Chelsea Manning attempted to commit suicide twice last year.

As journalist, I'm responsible to the American people, not to the military of the United States.

If 2,000 Tea Party activists descended on Wall Street, you would probably have an equal number of reporters there covering them.

While law-abiding Muslims are forced to hide in their homes, and animal-rights activists are labeled as terrorists for undercover filming of abusive treatment at factory farms, right-wing hate groups are free to organize, parade, arm themselves to the hilt and murder with chilling regularity. It’s time for our society to confront this very real threat.

Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become.

In the meantime, it just makes it a little harder to smile. But so does the world.

Independent media can go to where the silence is and break the sound barrier, doing what the corporate networks refuse to do.