The Furious Spinner

Last year Voices in the Wilderness co-founder Kathy Kelly was sent to federal prison for protesting at the School of the Americas, the assassin-training camp in Georgia. Now her book Other Lands Have Dreams is out from Counterpunch Books. In it, she writes about her experiences in Iraq during the first war and the present one, as well as her time spent in federal lock-up. Sending protesters to prison seems antithetical to everything this country is supposed to stand for. People who have Protested at the School of the Americas in Georgia are still being sent to prison. They call themselves prisoners of conscience. I think they're American heroes, and I thank them for their service to the planet.

On the Voices in the Wilderness website, they have a good section on "what we can do" about the war in Iraq. First, we should get educated. I'm still amazed at how many people get all of their news from corporate media. Someone asked Jane Fonda where she got her news (she was speaking somewhere about her book and the war in Iraq), and every source she mentioned was corporate media: NY Times, CNN, etc. You aren't getting the whole truth if you are only listening to news coming from corporate media. I have been a part of news stories (either as a reporter, a protester, or an interviewee) and then watched/read how they were covered afterward, and it is astonishing the amount of facts reporters get wrong. And now very little investigative journalism is going on. NPR did show more aspects of a story than the average bear, but now the new CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has sent down the word that he thinks NPR is too liberal and they've got to get their minds right and become more conservative. (Has anyone noticed that three men named Ken are major players in this unfolding story?)

Anyway, to stay informed we need to get our information from a variety of sources. As I've mentioned before, I like The Guardian, Alternet.com, Indepent Media Center, Common Dreams, and FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting). I check the first two every day and the others throughout the week.

Voices in the Wilderness also suggests keeping up constant pressure on your elected officials to get us out of Iraq, as well as protesting and not being federal taxes.

I wish Kathy Kelly well with her work, and I look forward to reading the book. 0 comments

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