Speaking Out
Submitted by Jan Barry on March 24, 2009 - 00:58
Two decades ago, Phil Donahue played a major role in helping end the Cold War by introducing American and Soviet citizens to each other in historic international television talk shows watched by tens of millions of people. Fired by MSNBC in February 2003 for being too antiwar on the eve of war in Iraq, Donahue has continued conducting his peacemaking talks with much smaller audiences.
“We have to stop it now. We have to stand up,” Donahue, 73, said at a recent community meeting in Teaneck, NJ attended by about 130 people. Donahue spent much of Friday evening with an overflow audience at a small art gallery in the Puffin Cultural Forum, as part of his grassroots campaign to show Americans his “riveting” (Fox News), “superb” (Time magazine), “heart-wrenching” (New York Times) documentary about a severely wounded, antiwar veteran of Iraq, titled Body of War. An award-winning documentary released in 2007, it was not widely shown in movie theaters, Donahue noted. His appearance and showing of the film were sponsored by the Bergen Peace and Justice Coalition and local chapters of Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace as part of a week of actions marking the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq.
