Democracy Now!

today while listening to the independant news program Democracy Now! on my local community radio station KAOS 89.3 i realized that i should use my blog to spread the word about this great program. this news program covers the stories you rarely if ever see covered by the mainstream news outlets like fox,nbc,abc, cbs, cnn, msnbc, npr, ap, new york times, washington post, etc. but it is these stories that are so important to our lives and to functionality of democracy. you can listen to the program on your radio(check the website to find out when and on what station it plays in your town) the old fashioned way or on your ipod or stream it from the internet.

today's show was good as always but a lot of the topics really appealed to me specifically because they were issues that i deal with personally. since it's tax day the first two segements revolved around our tax dollars and war spending. next was a segement on torture(the aclu is calling on congress to start an investigation into the bush administration's authorizing of torture). the last two were on portland and how it's a great city for bicycle communting and on the dali lama's visit to seattle.

i try to bike(or run) to work or to do errands or to go out around town but i don't do aswell as i should. and although i'm not a disciple of any religon or religous person the dali lama does have lots of good things to say so it's always good to hear that people are embracing his message. and who(other than bush and co.) isn't opposed to torture!

but i guess it was the first two segement that really were after my heart. the first one was about a couple that has been resisting war for 30 years by not paying their income taxes, i too have been doing the same for the last 4 years. in the second segement host Amy Goodman interviews us congressperson Jan Schakowsky about the press confrence that she and some other representatives are holding today on the cost of the war here is a small part of the interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what you’re going to say today?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well, we’re going to, on Tax Day today, show that the Iraq tax bill for the average family of four is $16,500 per family of four. It’s only one way of expressing how much the war costs, of course, but the dollars are pretty significant, and most people understand that. In fact, 89 percent of Americans believe that the cost of war has contributed to the US economic problems. And certainly, it’s been a problem for them in their own families.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do you calculate the cost of war?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well, we looked at what the total bill is to date, over half-a-trillion dollars, and just divided it out among the families. And that’s a lowball number, because we aren’t considering the other costs, including the care of veterans, all the healthcare costs. So it’s really a modest number that, you know, could go into the trillions of dollars for the whole country.