Amy Goodman
From KeyWiki
Amy Goodman is a journalist and co-host of Democracy Now!'s news show.
Supporting Aristide
On April 7 2004 in the Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College. A multinational crowd of 2,000, mainly people from Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean, packed the hall to hear a program entitled "An Evening with Friends of Haiti: The Truth Behind the Haiti Coup."
- A broad range of speakers and cultural performers ignited the stage for three-and-a-half hours to express heartfelt anti-imperialist solidarity with the besieged Caribbean country. Haiti has once again suffered a horrific atrocity with the U.S.-orchestrated kidnapping of its democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, on Feb. 29.
The rally was co-chaired by Kim Ives and Karine Jean-Pierre from Haiti Support Network (HSN), with Pat Chin and Sara Flounders from the Workers World Party controlled International Action Center.
Other speakers included Alina Sixto, Family Lavalas New York/Tri-State Area; Rep. Major Owens of Brooklyn; Mario Dupuy, Aristide's state secretary of communication; Don Rojas, Amy Goodman and Bernard White, WBAI-Pacifica Radio; Ray LaForest, Haitian labor organizer, District Council 1707; Brian Concannon, human-rights attorney; Brooklyn College student Starr Bernard; Serge Lilavois, Support Committee for PPN; Los Angeles anti-police brutality activist Michael Zinzun; Dominican activist Marc Torres; and Haitian performers Marguerite Laurent and Phantoms[1].
Honoring a socialist
According to Mark Finkel, in 2005 Herb Robb, a charter member of Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, was honored by the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives, with whom Nassau Co. Democratic Socialists of America members frequently work; Amy Goodman was among the speakers.[2]
2009 YDS conference
From February 27th to March 1st, 2009 Young Democratic Socialists held its national outreach conference, “Beyond the Ballot: Making the Movement Matter,” at the Academy of Environmental Science in New York City. The event focused on developing strategies for building progressive and radical social movements to push the Obama administration to the left. YDS successfully increased the prominence of socialist politics in workshops and plenaries while articulating why building a democratic socialist organization is necessary to achieve even moderate reforms, let alone a serious power shift from capital to labor.
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, spoke on the plenary “Now, the Hard Part: Movement Building Under Barack Obama,” with Democratic Socialists of America member Bill Fletcher, Jr., a veteran radical trade unionist, and DSA Vice-Chair and Temple University Professor Joseph Schwartz. Reminding the audience of the important role that media play in making and breaking progressive change, Goodman encouraged activists to use grassroots forms of communication, while admitting the limitation of mainstream media in promoting anti-establishment viewpoints, even when they are popular. Fletcher reminded the audience that socialism is more than just a topic for study groups and spoke about the need to critically examine social movements and organizations in order to better the movement we already have. Schwartz proclaimed that there is social democracy in the United States – but that it is restricted to the affluent in American suburbs with their excellent public schools and services. He added that a key goal of democratic socialists is to expand such social benefits to all. All speakers agreed that the Obama administration offered an opening to social movements but that we need to have one foot in the system and one in the streets. Visible protest with direct demands would help distance Obama from his corporate backers. [3]
