Author Archives: Maria

The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict TWO of TWO 

By 2011

In this Part TWO: a segment of Bishop Desmond Tutu’s foreword to the book; Horowitz repeats the story of the children of a Gaza family shot in front of their home by Israeli soldiers; Phil Weiss give a moving account of the international solidarity expressed after the onslaught on Gaza; and Horowitz reads from Naomi Klein’s introduction.

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The Goldstone Report, Part ONE – G. Bisharat & A. Horowitz

By 2011

In the spring of 2009, South African judge Richard Goldstone set out on a mission to the Gaza Strip to investigate possible war crimes committed during Israel’s invasion. His report is one of the most controversial and historic documents published on Israel and Palestine. Adam Horowitz, Lizzy Ratner and Philip Weiss published their comments in 2011 by Nation Books.

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Michael Parenti: BURNING OF BOOKS

By 2011

The burning of books creates a powerful symbol, to this day people kill and die over such an action. In this reading from Michael Parenti’s History as Mystery a book burning story is told that is deeper, and maintained for centuries longer than any of these efforts before or after. Parenti discloses who the biggest purveyor of book burnings of the last two millennia was and how the real perpetrators and academics tried to shift the blame.

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Michael Parenti: PSYCHO-HISTORY

By 2011

An Extension of the popular REAL HISTORY Project
A considerable number of historians, political scientists and psychologists have begun to rely on psychology to explain political phenomena. They treat individuals as driven by covert, personal emotions, distorting our understanding of political life. Using the examples of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and US President Herbert Hoover Parenti proves what is wrong with that analysis.

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TO THE MEMORY OF CHERNOBYL, Part FOUR

By 2011

Today’s last of four program presents important information on the plight of the children of Chernobyl who – to this day – need vacations in uncontaminated areas to detoxify their bodies from some of the embedded radioactive substances that they absorb in every day life. Also explained is how to set up ongoing measures, under control of local communities, to deal with the persisting radiation and find methods to measure the burden of internal radiation.

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TO THE MEMORY OF CHERNOBYL, Part THREE

By 2011

This program presents the consequences of the Chernobyl explosion on the environment. How has the radiation affected – and continues to affect air, water, the soil, plants and animals. How does radiation move, disperse, bio-accumulate and enter the food chain. Specific examples are from studies on rivers and lakes, wild and domestic animals, birds, fish, fungi, bacteria, viruses, studies that show that they were all affected, in varying degrees, but without exception.

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TO THE MEMORY OF CHERNOBYL, Part TWO

By 2011

The extensive section on health effects in this book offers a whole new view of the consequences of radiation induced disease that affect body systems such as the whole endocrine system, not just the thyroid, or the immune system, the respiratory and the reproductive systems. Also a brief explanation of “half life” “hot spots” and why background radiation is different from radiation from nuclear processes.

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TO THE MEMORY OF CHERNOBYL, Part ONE

By 2011

Instead of honoring its victims at this time Chernobyl is referenced to minimize the impact of Fukuchima.
Supposedly only 35 people died. The World Health Organization and the IAEA, whose mission is to promote nuclear power, claim that “there is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure from Chernobyl.”
That the reality on the ground is very different comes to life in a book, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.

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IT WAS AND IS POSSIBLE TO STOP NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

By 2011

Kay Drey and S. David Freeman
Kay Drey speaks on Routine Releases by nuclear reactors. They emit dangerous gases and fission products during their day to day operations. David Freeman states that no nuclear power plants should be built since they are dangerous, cost prohibitive, and can easily be replaced with renewable energy. He also says that we need a police state to live with them. He closed down 8 nuclear reactors during his tenure as Chief Executive at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and one more when he was General Manager of the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD).

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PLUTONIUM FUEL FOR NUCLEAR REACTORS?

By 2011

The disaster at Fukushima makes it apparent how little is known about the operation of a nuclear power plant. For example the so-called “spent” fuel in the cooling pools on the rooftops is many times more dangerous than the fresh, non irradiated fuel. The biggest danger from the Fukuchima nuclear accident comes from unit 3 that was stocked in September 2010 with MOX, a new mixed oxide reactor fuel that contains plutonium – not as a fission byproduct – but from the outset inside the fuel rods. MOX fuel is many times more lethal than uranium fuel.

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IMPACT OF RADIATION FROM NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS – Dr. Helen Caldicott

By 2011

As world attention is focussed on the severely damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan it become apparent how little is known about the radioactive substances being released and their impacts on life.
Helen Caldicott says that 200 new elements are made inside a nuclear reactor, all intensely radioactive, some lasting seconds, some 17 million years. Many of them are carcinogenic, some are mutagenic. In this speech she explains how radiation induces cancers and mutations, and describes the effects of the four most significant isotopes present in nuclear power plants: radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, and plutonium-239.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:02 — 19.9MB)

Michael Parenti: The Functions of Fascism (REAL HISTORY THREE/FIVE)

By 2011

Parenti says that fascism is a new order and consciousness that served
the same old power structure and promised to solve the ills of the many
while protecting the interests of the few. He answers in detail who
financed the fascist parties and what services the fascists rendered in
return.

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Michael Parenti: The Spanish American War and the Rise of US Imperialism (REAL HISTORY TWO/FIVE)

By 2011

Why did the US give verbal support to the Cuban liberation movements against Spain while selling weapons to Spain to fight the poplar movement? The Spanish American War was an important turning point in the transition of the US to an imperial power and many of the forces at work are eerily contemporary.

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Michael Parenti: The Myth of the Founding Fathers (REAL HISTORY – ONE/FIVE)

By 2011

As the US government claims to spread democracy around the world and is ghost writing constitutions for other countries, the spotlight falls back on this country. Is the current US system a democracy? Has it ever been one? In The Myth of the Founding Fathers Parenti takes us back to the early days of the republic. Who were the founding fathers, what were their goals in writing the US constitution? Who did they exclude and who did they favor? How many of them actually wanted to create a monarchy? And who, in the end, ratified the constitution after it was written?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)