Author Archives: Maria

The Real Patch Adams – How to eliminate greed and profit in health care

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

In the 1998 movie Robin Williams played Patch Adams, the funny doctor with a red clown’s nose, the young man who almost committed suicide but then found joy in becoming a physician and taking care of people. That movie made Patch Adams a folk hero but it also undermined the deeper meaning of the healing project that he and his friends were and are building today.
In this program Patch Adams gives a review of the history of his project, the Gesundheit Institute, <http://www.patchadams.org> lists some of the international activities on behalf of orphans, prevention of child sexual slavery and women’s mortality in childbirth. Adams now wants to build a full hospital based on the principles of healing that [ . . . ]

Stephen Zarlenga – The American Monetary Act

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Solving the Financial Crisis by Monetary Reform
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has posted the following on his web site:
“The U.S. monetary reform is urgently needed: It is long past time we look at the
implications of . . . the privatization of money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the bank fractional reserve system and our debt-based economic system. Unless we have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in order to protect the economic well being of America.”
<http://kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2786&Itemid=76>
Observers believe that this single measure has the potential of bringing together tens of millions of [ . . . ]

Tom Greco – The End Of Money And The Future Of Civilization

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative CommunitiesBanks, Community Money

Tom Greco demystifies money and banking and explains the destructive power of the current financial system. He challenges us to recognize that our dreams of a sane, just and ecologically sound future can become reality only if we change the way in which money is created and used.
Tom Greco was recorded at the beginning of his lecture tour for his most recent book: THE END OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION. A former engineer and college professor, Greco has written on monetary and financial innovation for over 30 years. Earlier books include: New Money for Healthy Communities and Money and Debt, A Solution to the Global Crisis. His web site is http://www.reinventingmoney.com
Kelly Durkin and I recorded him at [ . . . ]

David Korten – Community And The New Economy

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Why Wall Street can’t be fixed and how to replace it
David Korten is the author of the 2009 book: “Agenda for a New Economy” and chair of the board of YES Magazine. He is probably best known for his famous anti-globalization book: When Corporations Rule the World.
He argues that pouring trillions of dollars in bail-out money into the Wall Street institutions that created the crisis does nothing to repair the failed economic system.
In this speech, given in March 2009 at the NW regional conference of Veterans for Peace, he analyzes two major flaws of the current economic system and points to ways to replace them. One is the monetary system, the other the concept of ever increasing growth, measured as [ . . . ]

The Ceres Community Project

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

A phone conversation with the Executive Director Cathryn Couch and client Katherine Kraemer.
In the California town of Sebastopol high school students meet for two hours after school on a day of their choice to cook organic healing food for people with serious health problems. Named after the Greek goddess of agriculture and generosity, Ceres, this project is almost entirely based on gifts. The teenage volunteers enjoy cooking so much that there is a waiting list. Sonoma County organic farmers donate most of the food, the use of the first kitchen was donated by a church, and volunteers are bringing the prepared dishes to the homes of the clients. These clients, and often their whole family receive a week’s worth of [ . . . ]

Ithaca Community Money

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

A history of the ITHACA HOURS community currency
During the Great Depression when banks were closed so they could be audited – over 400 currencies called SCRIPT were used in the US to buy food and services. When the banks reopened, sometimes several months later, SCRIPT was replaced with the federal currency.
Since the beginning of the financial crisis a resurgence of interest in alternative money systems has led to many new initiatives. A new website in the US called mainstreetcash.org is giving an overview over a huge number of community currencies and computer based trading systems with space for comment and discussion.
Featured on that web site are the Ithaca Hours, the oldest printed paper currency in the US. Founded in 1991 [ . . . ]

Marilyn Waring – Sex, Lies And Global Economics

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

The gross domestic product, the GDP, allegedly is an indicator of the well being of a society. Since powerful forces in banking and public policy are driving attempts to increase growth to solve the 2009 financial crisis it is important to listen to the critics of growth.
The GDP formula was invented by John Maynard Keynes who wrote a pamphlet during World War II entitled: The British National Income and How to Pay for the War. In 1953 that Keynesian set of rules was imposed on everybody. The rules are called The United Nations System of National Accounts. All countries must use them or they will not be allowed to be a member of the UN, or deal with the World [ . . . ]

Fred Morse – Sun Engines And Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

A brief history of a carbon free technology that could produce enough electricity to replace coal. CSP was pioneered by US engineers in the late 19th century and lost out to oil and coal.
President Nixon asked Fred Morse whether solar energy made sense for America. His answer was “definitely yes”. Fred Morse went on to manage solar energy in the Department of Energy for Presidents Carter and Reagan until 1989 when the programs were dismantled. Today Morse is the senior adviser for US operations for the Spanish firm Abengoa. They operate in over 70 countries and specialize in solar and bio-energy. Abengoa is trying to build the world’s largest CSP plant near Phoenix, AZ. <http://www.abengoasolar.com/sites/solar/en/our_projects/usa/arizona/index.html> Coal and nuclear [ . . . ]

Community Money – A Special Section on Printing Your Own Money

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Local Currency Conference, San Francisco, Calif., February 1998. Has your community printed its own money?
Are you personally curious about the worldwide movement to create local barter systems?
Here are highlights of the first-ever conference on the topic.
Printing Community Money
code: C405 >To order a copy click here: $8.00
This documentary takes you to Ithaca, N.Y., where a successful community money system was launched in 1991. Six years later, over $60,000 dollars worth of Ithaca Hours had been put into circulation, triggering an estimated $2 million dollars worth of exchanges. Over 40 towns in the US and Canada have begun their own community money systems modeled on Ithaca Hours, initiated by Paul Glover, an urban historian and planner and long-term Ithaca resident.
Community [ . . . ]

Amparo Cadavid: Magdalena Medio Community Radio in Colombia

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

In Search of Sister Stations
(The special edition of this tape comes with the talk by Peter Dale Scott on Side B)
At a radio conference in Madison, Wisconsin, a shy, young woman from Colombia arrived with a video recorded along the Magdalena River. It showed three of the 15 radio stations that are currently on the air in that region.
Ranging from a tiny shed where an elder woman shoos away the chickens every morning to turn on the transmitter to a full-fledged studio with staff meetings, these signals stand for the huge diversity of stations that are only a few dozen miles apart. What unites all of them is the fear of Plan Colombia. Financial support to the army has always [ . . . ]

Civil Disobedience: Forest and Land Action

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Rainbow Warrior Action
Interview with the daring women and men from Greenpeace who boarded the freighter Thorseggen, en route to Long Beach, by night and blocked the cargo cranes for three days. They called attention to the newsprint containing old growth that had been loaded on the Fraser surrey docks in Vancouver. The Great Bear Rain forest is the largest remaining tract of temperate rain forest left on earth. 50 minutes, 1998
code: A133 >To order a cassette copy click here: $8.00
Luna, Julia, and the Survival of the Forest
Julia Butterfly Hill has been living in a 1000 year old redwood tree called Luna for one year. She has protected Luna from being logged and has become an eloquent spokesperson for [ . . . ]

Civil Disobedience: Grassroots War Resistance

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Kathy Kelly: STOP the war on Iraq –
Adam Shapiro, ISM : STOP the war on Palestine
an invitation to create International Teams
Kathy Kelly was part of teams of Internationals who went to Iraq, Kosovo and Palestine to help protect civilians and refugees. She explains how this work is done and how to overcome fear of going into a war zone. Kathy Kelly is the co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness. <http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw > They are working on ending the sanctions on Iraq that cause the death of so many children.
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of Kathy Kelly click HERE
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of Adam Shapiro click> HERE
code A219: >To order a copy click [ . . . ]

Cities – and how to make them a better place to live

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Mike Davis from the City of Quartz to Gentrified San Francisco
A conversation with Tim Redmond
Los Angelenos who read his “City of Quartz” never looked at their town the same way again. Seen from the intersection between kitsch and ecological disaster, Davis reveals the hidden history of the city that points into a future shared with other towns. This conversation centers on that common pattern of development.
Mike Davis is a former meat-cutter and long-distance truck-driver. He now teaches Urban Theory at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Tim Redmond is the editor of the weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian.
code: A 178 >To order a copy click here: $8.00
Go to A-Infos to download a broadcast quality copy of [ . . . ]

Ward Churchill – A Little Matter Of Genocide

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Sovereignty

Holocaust and Denial in the Americas
29 second Preview /Promo Part ONE
30 second Preview /Promo Part TWO
Now that Thanksgiving is behind us we may be more open to an unflinching look at genocide and denial in America. Churchill compares the treatment of North American Indians to historical instances of genocide by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Turks against Armenians, as well as Nazis against the Poles and Jews. With one important difference. This genocide is unparalleled in term of the size of population and in the way it was sustained through time.
In the first of two parts Churchill sets out to prove that the numbers of how many Indians lived North of the Rio Grande were cooked – [ . . . ]

Dennis Banks – The Sacred Run 2006

By MariaJuly 11, 2016SovereigntyNative Americans

Recorded at the Roxie, San Francisco, February 2, 2006.
Dennis Banks, co-founder of AIM, participant in the occupation of Alcatraz and in the defense of Wounded Knee, and co-founder of the annual Sacred Run, spoke on the eve of the 2006 run from San Francisco to Washington, DC.
This is a moving, unedited, 27 minute speech on the origins of the run, the way walking changes people’s lives, Native American land rights, the names of the many tribes that will host the walk along the way, the occupation of Alcatraz, his time in prison, and his meeting with Cindy Sheehan when he joined her in Crawford.
A radio quality mp3 file click HERE
The walk began after a sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz, [ . . . ]