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Recent
Stories
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
July
21, 2003
Edward
Said
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping
of Arabs
Ron
Jacobs
Shut Up and Shoot
Allan J.
Lichtman
Why is George Bush President?
Elaine
Cassel
How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment
Camps
Bruce
Jackson
Third and Arizona, Santa Monica
Website
of the Day
John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim
by Claim
July
19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
July
18, 2003
David
Vest
Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo
Rahul
Mahajan
Deceit Runs Deep
John Chuckman
Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World
Harold
A. Gould
The Bush-Musharraf Conclave
Alvaro
Angarita
In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists
David
Grenier
Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal
Website
of the Day
Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair
July
17, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the
United States Has to Stand Naked
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance
Martin
Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation
Watchdogs
Heidi
Lypps
Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced
Drugging and the Supreme Court
Norman
Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance
Conference
Pankaj
Mehta
Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the
Boy Who Cried Wolf
Hammond
Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited
Website
of the Day
No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism
July
16, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype
Dubious Uranium Claims
William
Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down
Elaine
Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom
Must Not Be Obeyed
Jason
Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?
Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?
Raymond
Barrett
From Detroit to Basra
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala:
The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt
July
15, 2003
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers:
the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack
Chris
Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries
Jason
Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries
Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please
John
Troyer
The Niger Syndrome
Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David
Orrr
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
Website
of the Day
Cost of Iraq War
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued
Website
of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
July
11, 2003
Conn
Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
Website
of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview
with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
of the Day
Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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July
24, 2003
Seize the Airwaves!
Break
the Corporate Media's Stranglehold on the Free Flow of Information,
News, Artistic Expression and Cultural Creativity
By STEVE DUNIFER
You go to the demonstrations, write letters and
email to Congress; and yet, you feel as if your voice is not
being heard. What if there was a way for your voice, and the
voices of your compatriots, to actually be heard? There is--it
is called micropower broadcasting or free radio.
Micropower broadcasting began as a means
to empower the residents of a housing project in Springfield,
Illinois in the late 1980's. By creating a low power FM broadcast
station, this community established its own voice and a direct
means to fight against police brutality and repression. Unlicensed
and unsanctioned by the government, Human Rights Radio, as it
is now known, continues to broadcast to this very day.
Since then, micropower broadcasting has
grown into a national movement of electronic civil disobedience.
Based on the principles of Free Speech and Direct Action, micropower
broadcasting seeks to reclaim the electronic commons of the airwaves--a
public resource and trust stolen by the corporate broadcasters,
aided and abetted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
and other appendages of the US Government.
Continuing in the rich tradition of the
struggle to speak freely and be heard, micropower broadcasting
has traded the historic soapbox for the FM broadcast transmitter.
Advances in technology and design have allowed for the creation
of FM transmitters at a very low cost in comparison to standard,
commercial broadcasting equipment. An entire FM broadcast station
covering a radius of 5-12 miles can be assembled for $1000 or
less.
Yes, there are legal risks involved.
Such stations are violating FCC regulations and statutes, and
are subject to possible legal actions such as threatening letters
or fines, and sometimes seizure of equipment. Despite this, at
any given time, there are hundreds of stations on the air across
the United States. Unfortunately, stations tend to go on the
air in isolation from one another, making them an easier target
for the FCC.
Despite the somewhat uncoordinated efforts
of the last ten years, hundreds of micropower stations taking
to the airwaves forced the FCC to respond to a rapidly growing,
ungovernable situation. William Kennard, former head of the FCC,
admitted this is in a documentary, LPFM--The Peoples' Voice,
produced by the United Church of Christ's Microradio Implementation
Project. (http://www.veriteproductions.net/html/awards.html;
http://www.current.org/in/in009LPFM.html)
Adding further legitimacy to the micropower broadcasting movement,
the FCC's own study on possible interference issues, The Mitre
Study (http://prometheusradio.org/release_71303.shtml),
failed to show even marginal interference to full power broadcasters
by low power FM stations. It went further to recommend the lifting
of burdensome restrictions imposed on the LPFM broadcasting service.
For years, the National Association of Broadcasters(NAB), representing
corporate interests, has used interference as a red herring issue
in their attempts to stifle the Free Speech Rights of micropower
broadcasters. Joined by National Public Radio, the NAB, using
bogus interference claims augmented with political grease, succeeded
in getting a bill, ironically titled, The Broadcast Preservation
Act of 1999, passed by Congress to severely limit the number
of LPFM stations authorized by the FCC when they established
the LPFM service in January of 1999. Whether it was the Free
Speech fights of the Wobblies, folks refusing to go to the back
of the bus or hundreds of unsanctioned low power FM taking to
the airwaves, mass movements creating ungovernable situations
do work.
Therefore, we are calling for a day of
electronic solidarity and direct action, marking the beginning
of a new chapter in micropower broadcasting by raising the struggle
to an entirely new level of engagement. Between now and October,
17th, we are asking you and your community to create your own
broadcast station to further empower your vision of a just, humane,
peaceful and sustainable world.
Hundreds of new stations going on the
air all at once will be a powerful statement to the corporate
media and the government that the airwaves belong to the people
who have chosen to seize them back, speaking in one strong collective
voice. With budgets and resources stretched thin, the FCC will
be hard-pressed to respond to such an expression of solidarity.
This action will encourage many more communities to set up their
own broadcast stations. Schools, arts centers, housing projects,
senior communities; all could be empowered with free radio broadcasting.
Critical mass can be achieved within a very short period of time.
To further amplify this collective voice,
a mass 24 hour broadcast of the same programming by hundreds
of micropower stations would meld hundreds of small voices into
one giant shout for Free Speech Rights. Using the existing infrastructure
of the Internet and audio streaming technologies which have been
employed by the Independent Media Centers since 1999, a common
audio stream would be created for re-broadcasting. Individual
stations would work collectively to create programming for this
24 hour broadcast. Given the number of IMC sites in the US, they
could serve as hubs for the audio streams, both incoming and
outgoing. And, quite possibly, stations outside the US would
join in as well, creating a global movement to reclaim the broadcast
spectrum.
Setting up a basic FM broadcast station
requires the following items. Approximate price ranges are given.
Transmitter--$150 to $600 Power Supply--$35to
$100 Antenna--$15 to $125 Antenna cable--$50 to $75 Compressor/limiter--$80
to $100 Audio mixer--$75 to $150 Microphones $25 to $50 each
Tape and CD players, go to garage sales or get donated units
Donated 300-500 Mhz computer to work as an MP3 sound file jukebox.
Allows unattended playing of program material as needed.
Transmitters are available as kits or
fully assembled units. Assembled units are mostly available from
vendors in the UK. A list of vendors follows at the end of this
article. A very serviceable antenna can be built from common
* inch copper water pipe for $15 in materials or a commercial
unit, the Comet 5/8 groundplane, costs $115-$125.
To facilitate the creation of hundreds
of new stations, weekend workshops will be scheduled at selected
locations around the country between now and October 17th. At
the end of the workshop you will be able to walk away with a
fully assembled transmitter and antenna. As an introduction to
setting up an FM broadcast station, Free Radio Berkeley has a
Micropower Broadcasting Primer available as a PDF document either
on their website--www.freeradio.org--or
by email request--xmtrman@pacbell.net.
Thanks to a collaborative design effort, Free Radio Berkeley
will be offering a partially assembled 1-10 watt variable output
power transmitter kit for $150. This transmitter can cover a
radius of 4-6 miles and will drive a higher power amplifier of
75 watts which is available as kit for $115.
With your own radio station, you will
be able to provide alternative programming that is rarely heard
in most communities unless they are fortunate enough to have
a Pacifica station or an independent community station nearby.
Thanks to the internet, there is a wealth of programming available
in addition to what you will be able to produce locally. A collaborative
web site--www.radio4all.net--established
by the micropower broadcasting community in 1997 has over 2000
radio programs available for downloading in MP3 format. New programs
are being uploaded daily. Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org),
Working Assets Radio (www.workingforchange.com/radio/index.cfm)
and Making Contact (www.radioproject.org),
to name a few, offer extensive archives of programs for downloading.
The Independent Media Center
Radio Site not only has a large archive of programming but
lists other programming sources, web streams from free radio
stations, and a variety of other resources as well.
To paraphrase "Scoop" Nisker,
if you don't like the media, go out and make your own. It is
time to move from being a passive consumer of media to becoming
a co-creator in a movement which gives voice to the voiceless.
If you can't communicate, you can't organize. If you can't organize,
you can't fight back. And, if you can't fight back, you have
no chance of winning.
Stephen Dunifer of Free Radio Berkeley
can be reached at: xmtrman@pacbell.net
Day of Mass Electronic Civil Disobedience
Celebrating International Media Democracy Day Friday, October
17, 2003
Resource list
Equipment sources
Free Radio Berkeley--www.freeradio.org
Veronica--http://www.veronica.co.uk/
Broadcast Warehouse--www.broadcastwarehouse.com
Panaxis--http://www.panaxis.com/
NRG Kits--http://www.nrgkits.com/
PCS Electronics--http://www.pcs-electronics.com/en/index.php
Zzounds, for audio gear--http://www.zzounds.com
General Information
Radio4all--www.radio4all.org
Free Radio Berkeley--www.freeradio.org
DIY Media--www.diymedia.net/
Hobby Broadcasting--www.hobbybroadcasting.com/
IMC Radio--http://radio.indymedia.org
Programming Sources
IMC Radio--http://radio.indymedia.org
Democracy Now--www.democracynow.org
Radio4all--www.radio4all.net
Making Contact--www.radioproject.org
KPFA programming links--www.kpfa.org/5_link.htm
KGNU program archives--www.kgnu.org/news.html
Pacifica Radio Archives--www.pacificaradioarchives.org
Pacifica Radio--www.pacifica.org
Resistance MP3's--www.geocities.com/resistancemp3
Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
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