MEMPHIS, TENN. -- Asked his opinion of western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi famously replied he thought it would be a good idea.

You could say the same of media reform. A good idea, far more easily said than done.

But hang on. There's a growing populist movement out there, working to achieve the goal of a more responsive, independent and accessible media. Over the weekend, 3500 advocates, an empowered array of women and men of all ages from across the country, came to Memphis, Tennessee, to attend the third National Conference for Media Reform. They made for a committed and impressive, ruly mob.

(The event was sponsored and organized by Free Press, the national organization promoting "diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications.")    

Admittedly, there was a certain, liberal "Kumbaya" quotient at play in the crowd, and sprinkled here and there, a tiny Whitman's Sampler of cranks.

It wasn’t Katrina, not even close, but Seattle’s storm of the century was no picnic. It gave me one more a taste of a future where the weather can suddenly turn--and destroy the habitability of our world.  The storm hit Seattle mid-December with pounding rain and 70 mile-an-hour winds, reaching 110 miles per hour, 35 miles to the east, on the slopes of the Cascade Mountains. The ground was already soggy from the wettest November in Seattle history, and as the wind and rain uprooted trees, many fell on houses and cars, blocked roads and took down local power lines, cutting off heat and light to over a million residents in the city and surrounding areas. Thirteen people died. Sanitation systems overflowed, dumping tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage into Puget Sound. A week later, nearly a hundred thousand people were still living in the cold and the dark. Although my own lights stayed on, the next street was dark, and I could drive ten minutes and pass block after block of blackened houses.

WASHINGTON -- Thirty years after the first execution under contemporary laws of Gary Gilmore, members of the Abolitionist Action Committee will stage a highly visual demonstration at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, January 17. Wednesday also marks the day that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear three Texas death penalty appeals and when the 1,060th prisoner since 1977 is scheduled for execution.

Participants will peacefully and visibly call for an immediate cessation of all executions in the United States through civil disobedience and the risk of arrest. On the 20th and 25th anniversaries of that first state-sponsored killing, a total of 25 arrests were made of death penalty abolitionists for unfurling a banner that read "STOP EXECUTIONS!" at the top of the stairs leading to the front doors of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Activists, media and other concerned citizens are invited to join the Abolitionist Action Committee for a peaceful and nonviolent demonstration of resistance to the death penalty and to decry this shameful anniversary.

A legal vigil outside the Court will coincide with the action and all are invited to attend.

Impeach Disney and General Electric
Remarks at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, Tenn., January 13, 2007.

By any serious standard of journalism, impeachment should be in the news right now.  This illustrates the worst problem with our media.  It's not how they cover stories.  It's how they do not cover stories. 

A Newsweek poll a while back said that 51 percent of Americans want Bush impeached and 44 percent do not.  That's about double the support there was for impeaching Clinton when it was in the news every single day.

Dozens of cities have passed resolutions for impeachment.  State legislatures have introduced the same.  One outgoing congresswoman introduced articles of impeachment in December. Dozens of scholars have written books advocating for impeachment.  There are DVDs, forums, marches, rallies, protests.  A week ago, we packed a huge ballroom for an impeachment forum, and to make it easy, it was the ballroom in the National Press Club.  The media couldn't make the elevator trip to be there. 

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. . .”     from Beyond Vietnam speech, April 4th, 1967

I’m always personally touched when the King birthday holiday in January and the King April 4th assassination date come around. It was on that April 4th date in 1968 that I moved from concern about war and injustice to activism against them. His violent death motivated me to compose and post a petition to Congress that was signed by about half of the students at the college I was attending, Grinnell College in Iowa, before I sent it off to Washington, D.C. I’ve been active ever since on a wide range of issues.