November 24, 2009, Amy Goodman visited the campus of the Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. It was a damp and gray day at the start, coming after a series of relatively intense wind events in the region.

The Evergreen State College is a bastion of activism and liberalism in the state; it is the school Rachel Corrie was attending when she was killed by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer while defending the home of a Palestinian doctor in Rafah. It is also the center of a vigorous antiwar movement that successfully ended the shipment of military cargo through the Port of Olympia.

Ms. Goodman seemed her usual humble self as she talked with people before the event, and made her transition to spirited and sincere speaker behind the podium. I cannot conceal my authentic appreciation of Amy Goodman; she is a truly remarkable human being.

The ten dollars paid at the door for the event benefited the college radio station KAOS, and Thurston Community Television. Before the age of internet broadcasts, these were among the only types of entities that loyally broadcast Democracy Now!

Amy began by recognizing Rachel’s parents who were in attendance, and reminiscing about the key note address she gave at the graduation the year Rachel would have graduated.

In the most effecting part of the talk, Amy conveyed the story of her recently deceased mother’s stay at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. She told stories about the family’s efforts to protect their mother from the physicians and care givers at the hospital, and relayed the ironic tale of the ongoing catastrophe that is modern medicine.

She extrapolated from this a belief that everyone should have access to a minimum of health care, referring to this as Medicare for all. She discussed palliative care, and the role it plays in the last days of patients like her mother.

There was a revealing moment in all of this. I am a sensitive person, and often experience the feelings of others in an acute fashion. While Amy was speaking a recording technician approached her to recommend she lower the microphone. It became clear in a moment that lowering the microphone reduced the ability of the audience to hear - though it may have simultaneously improved the quality of the recording. In the moment that hosted this brief interplay, Amy maintained a demeanor that was striking in its kindness and warmth. Reassuring the technician who may have for a moment received the disgruntled vibe of the group, without drawing undue attention to the subtly awkward exchange, Amy practiced what she preaches.

Amy went on to explain that her parents had met at Hebrew speaking camp, where her father was the bunk mate of Noam Chomsky. Once when her mother was visiting Palestine, the accompanying Palestinian translators were held up at a checkpoint. Her mother stepped forward, and let lose with what Amy described as a lecture in Hebrew that startled the border guards with its grandiloquence. They soon parted for all, and one of the translators put his arm around Amy’s mother and said, “I’m sticking with you.” Amy learned from her mother that “never again” means not for “anyone, anywhere.”

She went on to talk about some of the things covered on the show in recent weeks, including the love of Yip Harburg she learned from her father, the lineage of Kiefer Sutherland, and Tim DeChristopher’s entanglement with the BLM and twenty two thousand acres of land he bought at auction. All intended to demonstrate the power of people to make changes in the world if they are willing to accept great personal risk.

Her position on the war and the military resembles my own: hate the war and love the soldier. By prioritizing military suicide rates and antiwar veteran’s organizations, Amy humanized the individuals who physically undertake the war making, and calls us to open lines of communication with them whenever possible.

I think this is what is so often lacking in the antiwar movement, the action ends at the facility gate or the door to the recruiting office, it should begin again as the new recruit exits the office, and should continue as it welcomes the soldiers home while it obstructs the shipment of their vehicles and materials. Organizations like Coffee Strong, as noted by Amy in her speech, achieve this difficult goal.

The criticism of President Obama that I anticipated reached its climax concerning Copenhagen and Afghanistan. Amy noted that although the BLM land sale in Utah was halted by the new administration, Tim DeChristopher will likely go to prison for his ingenuity.  She went on to point out that President Obama going to climate change meetings is not enough, and that expanding the war in Afghanistan is an indefensible policy. In the end she concluded to wide applause that campaign finance reform is a first step to reclaim the government.

After attending to a few local issues that have appeared on Democracy Now!, including the saga of John Jacob Towery, Amy rightly ended on a note of optimism. The new age of independent media is changing the way information is disseminated in the world. Imagine Amy Goodman’s personal perspective. When she began broadcasting Democracy Now!, the concept of media was so much more primitive. An alternative and independent radio program on Pacifica was the most that one could expect. Now there are webcasts and podcasts that overstep the boundaries and cross the borders that formerly confined us. Truly, the communications landscape has changed in ways that could not be imagined a few short years ago.

At the end of the twentieth century walls came down that separated the world from itself. At the beginning of the twenty-first century walls are coming down that separate people from ideas. It will be very difficult for anyone to control ideas going forward, and as a consequence people too will escape. We can thank Amy Goodman among others for pioneering this brave new world of human communication.