Wednesday, Sep 24, 2008

SEPT 24: WHAT’S THIS ABOUT COMMUNITY ORGANIZING? "

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"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." – GOP VP Candidate Sarah Palin

That minor bombshell from Governor Sarah Palin’s RNC speech dissing the honored profession of community organizing has become a talking point for parroting conservatives who forget that history is rife with the importance and effectiveness of community organizing in mobilizing people and movements. This would include the infamous Karl Rove, whose own community organizing efforts spawned electoral wins for George W. Bush as well as consolidating the voting power of evangelical Christians across the political landscape. Every day, community organizers work to empower their constituents from geographic areas (neighborhoods) to issues (environment, education and human services) to electoral (candidates, parties, issues, ideas). What is it about community organizers that suddenly converted the practice into a political threat? Barack Obama’s past is at least part of it. Community empowerment is the likely larger issue.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN talk with practitioners of the time-honored art of community organizing about its true nature and importance as a tool of civic and political engagement in these times when so many of us rely on mass media for our news and make decisions about who is responsible for change and public policy. In fact, we are, not the politicians.

GUESTS: • PAMELA TWISS – TakeAction Minnesota Organizing Director • RUSS ADAMS - Executive Director, Alliance for Metropolitan Stability • MALIK HOLT – Community organizer, Harrison Neighborhood, Minneapolis • STEVEN RENDEROS – Chicano Studies Dept., UofM/Twin Cities-based Latino Community Organizer/Board Member. Organizing Apprenticeship Project • TOM O’CONNELL – Political Science Professor, Metropolitan State University

Posted by Truth to Tell at 11:00 AM |   

Wednesday, Sep 17, 2008

SEPT 17: RNC RETROSPECTIVE II–THE SHAME OF THE STATE

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TTT continues the discussion and post-mortem (literally) of protests and free speech lodged last week during the Republican National Convention (RNC). We discuss the wider issue of state repression of protected speech, press and assembly, and where media attention was paid.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN recap events inside and outside the Xcel Center during the Republican National Convention – and talk about the political and legal fallout from the near martial law imposed on St. Paul and Minneapolis and the media focused on the relatively minor damage done to property – possibly by undercover police themselves.The truth will emerge in the courts and caucuses for next several years that the police state created to prevent free speech expression from reaching the insulated RNC attendees – including the national and local outlets ensconced inside – soured citizens and commercial enterprise throughout the city on ever again hosting anything like this blowout of free movement.

GUESTS: • DAVE THUNE, St. Paul City Councilmember, Ward 2 (where the convention was held) • SYL JONES, Playwright, Cultural Critic, Columnist • GENA BERGLUND, National Lawyers Guild and Attorney for several arrested RNC Protestors • ART HUGHES - Free-lance journalist arrested on the last night of the RNC.

Posted by Truth to Tell at 11:00 AM |   

Wednesday, Sep 10, 2008

SEPT 10: RNC RETROSPECTIVE I–THE SHAME OF THE CITIES

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SEPT 10: RNC RETROSPECTIVE I–THE SHAME OF THE CITIES
TTT continues the discussion and post-mortem (literally) of protests and free speech lodged last week during the Republican National Convention (RNC). We discuss the wider issue of state repression of protected speech, press and assembly, and where media attention was paid. TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN recap events inside and outside the Xcel Center during the Republican National Convention – and talk about the political and legal fallout from the near martial law imposed on St. Paul and Minneapolis and the media focused on the relatively minor damage done to property – possibly by undercover police themselves.

ANDY DRISCOLL and TTT crew members witnessed indiscriminate police violence and the exercise of a well-developed siege mentality inculcated into officers over a two year period and rank with paranoia-driven counter-protest tactics. Police officials, Mayors Coleman and Rybak and councilmembers in both cities can deny complicity in what amounted to police overkill and downright repression of constitutional rights to free speech, assembly and, ye, even the press any which way they wish, but the truth will emerge in the courts and caucuses for next several years that the police state created to prevent free speech expression from reaching the insulated RNC attendees – including the national and local outlets ensconced inside – soured citizens and commercial enterprise throughout the city on ever again hosting anything like this blowout of free movement.

ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN talk with key figures in the execution of this other-world event that consumed the cities as the bubble partied.

GUESTS: • DAVE THUNE, St. Paul City Councilmember, Ward 2 (where the convention was held) • CAM GORDON, Minneapolis City Councilmember, Ward 2 • SYL JONES, Playwright, Cultural Critic, Columnist • DR. ELIZABETH FROST, Family Practice Physician and volunteer for North Star Health Collective. • BRUCE NESTOR, National Lawyers Guild Minnesota Chapter President and Attorney for several arrested RNC Protestors • (Recorded) MIKE WHELAN – Host of the I-Witness Team of journalists arrested in a raid on his house. Podcasts are available for all archived Truth to Tell shows.

Posted by Truth to Tell at 11:00 AM |   

Thursday, Sep 04, 2008

TTT-RNC-Special PT2

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Second hour of a live 2-hour special broadcast covering the Republican National Convention's closing hours. Guests include former Oklahoma Republican Congressman, Micky Edwards; Gena Berglund, National Lawyers Guild; Jane Kirtley, Silha Center for Media Ethics, UofM; Free-lance reporter Jim Leinfelder; Marla Golding, Columbia Journalism Review and reporters Janis Lane Ewart, Benno Groenveldt, John Slade and Agatha on the floor, in the media ring and on the street.

Posted by Truth to Tell at 11:00 AM |   

Thursday, Sep 04, 2008

TTT-RNC-Special PT1

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First hour of a live 2-hour special broadcast covering the Republican National Convention's closing hours. Guests include former Oklahoma Republican Congressman, Micky Edwards; Gena Berglund, National Lawyers Guild: Jane Kirtley, Director of the Silha Center for Media Ethics, UofM; Free-lance reporter Jim Leinfelder; Marla Golding, Columbia Journalism Review and reporters Janis Lane Ewart, Benno Groenveldt, John Slade and Agatha on the floor, in the media ring and on the street.

Posted by Truth to Tell at 11:00 AM |   

Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008

TTT-RNC-LIVE Inside/Outside

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Sept 3: LIVE from the Convention Center and KFAI Studios. TRUTH TO TELL witnessed indiscriminate police violence and the exercise of a well-developed siege mentality inculcated into officers over a two year period and rank with paranoia-driven counter-protest tactics. While I recorded running commentary and interviewed others in the streets, an assistant photographed the treatment of arrested protesters at the hands of fully padded, black-helmuted riot police in numbers three to four times that of any group we encountered, many of them from such jurisdictions as Cedar Rapids, IA, Springfield, MO, and Tucson, AZ, let alone most of the Metro jurisdictions and outstate towns that brought the force to over 3,500 officers. As three of TTT’s staff lunched in an outdoor café at St. Peter and 7th Place, police confronted three young men seeking to search their backpacks. The young men refused and police pressed their case, calling in St. Paul/Ramsey County SWAT Team back-ups, who piled out of a rapidly arriving police van. The men still refused to be searched (meaning that a warrant would be required to do so absent probable cause they represented some immediate danger). When set upon, the men ran through the plaza and an office caught up with and tackled the slowest, screaming at him and slamming his head into the concrete sidewalk, then dragging him back to the van. Twenty minutes later, the young man, still bleeding from his head wound, walked with his backpack through the plaza - unarrested and uncharged. GUESTS: • GENA BERGLUND, attorney, National Lawyers Guild, representing arrested citizens and coordinating legal observers and videographers. • JIM LEINFELDER, Free-lance Producer/Journalist, working for MSNBC, CNN and other networks • NANCY SARTOR, TTT Associate Producer/Correspondent Podcasts are available for all archived Truth to Tell shows.

Posted by Truth to Tell at 11:00 AM |