Newest Catalog Items

The Chris Hedges Report: How to defeat the billionaire class

Interview with Kshama Sawant, Socialist City Council Member, Seattle, WA Imagine a woman running and winning in 2013 as socialist for City Council in a town that is dominated by some of the world’s largest corporations. Seattle Washington is home to Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and seven more Fortune 500s.
Kshama Sawant helped lead the fight, in 2014, that made Seattle the first major American city to mandate a $15 an hour minimum wage. She and her allies took on Jeff Bezos and pushed through a business tax that increased city revenues by an estimated $230 million a year. In December 2021 Amazon had spent over $3 million to recall her but failed.
Here are excerpts of an inspiring conversation [ . . . ]

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Noam Chomsky: War in Ukraine is an “insane experiment”

On May 13, 2022, the Ukrainian exile, Wlad Jachtchenko, interviewed the linguist, philosopher, historian, social critic, and analyst of US foreign policy, Prof. Noam Chomsky.
Wlad Jachtchenko studied law, modern history and literature and holds degrees from Munich and Columbia University, New York City. After working for the United Nations and as lawyer in Munich, Wlad is now teaching public speaking and how to develop critical thinking.
Here are excerpts from their conversation. You can find the full 48 minute interview on YouTube under the title: Noam Chomsky: War in Ukraine is “an insane experiment” by the US.
DATE 2022/05/13

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction – Noam Chomsky

From the TUC Radio Archives, Feb. March 2015 – The New York Academy of Medicine In his 2013 book: Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe, Noam Chomsky warned that we are facing “two problems for our species survival — nuclear war and environmental catastrophe.” Up to this point in history problems caused by humans were regional. However just in the last few decades climate change and nuclear war have become a threat to all life.
Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his PhD in linguistics in 1955. In 1967 he gained public attention for his vocal op2015position to U.S. involvement in the war on Vietnam and was arrested several times. [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Ukraine: It’s Not What They’re Telling You – Ray McGovern

On April 19, 2022, the former CIA analyst Ray McGovern spoke in a talk sponsored by the Social Justice Forum, Raleigh. Excerpts on this program focus on nuclear weapons, the Maidan Coup, and the Minsk Agreement.
McGovern’s CIA career began under President John F. Kennedy, and lasted through the presidency of George H.W. Bush. McGovern advised Henry Kissinger during the Richard Nixon administration. Under Ronald Reagan he chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief.He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 to protest the CIA’s involvement in torture.
McGovern had been invited by the Social Justice Forum, Raleigh, to fill in what was not talked about in the media regarding Ukraine. [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Yanis Varoufakis: Looming Threats in the Global Economy and the War in Ukraine

Yanis Varoufakis taught economics in Britain, Australia, and his home town of Athens, Greece. In 2015 he became part of the Greek government. After his resignation he remained deeply involved in European politics. This is an interview by Steve Paikin on Canadian public TV, on April 21, 2022. Paikin is host of TVO’s Public Affairs program, The Agenda, and a well known documentary producer.
Paikin also brought up the four hour documentary about Varoufakis just released in May 2022 under the title: In the Eye of the Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis. The filmmaker Raoul Martinez says: “In this documentary Varoufakis raises urgent questions about where our civilization is headed and how power works at the highest levels. [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Who’s Counting – Marilyn Waring: War is the biggest growth industry of all – Archive TWO of TWO

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. The international trade in arms is the biggest growth industry of all. Killing people, or preparing to kill them, is considered very valuable in the international economic system. The death, homelessness, injury, poverty and starvation caused by the use of these weapons is not even registered as a deficit.
This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the [ . . . ]

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Who’s Counting – Marilyn Waring on Endless Economic Growth – Archive ONE of TWO

Our economic system assigns no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment
Marilyn Waring’s work and intriguing life are described in a documentary film by Terre Nash. I’m bringing back the soundtrack of this film to support a debate on the unquestioned need for economic growth at all cost and on what course to take to end the war on Ukraine.
At age 22 (in 1974) 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, [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 39.8MB)

Joanna Macy: A Wiser, Braver World (TUC Archives)

“This transition to a life sustaining culture is a revolution in the magnitude and scope of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago.”
The Great Turning, Awakened Action Symposium
On the Summer Solstice of 2020 Joanna Macy, from her home in Berkeley, spoke at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The Buddhist monastery had called for Awakened Action and invited Women Leaders to Speak to Race, Poverty, Climate, and the Covid Pandemic.
Joanna Macy is an eco-philosopher and a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. Now in her very early nineties she has for decades helped transform despair and apathy into constructive change. As teacher, writer of eight books and antinuclear activist she has created [ . . . ]

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Joanna Macy Remembers Thich Nhat Hanh

An interview by lay Buddhist practitioner Jo Confino
Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese monk, peace activist, poet, author, teacher and an inspiration for engaged Buddhism. Called Thay for short, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam in 1966 after expressing opposition to the war. A year later Martin Luther King nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. After a 39-year exile, Thay was permitted to visit Vietnam in 2005. He died on January 22, 2022.
Joanna Macy has lived in the SF Bay area for much of her life. While I was living in the area as I never missed a chance to hear her and talk to her. What intrigued me most were her anti nuclear campaigns – her many [ . . . ]

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The Role of NATO in War and Peace in Ukraine – Professors Noam Chomsky and John Mearsheimer

Neutrality or Membership? On January 10, 2022, the author, linguist, and historian Noam Chomsky addressed the question: Was Ukraine invited to become part of NATO – and who did the inviting and when. Chomsky speaks on the risk of Europe being subordinated to US NATO politics. After a lifetime teaching at MIT Chomsky is now Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona; and still active as philosopher, historian, and author.
On March 3, 2022, John Mearsheimer spoke on the topic of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine. NATO membership VS neutrality has become the most contested factor in the attempts to bring peace to Ukraine. However the history of the founding and subsequent expansion of NATO is [ . . . ]

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Yanis Varoufakis – How do we get the Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine

Varoufakis March 9 message to the «Peace Forum» and his response to radio host and YouTuber Russell Brand.
This is a passionate appeal for peace by the former academic and Minister of Finance. After resigning from the Greek government in 2015 Yanis Varoufakis did not return to academia. He is now engaged in European politics as a visionary speaker, writer, and active participant. In February 2016, he launched the Democracy in Europe Movement and is active in the building, social justice and financial goal setting of the European Union and holds a parliamentary seat since July 2019.
The first clip is Varoufakis’ message for peace in Ukraine to the Progressive International. Varoufakis records from his kitchen for the meeting on [ . . . ]

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Ukraine is on the Brink of a Nuclear Catastrophe – Linda Pentz Gunter and Dr. Ira Helfand

QUOTE: “We are in an unprecedented situation. For the first time a war is being fought in a region where there are operating nuclear reactors. This presents an extreme risk to human life unlike anything we have seen in previous wars.” That’s a statement from Beyond Nuclear, of Feb. 25, 2022.
For a relatively small country the nuclear statistics are impressive: Ukraine operates 15 reactors, ranking 7th in the world in 2020. The single largest nuclear power plant in Europe is in Ukraine. Ukraine’s power sector is the twelfth-largest in the world in terms of installed capacity. 54 gigawatts are providing over 50% of Ukraine’s electricity.
Linda Pentz Gunter presents a list of 6 catastrophes that can befall a nuclear power [ . . . ]

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NATO’s Russia-Ukraine Crisis – Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and Prof. David Gibbs
Professor of History at the University of Arizona, David Gibbs joined the effort by Rootsaction to explain Russia’s longstanding issue with NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to – in their own words: “provide collective security against the Soviet Union.”
Both Gibbs and Wilkerson say that the promise of not expanding NATO East towards the then Soviet Union was indeed a formal quid pro quo in return for the USSR allowing Germany to re-unite, not just a casual conversation.
On February 6, 2022, the Coalition for Peace Action held a webinar with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on peaceful alternatives in the Russia-Ukraine-NATO crisis.
Wilkerson [ . . . ]

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Doughnut Economics – Serving the Needs of All Within the Means of the Living Planet

Kamana-maikalani Beamer, Hawaii and Kate Raworth, England Kamana-maikalani Beamer is full professor at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa. In his teaching and everyday practice he is uncovering the restorative way in which most people of the Hawaiian Islands interacted with the natural world before colonization by the US. From the late 1800s settlers began by imposing sugar plantations and cattle herds that began the destruction of whole ecosystems.
Kate Raworth, based in Oxford, England, is the author of the book Doughnut Economics that has been translated into over 20 languages. She is Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.
Kate Raworth puts out the challenge that we need to eliminate human deprivation and ecological degradation at the [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)