Pity the Nation by Lawrence Ferlinghetti as heard on Sept 3rd’s edition of Democracy Now with Amy Goodman.
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
Stumbled across another great alternative news site this week (inevitably based in the USA); Truth Dig is an informative read and well worth subscribing to. Amy Goodman’s regular column gets published there for instance. The real attraction for an audiophile like myself however is the great section of netcasts they have available for download. I’ve been trawling through them and the highlight so far has been the fantastic interview with Dr. Dahlia Wasfi (see photo), The Lose-Lose War. This one really blew me away and made me wish that we heard voices like this more frequently (at all) on the BBC.
Guess what…it turns out that Americans aren’t stupid after all. Well, some of us knew that already, but just recently it’s become harder and harder to believe it and our own media in the UK isn’t exactly going out of its way to help matters. Anyway, I’ve been listening to a lot of material recently that contrasts the Corporate Media in the USA with the independent alternative(s). All fascinating stuff and the fact that we never hear from the indies on the BBC is possibly as revealing about our own mainstream media as it is about the shit that is served up to Joe & Josie Public in the States on a daily basis.
Amy Goodman is a name that crops up a lot and this film is a good introduction to both her and the debate about the US corporate media. It’s about 30 minutes long, but it’s well worth watching and it might be the first step towards restoring your faith in Americans. here’s the blurb:
Part scathing critique, part call to action, “Independent Media In A Time Of War” is a hard-hitting new documentary by the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center (www.hm.indymedia.org). This film is composed of a speech given by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! illustrated by clips of mainstream media juxtaposed with rare footage from independent reporters in Iraq. The documentary argues that dialogue is vital to a healthy democracy. “Independent media has a crucial responsibility to go to where the silence is,” says Amy Goodman, “to represent the diverse voices of people engaged in dissent.” She makes a compelling argument that the commercial news media have failed to represent the “true face of war.”
I’d never heard of the freakshow that is Bill O’Reilly until I sat, open-mouthed one evening a few months back in front of the documentary film Outfoxed about the Fox News network. Then just this evening I found out about Phil Donahue’s sacking via another YouTube clip where Amy Goodman (from Democracy Now!) has a go at some MSNBC anchor about Donahue’s sacking, over his anti-war stance etc. Old news in the States I’m sure, but I’d not picked up on it at the time being all the way over here across The Pond. ANYWAY, Donahue eventually ends up on O’Reilly’s show on Fox and gives as good as he gets. After watching Outfoxed and seeing O’Reilly bully his way through a load of interviews it’s really great to see him being given a pasting by Donahue.
Stumbled across another great alternative news site this week (inevitably based in the USA); 