media

by Pete Tridish

A Ruckus I Couldn’t Miss

I first heard about the Seattle Protests at a Ruckus Society training camp about 6 months before the WTO was scheduled to come to town. Ruckus is a group famous for the dramatic and daring banners they hang from cranes and buildings and towers; they focus on human rights and environmental issues. The speaker there representing the anti-WTO organizers, after making an eloquent case for the connections between all the globalization issues and for a coalition of activists of all stripes, said “We will lie down on the airstrips and stop the delegates planes from landing.  If they get past that, we will block the highways leading from the airport to the city. If they get past that, we will block the hotels they are staying in, we will block the streets, and we will block the doors of the convention center and we will not let them make another another free trade deal that week in Seattle.” How could I not help with such a plan? In that moment I committed to go.

By Hans Bennett

Some things have come out that deserve a plug:

Promissory Notes: from Crisis to Commons

A pamphlet on the crisis by Midnight Notes and Friends

After five hundred years of existence, capitalists are once again announcing to us that their system is in crisis. They are urging everyone to make sacrifices to save its life. We are told that if we do not make these sacrifices, we together face the prospect of a mutual shipwreck. Such threats should be taken seriously. Already in every part of the planet, workers are paying the price of the crisis in retrenchment, mass unemployment, lost pensions, foreclosures, and death."

CALLING ALL DORKS -- spread the word!

Now is your time to SHINE – for the 1st annual WEST PHILADELPHIA SPELLING BEEEeeeeeee.

Join us May 8th for a showdown knockdown that will knock your socks off, while raising money for Philly travel to the kickass Allied Media conference in Detroit, Michigan!

Ice cream bar and alcohol so you can get your drink and sugar on in between rounds.

by Andalusia Knoll

When you tune in the radio dial across this country you will rarely find news that matches the issues and opinions of this here newspaper.  And why is that?  Is it because there aren't enough people reporting on grassroots issues and social justice struggles or is it because the the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and powerful media conglomerates have made it extremely difficult for educational institutions, labor unions, religious groups, and community organizations to have their own radio stations? Restrictive laws that do not allow Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations to acquire broadcast licenses show that it is the latter.  Our public airwaves have essentially been privatized by large corporations that don't allow diverse programming on the airwaves.  However, there is hope! The Local Community Radio Act (HR 1174), if passed by Congress, should ease these restrictions and allow for hundreds of new non-commercial stations.

In November, one or the other of the corporate candidates will win, and then, as always, it will be what the people do, not the politicians, that counts. A video report on the protests that occurred in connection with the Democrat and Republican National Conventions, Ground Noise & Static is a manifesto. We went to Denver and St. Paul to take the pulse of the movement.