Anne Meador is a journalist, photographer and activist in the Washington, DC metro area and a co-founder of DC Media Group. She recognized that while there are many protests in DC, they do not receive fair reporting by the large corporate media presence there. Anne has a particular focus on environmental issues and has done deep reporting on the fracked gas refinery and export terminal being built in southern Maryland (see WeAreCovePoint.org) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see BeyondExtremeEnergy.org). We appreciate her fearless questioning of interviewees and her persistence in reading through dry government documents to uncover corruption.
Here is what Anne has to say about Popular Resistance:
“Since Trump was elected but after the initial burst of energy and protest, I find myself having the same conversation over and over. Informed, concerned people are horrified by Trump and scared of whatever may come next from this Republican government. We commiserate and vent our outrage. We share our fears about possible harm inflicted on vulnerable people, worry about sick friends and family, mourn places dear to us lost to climate change and even discuss doubts about the ultimate fate of the human species. Then, with those people who dwell in the mainstream culture—non-activists—there is inevitably a pause, a sigh, a collapse. “You just have to accept it,” they say.
Disempowerment is taught by the corporate media, which frames every event and issue as contests: Democratic versus Republican and America versus the Rest of the World. The only thing citizens can do is show up every two or four years to vote. Who wouldn’t feel hopeless about that?
This is where Popular Resistance comes in. As an aggregator for independent media, PopRes helps people break out of the narrow scope of horse race politics and the overblown importance of what some powerbroker said or tweeted. When people know that others are engaging in collective action that gets results, they feel empowered to take action too.
Popular Resistance’s campaigns have taken on the most important—yet often most ignored—issues affecting regular people, including Net Neutrality, rigged trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership, and fracked gas infrastructure like Dominion Cove Point.”
Please enjoy this selection of Anne’s photos:
