Author Archives: Maria

Vandana Shiva: The Seed at the Heart of Freedom (TWO of TWO)

In Part TWO Shiva explains how biotechnology creates super weeds, poisons beneficial insects and soil microbes and only brings high yields when fertilizers, pesticides and abundant water are applied. Monsanto is using the patent rights they received via former Monsanto lawyer Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court to collect royalty payments and make it illegal to save and exchange seeds. She calls for the international abolition of GMOs and the removal of patents since seeds are a gift from nature to be shared freely.

Vandana Shiva: The Seed at the Heart of Freedom (ONE of TWO)

On Genetic Engineering’s War on Life – Vandana Shiva came in September 2011 to the Heirloom Seed Expo held in Santa Rosa, CA, to give the keynote speech. 10,000 people had come on short notice to see plants and seeds that would already be extinct had not someone lovingly collected and bred them.
Shiva trained in quantum physics and became a seed saver and ecologist in 1982. She and her organization Navdanya resist the spread of GMOs into India. For her the imposition of GMOs is a war on life and the most recent wave of colonialism. She learned from Gandhi – as he chose the spinning wheel, Navdanya chose the seed as the vessel of life and dedicated themselves to [ . . . ]

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9/11 Reclaiming our Future (TWO of TWO)

Anodea Judith is founder and director of Sacred Centers. Her book, Waking the Global Heart: Humanity’s Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love, was the winner of the 2007 Nautilus Book Award for Social Change. She is a groundbreaking thinker, writer, and spiritual teacher. Her passion for the realization of untapped human potential matches her concern for humanity’s impending crises — her fervent wish is that we “wake up in time.”

9/11 Reclaiming our Future (ONE of TWO)

– with Kevin Danaher, Ed Asner, Richard Gage and others
This program begins with an excerpt from the trailer for an upcoming movie by Engineers and Architects for 9/11 Truth about the destruction of World Trade Center Building #7, followed by a talk by Kevin Danaher about reclaiming our future. Danaher is co-founder of Global Exchange and executive producer of the annual San Francisco Green Festival, and husband of Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin.

Remembering “Granny D” and her fight to get money out of politics (TWO of TWO)

This part covers Granny D’s arrival in Washington DC after her 14 months walk that ended with her cross county skiing along the C & O Canal into Washington DC because a snowstorm had made it impossible to walk along the roads. Also in this program references to her continued work against money in politics for ten more years which included her arrest in the rotunda of the Capitol building, and her campaign for Senate in NH. (Includes the voices of Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Amy Goodman and others.)

Remembering “Granny D” and her fight to get money out of politics (ONE of TWO)

Doris “Granny D.” Haddock was the amazing, eloquent, funny grandmother who gave the last 15 years of her life to getting money out of politics. She embodied a populism that is fueled by love, compassion and a bright, clear sense of justice. Hear two speeches she gave in 1999.
Granny D. was best known for walking, in her 90th year, from Los Angeles to Washington DC to tell those she met along the way that there is a way to restore democracy by removing the privilege of money.

Michael Parenti: The Struggle for History (TWO of TWO)

The conclusion of this speech builds up to a timely and inspiring quote by William Faulkner: “The past is never dead and buried, in fact it is never even passed. If we are lied to with impunity we are robbed of the first condition of a democratic citizenry, how the present can help us understand the past and the past understand the present. How we can arm ourselves against the lies and calumny that are bombarding us all the time. And our history need not bore us, our history need not imprison us but it can liberate our understanding so that we might become not its victims but its active agents.”

Michael Parenti: The Struggle for History (ONE of TWO) 

Parenti quotes Winston Churchill who said to his fellow party members: “History will be kind to us because I plan to write it.” Far from being an objective account of events history bears the mark of its writer, the omissions of the censors, and the interests of those who benefit from making it. Parenti shows how to take the recording of history back from politicians, the media, professors, clergy, and business people.

Helen Caldicott and Michael Madsen: Into Eternity

Part TWO
Into Eternity is a documentary about the building of the world’s first permanent repository for nuclear waste in Finland. It shows not only the construction under way that will take 140 years, but introduces the people involved, the scientists, regulators and corporate executives who oversee this project. None of them will be alive when Onkalo, as the repository is called, will be finished in 2120; and they must expect this repository to remain intact and untouched by future humans for at least 100,000 years. Such is the danger and longevity of waste from nuclear power plants.

Helen Caldicott and Michael Madsen: Into Eternity

Part ONE
This is a conversation between HC and Madsen whose film, Into Eternity, premiered in the US. This is a thought provoking exchange between the veteran campaigner, Helen Caldicott, who dedicated her life to alerting us to the nuclear danger, and the young Danish artist. He introduces thoughts about civilization, language, danger and eternity.

Ellen Brown: THE FINANCIAL HIJACKING OF AMERICA (Part TWO)

Ellen Brown critiques the entity at the center of globalized finance, the Bank for International Settlements. Then she describes the Bank of North Dakota, amazing, successful, state owned, founded in 1919 and flourishing today. And she suggest that other states adopt that model to solve their budget crisis.