by Joe Courter
The Civic Media Center is really pleased to have David Barsamian as the guest speaker for the annual SpringBoard fundraiser on March 21 at The Wooly (20 N. Main St.).
Barsamian is the award-winning director of Alternative Radio (www.alternativeradio. org) and author of many books. His latest is Power Systems: Global Democratic Uprisings & the New Challenges to U.S. Empire with Noam Chomsky.
One of America’s most tireless and wide-ranging journalists, he has altered the independent media landscape, both with his weekly radio program and with his many books with Chomsky, Richard Wolff, Eqbal Ahmad, Howard Zinn, Tariq Ali, Arundhati Roy, and Edward Said. His articles and interviews appear in The Progessive, The Sun, Z and other magazines and journals. A much in-demand public speaker, he lectures all over the world. He was the keynote speaker at the National Campus & Community Radio Conference in June 2013 in Winnipeg. For his work on Kashmir he was deported from India in September 2011 and has not been allowed back since.
For years, AR was broadcast locally on WUFT. Currently, it is on WGOT, 94.7 FM. Mondays, 8-9 a.m., Saturdays, 4-5 p.m. and Sundays, 1-2 p.m. Check www.alternativeradio.org site for a station near you, and to see all the great speakers available for ordering.
Barsamian is a great fit for the CMC. He was a grassroots activist in Boulder, Colorado in 1989 when he started recording lectures and making them available to radio stations and by mail order. His work is an archive of leading thinkers, and a history the dynamic social issues of the last 25 years. When famed historian Howard Zinn died in 2013, Barsamian rebroadcast prior talks by Zinn, which served to underscore the legacy of that great man in how well his words and analysis held up over time. Barsamian has dialogued with the great thinkers of our time.
Now we have the chance to hear him and dialogue with him right here in Gainesville. The title of his talk will be “Media, U.S. Empire, and the Snowden Effect.”
The celebration will also include the presentation of the Jack Penrod Brigadas Award, which is given in recognition of local organizing work by the Penrod Committee made up of members from United Faculty of Florida, Alachua County Labor Party and Veterans for Peace. Jack was a wounded veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and a retired Professor of English at UF. This year’s honorees are Jeremiah Tattersall, local community and labor activist, and Robbie Czopek, the current CMC coordinator.
Advance tickets are available at the CMC (433 S. Main St.) for $15. Admission at the door on the night of the event will be $20-$30 on a sliding scale.
For more information, visit www.civicmediacenter.org.