Just Gimme Some Truth

November 18-23, 2002
Photos by Vivian Stockman unless noted

M.A.P.S. Conference

"Mountaintop removal is the most dastardly, unimaginable thing  that they (the corporate greedheads) could do. ..And they never have to see the horror of their greed...We could solve pollution if only the CEOs had to live within 100 yards of their messes."  -- Jim Hightower, Nov. 21, 2002 at "Just Gimme Some Truth"

Ever feel like your some of your teachers and the corporate-controlled mainstream media aren’t giving you the full picture?  Don’t despair--the truth is out there…but you may have to work to find it. The “Just Gimme Some Truth” conference sought to offer ideas and tools on finding the truth. 

Members of the Marshall University student group M. A. P. S. (Marshall Action for Peaceful Solutions) worked hard for about nine months to organize their superlative conference to expose some truths about peace and justice and the mass media. OVEC is so glad to be a supporter of the M.A.P.S. students. Ya'll rock! 

Attendance at the major events of the conference was very good, despite the fact that some jerk(s) kept pulling down flyers about “Just Gimme Some Truth” almost as soon as they were posted around the Marshall Campus. Guess some people can’t handle the truth. 

The conference gave us a whole passel of ideas for making the world a better place.  Below are some notes from just a few of the sessions. Be sure to check the sidebar and follow the links for a lot more info.

OVEC’s Dave Cooper hosted a showing of Blue Vinyl, a funny-sad documentary about the vinyl industry. Yup, we are living in dioxin-toxic-soup.

Speaker Dr. Robert Jensen, author of Writing Dissent, reminded us all to analyze news we read / watch from mainstream sources, since multi-national corporations own much of the mass media. Jensen, who is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, suggested we seek out alternative media sources (see a list here) and support these outfits via subscriptions. (The Charleston Gazette is one of the few remaining independently owned newspapers in the country.  Support investigative journalism by supporting the Gazette!)

Videographer, anti-globalization activist, IndyMedia journalist, poet and tree-sitter Warcry addressed topics on "The Real Eco Terrorism" and "Waging Info War." She noted that the media is bombarding us with language that is designed to support American foreign policy and/or suggesting to us topics upon which to think, thus engulfing us all with mental pollution. She suggests we deconstruct and reframe the language coming at us. She'll soon have active a website -- www.informationliberationfront.net  -- through which we can all discuss the means to retake the airwaves, which by rights belong to the public. Now, perhaps more than ever in our nation's history, we need a democratically controlled media infrastructure. Democratize the media now!

Populist Jim Hightower motivated the MAPS-sters to agitate and organize -- as did our nation's founders -- and to gol-dang have fun while doing so. In fact, the work of organizing is "...just about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on."

Here are some of Jim's gems:

Americans must speak out.  We have no right to be quiet. 

Face the forces of ignorance and arrogance.

The opposite of courage is not cowardice, but conformity.  Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

We are in one of those "when in the course of human events" moments...

It's time for us to be the agitators again, because our democracy is not given to us.  It is something we must take.

The agitator is the central post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out.

(About RollingThunderTour) Let's put the party back in politics.

Public financing of American elections--the one reform that really matters.

The Homeland Security bill will invade the security of We the Free People.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three left turns do!

The media isn't reporting what is going on.  People power is building in the countryside.

To get people to get up off their asses and do something -- that is what democracy is about. 

We can't wait on Washington.  We've got to build it ourselves on a local level.

OVEC co-directors Dianne Bady and Janet Fout get a photo-op with author and popular populist Jim Hightower before he delivers the keynote speech at the M.A.P.S "Just Gimme Some Truth" conference on peace and justice.

Former Congressman and Secretary of State Ken Hechler talks with his friend Jim Hightower. 

Marshall University student Tony Curtis, executive chair of M.A.P.S., was one several group members who worked very hard for months to organize the most excellent "Just Gimme Some Truth" conference. 

Warcry

M.A.P.S. maven Maggie mass communicates during the Speakout.
Photo by Tony Curtis

Dr. Robert Jensen speaks out on the Marshall campus.
Photo by Tony Curtis