In addition to hearing Lester Brown speak at the Green Festival, we also listened to Amy Goodman, the main voice behind Democracy Now. She said many interesting things, including that the media coverage of Katrina was a model of how the media should be covering Iraq. They showed the devastation and pointed out how the government was absent or screwing up and people responded. If we had seen from the very beginning the images of what's really been happening on the streets in Iraq instead of being told “you're not patriotic if you show those images,” there would be the same response to the war—people would be saying “war is not an answer to conflict in the 21st century.” In this connection she recommends Blackwater Down, a great piece about private armies by Jeremy Scahill.
