USTV Media News & Updates
* AVAILABLE NOW *
“Community Media & Human Rights” is the theme of a recently-published edition of the Community Media Review (CMR), the work of USTV Media producer Andy Valeri, who served as managing editor for the issue.
Featured in magazine are articles from media scholars, producers, managers, and activists whose work reflects global perspectives the universal issue of people’s access to communication.
The CMR is the flagship publication of the Alliance for Community Media, a nonprofit, national membership organization founded in 1976, representing over 3,000 Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) access organizations and community media centers throughout the country.
This issue marks the first time that CMR content was made available online in conjunction (and in an expanded form) along with its print version, which has been in existence since 1977.
Included in it are articles from WYSO general manager Neenah Ellis, an interview with Sam Gregory from the organization WITNESS on empowering human rights through video, and much more.
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* HELP PRESERVE PUBLIC ACCESS IN DAYTON AND ACROSS THE NATION! VOICE YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE “COMMUNITY ACCESS PRESERVATION ACT” (THE ‘CAP ACT’ - HR 3745) *
In 2007 many States, including Ohio, passed laws that have severely damaged Public, Educational and Government (PEG) access channels around the nation. Upon seeing the effects of these statewide franchises numerous United States Congressmen are supporting the idea of the federal government investigating and changing the damage that has been done.
We need your help to let Congress know that PEG access is important to you and that you wish the Federal government to pass laws that will help preserve access channels in your community.
We urge you to contact you United States Representatives and Senators and tell them that you want them to support the “CAP Act” that has been introduced to Congress by Wisconsin Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin.
The “CAP Act” as introduced would;
Allow PEG fees to be used for any PEG-related purposes; Require PEG channels to be carried in the same manner as local broadcast channels;
Require the FCC to study the effect state video franchise laws have had on PEG channels, and require operators to provide the greater of the support required under state laws, or the support historically provided for PEG; and
Make cable television-related laws and regulations applicable to all landline video providers.
Although the Bill, supported by the Alliance For Community Media, in its current form does not solve all problems associated with the preservation of PEG Access, it is a welcome move in the right direction and if enacted would greatly enhance the viability of existing PEG Access Channels.
For a list of your U.S. Representatives Click Here!
For more information on the CAP Act (HR 3745), what it is and how you can help get it passed, visit the Alliance for Community Media.
Thanks to Dayton Access Television (DATV) for their helping to lead the effort to preserve and strengthen community media and the ability for citizens to exercise freedom of voice in their local communities.
Thank you for your support!
Pass it on…
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* PEOPLE v. CORPORATIONS - MOVE TO AMEND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION *
Yet again the U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the ruling elite against the interests of the American people. Today in Citizens United vs. FEC they overturned the flimsy federal campaign finance reform laws afforded by the McCain-Feingold law. Corporations can now to spend unlimited money in buying our elections. The Court has legalized corporate bribery of our elected officials.
So if you were already disgusted by the fact that over $5 billion dollars was spent in the 2008 election, watch out. Because the floodgates are now wide open!
And once again, the Court relied on the illegitimate legal doctrine of “Corporate Personhood” in order to justify this profoundly undemocratic decision.
Corporate personhood is the notion that a corporation can claim to be a person, and therefore entitled to basic human rights‚ also described as political and civil rights‚ and have courts overturn laws.
As this decision clearly demonstrates, corporate personhood is not an inconsequential legal technicality. Consider this– the Supreme Court ruled that a corporation was a “legal person” with 14th Amendment protections before they granted full personhood to African-Americans, immigrants, natives, and women.
And literally hundreds of laws‚ perhaps thousands‚ of local, state and federal laws that attempt to protect our environment, our elections, our safety and health, our right to organize have been overturned as a result of this erroneous doctrine.
The world is being destroyed, the federal government is engaged in unending war, and we live in an unjust, unsustainable and undemocratic country.
It’s time to take ourselves seriously– both about what is at stake and what it will require to actually assume and democratically exercise real power. We must address the reality that the federal courts have made real democracy impossible.
It’s time to follow the lead of the American Revolutionaries, the abolitionists, the suffragists, the trade unionists, and the Civil Rights activists and to build a broad-based, multi-partisan democracy movement in the United States.
It’s time to amend the U.S. Constitution to make it clear that only human beings can claim to be “persons” with constitutional rights.
We are under no illusion that this approach will fix the legal system, the political system, the economic system.
But we believe it is time we confront the current Constitutional framework
Are you with us?
1) Go to the website http://www.MovetoAmend.org to announce that you are joining the growing national movement.
2) Contact us at Democracy Unlimited at 707-269-0984 to organize locally to make the promise of democracy a reality.
For More Information on who to contact and how to get involved in this growing movement, go Here
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Join The Call for a Constitutional Amendment to protect our political system from being totally co-opted by corporate money.
The petition here, sponsored by Change Congress which was co-founded by Lawrence Lessig, implies that we have a functionally working democracy now, which is an arguable point. But regardless, the initiative which this represents is necessary, and the importance of signing on to the effort to drive this process forward remains. Go Here for more information.
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Watch Free Speech Is For People
Visit USTV Media’s “Corporations, Democracy & USA, Inc.” for more information and research on this topic, as well as the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy (POCLAD).
Another excellent organization taking on the challenge of organizing local communities to assert their democratic rights from being usurped by corporations is that of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and the Democracy Schools.
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On Facebook? Join These Groups Today!
One Million Strong for the Separation of Corporation and State
Abolish Corporate Personhood NOW
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USTV Media Continues On With New Information and Action Postings
Postings and updates to UnCommon Sense TV Media continue on in conjunction with the ongoing graduate level research work in communication and human rights by USTV producer Andy Valeri. Valeri also currently serves as board chair of the Community Media Review, flagship publication of the Alliance for Community Media. He was managing editor for their 2010 issue on Community Media and Human Rights, which focused on some of the international dimensions of the use of community media in not only support of human rights, but as a human right. Work is also underway in in developing an artist’s collaborative in support of communication rights. More details to come as these initiatives continue to develop.
A Luta Continua…
