USA MEDIA COMPLICITY

Cambridge, Massachusetts Source: openmediaboston.org- Democracy Now host Amy Goodman presented a "Celebration of Independent Media" Thursday at Cambridge Forum, moderated by Jordan Weinstein, host of NPR’s Morning Edition on WGBH-FM. Relating stories from her coverage of (and arrest at) the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Goodman discussed the important role independent media plays in facilitating meaningful and informative public discussions.

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Press Needs To Be 4th Estate Instead of for the State - Amy Goodman
Uploaded by UpTakeVideo
on Apr 11, 2011

Text at Youtube ~

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman recounts her arrest at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota and talks about how the press has sunk to a new low by agreeing to be embedded with police to cover political conventions. She is speaking at the 2011 National Conference For Media Reform in Boston.

Complicit

An individual is complicit in a crime if they are aware of its occurrence, have the ability to report the crime, but fail to do so. As such the individual effectively allows the criminals to carry out a crime despite easily being able to stop them, either directly or by contacting the authorities thus making them a de-facto accessory to the crime rather than innocent bystanders.

Law relating to complicity varies. Usually complicity is not a crime although this sometimes conflicts with popular perception. See The Finale (Seinfeld episode). At a certain point a person that is complicit in a crime may become a conspirator depending on the degree of involvement by the individual and whether a crime was completed or not.

Source: encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/complicit

THIS IS A MUST LISTEN. I have transcribed some of the highlights:

1) around 11:15 Ms. Goodman says: Obama said: "Make me do it" - this needs to be taken to heart for ending genocide, including on the Darfuri people since February 2003.

2) 8:18 speaking to the journalist/media: "the deepest problem is being embedded in the establishment, here in this country. We have a special role to play. My brother and I wrote a book, called Static and the reason we called it this, the reason in this high tech digital age, in the time of this high def television, and digital radio, still all we get is static. This veil of distortion and lies, and misrepresentation, and half-truths, that obscure reality, when what we need is the media to give us is the dictionary definition of "static": criticism, opposition, unwanted interference, we need a media that covers power, not covers for power (8:56). We need a media that is the fourth estate, not for the state, and we need a media that covers the movements that create static and make history. Which is why I want to dedicate Democracy's Now's presence here this weekend and all my wonderful colleagues who are here, to Manning Marable, who we lost last week, this wonderful scholar, who on the day that his book was to be published, 3 days before, he died, who wrote the book, Malcolm X,

the Life of Reinvention...who teaches us deeply what movements mean....we need a media democracy movement, that follows on the traditions of the great movements in the history of this country. He tells the story of A. Philip Randolph, the greatest organizer of the twentieth century, who organized the 1963 March on Washington, who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, who was to brought to meet with FDR by Eleanor Roosevelt, who when he described the condition of black people in the country, the condition of working people in the country, FDR responded to him, "I don't disagree with anything you've said, but you've got to make me do it." Make. Me. Do. It. What a lesson for today. 10:17 As we move into the next election in 2012, as we gather here on Friday and learn that the House passed a resolution that says they will not support net neutrality, as 3,00 people gather here in Boston.

As we see an FCC, that unfortunately has not followed through on Obama's promise and the FCC's Chair promise to stand with net neutrality, to reinforce it. I think we have to remember what FDR told A. Philip Randolph. In fact, it's something that President Obama, when he was running for President, said to a questioner when he was in a backyard of a New Jersey home answering questions of people who might support him, and someone asked him about the Middle East. He said, "What are you going to do about it?" And he told the A. Philip Randolph story, and repeated what FDR said. "Make me do it." Make. Me. Do. It. 11:13

Your job leaving this weekend, is really answering that challenge. Of how you think the media should be able to operate in this country, of what it takes to build independent media. To build an internet that is open and free for all. It's the answer to corporate globalization. Grass roots globalization over the world. We see the importance of that free and open internet, when universally Mbarak was condemned for hitting the kill switch on the cell phones and the internet in Egypt. Which reminded me how important it was, that we had independent media on the ground. 12:00

Sharif Abdel Kouddous ~ You couldn't have had finer, more elequent reporting bringing you this extremely personal, yet epic historic struggle of the people in the streets in Egypt. From Shariff's incredible perspective, as a son of Egypt, himself. As he landed in Egypt, coming from New York, from Democracy Now, he figured out a way to get around the internet shutdown. 13:35

3) 13:35 "And he tweeted out, "no matter what happens, this will never be Mbarak's Egypt again." that's the power of independent media...when you know their names, their stories, their families, you care and it makes it much harder to target.

4) 14:16 "...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, anything less than that is a disservice to the service men and women of this country who can't have these debates on military bases...anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society." 14:49

5) At 14:55 - "...we have to understand how it is these despots remain for so many decades. The questions Western pundits asked, you know, those people in Washington on all those networks, who know so little about so much, explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong. This Despots remained because they had a Coat of Armor: Mubarak, $2 billion a year from the United States, a Coat of Armor, made in the USA, one of the few things that is still made in the USA. Two billions dollars a year, most of that money going to the weapons manufacturers, from General Dynamics, to Raytheon, to Lockheed Martin, to Boeing. We have to be able to kill this story because the people on the ground in Egypt, and Yemen, and Bahrain, in Tunisia, they understand it. We need a media that bridges the gap, so that we can understand. We come from the trigger end. They're at the target end. And we need a media that bridges, so we all can understand and participate in a global discussion about how we want to live in a global world."

6) 16:17 through 18:15 I just want to end with the words... of Kareem Amer...his blog is dedicated to Hans and Sofia Scholl, this young Egyptian blogger dedicating his blog to Hans and Sofia Scholl, a young brother and sister, who formed the White Rose Collective in Germany in World War II. They thought, "What can we do in the face of the Nazi atrocity?' They weren't Jewish, they were German Christians. But they knew they wanted to expose, to ensure the Germans could never say they didn't know. And so together with their Professor and other workers. They started to publish pamphlets. Because information is power. They published six pamphlets in all, the fourth pamphlet was written the words:

"WE WILL NOT BE SILENT." They passed these out in cover of night, they dropped them in an alley, in a market, in a classroom. And eventually they were caught by the

Gestapo. They were tried. They were convicted. And they were beheaded.

But that philosophy, that motto should be the hyppocratic oath of the media today. We Will Not Be Silent.

The accompanying 97 minute audio recording of the speech is available for download from Internet Archive, or can be streamed using the player below.

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97:07

Click post title for US Constitution and Amendments.