Editorial: Panhandle Media earns an F

On Friday, war resister Leif Kamunen was arrested. His brother Luke, also a war resister, was arrested last year. War resister Leo Kamunen has yet to be arrested but he self-checked out of the military at the same time as his brothers.



Three brothers saying "no" to an illegal war. They went public in early 2007. You should have heard about them. But, outside of Joel Bleifuss (In These Times, June 2007) no one in Panhnadle Media gave a damn. Real Media covered the brothers because three of them choosing to checkout is news.



Democracy Now! never had time for Kamunen brothers, not as a story, not as a headline. And yet Amy Goodman now wants to try to use them as a topic to sell her latest bad book (see "Stop the madness!" cry the Goodmans, "You first," reply Ava and C.I.). In the latest, Goody and brother David write, "There are now many signs of resistance within the military." But you couldn't tell it by tuning into her show. Class of 2007 got zilch from Goody. Eli Israel resisted while serving in Iraq and couldn't even get a headline mention. Brad McCall, Kimberly Rivera and all the others going public couldn't get a hey-hey shout-out from Goody.



Before 2006 ended, Goody had backed off from covering war resisters (Ivan Brobeck was completely ignored even though he turned himself in with an open letter to the Bully Boy on election day). She's never found the time to pick the topic back up.



Despite the Canadian Parliament gearing up for a vote on granting war resisters safe harbor in Canada, Goody's ignored that too. But she couldn't dissect every Democratic debate and primary (and smear Hillary) and still find time for war resisters, now could she?



[Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.]



Panhandle Media has completely failed efforts to end the illegal war and nothing proves that more than the fact that real media, Joel and the police could find two Kamunen brothers but Panhandle Media couldn't find any.