Click on video to hear from protesters at the recent One Nation rally.
"We want to bring the war dollars home, and increase the peace." Baba Ras D, with the Washington Math Science Technology charter school.
"The electoral races that are going on have been clouded by this whole big media frenzy around Tea Party candidates." Jane English, with the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ.
"Anyone who is concerned about the way the country is going, don't just vote, get out and protest like we are doing." Kimberly Greene with Moratorium Now Coalition.
"You can go to a dictator with an opposition group and he has got all the power of the state to fight against you. He will take the military against you. The police will come out to beat you up, but what can a dictator do when everybody's laughing at him?" -- Robert Russell, executive director of Cartoonists Rights Network International
In his previous career, Robert Russell traveled the globe as a U.S. State Department official. He learned that often the most effective voices speaking out against the world’s repressive regimes were political cartoonists.
From his home in Virginia, Russell now heads the Cartoonists Rights Network International. He models his organization after other more well-known groups, like Reporters without Borders or The Committee to Protect Journalists.
Russell believes that in too many cases, cartoonists don't get the respect they deserve from journalists or artistic communities. He says they need protection when their cartoons deal with politically or culturally sensitive topics and rile very misguided people.
Sadly, some of the cartoonists he tried to protect over the years were killed because of their work. Others have been arrested, imprisoned and tortured by governments unwilling to tolerate criticism or satire.
Russell hosts regular conferences about cartoons at campuses around the United States. During a recent event at American University near Washington, D.C., cartoonist Joel Pett observed that the worst that usually happens to an American cartoonist who publishes a controversial cartoon is an angry phone call. Politicians targeted by American cartoonists are more likely to ask for a copy of the original art.
A very different situation faced Iranian cartoonist Nik Kowsar, who had to flee Iran after he refused to quit cartooning. Kowsar told the American University crowd his work had previously landed him in an Iranian prison, where he says he actually had a good time losing six pounds in six days.
Whatever the odds against them, cartoonists continue to make people laugh, and with their simple but powerful drawings, continue to give millions of people a fresh perspective on the injustices, irregularities and abuses in their society.
"People feel that there are certain things that are going to take place which are not at all factual, so based on false information, this anger has been stirred up unnecessarily and it's a shame because we're not really talking about the issues, and people are just venting," Health Care Reform Protester, in Washington, D.C., August 20, 2009.
Television news, the Internet, town hall meetings and street protests in the United States are currently being dominated by the issue of health care.
People on all sides of the issue are fired up. Public option, or no public option, that seems to be the question. But who can explain what the public option really entails? Basically, it opens the possibility of getting government health insurance, but the unknowns of this proposition riles up opponents.
Loaded guns have been taken to health care-related events, including some where President Barack Obama spoke, as well as plastic guns, loaded with flowers. The words Nazis, socialism, and fascism have been bandied about, as well as "Waterloo", in a reference to the 1815 battle in Belgium which ended the reign of European emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
Will this health care battle be Mr. Obama's own "Waterloo"? Tensions seem to be much higher than when the previous Democratic Party president, Bill Clinton, tried unsuccessfully to reform America's health care system. How far can this go? Will a real bullet ever be fired at one of these events? Wouldn't that cause a frenzy?
The president himself is safely on vacation now, but pundits continue to weigh in and lawmakers continue to hold town hall debates. The rhetoric is heated, placards are getting torn, and cameras by citizen journalist of all political stripes, pick up the action. Congress will reconvene in early September, with lots of attention now focused on what will happen then.
This report by Kent Klein has the president complaining that the media is giving too much attention to disturbances at protests.
Still, there is a clear divide, between those who want more government involvement in terms of health care, and those who view such a development as outrageous or at least, unnecessary. It seems an important part of America's future hangs in the balance.
"We are demanding that the United States stop arming and aiding Israel. We are in fact calling for a cut-off of all aid to Israel." -- Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the Answer Coalition. "There have been too many meetings with politicians in backrooms and not enough conversations in people's living rooms and at their kitchen tables. That is what it's really going to take." -- Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, President Israel Project
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most divisive issues in the world today.
In the United States, activists line up on both sides of this complex impasse, which has sparked decades of violence.
This report looks into some of these activists’ arguments and counter-arguments, their strategies and their views on U.S. government policy.
A related audio-video report by Cindy Saine and Leta Hong Fincher shows how President Barack Obama is pressing Israel's new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a two-state solution.
Another audio-video report by Mohamed Elshinnawi describes how experts differ on whether President Obama can succeed in bringing peace to the Middle East.
"I am 67 years of age, and I never, never, thought I would live to see this day when a black man became president of these United States." -- Inauguration Attendee
The intent of this vlog (video log) is to mix and match words, audio, pictures and video to tell important, relevant stories about the American experience, in an unscripted style.
For my first posting, I go back to Barack Obama's Inauguration Day on January 20th, 2009, when I braved Washington, D.C.’s bitter cold alongside a million or so people with no access to heated VIP boxes. I rode the crammed public transit system early in the morning, walked through police roadblocks and watched the historic ceremony on big screens set up on the National Mall -- all the while recording some of the stories that people wanted to share.
Other VOA stories that day included Derek Kilner filing a radio spot from Kenya on how residents there celebrated the beginning of the presidency of the first African-American president, whom they also consider a native son, while Jim Malone reported on how the Inaugural celebrations quickly gave way to presidential realities.
As a multi-media reporter for VOA News, Nico lets people tell American stories unscripted. Write me on ncolomb (at) voanews (dot) com. Thanks for watching!
