CULTURE & DISSENT

La batalla de Chile - La memoria obstinada

2010-08-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

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1971 Attica Rebellion And Massacre

2010-08-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

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Muhammad Ali - Attica prison riot poem!

Gore Vidal Documentary

2010-08-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

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An american history lesson with Gore Vidal

2010-08-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

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Salt of the Earth - Herbert Biberman (1954)

2010-07-28T23:08:00.001-07:00

Salt of the Earth (1954) is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their involvement in communist politics.^[1]
The movie became a historical phenomenon and has a cult following due to how the United States establishment (politicians, journalists, studio executives, and other trade unions) dealt with it. Salt of the Earth is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view.
The film centers on a long and difficult strike led by Mexican-American and Anglo miners. It is based on the real-life 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico; in the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc", and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico". The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film.

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom

2010-07-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a BBC documentary series by English filmmaker Adam Curtis. Part 1

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Watch The Trap – What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom? Ep 2/3 in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

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Hegel and Modern Life (Rick Roderick)

2010-07-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

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Malcolm X Oxford Debate 1964

2010-07-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

Malcolm X participated in a classic debate at Oxford Union, a special all university organization as part of Oxford University in England. The debate took place December 3, 1964. This is the first public access to the entire debate. Malcolm X was under great pressure at this point in his life. He was the leading Black revolutionary voice in the world and was hounded by the intelligence agencies of imperialism. In addition, the Nation of Islam was increasing its public attempts to isolate Malcolm X from the broader Black community. It is important to review the activities of Malcolm X during 1964 to examine how intense and global his actions were - please click on the chronology link of the navigational icon, then click on 1964 to get a listing of selected activity that took place during that year.

Malcolm X. Standing alone at the heart of the oldest, most important university in the western world. He advanced his argument and stood tall. This is a model for all militant youth standing in opposition to oppression and exploitation.

Stand tall and speak truth for power.
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(Source: http://www.brothermalcolm.net/2003/mx_oxford/index.html)
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Arun Gandhi: Lessons from My Grandfather

2010-07-20T14:38:00.001-07:00

CONFÉRENCE | PUBLIC LECTURE by Carlos Perez - What is Che?

2010-06-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

CONFÉRENCE | PUBLIC LECTURE

The School of Political Studies, Territorio Libre and the Salvadorian Canadian Association of Ottawa

present

Conference and Discussion

What is Che?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Demarais Hall (DMS), room 1110

55 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa

Invited speaker: Carlos Perez, Poet / Activist

This public lecture will be presented in English. Translation to French will be available. A short documentary may be presented to facilitate the discussion.
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June 14, 2010 marked the 82th birth anniversary of one of the most controversial figures in contemporary history, Ernesto Guevara, better known as Che. His image has become ubiquitous, but the true meaning behind the icon remains unknown to most. To his detractors, at best Che represents the non-pacific way to confront oppression and change the world order. To others, Che is a revolutionary symbol, an inspirational example of internationalist solidarity and the epitome of the “new human”, the selfless individual of the XXI century he envisioned as the agent of genuine change. What is the true Che? Are Che’s deeds and vision relevant to contemporary efforts to build a new society? This panel invites you to debate these and other important related topics.

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This public lecture is free and open to the public. It is not required to register. For further information, please contact massicot@uottawa.ca Parking is available on campus.

Cuando pienso en el Che

2010-06-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

El testimonio del Comandante Fidel Castro concedida al periodista italiano Gianni Mina.

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Mi padre el Che

2010-06-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ernestico, como lo llaman en Cuba, el quinto hijo del CHE, emprende un viaje tras los pasos de su padre, para buscar al hombre detrás del mito.
Así recorre su lucha, desde sus comienzos, reconstruyendo historias que vivió Ernesto Guevara, mientras se convertía en el comandante CHE Guevara.

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Mi hijo el Che

2010-06-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

"Mi hijo el Che. Un retrato de familia de Don Ernesto Guevara" del año 1985, emitido por Canal Encuentro (www.encuentro.gov.ar).

El realizador Fernando Birri, por medio de una entrevista a Don Ernesto Guevara, se nutre de imágenes fílmicas y fotografías que retratan la infancia de Ernestito, para luego recorrer su viaje en motocicleta por Latinoamérica, el encuentro con Fidel Castro, la guerrilla en Sierra Maestra y el triunfo de la revolución cubana, hasta su muerte el 9 de octubre de 1967.

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Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine

2010-06-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

Naomi Klein talks about her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

** Help spread this video: rate it, comment on it, favourite it, share it **
Speaking at a benefit event for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a social justice research institute.

The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

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Africans in America

2010-06-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

The Terrible Transformation (1450-1750)

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Revolution (1750-1805)

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Brotherly Love (1791-1831)

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Judgment Day (1831-1865)

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Noam Chomsky - The Center Cannot Hold

2010-06-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

Democracy NOW! - DN! 1/6 "Rekindling the Radical Imagination" - This Memorial Day special with the world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of over a hundred books. He spoke recently here in New York addressing more than a thousand people at the Left Forum. Published with written permission from democracynow.org. http://www.democracynow.org Provided to you under Democracy NOW! creative commons license. All credits for this video belongs to democracynow.org, an independent non-profit user funded news media, recognized and broadcast world wide. (3rd part video may be included under Fair Use)

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Corruption in America's Banks

2010-06-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

It was more than greed and incompetence that brought down the U.S. financial sector and plunged the economy in recession — it was fraud. William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, has seen pretty much everything.

Now an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, William K. Black tells Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL that the tool at the very center of mortgage collapse, creating triple-A rated bonds out of "liars' loans" — loans issued without verifying income, assets or employment — was a fraud, and the banks knew it. They involve deceit, which is the essence of fraud.

And while there is no law against liars' loans, Black points out that there are, many laws against fraud, and liars' loans are fraudulent. A few of the names implicated are Henry Paulson & Timothy Geithner,

Only the scale of the scandal is new. A single bank, IndyMac, lost more money than the entire Savings and Loan Crisis. The difference between now and then, explains Black, is a drastic reduction in regulation and oversight, "We now know what happens when you destroy regulation. You get the biggest financial calamity of anybody under the age of 80."

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Vandana Shiva - Planting the Seeds for Change

2010-06-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

Cochabamba Water Wars - Democracy NOW!

2010-06-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

Democracy NOW! - DN! 1/2 Ten years ago this month the Bolivian city of Cochabamba was at the center of an epic fight over one of the citys most vital natural resourcesits own water. The Water Wars occurred just months after the Battle of Seattle. The uprising against Bechtel on the streets of Cochabamba was seen as the embodiment of the international struggle against corporate globalization. Published with written permission from democracynow.org. http://www.democracynow.org Provided to you under Democracy NOW! creative commons license. All credits for this video belong to democracynow.org, an independent user funded news media, recognized and broadcast world wide.

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Noam Chomsky: History of US Imperialism

2010-06-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

Noam Chomsky - arguably the most famous Western intellectual and dissident alive today - interprets former President Bush's foreign policy actions (such as the Iraq war) in the long history of American Imperialism. He points out how the US was founded as an Empire -contrary to popular perception - and has been driven since inception again, contrary to popular perception - by an "expansion is the path to security" strategy. This lecture was delivered at Boston University in the United States on April 24th, 2008 under the title of "Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond".

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THE MAN AND THE MOVEMENT

2010-06-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

AN INTERVIEW WITH WORLD'S LARGEST non-violent people's movement SARVODAYA Sri Lanka. Dr. A T Ariyaratne is a three times Noble Peace nominee.

István Mészáros: The New Crisis of Capitalism

2010-06-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

Tough Guise - Violence Media and the Crisis in Masculinity

2010-06-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

Jackson Katz argues that widespread violence in American society, including the tragic school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and elsewhere, needs to be understood as part of an ongoing crisis in masculinity. Tough Guise is the first educational video geared toward college and high school students to systematically examine the relationship between pop-cultural imagery and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century.

Bell Hooks: On cultural criticism and transformation

2010-06-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQh-Zpb4XU

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Missing

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Mr Bean talk about Immigration

2010-06-05T21:29:00.000-07:00

Subcomandante Marcos interview

2010-06-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

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Emma Goldman - An exceedingly dangerous woman

2010-05-31T12:01:00.000-07:00

Emma Goldman (1869 -1940) stands as a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism. An influential and well-known anarchist of her day, Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919. For the rest of her life until her death in 1940, she continued to participate in the social and political movements of her age, from the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War.

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Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address (Thursday, June 8, 1978)

2010-05-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

A World Split Apart

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*Extracts of Address by Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises. (Source: http://www.pravoslavieto.com/docs/eng/solzhenitsyn.htm)

Although written in 1978, Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address still ranks as one of the best moral critiques of Western culture and irreligious humanistic consciousness.

*For the complete article go to the Columbia University website (http://www.columbia.edu/).

...I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. ...

But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening. ...

The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

...George Kennan, say: we cannot apply moral criteria to politics. Thus we mix good and evil, right and wrong and make space for the absolute triumph of absolute Evil in the world. On the contrary, only moral criteria can help the West against communism's well planned world strategy.

*Humanism and Its Consequences

How has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present sickness? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing socially in accordance with its proclaimed intentions, with the help of brilliant technological progress. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness.

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very basis of human thinking in the past centuries. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression from the period of the Enlightenment. It became the basis for government and social science and could be defined as rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists.

The turn introduced by the Renaissance evidently was inevitable historically. The Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, becoming an intolerable despotic repression of man's physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. Then, however, we turned our backs upon the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal. This new way of thinking, which had imposed on us its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man nor did it see any higher task than the attainment of happiness on earth. It based modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend to worship man and his material needs. Everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any superior sense. That provided access for evil, of which in our days there is a free and constant flow. Merely freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and it even adds a number of new ones.

However, in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistically selfish aspect of Western approach and thinking has reached its final dimension and the world wound up in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the glorified technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the Twentieth century's moral poverty which no one could imagine even as late as in the Nineteenth Century.

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One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of anti-religious dictatorship; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. ...

The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism's crimes. When they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East. ...

As long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we have to lead an everyday life. There is a disaster, however, which has already been under way for quite some time. I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness. ...

On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. ...

It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times.

Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.

This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but -- upward.

Thursday, June 8, 1978

For the complete article go to the Columbia University website (http://www.columbia.edu/).

C. L. R. James (West Indian writer and activist)

2010-05-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

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David Harvey - The Enigma of Capital

2010-05-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

David Harvey - The Enigma of Capital - Kings College from swpUkTv on Vimeo.

David Harvey - The Crises of Capitalism

2010-05-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

Critical sociologist David Harvey asks: is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?

On Habermas And The Fragile Dignity Of Humanity

2010-05-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Lecture by Rick Roderick

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Sin Contemplaciones - Modernidad y Crisis

2010-05-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

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Felix the Cat and Capitalist Competition

2010-05-18T18:07:00.000-07:00

Felix the cat teaches us about the productive innovations driven by capitalist competition.

For more on this guys great work, look up his blog (http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/)

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Colombia Indígena, Resistencia y Paz

2010-05-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

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Noam Chomsky : Two kinds of democracy

2010-05-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Noam Chomsky on democracy, consumerism, super ball, social contract, health care, propaganda for democracy, engineering consent, bewildered herd, public relations, devil, war, churches, Vietnam syndrom, "sickly inhibitions on use of violence" etc.

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Ernest Mandel: A Revolutionary Life

2010-05-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

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Identidad Barí

2010-05-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

Los indígenas Barí resisten desde hace siglos en la zona limítrofe entre Colombia y Venezuela. Hoy en día su lucha continua desde su santuario de la Sierra de Perijá.

Dirigido y escrito por Ángela Mimiaga. Con la participación de David Segarra, Thairon Martinez y la cooperativa Ecourbano.

Documental "La Lucha Decisiva"

2010-05-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

Premio al mejor documental en el Festival de Cine Solidario de Granada / Premio al mejor mediometraje en la III Mostra Amazónica de Cine Etnográfico
Realizado por CIPO, y con el apoyo de la ONG Pueblos Hermanos, cuenta la lucha de los indígenas de Raposa Serra do Sol frente a los latifundistas arroceros que invadieron sus tierras. Los pueblos indígenas de Amazonia luchan por defender su territorio y su forma de vida, ante la presión del agronegocio.

Documental "La Lucha Decisiva" from CIPÓ - Comunicación Creativa on Vimeo.

FUEGOS BAJO EL AGUA: UNA HISTORIA POLÍTICA DEL 23 DE ENERO

2010-05-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

(Fuente: http://vimeo.com/9052565)

UNA HISTORIA POLÍTICA DEL 23 DE ENERO

Este documental pretende rescatar la experiencia política de organización y lucha del pueblo venezolano a partir de un reﬂexión sobre la historia del barrio conocido como 23 de Enero.

La óptica de los movimientos sociales del 23 es especialmente significativa, ya que esta parroquia ha sido considerada un símbolo de la movilización popular y por tanto, duramente reprimida durante la Cuarta República.

Desde su fundación, las organizaciones populares que surgieron en el 23 han destacado por su papel en los acontecimientos políticos que han marcado el devenir histórico de Venezuela y que han conducido al país a un proceso revolucionario de nuevo cuño.

A partir de sus protagonistas que pertenecen a movimientos de base se hace un recorrido por los
acontecimientos históricos más signiﬁcativos desde la fundación del barrio hasta nuestros días, incidiendo en la relación entre luchas populares típicamente barriales: luchas por servicios básicos, cultura, etc. y la organización histórica de la izquierda venezolana y caraqueña.

Otro tema importante en este documental es la lucha contra la delincuencia que desde los años 80 han tenido que enfrentar los colectivos políticos que quieren mejorar las condiciones de vida de los habitantes del 23.

Respecto al momento actual, este trabajo se interroga sobre las nuevas oportunidades y retos de la movilización popular que se abren con el nuevo gobierno revolucionario.

DURACIÓN: 77'
DIRECCIÓN: LENIN BREA Y NURIA VILA
CÁMARA: VICENT CHANZÁ
CÁMARA2: VIRGINIA FERNÁNDEZ
INVESTIGACIÓN DE CAMPO: RAMÓN CASTILLO
EDICIÓN: LENIN BREA Y NURIA VILA

UNA PRODUCCIÓN DE LA LETRA R, ÁVILA TV Y TVES.

Fuegos Bajo el Agua: primera parte

Fuegos Bajo el Agua: primera parte (1/2) from la letra r on Vimeo.

Fuegos Bajo el Agua: segunda parte

Fuegos Bajo el Agua: segunda parte (2/2) from la letra r on Vimeo.

Bethune

2010-04-13T14:31:00.001-07:00

This feature documentary is a biography of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor who served with the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War and with the North Chinese Army during the Sino-Japanese War. In Spain he pioneered the world's first mobile blood-transfusion service; in China his work behind battle lines to save the wounded has made him a legendary figure.

Noam Chomsky - The Political Economy of the Mass Media

2010-03-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

In the event that this video is temporarily not available through Google Video, you may access the program through this weblink: http://www.pdxjustice.org/#Chomsky15Mar1989B "Voices from the Archive" lecture by Noam Chomsky, March 15, 1989 - "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" - Part 1 - Recorded at the Memorial Union Theater on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Bless You Prison

2010-03-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Director: Nicolae Margineanu | Produced In: 2003

Synopsis: A young intellectual woman, Nicole, is arrested in the years of Stalinism simply for being an active member of an opposition party. There follow three months of exhausting interrogation and isolation. Alone in a cell, she undergoes a spiritual experience similar to that of the great mystics. She proceeds to an in-depth soul-searching that helps her discover the power of faith and steels her to put up resistance. Nicole goes through the ordeal of communist prisons, conflicts and risky activities, and manages to provide a heartening example for the other inmates. Daily prison life is not drab, but full of unexpected happenings like a story. This is an extremely objective film that scans with warmth and sensitivity a woman's emotional testimony of faith.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

The Real Helen Keller

2010-03-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Synopsis: More than forty years after her death, Helen Keller is still known internationally as the little deaf-blind girl, the "miracle child" who triumphed over adversity. It is an image that endures through the Hollywood film "The Miracle Worker" - but Keller never chose that image, and she battled against it all her life. Hidden from the public gaze was the real Helen Keller, a flesh-and-blood woman, writer and radical activist, suffragette and socialist.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

A Little Bit of So Much Truth

2010-03-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Director: Jill Irene Freidberg | Produced In: 2007

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Synopsis: In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people’s use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca. A 90-minute documentary, A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

Indigenous and Human Rights in Latin America

2010-02-21T14:30:00.002-08:00

Indigenous and Human Rights in Latin America.

James Cockcroft, Internet Professor, State University of New York and Fellow at the International Institute for Research and Education.

Professor Cockcroft examines todays processes of revolt among indigenous peoples in Latin America, in particular in Bolivia and Ecuador, involving attempts at new practices of plurinational and intercultural forms of democracy, ecologically sustainable development, community-based autonomies, and solidarity with other sectors of society locally, regionally, and internationally. He will focus especially on the re-founding of national states and US-European interventionism in the context of UN declarations on indigenous rights, human rights, and national sovereignty.

Indigenous Suriname

2010-02-21T14:30:00.001-08:00

Rights-, Land-, Development- and Health situation of the indigenous people in Suriname. Video produced by the Organization of Indigenous People in Suriname (OIS). With first results of the researches in the wayana village Apetina concerning the mercury contamination of its inhabitants.

Ecuador: The Tribes vs. Chevron-Texaco

2010-02-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

(Latin Pulse: October 27, 2009) Thousands of people representing Ecuador's indigenous tribes are suing Chevron-Texaco over the pools of toxic wastewater the company left behind. Following Chevron-Texaco's 30 years of profit from indigenous lands and resources, the tribes are seeking 27.3 billion dollars from the California-based corporation for the clean-up. We talk with Joe Berlinger about his new film on the case, Crude, and with Amazon Watch about the worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl. But Chevron-Texaco is not the only problem for the indigenous communities of Ecuador; the native population is taking to the streets, demanding a seat at the negotiating table with the government in order to contest other proposed developments on their territories.

Colombia: Stories That Kill

2010-02-21T14:27:00.001-08:00

(Latin Pulse: July 2, 2009) Plagued by violence, drug trafficking, and corruption, Colombia is one of the world's most dangerous places to be a journalist. We look at what kind of speech is being silenced, by whom, and how. Today, independent journalists working up against the boundaries of free speech share with us their struggle to tell the stories of the country's bloody reality, a task they feel is key to creating more peaceful Colombia. Join us as our team, supported by Mark Shapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting, speaks with award-winning journalist Hollman Morris, who explains why the secret police monitor his activities and the president calls him a terrorist. He and others like him work to expose the reasons and effects of Colombias conflicts. They speak out despite the risk to their lives to give voice to the victims of war, the indigenous, and the opposition, working to achieve peace.

Latin Pulse - Water Crisis

2010-02-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

(Latin Pulse: May 19, 2008) Encompassing both glaciers and the Amazon basin, Latin America remains one of the biggest sources of fresh water in the world. Yet drinking water is scarce and for some it's a luxury. Will there be a battle for fresh water in the future? And if it runs out, what other alternatives are there?
En Español
La vida sobre la tierra no puede existir sin ella, sin embargo el agua se toma por dada.
Se ha dicho que en el futuro el agua es como el petróleo, es un recurso natural sin el cual no podemos vivir, a diferencia del petróleo no hay conocidas alternativas para reemplazar el agua potable.
Latino América con sus glaciares y el río Amazonas posee uno de los recursos más grandes de agua dulce en el mundo. A pesar de todo el agua es escasa y para algunos en un lujo.
¿Habrá una guerra por el agua potable en el futuro, y sí se acabara que otras alternativas hay?
GUESTS:
Alan Snitow, Documentary Filmmaker & Writer "Thirst"
Alan's films include the award-winning "Thirst," "Secrets of Silicon Valley", and "Blacks and Jews." Snitow was a producer at the top-rated KTVU-TV News, the Bay Area Fox affiliate, for 12 years. Before that, he was the News Director for eight years at the Bay Area's Pacifica Radio station, KPFA-FM, winning the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award for Best Local Newscast. Snitow was a Board member of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and President of the Board of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. He is currently a Board member of the Film Arts Foundation and a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He is a graduate of Cornell University.
"Thirst" investigates eight recent high-profile controversies over the corporate takeover of water in the United States and illuminates how and why ordinary people are fighting back both here and abroad.
Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Watch
Wenonah is the executive director of Food & Water Watch. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level. Experienced in developing policy positions and legislative strategies, she is also a skilled and accomplished organizer, having lobbied and developed grassroots field strategy and action plans. From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen's Energy and Environment Program, which focused on water, food, and energy policy. From 1996 to 1997, she was environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization's 30 state-based groups. From 1989 to 1995 she was at the Union of Concerned Scientists where as a senior organizer, she coordinated broad-based, grassroots sustainable energy campaigns in several states. She has an M.S. in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland.
Abel Mejía, Gerente Corporativo de Agua, World Bank
Gonzalo E. Mejia, Director & Producer, Bananas Films

Latin Pulse: U.S. - Latin America Relations

2010-02-21T14:25:00.000-08:00

Free trade continues to be a controversial issue for Latin Americans. Some say the region is becoming increasingly dependent on the U.S. for trade and security. But despite stiff opposition both here and abroad these agreements continue to be ratified, and not always with the United States.

En Español:

Tratados de Libre Comercio

Los tratados de libre comercio siguen siendo un tema controversial en Latino América. Algunos dicen que la región ha acrecentado su dependencia en los Estados Unidos en el comercio y la seguridad.

A pesar de la persistente oposición tanto aquí como allá, estos tratados continúan de ser ratificados y estos no lo son siempre con los Estados Unidos.

SOURCES: Canal 13, Costa Rica; RCN, Colombia; Globovision, Venezuela; Canal 13, Chile; Latinoamerica TV.

Latin Pulse: Status of Poverty in Latin America

2010-02-21T14:23:00.000-08:00

(Latin Pulse: June 30, 2008) (Latin Pulse: June 30, 2008) Features former president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo. How is Latin America coping with the issue of poverty? From violence to hungry children on the streets, it is an ailment that has afflicted the region for decades. As Latin America tries to increase trade and strengthen its economies, it is still troubled by the lack of financial resources to fight poverty.
But as the pendulum swings back away from free market economies, some are starting to blame multinationals for promoting poverty for their own advantage.
Historically the financial health of Latin America has been directly tied to the strength of the U.S. dollar. As the dollar weakens so do Latin America economies, sending the poverty index soaring.

¿Cómo esta Latino América haciéndole frente al problema de la pobreza?
Desde la violencia hasta niños hambrientos en las calles, dos caras de las varias caras de la pobreza, una dolencia que ha afectado la región por décadas.
Así como América Latina trata de incrementar el comercio para fortalecer sus economías, aún sigue plagada por la falta de recursos financieros para combatir la pobreza.

Justicia Now!

2010-02-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

Justicia Now! is a documentary about ChevronTexaco's toxic legacy in the Northern Ecuadorian region of the Amazon rainforest - and a courageous group of people called Los Afectados (The Affected Ones) who are seeking justice for the ensuing cancer, sickness and death in the largest environmental class action lawsuit in history. Over the course of three decades, Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the Amazon rainforest, having failed to follow basic environmental standards that were required by law at the time in the United States. This allowed Texaco to save a few bucks on the cost of extracting a barrel of oil and thus increase their proﬁts in order to keep the shareholders happy. One indigenous tribe from the region has been completely decimated and another is on the verge of extinction. Rates of cancer, leukemia, stillbirths and skin disease have skyrocketed amongst the local population and still very little has been done! The damage assessment currently stands at $16 billion. Film includes celebrity activists: PABLO FAJARDO (CNN Hero Award 2008 & Goldman Award Winner 2008), DARYL HANNAH, STUART TOWNSEND, JOHN QUIGLEY & ATOSSA SOLTANI (Founder & Executive Director, Amazon Watch)

Outlaw feminist Angela Davis

2010-02-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

Watch it on Academic Earth

Muhammad Yunus: Doing Well by Doing Good

2010-02-12T06:46:00.000-08:00

Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, presents a new, U.S.-based micro-credit program aimed at helping the poor and immigrants launch their own businesses. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [11/2007] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 13543]

The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela

2010-02-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

Life and Death of Steven Biko

2010-02-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

This documentary s you a look at who Steven Biko was and what he meant to the revolution against apartheid in South Africa.

Labor Beat - "Brewing Solidarity: A Profile of the Starbucks Workers Union"

2010-02-12T06:42:00.001-08:00

When workers at Starbucks Coffee in New York decided to unionize with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), baristas in other cities took notice. In this episode of Labor Beat, food service workers at Chicago's Logan Square location of Starbucks are interviewed about the high-volume conditions at their store... and what they decided to do about it. Labor Beat is a public access TV show in Chicago. To order DVDs of this or any past Labor Beat title, visit www.laborbeat.org

Forced Labor in the Global Economy - MIT Center for International Studies

2010-02-12T06:38:00.000-08:00

Before buying your next chocolate bar or sweatshirt, bear in mind its potential hidden cost: the forced labor of an impoverished worker. According to a recent International Labor Organization report, 12.3 million people from developing countries toil miserably to produce goods and services for industrialized nations. One after another, speakers on this panel reveal the astonishing pervasiveness of modern-day slavery, on which, it seems, the entire global economy now depends. Roger Plant makes clear that this is not a matter of low wages. “It’s when you enter a job or service against your freedom of will or choice and can’t get out without some penalty. Deception is a key aspect of forced labor.” Says Terry Collingsworth, “The brand names of the global economy are benefiting from forced labor. …You see children and young adults forced to work for them. I observed Walmart suppliers in China, where workers were told they’d get a job at a certain rate, who then found out they were in debt and couldn’t leave.” But it’s not just that developed countries and their corporations exploit these workers. Thomas Kochan says, “We’ve focused on globalization as products going across borders, and now we have people going across, and countries depending on those people to provide remittances back to families as a source of currency and income.” In recent times, Nike and Gap have begun to make their suppliers in developing nations adhere to codes of conduct, and activism in the West is making an impact. Regina Abrami says “Boardrooms are feeling the heat….But there’s fear that if someone does well, he will become less competitive. …If you don’t introduce government regulation that solves the problem of fair competition, you won’t solve the issue of corporations acting in less than virtuous ways.”

Henry Rollins Interviews Arianna Huffington

2010-02-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

On the Friday, August 31 2007 episode of the Henry Rollins Show, Henry's guest was political activist and web mogul Arianna Huffington who is upfront in revealing the real motivation behind her political shift and what she truly thinks of the 2008 Democratic candidates.

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In Depth with Noam Chomsky

2010-02-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam"

2010-02-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. against the Vietnam War. Audio.

This speech was released by Black Forum records, a subsidiary of Motown, and went on to win a Grammy in 1970 for the Best Spoken Word Recording.

Excerpts of a Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967.

Lecture on The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory by Professor Paul Fry (Yale University)

2010-02-02T06:52:00.000-08:00

Introduction to Theory of Literature (ENGL 300)

This first lecture on social theories of art and artistic production examines the Frankfurt School. The theoretical writings of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin are explored in historical and political contexts, including Marxism, socialist realism, and late capitalism. The concept of mechanical reproduction, specifically the relationship between labor and art, is explained at some length. Adorno's opposition to this argument, and his own position, are explained. The lecture concludes with a discussion of Benjamin's perspective on the use of distraction and shock in the process of aesthetic revelation.

Lecture on post-colonial theory, Professor Paul Fry (Yale University)

2010-02-02T06:49:00.000-08:00

Introduction to Theory of Literature (ENGL 300)

In this lecture on post-colonial theory, Professor Paul Fry explores the work of Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha. The complicated origins, definitions, and limitations of the term "post-colonial" are outlined. Elaine Showalter's theory of the phasic development of female literary identity is applied to the expression of post-colonial identities. Crucial terms such as ambivalence, hybridity, and double consciousness are explained. The relationship between Bhabha's concept of sly civility and Gates's "signifyin'" is discussed, along with the reliance of both on semiotics.

Historia de Chile: La Reforma Agraria

2010-02-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

En este microdocumental se aborda la historia de la Reforma Agraria chilena; momento crucial de nuestra historia contemporánea, en el cual se desmoronó el plurisecular orden latifundista.

A Conversation with Peter McLaren - On Critical Pedagogies.

2010-02-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

Peter Mclaren and Joe Kincheloe discuss a variety of topics regarding Critical Pedagogy.

Figures in Critical Pedagogy - Henry Giroux

2010-02-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

A dialogue between Joe L. Kincheloe, Canada Research Chair in Critical Pedagogy and Henry A. Giroux, Global Television Network Chair in Communication Studies. Production Team Giuliana Cucinelli Photi Sotiropoulos Dr. Shirley R. Steinberg Special Thanks To Susan Searls Giroux Produced for The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy.

Bolivar and San Martin - Narrated by Carlos Fuentes

2010-02-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

Latin American Independence - Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin

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FASINPAT - Fábrica sin patrón

2010-02-01T19:52:00.001-08:00

Documentário sobre a fábrica autogerida polos operários de Zanón, na Argentina.

Argentina's Economic Collapse

2010-02-01T19:50:00.000-08:00

Documentary on the events that led to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. Many of Argentina's assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan. The net result was massive wealth transfers and the impoverishment of society which culminated in many deaths due to oppression and malnutrition. If you want to stop the same thing from happening here, and it is happening here, right now, please join the revolution at the Kick Them All Out Projet http://www.KickThemAllOut.com and the Fire Congress Campaign.

CLARK FOX - AMERICAN NATIVES RIGTHS

2010-02-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

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Ward Churchill - at UW Whitewater

2010-02-01T19:45:00.001-08:00

produced by On the Earth Productions.

La escuela según Pierre Bourdieu (Francia)

2010-02-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

Entrevista al sociólogo Pierre Bourdieu en la cual plantea su teoría de la reproducción en la escuela.

Origen: Programa Grandes Pensadores del Siglo XX, Canal Encuentro.

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Filosofía Aquí & Ahora - José Pablo Feinmann

2010-01-31T11:59:00.000-08:00

Fragmento del programa "Filosofía Aquí & Ahora" realizado por José Pablo Feinmann en Canal Encuentro del Ministerio de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología de la Argentina.

Por qué filosofía aquí y ahora

¿Cuáles son las preguntas de la filosofía?

¿Qué hacemos con lo que hicieron de nosotros?

Filosofía aquí y ahora. Colón descubre América; Descartes, la subjetividad.

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Kar Marx

Pathos de la Indignación

¿Qué es lo que el hombre desea ?

Karl Marx - Georg Hegel

Karl Marx - El Capital - Mercancia

Karl Marx - El Manifiesto Comunista

Karl Marx - El Capital - Acumulación originaria - Plusvalía

Karl Marx - El secreto de la mercancia

Lectura de los Marxistas Argentinos

Karl Marx - La Burguesía Capitalista

Karl Marx - Mercancia - Dinero

Friedrich Nietzsche

Parte 1 - ¿Qué es la voluntad de poder?

Parte 2 - ¿cuál es la dinamica de la voluntad de poder?

Parte 3 - La verdad ¿una creación del poder?

Parte 4 - ¿Qué es el dionisismo?

Martin Heidegger

Parte 1 - La posibilidad de todas mis posibilidades

Parte 2 - En que consiste la existencia inautentica?

Parte 3 - ¿Cual es el Fundamento de la existencia autentica?

Parte 4 - ¿Cuales son los elementos que Heidegger señala como propios de la inautenticidad?

Jean Paul Sartre

Parte 1 - El filosofo mas grande

Parte 2 - En que sentido puede hablarse del olvido de Sartre

Part 3 - Quien fue Sartre

Part 4 - Como entiende Sartre a la conciencia

Michael Foucault

Parte 1 - El hombre ha muerto

Parte 2 - Si el hombre a muerto, entonces ¿quien esta en las calles?

Parte 3 - ¿Porque escribe Foucault una historia de la locura?

Parte 4 - ¿Como logra el poder imponer su verdad?

El Fuego y la Palabra

2010-01-30T18:56:00.000-08:00

En noviembre del año 1983, se fundó el EZLN y el primero de enero de 1994 se conocieron Internacionalmente como los indios que se cubrieron el rostro para ser vistos.

Socrate (1970) (Roberto_Rossellini)

2010-01-30T17:28:00.001-08:00

Movie about the last days of Socrate's life.

The Price of Gold by Kigali films. Human Rights' Violation in Yanacocha Gold Mine, Cajamarca, Peru

2010-01-24T20:58:00.000-08:00

The Price of Gold by Kigali films. Human Rights' Violation in Yanacocha Gold Mine, Cajamarca, Peru. Producer: Kigali films; Keywords: Peru; mining; Yanacocha; gold mine; Cajamarca; Human Rights' violation; mining conflict. Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Germany.

Representatives from Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, Romania, and Nevada called Newmont Mining, the world's largest gold producer, to urgently reform its human rights and environmental practices at its global operations.

Newmont Mining has been called to respect human rights by:

Fully respecting all human rights and not committing human rights violations, including intimidation of community members and activists.

Refraining from projects that have not secured the free, prior, and informed consent of the communities concerned.

Fully disclosing information about the environmental and social impacts of projects.

Providing fair and just compensation for local communities affected by mining.

Respecting the spiritual and cultural values of communities.

Respect the environment by:

Ending the practice of ocean dumping of mine wastes.

Protecting water resources from pollution and depletion.

Keeping sites of spiritual significance and protected areas off limits from mining.

Ensuring that operations will not result in sulfuric acid drainage to water and soil.

Providing guaranteed funding, before beginning a project, that will fully cover reclamation and closure costs.

Addressing needs left behind by closed mines such as clean- up, reclamation, remedying health impacts, and making land compensations.

Hugo Blanco, SFU, 21 Sept.2007

2010-01-23T20:03:00.000-08:00

Biography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Blanco)

Hugo Blanco Galdos is a Peruvian political figure and leader of the Campesino Confederation of Peru.

In the early 1960s he led the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru. Captured by the military, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment on the island of El Frontón. During his imprionsment he wrote Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru.

Blanco was released from prison and expelled to Sweden in 1976[1] following an international solidarity campaign that included Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Bertrand Russell. After spending several years of exile in Sweden, Mexico and Chile he returned to Peru in 1978, was a founder of the Workers Revolutionary Party and was elected to parliament on a left-wing slate.[2]

He served in the Peruvian Senate as a representative of the Partido Unificado Mariateguista until 1992 when he fled to Mexico where he was granted asylum following[3] due to Alberto Fujimori's "self-coup" and declaration of a state of emergency.[4]

Hugo Blanco is currently Director of a Cusco-based newspaper called Lucha Indígena.

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The Genius of Mozart

2010-01-22T16:18:00.000-08:00

Description:

A gem from the BBC, "The Genius of Mozart" is an enlightening and enveloping reconstruction of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (1756--1791) life. Masterfully written and directed, this three-episode UK TV mini-series became an instant hit when aired in March of 2004, so much so as to inspire the equivalent to be made of Ludwig Van Beethoven's life (a three-part series simply called "Beethoven", which I have also uploaded).

"The Genius of Mozart" constitutes a powerful retelling of Mozart's life, beginning with his childhood as a travelling musical prodigy and ending with his tragic death at the tender age of 35. Every aspect of the film has been given thorough thought, so as to ensure an accurate historical reconstruction. Inspirational performances from the main actors and actresses foster captivation, while regular narrative interjections from the popular composer and conductor Charles Hazlewood brings an insightful, educational dimension. You will enjoy!

Directors:

James Kent
Andy King-Dabbs
Ursula Macfarlane

Cast:

Jack Tarlton____________Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Stepan Krucka___________Mozart aged 4
Karel Vrtiska___________Mozart aged 9
Kenneth Cranham_________Leopold Mozart
Emma Cunniffe___________Constanze Weber
Claire Skinner__________Nannerl Mozart
Geoffrey Beevers________Archbishop Colloredo
Ron Donachie____________Joseph Hayden
Andrew Shore____________Emmanuel Schikaneder
Murray Melvin___________Lorenzo da Ponte
Anthony Rolfe-Johnson___Anton Raaff
Elena Mosuc_____________Josepha Hofer
Adela Donovalova________Nannerl aged 13
Lenka Korínková_________Mozart's Mother
Charles Hazlewood_______Himself - Presenter

"A Miracle of Nature"

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"A Passion for the Stage"

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"The First Romantic"

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Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification

2010-01-21T02:46:00.001-08:00

Noam Chomsky Lecture - Distorted Morality

2010-01-21T01:20:00.000-08:00

SUDAKA: United Latin America

2010-01-21T01:03:00.000-08:00

Lewis Black - Red, White and Screwed

2010-01-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

Watch Lewis Black - Red, White and Screwed in Comedy | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Bill Maher: The Decider

2010-01-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

Maher talks about various social and political topics, such as the Iraq War, lobbying, sexuality, prescription drugs and religion. The title parodies one of the nicknames of then-U.S. president George W. Bush, and his politics and administration is one of the main topics of the special.

El Que Decide (The Decider) es el ultimo Stand Up de Bill Maher, grabado en el 2007 en Boston, donde vuelve con su ácida critica al expresidente Bush, la guerra de Irak, los republicanos Americanos, y por supuesto la iglesia. Algunas declaraciones: sobre la guerra de Irak "Ahora no sólo los estamos invadiendo y matando, también los estafamos", sobre los republicanos "Sí, porque a los conservadores realmente no les importa educar a tus hijos, lo que les importa es que los adolescentes no tengan sexo. Lo cual es una meta fácil, porque los adolescentes no están cachondos", o sobre Bush "...se ha convencido de que la historia será amable con él".

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The Enemies of Reason

2010-01-10T18:40:00.000-08:00

The Enemies of Reason is a two-part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. From the makers:

Is it rational that the dead can communicate with the living and give sound advice on how they should live their lives? What about sticking pins into your body to free the flow of Chi energy and cure your illness? Or the bending of spoons using your mind alone? Is that rational? Richard Dawkins doesn’t think so, and feels it is his duty to expose those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell. He will take on the world’s leading proponents in their field of expertise, meet the victims who have used them and expose the history of the movements – from the charlatans who have milked these practices to the experiments and testing that have failed to produce conclusive results.

The documentary was first broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK, styled as a loose successor to Dawkins' documentary of the previous year, The Root of All Evil?, as seen through the incorporation of brief clips from said documentary during the introduction of the first part by Dawkins. The first part aired 13 August 2007 and the second on 20 August 2007.

It includes interviews with Steve Fuller, Deepak Chopra, Satish Kumar, and Derren Brown.

Episode 1: Slaves to Superstition

Dawkins points to some of science’s achievements and describes it as freeing most people from superstition and dogma. Picking up from his superstition-reason distinction in The Root of All Evil? (while recycling some footage from it), he then says reason is facing an "epidemic of superstition" that "impoverishes our culture" and introduces gurus that persuade us "to run away from reality". He calls the present day dangerous times. He returns to science’s achievements, including the fact that, by extending peoples lifespan, it helps them to take more advantage of live. He turns his attention to astrology, which he criticizes for stereotyping without evidence. Having put astrology to the test and referred to larger-scale experiments, he then briefly describes the mechanics of astronomy, and then expresses frustration that 50% of the UK population – more than are members of one religion – believe in the paranormal.

He then visits a psychic medium, Simon Goodfellow, who makes statements Dawkins interprets as referring to retirement – which most people his age would soon be going in for but not Dawkins. Cornell then finds himself in contradiction over whether or not the "spirit G", who allegedly communicates with him, is Dawkins' family member. Cornell next tries suggesting this spirit was in the military – again, typical of deceased relatives of people Dawkins’ age, but not of Dawkins. Cornell finishes with several explanations of why his powers might not always work, but Dawkins insists extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and then talks to the sceptical Derren Brown about cold reading, including misleading tricks it uses.

In another notable segment Dawkins visits a psychic for £50 who she said she could hear or see his father "on the other side." Dawkins let the woman do the reading and at the end informed her that his father is alive, and he visits him frequently.

Dawkins now visits a spiritualist church, and makes several criticisms of the alleged evidence of communication with the dead by medium Craig Hamilton-Parker, and adds that many may become obsessed with such performances and find it difficult to get over the loss of loved ones, adding that most people present are regulars. Hamilton-Parker says his psychic powers have been “proven to me against my rationality”. Dawkins ends his study of séances by noting the arguments are based on untestable, private, subjective anecdotes, and compares this to religion.

Dawkins now describes the history of scientific knowledge of echolocation, and points to the cumulative build-up of corroborating evidence for scientific explanations of the phenomena. He visits psychologist Chris French, who is performing a double-blind test of dowsing. None of the dowsers perform better, in a statistically significant sense, than is expectable by chance alone. While the dowsers are surprised, Dawkins and French note that their confidence is untouched, and they prefer explanations (French states some may call them excuses) that retain the hypothesis that they have paranormal dowsing powers. Dawkins next attempts his own explanation of belief in the paranormal in a combination of evolutionary and psychological terms, saying: "we don’t want to believe things just happen", and he suggests superstition is just the sort of animal error committed by Skinner’s pigeons.

Dawkins now interviews Satish Kumar about ideas such as 'treeness' and 'rockness'. Dawkins points out that it is all evidence-free assertion. He responds to the "science is bleak" argument by saying that the world is so wonderful that the word 'mundane' has a mismatched meaning and etymology. He then complains about the long-term fall in the number of students taking chemistry and physics at A-level. He suggests this is partly because of the UK education system encouraging students to value personal feeling over evidence and reason. He interviews the relativist Steven Fuller and criticises him for being "so close to being right but ... damn wrong". Fuller points out that different people can interpret the same evidence differently. Fuller also points out the benefits of the Internet, and Dawkins agrees, but then turns to the dangers it poses in causing the spread of fabricated statements. He also points to the fact that the MMR vaccine scandal involved an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about the UK government. Dawkins concludes that reason "built the modern world. It is a precious but fragile thing".

Episode 2: The Irrational Health Service

Richard Dawkins examines the growing suspicion the public has for science based medicine, despite its track record of successes like the germ theory of disease, vaccines, antibiotics and increased lifespan. He notes a fifth of British children are currently not immunised against measles, mumps and rubella, attributing it to fears arising from a highly controversial report linking the vaccine with autism.

Dawkins criticizes the growing field of alternative medicine which does not pass the same objective and statistical rigour as scientifically derived treatments using controlled double-blind studies. Without verifiable evidence, alternative therapies must rely on biased anecdotes and word of mouth to perpetuate. Dawkins observes these treatments have fanciful rationales and rituals behind them, with many alternative treatments employing pseudoscientific jargon such as "energy", "vibration" or "quantum theory" to give themselves greater credence to patients.

Homeopathy is singled out as an example of a mainstream alternative medicine that has public support and taxpayer funding through the National Health Service. Dawkins explains that the rationale behind it is unfounded and demonstrates that the magnitude of dilution required is so great the patient is practically imbibing pure water. This is illustrated by the typical homeopathic dilution of 30C (1:10030, that is thirty steps of dilution by 1% each time), which requires a drop of active ingredient dissolved in a body of water greater than the whole ocean. Dawkins cites a 2005 meta-analysis by The Lancet that concludes that homeopathy has no consistently demonstrable effect on health.

Dawkins hypothesises that practitioners of alternative medicine spend longer time than regular doctors on their patients when attending to them. An interview with Professor Nicholas Humphrey suggests that this empathic attention may cause a placebo effect in patients, but this is not a substitute for conventional science-based medicine.

The episode concludes with Dawkins making an appeal to skeptical, rational inquiry based on evidence, claiming 'reason has liberated us from superstition and given us centuries of progress. We abandon it at our peril.'

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemies_of_Reason)

Charlie Chapin - Modern Times Machine

2010-01-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Cooperativa Union Television

2010-01-06T16:12:00.001-08:00

Televisora venezolana en apoyo a la solidaridad y el desarrollo de la producción audiovisual en Venezuela

Watch live streaming video from cooperativauniontelevision at livestream.com

Direct Action Films - Direct Action Films is a progressive news service covering world politics and also produces short films on a wide range of topic

2010-01-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

Watch live streaming video from directactionfilms at livestream.com

Asamblea Popular Revolucionaria - Noticias de Venezuela y mas allá

2010-01-06T16:03:00.001-08:00

Watch live streaming video from Aporrea at livestream.com

Noam Chomsky: The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism.

2010-01-02T02:25:00.000-08:00

Noam Chomsky delivers the 5th Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture: The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism at Columbia University School for International Affairs for the Heyman Center for the Humanities. After paying homage to Edward Said's stressing imperialism as central to our culture Chomsky builds his case with telling quotes of American leaders rationalizing and denying extermination of Native Americans on through US terrorism in Latin and South America, like in Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, and the Middle East.

Eduardo Galeano - Chronicles the History of Human Adventure

2010-01-01T18:59:00.001-08:00

Politics & Science – “Pandora’s Box”

2010-01-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Part 1 - The Engineer's Plot

This part chronicles how the Bolshevik revolutionaries who came into power in 1917 attempted to industrialize and control the Soviet Union with rational scientific methods. The Bolsheviks wanted to transform the Soviet people into scientific beings. Aleksei Gastev used social engineering, and even a social engineering machine, to teach people to behave in a rational way.

There was an ongoing power struggle between bourgeoisie engineers and Bolshevik politicians. Lenin is quoted as having said "The communists are not directing anything, they are being directed". In late 1930 Stalin had 2000 engineers arrested, and eight of the most senior were accused and convicted in the Industrial Party show trial. Engineering schools were set up to train party faithfuls in only limited engineering knowledge to not threaten Stalin's political powers.

America was seen as a model for the industrialization of the Soviet Union. The city Magnitogorsk was modelled on Gary, Indiana to be the perfectly planned industrial steel mill city. A former construction worker describes how they imagined a magnificent city with palaces, houses and parks, and how workers created a park with trees made of metal because trees wouldn't grow on the steppe.

In the late 1930s Stalin arrested and purged more engineers, this time old Bolsheviks. The beneficiaries of these purges were engineers who were faithful to Stalin, and were now put in charge throughout the Soviet industry, among them were Leonid Brezhnev, Alexey Kosygin and Nikita Khrushchev. They had only narrow specialist training, and were completely unquestioning of Stalin's political aims. They set out to plan the Soviet Union as though it were a piece of engineering, with technical solutions to everything.

Gosplan, was the central organization where engineers worked with planned indicators, rational predictions of what they knew society needed. Vitalii Semyonovich Lelchuk, from the USSR Academy of Sciences, describes how everything was planned in absurdum: "Even the KGB was told the quota of arrests to be made and the prisons to be used. The demand for coffins, novels and movies was all planned."

Planners discovered that what seemed like rational assessment could lead to odd outcomes. Trains travelled thousands of miles for no other reason than to fulfill a plan that measured success in tonnes carried per kilometer. Sofas and chandeliers were made larger and larger because the plan measured material used.

Stalins successor, Nikita Khrushchev, tried to reform the plan and among other things he insisted that planners must take the price of things into account. The head of the USSR State Committee for Organization and Methodology of Price Creation is shown with a tall stack of price logbooks declaring that "This shows quite clearly that the system is rational".

Academician Victor Glushkov saw cybernetics as the solution to the issues with the complexity of the planning.

In the mid 60s Leonid Brezhnev and Alexey Kosygin took over from Khrushchev. They tried to use computerized economic planning to vitalize the failing economy. A group of three economists tell of how they assess demand using a nation-wide network of consumer correspondents, consumer panels and surveys, data which is then processed by computers. One of the ecominist explains: "The problem is industry responds very slowly to our scientific forecasts. For instance, we decided people wanted platform shoes. By the time the industry got around to increasing production they were out of fashion. Nowadays the Soviet consumer knows that if there is enough of a particular item in the shops it's a sure sign it's out of fashion."

In the late 1960s there were years of economic stagnation, and in 1978 stagnation turned into economic crisis. By the mid-1970s the Soviet leadership gave up attempts to reform the plan and the industry degenerated into pointless, elaborate ritual. Quote the narrator: "What had begun as a grand moral attempt to build a rational society ended by creating a bizarre, bewildering existence for millions of Soviet people".

Part 2 - To The Brink of Eternity

This episode outlines how the US government attempted to use systems analysis and game theory to develop strategies to control the nuclear threat and nuclear arms race during the Cold War.

The focus is on the men of the on whom Dr Strangelove was allegedly based: Herman Kahn, Albert Wohlstetter and John von Neumann. These were people who believed that the world could be controlled by the scientific manipulation of fear - mathematical analysts employed by the American RAND Corporation. In the end, their visions were the stuff of science fiction fantasy.

Features several interview segments with Sam Cohen outlining his experiences at RAND. He is the inventor of the neutron bomb and was with RAND 1947-1975.

Also features George Ball, the Under-Secretary of State in the Kennedy administration 1961-1966, and William Gorham[1], RAND Corporation Asst. Sec. Dept. Health, Education & Welfare 1956-68.

Also features an interview with science fiction author Larry Niven, who was instrumental in the creating of the Star Wars policies of Ronald Reagan.

Also features Robert McNamara, Thomas Schelling, Edward Teller and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Similar material is also covered in the "Fuck You Buddy" part of Curtis' later series, The Trap, but To The Brink of Eternity has the focus entirely on the nuclear and military aspects of Cold War strategy. John Nash is not mentioned and the psychological and economical aspects of game theory are not included.

Part 3 - The League of Gentlemen

A programme on post-war economic management in the United Kingdom, and attempts to prevent relative economic decline and the perception of the 1960s Wilson governments that devaluation would jeopardize against national self-esteem.

By the mid 1970s, stagflation emerged to confound the Keynesian theories used by policy makers. Meanwhile, a group of economists had managed to convince Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and other British politicians that they had foolproof technical means to make Britain 'great' again. The saga of how their experiments led the country deeper into economic decline, and asks - is their game finally up?

Part 4 - Goodbye Mrs Ant

This part focuses on attitudes to nature and tells the story of the insecticide DDT, which was first seen as a savior to humankind in the 1940s, only to be claimed as a part of the destruction of the entire ecosystem in the late 60s. It also outlines how the sciences of entomology and ecology were transformed by political and economic pressures.

The episode appears to be named after the 1959 film Goodbye, Mrs. Ant.[2] Clips from the 1958 horror movie Earth vs. the Spider and the 1941 grasshopper cartoon Hoppity Goes to Town are also featured.

Insects were a huge problem in the United States and farmers saw whole crops destroyed by pests. Emerging in the 1940s DDT and other insecticides seemed to be the solution. As more insecticides were invented, the science of entomology changed focus from insect classification, to primarily testing new insecticides and exterminating insects rather than cataloging them. But the insecticides had side effects. As early as 1946-48 entomologists began to notice that other species of wildlife, particularly birds, were being harmed by the insecticides.

Chemical companies portrayed the battle against insects as a struggle for existence and their promotional films from the 1950s invoke Charles Darwin. Darwin biographer James Moore notes how the battlefield and life and death aspects of Darwin's theories were emphasized to suit the Cold War years. Scientists believed that they were seizing power from evolution and redirecting it by controlling the environment.

In 1962 biologist Rachel Carson released the book Silent Spring, which was the first serious attack on pesticides and outlined their harmful side effects. It caused a public outcry but had no immediate effect on the use of pesticides. Entomologist Gordon Edwards retells how he made speeches critical of Carson's book. He eats some DDT on camera to show how he'd demonstrate its safety during these talks.

The spraying of DDT in the growing suburbs brought the side effects to the attention of the wealthy and articulate middle classes. Victor Yannacone, a suburbanite and lawyer, helped found the Environmental Defense Fund with the aim to legally challenge the use of pesticides. They argued that the chemicals were becoming more poisonous as they spread, as evidenced by the disappearance of the Peregrine Falcon.

In 1968 they got a hearing on DDT in Madison, Wisconsin. It became headline news, with both sides claiming that everything America stood for was at stake. Biologist Thomas Jukes is shown singing a pro-DDT parody on America the Beautiful he sent to Time magazine at the time of the trial.[3] Hugh Iltis describes how in 1969 a scientist testified at the hearing about how DDT appears in breast milk and accumulate in the fat tissue of babies. This got massive media attention.

Where once chemicals were seen as good, now they were bad. In the late 60s ecology was a marginal science. But Yannacone used ecology as a scientific basis to challenge the DDT defenders' idea of evolution. Similar to how the science of entomology had been changed in the 1950s, ecology was transformed by the social and political pressures of the early 70s. Ecologists became the guardians of the human relationship to nature.

James Moore describes how people try to get Darwin on the side of their view of nature. In The Origin of Species nature is seen as being at war, but also likened to a web of complex relations. Here Darwin gave people a basis for urging us not to take control of nature but cooperate with it. In popular imagination a scientific theory has a single fixed meaning, but in reality it becomes cultural property and is usable by different interested parties.

Twenty years later the story of DDT continues with a press conference announcing the stop of construction in a skyscraper due to a nesting Peregrine Falcon. Ornitologist David Berger criticizes the event for fostering the myth of the sensitivity of nature.

Joan Halifax[4] talks about ecology as a gift to human beings and all species, a moral lesson that gave rise to not utopia, but ecotopia.

Politics Professor Langdon Winner theorizes that social ideals are being read back to us as if they were lessons derived from science itself. The scientific notions of the 1950s, the ideas of endless possibilities for exploitations of nature, are now seen as ill-conceived. And the ideas of ecology today may in 30 or 40 years seem similarly ill-conceived.

The episode ends with a quote from Darwin about seeking divine providence in nature: "I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can."

Part 5 - Black Power

A look at how Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of the Gold Coast (which became Ghana on independence) from 1952 to 1966, set Africa ablaze with his vision of a new industrial and scientific age. At the heart of his dream was to be the huge Volta dam, generating enough power to transform West Africa into an industrialized utopia. A scheme was drawn up together with Kaiser Aluminum, but as his grand experiment took shape, it brought with it dangerous forces Nkrumah couldn't control, and he slowly watched his metropolis of science sink into corruption and debt.

Part 6 - A is For Atom

An insight into the history of nuclear power. In the 1950s scientists and politicians thought they could create a different world with a limitless source of nuclear energy. But things began to go wrong. Scientists in America and the Soviet Union were duped into building dozens of potentially dangerous plants. Then came the disasters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl which changed views on the safety of this new technology. The episode goes into some detail over attempts to find solutions for the China Syndrome hypothesis.

This episode was named after a 1953 General Electric propaganda film explaining nuclear power and features artfully chosen footage from this film.

Politics, Human rights - The Curse of Oil

2010-01-01T18:41:00.000-08:00

Part 1 - “Rich and Poor”

Part 2 - “The Pipeline”

Part 3 - “The Wilderness”

Samantha Power: On the US Response to Mass Atrocities

2010-01-01T18:39:00.001-08:00

Granito de Arena Documentary - Repression of social movements in Oaxaca Mexico

2010-01-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

For over 20 years, global economic forces have been dismantling public education in Mexico, but always in the constant shadow of popular resistance... Granito de Arena is the story of that resistance – the story of hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers whose grassroots, non-violent movement took Mexico by surprise, and who have endured brutal repression in their 25-year struggle for social and economic justice in Mexico's public schools. Completed in 2005, Granito de Arena provides context and background to the unprecedented popular uprising that exploded in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2006. It serves as an excellent prequel to Corrugated Film's latest release, Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad. Indymedia Indypeer Noam Chomsky EZLN Zapatista Bourdieu Che Guevara Barack Obama Naomi Klein Globalisation globalization emancipation marxism anarquism human rights social justice freedom rebellion left attac critique resistance revolution Socialism politics sociology society repression social movement uprising hope change democracy capitalism solidarity history change the world yes we can stop police violence Indymedia Indypeer Noam Chomsky EZLN Zapatista Bourdieu Che Guevara Barack Obama Naomi Klein Globalización rebelión resistencia revolución derechos humanos justicia social libertad rebelión marxismo anarquismo critico izquierda attac socialismo politica sociologia sociedad represión movimiento social insurrección cambio change capitalismo esperanza solidaridad historia.

Virginia Vargas: Women’s Long March for Equality and Democracy in Latin America

2010-01-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

Ralph Nader: The Road to Corporate Fascism

2010-01-01T18:20:00.001-08:00

Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

2010-01-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times and #1 international bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This is a lecture she gave in Boulder, Colorado on December 8, 2007, where she explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, and how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism from Jason Bosch on Vimeo.

Angela Davis: Radical Frameworks for Social Justice

2010-01-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Angela Davis: Radical Frameworks for Social Justice from Jason Bosch on Vimeo.

Kids in the hall - Canada

2009-12-30T17:45:00.000-08:00

god is dead