Day 1 NMRC memphis
I’m On lunch break, pumped up from listening to Bill Moyers. He reminded us to keep up the struggle against the corporate controlled “plantation thinking” media and tell to tell our own stories. He equated our task to that of other great movements in this country’s fight of democracy. He invoked Dr King & the suffragists and eloquently inspired with the poetry of Marge Percy as he left us with her poem on the power of numbers....
to paraphrase if I may...
1 can curse
2 can cuttle & fight through a crowd back to back
3 is a committee
4 can play bridge
12 can be a demonstration
100 can have their own newsletter
10,000 can own their own press
10,000,000 can be their own country
We are a movement and 3,000 like minded media reformers are gathered here in Memphis to help stop the elite few in this country from completely taking over our airwaves, presses and the internet. (Their most recent target)
Corporate controlled media is a voice for the current administration. As Amy Goodman said (of Democracy Now) “we need a meed that is the 4th estate, not a media that is for the state.”
Although 1/4 of americans were against going into the war to begin with, according to Moyers, in the 3 weeks leading up to the invasion only 3% of the coverage in all major U.S. coverage addressed the issue. He said the power of language has allowed our leaders to frame the current escalation as “a surge” sounding like some kind of electricity running through wires rather than as the blood spurting out of our soldiers veins onto Iraq's soil that it will be.
So, I am here telling my story and sharing my little lesbian corner of the world here at the national conference of media reform. I’ve already met someone here from Knoxville's out & about and looking forward to the regional breakout session to meet more closer to home.
Check out my links for more coverage. Last night’s welcome party sponsored by www.savetheinternet.org was fun and a chance to network with people from all over the country. I met a fellow documentary film maker here in memphis, a women monitoring elections in california, the director or public TV in Manhattan, a couple from Oklahoma concerned citizens looking for ways to help, a guy from the gulf who lost his home in Katrina and who is an activist and an avid reader of the Nation magazine.
This morning’s wimmin’s breakfast hosted by the memphis wimmin’s center was another great opportunity to meet with women.
Thecenter is so cool and i was surprised that it was not a part of a university but for all the women of memphis. It was started (I think she said in ‘95) with a $50,000 grant from a local dynamic woman and they’ve turned it into 3 million dollars. Very inspiring and something that would be so great in nashville. dozens of non-profit groups operate out of the center and they focus on ways to empower women and help women with children to improve their economic situation.
that’s it for now...jessie jackson is getting ready to go on...
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Friday, January 12, 2007
