Goodmans bring their message of activism to Barre
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By Sarah Hinckley Times Argus Staff - Published: May 5, 2008
BARRE CITY – A gathering in the Barre Labor Hall, a building that stands for the fair treatment of workers, set a fitting stage for the authors of "Standing up to the Madness."
"I just get chills being here," said David Goodman, of Waterbury, co-author of the book written with his older sister, radio host Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! "It's one of the only surviving labor halls… It's great that the community has rallied around such a place."
The Saturday event was a benefit for Democracy Now! and WGDR, an independent radio station based in Plainfield, celebrating its 35th year on the air. It is part of a national Democracy Now! tour in which the Goodmans are promoting their third book based on extraordinary stories of ordinary people. With Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman hosts the television/radio program, Democracy Now!, which is broadcast on Radio Vermont WDEV in Waterbury and hundreds of independent media outlets around the country.
"We need a media that is a true forum for dissent," Goodman said speaking against corporately-owned media outlets. "We need a media that builds bridges between communities, not a media that bombs bridges."
Goodman got her start at Pacifica Radio, which was founded by Lewis Hill in 1949 as a listener-supported media outlet. Democracy Now! is a program that features news from independent and international journalists offering a perspective not often reported by corporate-owned media, according to its Web site.
"Those who are opposed to torture and opposed to war are not the minority," she told the crowd. "You are the silenced majority."
The Goodmans' latest book, "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times," is a collection of stories taken from people they have met on previous tours.
David Goodman began the night with a story of how he kicked off the national tour by inadvertently sharing a taxi in Seattle with a defense contractor.
"I'm always trying to save money, I guess it's the Yankee in me," he said about the ride from the airport into the city.
The man explained to David Goodman that he was in the surveillance equipment aspect of the defense industry. To which Goodman asked, "How's business?"
"Never been better," Goodman said the man responded.
The two had an exchange in which the man told Goodman he was making money off policies passed by the government in the name of terrorism. When the man asked Goodman what he did for a living, Goodman said he shyly slid a copy of his latest book to the man.
After looking it over, he jokingly asked Goodman, "Are you trying to put us out of business?"
For the Barre crowd, Goodman read an excerpt from the book about how the government routinely invades the privacy of average Americans. The book also states that five million more Americans live in poverty since the start of the Bush administration.
Goodman highlighted a story from the book about members of the Library Connection in Connecticut who took the United States government to court in a suit against a National Security Letter requesting patron records. He shared another story about the scientist who presented the Bush administration with evidence about global warming and was subsequently silenced. Amy Goodman, who spoke after her brother, continued telling stories about soldiers protesting the war in Iraq and the work of other activists.
"The media denigrates activism, yet what could be more noble than activism," she said.
Amy Goodman than went on to explain how the open-casket images of Emmitt Till, an African American boy who was abducted and brutally murdered while visiting the south in 1955, were a spark in the Civil Rights Movement.
"Could you imagine if for just one week we saw the images of the war in Iraq?" She asked the crowd. "War is not the answer in the 21st Century, democracy now."
Contact Sarah Hinckley at sarah.hinckley@timesargus.com.
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