Five weeks after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979 – on a mere three week’s notice – 70,000 determined people came to Washington, DC, to call for the shut-down of all nuclear power plants. And if they had succeeded the world would be a SO much better place today.
Bella Abzug, John Gofman, Helen Caldicott, Ralph Nader and more.
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Begins with a news clip from Utah, January 2012. The Downwinders are meeting for the first Day of Remembrance and mourn the many who died from fallout from bombs exploded at the Nevada Test Site. They are the living and dying proof of the dangers of radiation.
Dr. John Gofman was one of the prominent whistle blowers of the nuclear age. He was the first to warn of the danger and call for the shut-down of all nuclear power plants as early as 1970. Gofman came from the Manhattan Project, worked on the effects of radiation at Lawrence Livermore Lab and concluded that power plants are killers. He is the 1992 recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. He died in 2007.
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John Fuller delved into freedom of information files on the behavior of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1953 to the late nineties. The AEC denied that the deaths from cancer in St. George, Utah, had anything to do with the fact that the town was repeatedly engulfed in fallout from the bomb tests in Nevada.
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A reading from John G. Fuller
From the beginning of the nuclear age, from the Manhattan Project to the bomb testing program to the development of nuclear reactors one aspect remained concealed, that is the emission and the effects of radiation on life. And it was not a question whether scientists, government agencies, including the Atomic Energy Commission, were ignorant about the danger and the effects. Freedom of information requests reveal the evidence that they knew and decided to keep it secret or downplay it. And one can easisly argue that it remains one of the murderous secrets of our time as well.
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How many nuclear power plant accidents does it take to come to that conclusion. Even after Fukushima there is very little movement in that direction. Why is that? Are we mistaken or uninformed about the dangers of nuclear radiation? Do we believe again – and over again this time – that there are safe doses of radiation? That radiation from power plants will not stay dangerous – depending on the element – from days to hundreds, thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years?
The story of an extraordinary scientist illustrates the science and politics of nuclear power. Dr. John Gofman, from 1970 on, called for the closure of nuclear power plants. He came from the Manhattan Project, worked on the [ . . . ]
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The killing of four students on the campus of Kent State, Ohio, on May 4, 1970, during a demonstration against Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia received new attention on April 23, 2012. The Obama administration’s Justice Department decided not to re-open the case in spite of evidence that the guardsmen had been ordered to shoot. This reminded the public that the question of who ordered the shooting has never been resolved.
This is the first of an occasional series on the place that has become TUC Radio’s new home: Mendocino County, Northern California, to honor extraordinary people and events in this remote region. Here is the connection between a small local newspaper in Anderson Valley , a rural [ . . . ]
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Richard Heinberg may be best known for his appearance in the movie: The End of Suburbia that made it clear that the American Dream and the American urban geography are entirely dependent on abundant fossil fuels. That film inspired many to look for ways to strengthen local communities under a new concept: the Transition Town movement. The Mendocino Coast Transition Towns movement invited Heinberg in December 2011 to celebrate the release of his most recent book: The End of Growth.
In this part TWO continues his argument on depletion – not just of fossil fuels.
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An important contribution to the running debate on economic growth. In his new book Heinberg argues that growth is ending due to the convergence of three factors: Debt, depletion and disaster. Heinberg is considered one of the foremost experts on fossil fuel depletion. He is the author of ten books, including The Party’s Over Powerdown, Blackout and Peak Everything. He came to Mendocino, CA, in December 2011 to talk to – and exchange ideas with – the Mendocino Coast Transition Towns movement.
Heinberg is senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. His website is richardheinberg.com/. He appeared in the movie: The End of Suburbia that inspired so many to prepare for local self reliance.
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Dr. Michael Parenti has written about empire, history, the media, theology, and socialism in his decades as an activist and teacher. However one topic has intrigued him more than others. He once wrote that “Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last five centuries, carving up whole continents, oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is seldom accorded any serious attention by our academics, media, and political leaders.” This talk for KZFR in Chico, CA, on October 27, 2011, and his book set the record straight.
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“The Face of Imperialism will be hated by those who run the Empire, and it will be loved by people around the world – many of them indigenous peoples – who are defending themselves against the Empire.” That’s what the author Andre Vltchek wrote for the jacket of Dr. Michael Parenti’s most recent book.
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Marilyn Waring was only 22 when she was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament. She was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. This GDP system counts only cash transactions in the market and recognizes no value other than money. This means there is no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment. This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the Philippines shows that the labor of women feeding their children with subsistence agriculture is of no [ . . . ]
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– a classic from the film on radio archives of TUC Radio.
At age 22 Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a feminist economist. The film traces her quest to explore how the fate of women and of the earth are irrevocably tied up with the deadly pursuit of economic growth.
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In this second part Dr. Hassan states that anti women statements are nowhere in the Koran but were added later by Companions of the Prophet. However questioning a Companion is a capital offense. This program ends with an interview with Dr. Hassan. She gives a most amazing answer to the question whether Eve’s quest for consciousness (the apple story) was good or bad.
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Dr. Riffat Hassan, born in Pakistan and educated in England, taught theology in the US. Her feminist friends in Pakistan realized that they needed a theological argument to oppose anti woman legislation and asked her to help. She became, in the mid 1980s, the first trained theologian to take on, at personal risk, the misreading of the Koran with the explicit goal to help women’s liberation.
Recorded on April 1, 1993, at UC Berkeley, this is a two part program that begins with an moving account of her personal journey and ends, for this part ONE, with a painstakingly researched account of the story of Adam and Eve common to Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This myth has been used to declare [ . . . ]
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UC Berkeley Microbiologist Chapela asks: Can genetically engineered plants and animals not only make us sick when we eat them but can there be a horizontal gene transfer between their viralized genes and ours and the rest of nature? During his multiyear battle with Monsanto Canadian canola farmer Schmeiser became an international folk hero and expert in describing the dangerous ingredients that are inserted into the DNA of a seed that is engineered in the lab.
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