lou Dobbs Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Lou Dobbs Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Lou Dobbs Extended Interview Pt. 3
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I thought Stewart was pretty good in this conversation, but it wasn't his best. The conversation stayed very down to Earth and Stewart was able to challenge Dobbs on a few key points, but Stewart didn't touch on Dobbs' controversial stance on "illegal" immigration or on his recent birther comments. Stewart also allowed Dobbs to paint President Obama as a "far left" President which, in turn, framed Dobbs as being a centrist. Then again, Stewart is just the host of a satirical comedy show right?

One of the more important points that Stewart did bring up, which I believe is both revealing and central to this conversation, is the past silence of those who are suddenly criticizing the so-called destruction of our freedoms by the government. I have stated this in the past, but it is quite clear that during the last eight years, the tea-partiers and 9/12'ers were totally silent on these issues. It is only now, when there is a black Democratic President in the White House, when there is sudden outrage from the right and being adopted as a viable business strategy by a major "news" corporation.

If you want to take a look at a really interesting interview of Dobbs and a subsequent discussion, I point you to this interview that was conducted by Democracy Now! hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez in December of 2007. Dobbs is confronted and forced to try and explain apparent inaccuracies that he stated on his broadcast. I will post some of the transcript below, but I highly recommend you follow that link and watch the entire conversation.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Lou, you said a third of the prison population are illegal aliens.

LOU DOBBS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: The fact is, it’s something like 6% of prisoners in this country are non-citizens, not even illegal, just non-citizens.

LOU DOBBS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And then a percentage of that would not be documented.

LOU DOBBS: Well, it’s actually—I think it’s 26% in federal prison.

AMY GOODMAN: But you said of all prisoners.

LOU DOBBS: I said about—yes, but I—and I misspoke, without question. I was referring to federal prisoners.

AMY GOODMAN: But you didn’t say that, and so it leaves people with the impression—

LOU DOBBS: Well, I didn’t, but then I just explained it to you.

AMY GOODMAN: But you have a very large audience on CNN.

LOU DOBBS: I have a very large audience and a very bright audience.

AMY GOODMAN: And you told them that a third of the population of this country are illegal immigrants. 6% , which is under the population of immigrants—

LOU DOBBS: 6% , right.

AMY GOODMAN: —in this country, of prisoners—

LOU DOBBS: In state prisons.

AMY GOODMAN: —are immigrants.

LOU DOBBS: In state prisons. In state prisons.

AMY GOODMAN: No, 6% overall are immigrants. You said 30% are illegal.

LOU DOBBS: Well, I think we’ve established—we could sit here and say this all day, Amy. The fact is, the number is 26% in federal prisons. That’s what I was referring to. I did not—I misspoke when I said “prisons.” I was referring to the federal prisons, because that’s the federal crime: immigration. And that—

AMY GOODMAN: Have you made a correction on your show to say that 30% of—?

LOU DOBBS: I’m sure we have. We’ve reported—absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: We didn’t see it.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Another guest that you’ve had on the show—now, this is a very important point, and this is one that you would agree that you’ve covered, and that is Arizona—this is very important—the Protect Arizona Now referendum. In late 2004, it was revealed that the new head of the national advisory board to Protect Arizona Now, an anti-immigration organization, was a longtime white supremacist who was also an editorial advisor to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. Although Virginia Abernethy’s controversial selection was reported prominently in virtually every Arizona paper, and despite the fact that Lou Dobbs heavily cover the anti-immigration referendum that Protect Arizona Now was advocating, you never mentioned the affair at all, her controversial selection as head of this group.

LOU DOBBS: And she was featured in how many reports?

AMY GOODMAN: The point is, you covered Protect Arizona Now extensively, and this is certainly significant, when it turns out that the head of the board of Protect Arizona Now is—

LOU DOBBS: And when was the last time she was on the show?

AMY GOODMAN: No, the important point is, you didn’t report the news of this very controversial—

LOU DOBBS: Is it possible—

AMY GOODMAN: —racist woman who headed Protect Arizona Now, which was virtually in every Arizona paper. The question is—

LOU DOBBS: Concurrent with our reporting?

AMY GOODMAN: —what you report and what you don’t.

LOU DOBBS: Concurrent with our reporting?

AMY GOODMAN: Of course. This is in 2004. The point is, what you report, Lou, and what you don’t report.

LOU DOBBS: Well, you know, Amy, I don’t know what to tell you, because, you know, based on your focus here today, you have focused on probably three or four reports, as best I can figure, out of more than five years of reporting on the issue. If that smacks at all to you of reasonable proportionate journalism on your part, I mean, God bless you. If that’s what you believe, God bless you. But I think you’re coming from an ideological position that has just absolutely skewed that perception and that perspective.

Being Forced to Act as if we are Free

I am currently battling some computer issues that I am going to try and get resolved over the next day or two, so blogging may be somewhat sporadic until then.

One of the items that will go up a little later than I would like is my coverage of a Health Care reform march that happened locally here in Cincinnati over the weekend. I have a recap of the event as well as some video that will be posted once I can get my computer fixed.

In the meantime, I came across an interesting exchange between Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (co-hosts of Democracy Now! ) and the Slovenian Philosopher Slajov Zizek during an interview last Thursday. The interview covered several topics and is well worth listening to in its entirety, but I would like to focus this segment on health care as it introduced a different line of thinking into this debate that had not occurred to me:

AMY GOODMAN: You write, “Is the bailout then really a ‘socialist’ measure? If it is, it takes a peculiar form: a ‘socialist’ measure whose primary aim is to help not the poor but the rich, not those who borrow but those who lend.”


SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: Yeah. I mean, this is my whole thesis, that capitalism always was socialism for those who are on the top. This is the basic paradox of it, no?


AMY GOODMAN: What about healthcare?


SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: Oh, now you touch my favorite topic. You know why? Because I think that here we see, when people—when I write on ideology, and people laugh at me—“Haha, didn’t you know this? We live in post-ideological era.” No, here you see ideology in its material force. We can—we should distinguish here two levels. On the one hand are those ridiculous right-wing paranoias, which, incidentally, I like to listen. They amuse me, you know, like that Sarah Palin idea of death panels. Some mysterious bureaucracy will decide, does your uncle live or not. That’s funny, I hope; at least for the time being, we can laugh at it. But then—


JUAN GONZALEZ: Not in a big part of America, unfortunately.


SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then the real problem, where the Republican critique of healthcare plan really works is by appealing to this basic gut notion of freedom of choice. And I think this is a problem; we have to confront it. The first we should make it clear is that in order to exercise the freedom of choice—one has to repeat this again and again—an extremely—to really exercise this, an extremely complex network of social, legal regulations, even, I would say, ethical rules, which are somehow accepted, and so on, has to be—have to be here. In other words, often less choice, at least less public choice, at a certain level means more choice at a different level.


Let me return precisely to healthcare. My idea is that healthcare should be at a certain level, like water and electricity. You can also say that you usually don’t choose your water supplier, no? OK, now we can play the Republican game and say, “What a horrible terror! They are depriving us of the fundamental choice to choose the water supply.” But we somehow accept that there are some things where it is much more practical that you are able to count on them. Sorry, but I gladly refuse the big freedom to choose my water supplier, the same as for electricity, although there things can get more tricky. Why not add to this series health? Europe demonstrates it can be done effectively, not to diminish our freedom, but to leave you much more space of much more greater actual freedom, and so on.


So, you see, this is the danger of this ideology of choice, because, you know, this is, in one sense, a central category today. There is an old Marxist card, which is played again and again, of we are only offered false choices, not real choices, like Pepsi or Coke, whatever, instead of the real choices. OK, there is a truth in it. But there is also another problem of ideology of choice, that often we are bombarded by choices—you really are free to choose—without being given the proper background to make a reasonable choice. John Gray, the British cynical skeptic, whom I otherwise admire, wrote very nicely that we are today more and more forced to act as if we are free. And this causes a lot of anxiety and so on. You know, one should be very specific apropos of choices. I’m all for the freedom of choice. I would just like to see the small—those, you know, in the footnote, the small print, what are the precise conditions of choice, and so on and so on.


And so, again, although I have no illusions about what Obama can do and so on, I am still proud that already before elections I supported him, although this had no great impact here, of course. But in contrast to my very more radical leftist friends whose motto was “he’s just a nice human face on the same imperialism,” “he will even serve better the interest of capitalism,” or whatever, no, I think we see now, apropos the healthcare reform, that we are fighting the central battle here.

The point that Zizek makes, that of less choice on one level resulting in more choice on another level, is a point that hadn't occurred to me in this health care debate. Are there times in society today that we, as Zizek mentions in his quote from John Gray, are being forced to act as if we are free? It is certainly worthy of consideration.

I also find Zizek's analogy to the water supply intriguing when we are speaking about the freedom of choice. There are some elements within a society that we don't choose and probably don't mind having chosen for us. Extending this way of thinking, that of knowing that something will be provided, to health care is an interesting way of thinking about this debate and the role that government should play in the lives of its citizens.

Crackdowns on Twitter: Not Just for Iran Anymore

From Amy Goodman's latest in the Oregonian:

A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at home -- all for using Twitter. Elliot Madison faces charges of hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. He was posting to a Twitter feed (or tweeting, as it is called) publicly available information about police activities around the G-20 protests, including information about where police had issued orders to disperse.

[...]

The U.S. State Department, impressed with the importance of Twitter to Iranian protests, asked Twitter to delay system maintenance that might have interrupted the service during the Iranian protests.

While Madison optimistically mused, "I'm expecting the State Department will come out and support us also," his lawyer, respected civil rights attorney Martin Stolar, said: "This is just unbelievable. It is the thinnest, silliest case that I've ever seen. It tends to criminalize support services for people who are involved in lawful protest activity. And it's just shocking that somebody could be arrested for essentially walking next to somebody and saying: 'Hey, don't go down that street, because the police have issued an order to disperse. Stay away from there.'"

[...]

One Iranian twitterer for the virtual news hub Tehran Bureau recalled the June protests in an essay: "An officer spoke to us through a loud speaker: 'Disperse: This is your last warning.' The sight of them made my knees tremble, but the wave pushed on and so I went along." He was beaten, bloodied, arrested and held for 20 days. While Elliot Madison was not physically harmed, his legal battles are just beginning, and his case could prove central to the future of free speech in the mobile, digital age.

More Details Emerge on the Murder of Dr. Tiller

Scott Roeder, the man who is charged with gunning down Dr. George Tiller as he attended a church service on Sunday, has had a pattern of vandalizing abortion clinics and even had FBI complaints filed against him.

In a piece written yesterday, Amy Goodman explains:

George Tiller did not have to die. He was assassinated while in church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, targeted for legally performing abortions. His death might have been prevented simply through enforcement of existing laws. His alleged killer was seen vandalizing a Kansas City clinic, Aid for Women, both the week before and the day before the murder, putting glue into its door locks. The manager of that clinic, who calls himself “Jeff Pederson” to protect his identity, told me he called the FBI and local police both times, but the vandal, the alleged killer Scott Roeder, was not arrested. Pederson had Roeder’s first name and his license-plate number. He had images of him on the security video. He recognized him from previous protests.

[...]

Roeder was picked up shortly after the shooting Sunday in his Ford Taurus. On Tuesday, he was charged with first-degree murder.

I asked Pederson if he thought Tiller’s murder could have been prevented if the authorities had simply arrested Roeder after he vandalized the Kansas City clinic. Pederson paused. “I don’t know,” he said.

But Dr. Susan Robinson was adamant. She flies to Wichita every month to perform abortions in Tiller’s clinic. She said, “It is generally regarded amongst those who do clinic security, if local authorities are not responsive, if they don’t show up or they don’t vigilantly enforce the law, that it encourages the anti-abortion people to push it further and further.”

She said: “In Wichita, Dr. Tiller was constantly dealing with the same lack of enforcement. Wichita prohibits placing signs on city property. But they allow the anti-abortion protesters to set up dozens of crosses and leave them all day. Dr. Tiller went to the city attorney over the crosses, and complained that people block the clinic driveway. He told me that the city attorney said, ‘I would rather be sued by George Tiller than the anti-abortion folks.’ ”

Interesting since damaging the property of facilities that provided reproductive health services is a federal crime. Rachel Maddow expands on this and also exposes an interesting connection between Roeder and the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue last night on her program:

Amy Goodman arrested at the RNC

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were arrested yesterday by St. Paul police outside the Republican National Convention. Kouddous and Salazar were covering the protests and filming when they were arrested and detained. Both Kouddous and Salazar had proper press identification but were manhandled by police. Salazar was dragged by her leg and received scrapes and a bloody nose. Kouddous was slammed against a wall which has resulted in chest and back pain. Amy Goodman was arrested after she approached police and asked to speak to a commanding officer regarding her producers. Police then yanked her by the arm and arrested her. Video is below:




Amy Goodman was released and is being charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace officer. There have conflicting reports on whether Kouddous and Salazar have been released, but I just placed two calls to the Ramsey County Detention Facility where they confirmed that both were still being held and have not yet been booked. I attempted to confirm the reports that both were being charged with a felony of suspicion to riot, but the jail could not confirm this at the time. I have left a message with the Mayor's office of St. Paul for comment, but at the time of this article, have not had my call returned. I should also note that my first call to the Ramsey County Detention Facility resulted in the woman on the other end of the line becoming very confused as I attempted to spell: Sharif Abdel Kouddous. When I told her that I would be spelling three parts of his name she stated, "just how many names does this guy have." I informed her that I was asking about one person to which she replied, "I bet this guy had a hard time learning how to spell this in kindergarten."

While an employee of Ramsey County Detention Facility feels that detaining journalists is a time for jokes, all those who hold freedom of the press as an important right should be calling for the immediate release of Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar as well as for dropping all charges against them. In a society that depends on an independent press it is imperative that journalists are not arbitrarily arrested and held on trumped-up charges. Below is a video of Amy Goodman discussing the arrests after her release.

You can call the Mayor of St. Paul to weigh in on this issue at:

651-266-8510

You can also reach the Ramsey County Detention Facility at:

651-266-9350






This article can also be found at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com

How I Spent My Weekend...

This past weekend I attended the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I spent my time attending numerous workshops, panels, and speeches by leading minds in the Media Reform movement. Over 3,000 people attended the event from all 50 states and beyond. We heard from Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps and many more leading voices on this issue. You can view some of the speeches and get more information at this link:


http://www.freepress.net/conference


Over the course of the weekend I couldn't help but be reminded of what many already know, that an independent and free media is necessary in order for the public to be informed and for democracy to function. This is the key belief of those within the Media Reform movement. We believe that we have slid into dangerous territory with greater media consolidation, propaganda being used on U.S. citizens and media outlets that act as little more than a megaphone for the official word. It is important for us to look beyond the myth of the so called "liberal media" and give careful examination to the role that giant corporations have upon the information that we consume on a daily basis. It is clear at this juncture, that our very democracy is in trouble. It is not simply enough this time around to remain silent and hope that the issue resolves itself. Fighting for an independent press is a fight for our democracy and should not be taken lightly.


There are many in the corporate media who feel that dismissing those of us who gathered this weekend as "far-left" or "nuts" as Bill O'Reilly has put it, will negate the issue. In fact, O'Reilly sent his producer to ambush Bill Moyers while at the conference as to why Moyers will not appear on O'Reilly's show. First and foremost, ambushing someone, is not journalism. The attempt that O'Reilly used was nothing more than an attempt to gather a sound byte with which he could use on his show to attack and defame Moyers without any discussion of the real issues at hand. The raw footage of this incident was captured by other journalists at the Conference and I have included it below. Bill O'Reilly has promised to show his audience just how "nuts" those who attended the conference are on tonight's show. I will be comparing this raw and unedited footage below, with what airs on Bill O'Reilly's program and make discussion of this the topic of my next blog.


We need to fix the media for this very reason. If what you see below qualifies as journalism then it is obvious that we have a long fight ahead of us.