On Tuesday, November 27 at 2pm EST:

The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprising, Occupations, Resistance and Hope

by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

The Silenced Majority by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Tomorrow at 11am PST / 2pm EST, I will host a special Firedoglake book salon with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! With co-author Denis Moynihan’s help, we will discuss her 2012 New York Times best seller The Silenced Majority:

In their new book, The Silenced Majority, Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan provide a vivid record of events, conflicts and social movements shaping our society today. They give voice to ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power across the country and around the world. Their writing and daily work at the grassroots public TV/radio news hour Democracy Now!, carried on more than a thousand stations globally and at democracynow.org, casts in stark relief the stories of the silenced majority. These stories are set against the backdrop of the mainstream media’s abject failure, with its small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, attempting to explain the world to us and getting it so wrong.

The Silenced Majority is a collection of columns from the last few years, but taken together it becomes something more. The columns are organized into groups — from Obama’s Wars to the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement — and become a larger reflection on the meaning of journalism in an age when much of the media is simply another commodity to be bought and sold.

It will be an honor to host this discussion. Much of the time when I am writing or editing here on Firedoglake, Amy Goodman’s voice on Democracy Now! forms the backdrop to my work. The topics this weekday radio and television program covers are inevitably some of the most important of the day and the most overlooked. I doubt the authors need any introduction. Here’s one anyway:

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, public broadcasting’s fastest-growing news hour. She is an award-winning investigative journalist, a four-time New York Times best-selling author, and a syndicated columnist.

Denis Moynihan handles special projects for Democracy Now!, ranging from coordinating live broadcasts from around the world to helping with distribution of the news hour. He lives in Colorado

For more on The Silenced Majority, see David Swanson’s myFDL review Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan explain the last four years.

Video from the Baltimore Book Festival.

For more on this story see Antonio Buehler and the Peaceful Streets, and Antonio Buehler Arrested Again For Filming the Police.

Peaceful Streets’ Police-Transparency Activists Defiant After Second Arrest, Plan Thursday Night Mass Copwatch

Do police need a 60-foot bubble of safety from activists with cameras? That’s the claim Austin Police Department is making in the wake of the second arrest of a police transparency activist.

Flanked by allies, Antonio Buehler exits the Travis County Jail last Sunday after his second arrest (Photo: Sarah Dickerson @ChapeauDefee, used with permission)

Antonio Buehler’s first arrest came last New Years Eve, when this Iraq Veteran and Westpoint graduate was accused of spitting on a police officer while filming a traffic stop turned brutal. This arrest inspired the formation of Peaceful Streets, which gave out 100 digital cameras to community activists at a police transparency summit earlier this year. Saturday night on one of their regular downtown copwatch outings, Buehler was singled out of a group of four for arrest.

Now Austin Police Department claims they may institute a new policy requiring cameras to keep 50 feet or more away from police at all times according to KEYE TV, claiming that the presence of cameras agitated the arrestee:

“The individual became really agitated to the point the officer had to use more force,” [Commander Troy] Gay said.

Now APD wants a policy change. They say people should be allowed to exercise their first amendment right, but they need more distance to do their job.

“We would like them to be 50 or 60 feet,” Gay said.

Most mainstream media outlets are repeating APD’s claims that Buehler’s presence interfered with arrest. Buehler tells a very different story in Pixiq:

On Saturday night, police responded to an incident where a man had pushed his fiancée down to the ground. It turned out, the man had a warrant, which is why he was arrested. Buehler and other activists began recording the interaction.

“She walked up to us and I told her we were filming for her safety and she hugged me and walked over to her fiancée and told him,” Buehler said.

“He looks at me and gives me the thumbs up sign.”

But as two cops led the man away and Buehler and another activist began following, a third cop arrived and began ordering “Mr. Buehler” to back away.

“I was standing more than 25 feet away,” Buehler said.

While the cop kept ordering Buehler to back away, the handcuffed suspect began threatening Buehler by saying he is going to kick his ass.

The cop, who Buehler believes may be named “Berry,” then asks the suspect whether Buehler was harassing him. The suspect says yes, which is when the cop made the arrest.

The American Civil Liberties Union firmly believes You Have Every Right to Photograph That Cop. I asked Dotty Griffith, Public Education Director of the ACLU of Texas how that applies to the Lone Star State in particular:

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Hi, y’all.

It’s often said we must be our own media. This report from the NY Daily News about Occupy Sunset Park arming a tenants with cameras is a great example:

10 residents who live at buildings 545, 553 and 557 on 46th St. used disposable cameras to take amateur shots of their terrible living conditions for an art show opening Saturday.

The photos feature tenant nightmares ranging from piles of garbage; cracked windows and floors; and a rickety fire escape.

…

Occupy Sunset Park organizer Dennis Flores helped distribute 50 disposable cameras to the tenants. The exhibit was the brainchild of Bedford-Stuyvesant photographer Noelle Theard, who supplied the cameras through a grant and taught the tenants how to take the pictures.

I am reminded of the work here in Austin that the Peaceful Streets project is doing, but of course with a housing angle. Reminding people that they have free speech and giving them allies to back them up when they speak is one of the best ways to empower the populace.

What’s on your mind tonight? How was your weekend? This is the latest myFDL open thread.