Author Archives: Maria

Yanis Varoufakis: The Green New Deal for Europe

Yanis Varoufakis was already an internationally known economist and academic when he was elected to the Greek parliament as a member of the Syriza party. He served as Minister of Finance from January to July 2015. He resigned when Syriza broke its campaign promise to re-negotiate Greece’s debt and significantly curtail the austerity measures imposed on Greece.
Varoufakis has become one of the eloquent and best known critics of the unlimited economic growth systems in Europe and the US – that make the largest corporations and financial institutions major drivers of climate change.
Yanis Varoufakis is answering the question: What’s wrong in Europe today and how to fix it tomorrow morning and presents the Green New Deal for Europe and how it [ . . . ]

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The Authoritarian Absurdity of the U.S. Constitution TWO of TWO

Paul Street on Why it Matters Today  This is the conclusion of Part ONE of the talk by Paul Street, an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, teacher, journalist, historian, and author of seven books. In this talk, that he gave at the Open University of the Left in Chicago in March 2019, he offered arguments and proof that the US constitution is not the sacred document protecting the “Peoples Rights”, but on the contrary is authoritarian and anti-democratic by design.
After a summary from Part ONE the topics in this part TWO range from problems with impeachment, the Supreme Court decisions equating money with speech and with the Democratic Party neo-liberal tendencies. Conversely the formation of a third party is also made [ . . . ]

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The Authoritarian Absurdity of the U.S. Constitution ONE of TWO

Paul Street on Why it Matters Today – Paul Street is an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, teacher, journalist, historian, and author of seven books. In this talk, that he gave at the Open University of the Left in Chicago in March 2019, he offered arguments and proof that the US constitution is not the sacred document protecting the “Peoples Rights”, but on the contrary is authoritarian and anti-democratic by design.
For the 18th Century slaveholders and merchants popular sovereignty was the ultimate nightmare and they embedded safety mechanisms into the constitution that remain in force today via the Senate, Supreme Court and Electoral College. Street details how U.S. politics and policy are badly distorted by the nation’s exceptionally durable charter and [ . . . ]

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Vandana Shiva: Oneness VS. The 1% – An Interview by Chris Hedges

Vandana Shiva came to the US in the early 1990s in the campaigns against the World Trade Organization and globalization. She was well known as protector of seeds and a brilliant critic of biotechnology. Her most recent 2019 book: Oneness VS. The 1%, culminates that work in an amazing indictment of a new world-wide power center reaching from Monsanto to Artificial intelligence. Vandana Shiva describes what she calls a poison cartel comprising of Bayer that just took over Monsanto, to Dow that has merged with Dupont; and Syngenta that has merged with ChemChina. What these corporations have in common is the control of our foods and the chemicals used on them. They are defining industrial agriculture and have enormous impacts [ . . . ]

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Arnie Gundersen – Fukushima at Eight

Interview by Michael Welch on the Ongoing Cover-Up of Nuclear Hazards in Japan and Abroad – Michael Welch is host and producer of the Global Research News Hour in Canada. His guest, Arnie Gundersen, holds an MA in nuclear engineering and once worked for the nuclear industry. Gundersen was a licensed reactor operator and managed and coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the US. However he became increasingly more aware of the high risks while at the same time observing serious safety breaches. He spoke out and became a whistle blower. After 20 years as nuclear engineer and executive, Gundersen was fired from his job in 1990.
He was an expert witness on the Three Mile Island partial melt-down, [ . . . ]

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Extinction Rebellion – Rupert Read and Alison Green TWO of TWO

In an open letter signed by Vandana Shiva, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Bill McKibben and many more Extinction Rebellion states: “The climate crisis is worsening much faster than previously predicted. Every single day 200 species are becoming extinct … Political leaders worldwide are failing to address the environmental crisis … International political organisations and national governments must … urgently draw up comprehensive policies to address it.”
Dr. Rupert Read is an academic teaching Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He is a long time Green Party politician and a former Green Party spokesperson for transport.
Dr. Alison Green has held many senior academic positions in UK universities. Last year she resigned from academia to become a full time activist. She co-wrote [ . . . ]

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Extinction Rebellion ONE of TWO – Dr. Rupert Read

In October 2018 about one hundred academics signed a call to action. They established Extinction Rebellion in the United Kingdom. The movement has become international with Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva and Noam Chomsky signing their support to the second letter.
The goal of Extinction Rebellion is to use non-violent resistance to bring about radical change to prevent climate collapse, loss of biodiversity and to reduce the risk of human extinction.
Dr. Rupert Read is teaching Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He is a long time Green Party politician and a former Green Party spokesperson for transport.
He spoke on February 6, 2019 at the University of East Anglia.

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Kevin Anderson: Talk to the Oxford Climate Society, TWO of TWO

Opening with Greta Thunberg addressing EU politicians in Brussels – In August 2018, at age 15, Greta Thunberg started the first school strike for climate outside the Swedish parliament building. She skipped classes and maintained a regular presence every Friday. By the time she addressed the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, and the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019, her courageous and well researched talks were seen by hundreds of thousands via the internet. This is part of her talk to EU politicians on 2/21/2019.
Greta Thunberg and Prof. Kevin Anderson have great respect for each other. They agree on the urgency of the task and on many details of the solutions. [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)