2012

Dr. James Hansen: CALL TO ACTION – LEAVE COAL IN THE GROUND AND PUT A PRICE ON CARBON

Topics: Superstorm Sandy, carbon pricing VS cap and trade.
Dr. James Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He is one the first climate scientists to issue an urgent warning on climate change and has been embattled ever since – and stood his ground. Now, a quarter century later he speaks, campaigns, and issues scientific papers with an ever growing group of concerned scientists from across the world. He works with Bill McKibben on the campaign against the Keystone XL Pipeline, joined in civil disobedience and was arrested. Hansen has very clear ideas as to what needs to be done politically to face the immediate danger of climate change.
On December [ . . . ]

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

Michael Parenti: The 1% Pathology and the Myth of Capitalism (TWO of TWO)

Parenti explores how the post World War II prosperity emerged in the US and how at the same time the organized destruction of the human and environmental support systems accelerated.
This is the conclusion of a one-hour speech by Dr. Michael Parenti, given in October 2012 at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington. Parenti, with a Ph.D. from Yale, is an independent scholar, lecturer and author of over 20 books.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)

Michael Parenti: The 1% Pathology and the Myth of Capitalism (ONE of TWO)

Dr. Michael Parenti gave this keynote speech for the 4th Annual People’s Movement Assembly at Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington in October, 2012. He talked about economics, neo-liberalism, globalization and the history of capitalism.
Parenti spoke and wrote about these topics long before most other academics dared mention – and much less critique –capitalism, the chosen economic form in the US, and really the world.
Raised in a working class Italian family in East Harlem, New York City, Parenti went on to receive his Ph.D. in political science at Yale in 1962. His academic career was cut short by his dismissal after he was arrested for protesting the US war on Vietnam. Parenti became an independent scholar, lecturer and author of over [ . . . ]

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Ward Churchill: A Little Matter of Genocide (TWO of TWO)

This segment on Genocide ends with an extraordinary statement by Ward Churchill on the importance of knowing history: “We got an entire society here that, with its own collaboration, quells certain knowledge that would disrupt its very convenient scenarios of what it wants to be by denying what it has been… And so we punch holes into the domes of false reality that have been constructed to shield the society from an understanding of itself. All this in order to get to the subliminal circumstances which can motivate people to tangibly, finally, oppose the order of things that we encounter in such a way as they can be transformed. I think the key to the whole of America lies right [ . . . ]

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John Trudell: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HUMAN BEING (TWO of TWO)

The Native American musician, poet and former national chairman of A.I.M., John Trudell, continues his moving, thought provoking spoken word and poetry address. He is opening this part with a surprising new analysis of the practice of voting for the lesser of two evils and continues with thoughts about democracy, technology, and dominance, and the curious construct of god in a human form.
Trudell describes Columbus as one who did not know what a human being is, and tries to activate ancient memories of those who arrived with and after Columbus and their long submerged links to their own tribal ancestry that was erased by the inquisition. Respect and responsibility are the leading values Trudell refers to and he asks [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

John Trudell: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HUMAN BEING (ONE of TWO)

This is a moving, thought provoking spoken word and poetry address by the Native American musician and leader John Trudell. He did not set out to be a writer. His poetic gift developed out of the remarkable, sometimes unbearable circumstances of his life.
Trudell grew up on and around the Santee Sioux reservation near Omaha, Nebraska. In 1969 he participated in the Indians of All Tribes occupation of Alcatraz. From 1973 to 1979 her served as national chairman of the American Indian Movement. The government response to A.I.M. was swift Trudell said, “They waged a war against us. They hunted us down. They killed, jailed, destroyed by any means necessary.”
In 1979 that war took a terrible personal toll on John Trudell. [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Edward Said: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights (Part TWO of TWO)

Said gives a report on GAZA, still under military occupation, but then and now a huge prison. He also refers to the first and second Intifada, the beginning of the building of the separation wall; and the divestment and boycott campaign in the US. All events are important historic dates that are eerily contemporary.
Said ends with a very personal description of the healing collaboration between him and the Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. The youth orchestra that they founded together in 1999 to bring Palestinians and Israelis together still performs in 2012.
In 1948 Said and his family were forced to leave Palestine for Cairo when the newly founded state of Israel took their ancestral home. Later Said came to the US, [ . . . ]

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

Edward Said: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights (Part ONE of TWO)

This is Said’s last major speech on Palestine, the war on Iraq and the Bush administration. On September 25, 2003, a message made its way around the world. Edward Said, Palestinian American, world famous professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and fearless defender of the Palestinian cause had died of leukemia in New York City, far from the city of Jerusalem where he was born in 1935.
In 1948 Said and his family were forced to leave Palestine for Cairo when the newly founded state of Israel took their ancestral home. Later Said came to the US, studied at Princeton and Harvard and went on to teach at Yale and Columbia. He was not only a renowned academic [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)

Miko Peled: The General’s Son (Part TWO of TWO)

In this second half of his talk Miko Peled, son or General Matti Peled, one of the founding fathers of Israel, talks about the moment in his life where everything changed. His 13 year old niece Smadar was among those killed in Jerusalem by two Palestinian suicide bombers. Miko Peled learned from his sister Nurit. She surprised the world press by blaming not the Palestinians but the Israeli government for the death of her daughter. She said the brutal occupation of Palestine had led to a measure of despair that caused the young suicide bombers to take their own lives, along with that of her daughter. Peled also explains why the two state solution is no longer possible and calls [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Miko Peled: The General’s Son (ONE of TWO)

Miko Peled’s father was the Israeli major general Matti Peled. He was part of the General Staff during the Six Day War in 1967. Israel then conquered the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai, setting the stage for the untenable situation the Palestinians face today. His son Miko visited the very territories his father had helped to conquer. He formed friendships in the West Bank, re-considered his own upbringing and did much original research to re-write with authority the history he was taught growing up in Israel.
Miko Peled’s book: The General’s Son, was published in 2012. The poet Alice Walker wrote the foreword and said that this book is the most hopeful on the topic of Israel/Palestine. Peled [ . . . ]

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

Pamm Larry and the California proposition to label genetically modified food

A snapshot in time of one of the most unexpectedly successful political campaigns over the right to know what is in our food
In a David VS Goliath fight a grassroots group joined by organic food, farm and environmental organizations, is facing some of the most powerful corporations, including Monsanto, DuPont, BASF, Bayer, and Dow over the deceptively simple issue of labeling GMO foods. Almost one million Californians made it possible for the labeling proposal to be placed on the November 2012 ballot as Prop. 37, however as of production of the program on September 25, over $30 million have already been committed by the GMO industry and pesticide producers to defeat Prop 37.

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

Winonah Hauter: THE FALSE PROMISE OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD

On the same day as organic farmers met in Santa Rosa, CA, for the second annual Heirloom Seed Expo the 60 day comment period ended for twelve new genetically engineered products. While a growing number of family farmers, medical professionals, and plant scientists are warning of the health risks of GMO plants and animals, the Obama administration has sped up their approval process.
The sense of urgency was also heightened by another development. GMOs, mostly corn and soy, have been planted in the US for almost 20 years. However that corn and soy have been mainly used for animal feed, ethanol or for starch and corn sugar that has been added as ingredient to processed foods for humans, junk food and [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)