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

pdxjustice

Award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author, Naomi Klein, talks about her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

pdxjustice Media Productions
Producer: William Seaman

"From Chile to China to Iraq, torture has been a silent partner in the global free market crusade. But torture is more than a tool used to enforce unwanted policies on rebellious peoples; it is also a metaphor of the shock doctrine’s underlying logic. Torture, or in CIA language "coercive interrogation," is a set of techniques designed to put prisoners into a state of deep disorientation and shock in order to force them to make concessions against their will. ...The shock doctrine mimics this process precisely, attempting to achieve on a mass scale what torture does one on one in the interrogation cell. ...The original disaster – the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown, the war, the tsunami, the hurricane – puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorized prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect."
Excerpt from Shock Doctrine

Chalmers Johnson - Decline of Empires : The Signs of Decay

eon3

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the same symptoms: overextension, corruption and the inability to reform.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. http://www.jpri.org/

Why We Fight describes the rise and maintenance of the United States military-industrial complex and its involvement in the wars led by the United States during the last fifty years, and in particular in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The film alleges that in every decade since World War II, the American public has been told a lie to bring it into war to fuel the military-economic machine, which in turn maintains American dominance in the world. It includes interviews with John McCain, Chalmers Johnson, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Gore Vidal and Joseph Cirincione. The film also incorporates the stories of a Vietnam War veteran whose son died in the September 11, 2001 attacks and then had his son's name written on a bomb dropped on Iraq; a 23-year old New York man who enlists in the United States Army citing his financial troubles after his only family member died; and a former Vietnamese refugee who now develops explosives for the American military.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-173889827965723460

The BLOWBACK SYNDROME : Oil Wars and Overreach

eon3

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the U.S. 'military-petroleum complex,' the overextension of the American military, nuclear proliferation, and the decline of Washington's credibility abroad.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. http://www.jpri.org/

The Future of Food and Seed:

Justice, Sustainability and Peace in the 21st Century

Scientist, feminist, ecologist and author, Vandana Shiva, presenting the keynote address at the 2009 Organicology Conference in Portland, Oregon, on February 28, 2009.

Gore Vidal on 'The New Pearl Harbour', 9/11, Timothy McVeigh, Lincoln and more..

MrMorganstack

In this interview from 2005, Gore Vidal plugs David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor", and recommends it as reading material.

The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein, the world famous author of No Logo, appeared in Dundee to talk about her new book, The Shock Doctrine. Thrilling and revelatory, The Shock Doctrine cracks open the secret history of our era. Klein discovered information and connections that amazed even her about how the shock doctors were raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq - this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed. Klein made Dundee her only Scottish stop on a UK tour.

Naomi Klein at the University of Regina

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4870190148565621558

In an era of growing climatic, economic, and geopolitical instability, Naomi Klein’s analysis of the rise of neo-liberalism and the political uses to which disasters are put is useful and timely indeed. As William S. Kowinski of The San Francisco Chronicle has said, “Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time.”

This event will provide a venue for discussing and debating Klein’s ideas, for introducing them to a new generation of activists, and for connecting ideas to action.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and author of the international and New York Times bestsellers The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and No Logo.This event is co-sponsored by the Regina Public Interest Research Group, the Social Policy Research Unit, Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation, Prairie Dog Magazine, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Saskatchewan, and the Regina & District Labour Council.

Severn Suzuki

Students for sustainability

Severn Suzuki speaking at

UN Earth Summit 1992

Raised in Vancouver and Toronto, Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been camping and hiking all her life. When she was 9 she started the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They were successful in many projects before 1992, when they raised enough money to go to the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Their aim was to remind the decision-makers of who their actions or inactions would ultimately affect. The goal was reached when 12 yr old Severn closed a Plenary Session with a powerful speech that received a standing ovation.

David Suzuki Foundation

Naomi Klein : "Is Another World Possible?"

madashelldude

View the full playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=712F3F00F714288B

"We lost because we were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks." Naomi Klein on 'Is Another World Possible?' ASA annual meeting.

Democracy Now Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/8/15/naomi_klein_from_think_tanks_to

Discussion about Inclusive Democracy Part 2 of 3

This is the 2nd Part of the discussion with Takis Fotopoulos about the The Multidimensional Crisis and Inclusive Democracy

at Oxford University. In this part you can listen to the analysis of the current economic crisis and the reasons behind it and behind such crisis that is unavoidable due to the inexorable function of the system of market/growth economy which leads to the growing concentration of economic power into the hands of (now transnational) elites. Then, Fotopoulos makes a brief analysis of the integral components of Inclusive Democracy (economic, political, ecological and social democracy) which, beginning from the fact that the concentration of power at all levels is the exclusive reason for the multi-dimensional crisis of our modernity, proposes an autonomous/democratic social system that secures the equal distribution of power in all realms of human activity, an Inclusive Democracy. Then, you can listen to the very interesting dialogue part between Fotopoulos and some of the participants which tries to answer to questions about "modernization criteria" for an Inclusive Democracy, the theory of the called "no-waste" and effective hierarchical structure of the market economy and the notion of "spontaneous hierarchies" (mentions of Pareto, Hayek, Russell, Arendt, Carter and others are made).

Videos in English Takis Fotopoulos

The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy

Federal Reserve:

Same old sheriff on Wall St

Pollin: Obama plan to 'empower' the Fed won't reign in casino capitalism; finance must be democratized

Last week, Barack Obama announced that his new plan for Wall Street regulation would be hinged upon an enhanced oversight role for the Federal Reserve. Robert Pollin, while welcoming a first attempt at regulation, points out that the Fed already was tasked with bank oversight, but allowed the excess and recklessness to continue due to lack of transparency and accountability. Furthermore, while the Obama plan gives the Fed more power, it does not give one reason to expect a more transparent or accountable agency. When seen together with Treasury Secretary Geithner's plan to relieve banks of their so-called toxic assets, Pollin believes that the White House's vision for an overhauled financial system, falls horribly short.

Bio
Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He is the founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the U.S. His books include A MEASURE OF FAIRNESS: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the US and Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity.

Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?

Understanding exponential growth as a fundamental driver of global warming, environmental destruction, peak oil and natural gas, water and arable land shortages, social decay, resource wars, etc..

I am looking for people to help me translate this video into other languages.

Commentarians...If you think understanding exponential growth is important, and that this video clip is helpful, I hope you will consider including a link to this clip in your signature line in your commentary on other blogs -- as appropriate.

Update Feb. 2009: This clip is being translated with subtitles here:

http://dotsub.com/view/493537ee-4678-4a4c-9e68-19b9b5dac2d4 ,

and at overshoot.tv, here:

http://overshoot.tv/node/53 .

The Potentiality of Storming Heaven

A 28 minute short movie-presentation of the insurrection of December 2008 in Greece through the words and actions of people that took part in it. The video was created in Thessaloniki in January 2009 and its first presentation took place before an open discussion-review of the insurrection in the squatted public library of Ano Poli.

Romancing The State

Will Obama Regulate Wall Street, and The Fate Of GM Workers

40 years after Stonewall, a defining moment in the struggle for gay rights and social justice, discrimination against LGBT people is still common throughout the world. The Obama administration’s Justice Department has upheld the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 that defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. Sangeeta Budhiraja, Program Officer of Building Movements at the Ms. Foundation for Women, Writer and activist Kenyon Farrow, and Mab Segrest, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Connecticut College on the historical roots of discrimination against the LGBT community and the struggle for equal rights.

Then, Obama’s regulation policy is being carefully scrutinized. Will he subject banks, rating agencies, and financial institutions to the kind of regulation that many think necessary to prevent another financial train wreck? William Black, Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former senior bank regulator, Nomi Prins, Senior Fellow at Demos and author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, and Les Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor and the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It on the President’s regulatory policies. Also, Elizabeth Warren, a pofessor of Law at Harvard, on comments on Obama’s new regulatory plan.

Finally, the American News Project reports on fallout from the GM bankruptcy. 20,000 of the 123,000 GM workers left in North America are set to lose their jobs as the auto task force, led by Wall Street financiers, aims to restore profits and boost stock prices.
Thanks to After Stonewall for video in tonight’s show.

Albert A. Bartlett is Professor Emeritus in Nuclear Physics at Colorado University at Boulder. He has been a member of the faculty of the University of Colorado since 1950. He was President of the American Association of Physics Teachers in 1978 and in 1981 he received their Robert A. Millikan Award for his outstanding scholarly contributions to physics education.

Dr. Bartlett has given his celebrated lecture, Arithmetic, Population and Energy over 1,600 times. His collected writings have been published in the book, "The Essential Exponential! For the Future of Our Planet".

Bill Maher Center Right Democrats and the Insane Republicans CommonDreams

Democrats are the new Republicans. Segment authorized for open distribution by HBO
http://www.commondreams.org/

Mining the Connections:

From Birmingham to Colombia to Massachusetts

Dr. Aviva Chomsky is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies at Salem State College. She spoke with Colombian Union Organizer Orlando Acosta about the labor practices of the mining industry and struggles of Colombian coal miners in the WSC North/South Auditorium on 31 January 2008.

Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops

Robert Ross is Professor, and former Chair, of Sociology and presently Director of the International Studies Stream at Clark University - where he is also the elected Faculty Chair of the University. His major work has been on the globalization of capital and labor.

His lecture was part of the Sustainability Fair in the WSC Blue Lounge, October 2, 2008

Slaves to Fashion, University of Michigan Press

Getting a Grip on Hunger

Frances Moore Lappé spoke at WSC Blue Lounge on 07 November 2007 as part of the Intergenerational Urban Institute's lecture series dealing with hunger issues.

The Small Planet Institute

Living Democracy Feeding Hope

Frances Moore Lappé, a democracy advocate and world food and hunger expert, discusses her passion for participatory democracy built upon hope for a better future.

Small Planet Institute

UCTV Program

P. Sainath - Globalizing Inequality

Social Ecology Talk

At the end of summer of 2007 the Study group Social Ecology London came to The PAD Social Centre in Cardiff to give a public presentation. This is an audio recording of the text used at that presentation.

Corporation 20/20

Designing for Social Purpose

FIRST SUMMIT OVERVIEW

New Principles for Corporate Design
1. The purpose of the corporation is to harness private interests to serve the public interest.
2. Corporations shall accrue fair returns for shareholders, but not at the expense of the legitimate interests of other stakeholders.
3. Corporations shall operate sustainably, meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
4. Corporations shall distribute their wealth equitably among those who contribute to its creation.
5. Corporations shall be governed in a manner that is participatory, transparent, ethical, and accountable.
6. Corporations shall not infringe on the right of natural persons to govern themselves, nor infringe on other universal human rights.

The Life You Can Save:

Acting Now to End World Poverty

Peter Singer

It wouldn't take much to rescue those living in extreme poverty, says Peter Singer. If every American earning $50,000+ a year gave just 1 percent of their income--$500--we could reach the Millennium Goals.

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (Audios)

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (Transcripts)

The Responsibility and Global Justice Lecture Series, sponsored by the Vanderbilt Philosophy Department, presents James Bohman, the Danforth Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University, speaking on "Global Transgenerational Justice"

SUSAN GEORGE: on Global Justice

Internationally celebrated scholar/activist Susan George calls for a convergence of the global justice, environmental and peace movements to exert democratic control of an international politics now dominated by a corporate elite.

Benjamin Barber on Consumerism at Demos

joefriendly

Benjamin Barber presents his thought provoking arguments on globalization, interdependence and the impact of consumerist culture.

The Political Economy of Globalization

Globalization of Capitalism

Jerry Harris, Devry professor, author of The Dialectics of Globalization, explains the growing globalization of transnational capitalism replacing national sovereignty, at the Brecht Forum, November 14, 2008

Co-sponsor: Science & Society

US Hegemony or Transnational Capital?

Is globalization a project of US imperialism or an emerging transnational capitalist class? Harris will argue that while nationalism still plays a strong role in world affairs, particularly in the form of the US military/industrial complex, economic hegemony is now in the hands of transnational capital. The central historical process at work is the conflict between a descending form of capitalist accumulation based on national markets and the nation state and an ascending model of accumulation based on the transnationalization of finance and production. The contradiction between nationalism and globalization cuts across traditional party lines as the capitalist class struggles to develop a political project that can manage their growing crisis.

Jerry Harris is a professor of history at DeVry University, Chicago and author of The Dialectics of Globalization, Political and Economic Conflict in a Transnational World. He is national secretary of the Global Studies Association and his articles are often featured in Science & Society, Race and Class and Das Argument. Professor Harris has spoken widely on globalization including lectures in London, Prague, Bogota and Rajasthan.

Gus Speth at DEMOS: Capitalism, Environment Crisis

Yale Dean of Forestry and Environmental Studies comes down hard on corporations, calling for a steady-state rather than growth orientation and the need for radical political and economic change to rationally deal with the climate crisis and achieve sustainability.

He is speaking at Demos December 2, 2008 about his new book: The Bridge at the Edge of the World. Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability

1/3:Takis Fotopoulos' talk and discussion in Vermont
2/3:Takis Fotopoulos' talk and discussion in Vermont
3/3:Takis Fotopoulos' talk and discussion in Vermont

This is first part of a discussion with Takis Fotopoulos about the Internationalization of the Capitalist system of the Market Economy and the project of Inclusive Democracy that took place in Vermont at 19/4/1996. After the talk you can watch an interesting dialogue with Murray Bookchin, Janet Biehl and other participants from Social Ecology.
Institute for Social Ecology
Inclusive Democracy

Schwarzenegger's Shock Therapy - Poor Pay For Sins Of The Rich

By Avi Lewis

Now that Washington has ruled out an immediate bailout for California, we know who will pay the ultimate price for the crisis born on Wall Street: the state's most vulnerable citizens. And with many states facing similar crises, this could be a preview of where the country as a whole is headed.

California is facing a $24.3 billion dollar budget gap, and the governor wants to attack it with cuts to social programs alone. If Schwarzenegger has his way, the price will be paid by 1.9 million people who lose their health care coverage, 1.3 million who lose basic welfare, thousands of state workers who get fired, schools that lose $5 billion in funding, having already survived brutal cuts earlier this year.

I just spent a week in LA and Sacramento filming a documentary on the crisis for Fault Lines, the show I co-host on Al Jazeera English Television. We interviewed teachers who are on hunger strike against the cuts, students organizing protest marches, health care workers and their patients, politicians from both parties, undocumented immigrants and the talk show hosts who demonize them (Californians will know the John and Ken Show...)

What we discovered (beyond some priceless video of Arnold Schwarzenegger introducing Milton Friedman's TV series on PBS in 1990, is that thanks to the quirks of California's system, the state is a Petri dish for some of the most virulent strains of American political culture.

Around the world, government is seen as the last hope to stimulate a comatose economy. In California, anti-tax, anti-spending, and anti-government sentiments are converging: California is facing a de-stimulus package of epic proportions.

Watch both parts of my half-hour documentary below, and check out AJE live, 24 hours day, at livestation.com.

Fault Lines, California: Failed State Part 1

Fault Lines, California: Failed State Part 2

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson

This Is What Democracy Looks Like (Seattle 1999 WTO)

Occupytheplanet

Documentary following the events of the 1999 WTO Protests in Seattle.

From the website:

This Is What Democracy Looks Like, a co-production of the IMC and Big Noise Films, weaves the footage of over 100 videographers into a gripping document of what really happened on Seattle's streets. The film cuts through the confusion and tear gas to paint an intimate, passionate portrait of a week that changed the world.With narration by SUSAN SARANDON and SPEARHEAD's MICHAEL FRANTI, and with a driving soundtrack including RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, DJ SHADOW, DJ MUSAKA, and COMPANY OF PROPHETS, This Is What Democracy Looks Like is the first documentary to capture the raw energy of the WTO protests, while clarifying their global and historic significance.

The Independent Media Center provided a production infrastructure for over 450 media activists during the WTO protests in November 1999. With autonomous, volunteer-run media centers operating in four continents, ten countries and twenty-one cities, the IMC represents a new and powerful emerging model for independent media.

"The IMC isn't waiting for the old guard media to tell the true story. . . the IMC is simply doing the job itself, reporting directly form the front lines." Naomi Klein, author of NO LOGO

As always support the makers of this film by buying the DVD.
http://www.bignoisefilms.com/

O que é democracia inclusiva?

Entrevista feita a Takis Fotopoulos por Oliver Ressler para a série "Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies".

Neste video, Fotopoulos debate os aspectos político, económico, social, cultural e ecológico da democracia inclusiva.

What is Inclusive Democracy?

This is an interview with Takis Fotopoulos about the ID project, taken by Oliver Ressler for his video series "Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies" on July 19th 2003.

In this video, Fotopoulos discusses the constituents of ID: Political, Economic, democracy at the Social level and Ecological democracy. He is also offering a thorough analysis of the ID' s proposed economic model for a market-less and money-less economy. Finally, he refers to the transitional strategy for the revolutionary transformation to an autonomous society

Inclusive Democracy

Takis Fotopoulos' Archive

J. Stephen Lansing: A Thousand Years in Bali

Perfect Order: A Thousand Years in Bali

With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics, anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposed the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices. The intensely productive terraced rice paddies of Bali are a thousand years old. So are the democratic subaks (irrigation cooperatives) that manage them, and so is the water temple system that links the subaks in a nested hierarchy.

When the Green Revolution came to Bali in 1971, suddenly everything went wrong. Along with the higher-yield rice came "technology packets" of fertilizers and pesticides and the requirement, stated in patriotic terms, to "plant as often as possible." The result: year after year millions of tons of rice harvest were lost, mostly to voracious pests. The level of pesticide use kept being increased, to ever decreasing effect.

Stockholm Resilience Centre

"Wisdom seminar" with Paul R. Ehrlich

Take the opportunity to see a video seminar with one of the most well-known and outspoken environmental scientists of our time.

Professor Ehrlich held this seminar 11 September 2007 in Stockholm where he focused his talk on coevolution, population growth and the perspective of ecosystem services.

About Paul Ehrlich

Paul R. Ehrlich has pursued long-term studies of the structure, dynamics, and genetics of natural butterfly populations. He has also been a pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation, and in raising issues of population, resources, and the environment as matters of public policy.

A central focus of his group is investigating ways that human-disturbed landscapes can be made more hospitable to biodiversity. The Ehrlich group's policy research on the population-resource-environment crisis takes a broad overview of the world situation, but also works intensively in such areas of immediate legislative interests as endangered species and the preservation of genetic resources.

Professor Ehrlich is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Ehrlich has received several honorary degrees, e.g. the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club, a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Volvo Environmental Prize, the United Nations' Sasakawa Environment Prize, the Blue Planet Prize, and the Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America.

Susan Owens: Environment, knowledge and politics

What we know about natural environments, and about human interactions with them, has changed a great deal over the past four decades. So too have the ways in which knowledge is produced. Environmental policy, institutions and politics have also changed beyond recognition, and now have global reach.

This seminar will reflect on these changes and their implications. It will then take a critical look at some of the prevailing conventional wisdoms in environmental research - for example, the drive towards interdisciplinarity and the insistence on ‘user engagement´. Finally, it will ask whether what we know affects what we do, and will offer three possible models of the relationship between environmental research and policy.

Bio

Susan Owens is Professor of Environment and Policy and Fellow of Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, UK. This year she holds the King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor in Environmental Studies, shared between the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

Owens has researched and published widely on environmental issues and policy processes, and on interpretations of sustainable development in theory and practice, particularly in the context of land use and environmental planning. She has been a member of the standing Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, UK, since 1998.

She was awarded an OBE for services to sustainable development in 1998 and in 2000 received the Royal Geographical Society´s ‘Back´ Award for contributions to research and policy formulation in this field.

Psychiatry Grand Rounds

Educational Objectives

1. Explain the updated methods of treatment of various psychiatric topics.


2. Recognize the applicable relevant research in various psychiatric topics.


3. Discuss basic and updated information concerning psychiatric topics.

Current Grand Rounds

Richard D. Lane, MD, PhD Webcasts

From the Population Bomb

to The Dominant Animal

Lecture by Paul Ehrlich during the 2008 Reunion Homecoming Classes Without Quizzes program. Professor Ehrlich discusses the changes in the environmental situation forty years ago and today, telling how humanity took over the planet, and how it is now using its dominance to destroy its own life-support systems. He emphasizes the critical issues facing the world that are getting almost no attention in the current presidential race.

Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Biological Sciences, Bing Professor of Population Studies and president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford, is an internationally prominent ecologist and evolutionist and the recipient of numerous national and international scientific awards.

The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment

Michael Parenti Discusses Contrary Notions

Internationally acclaimed, award winning author Michael Parenti is one of America's most astute and engaging political analysts. Covering a wide range of subjects, Parenti's work has enlightened and enlivened readers for many years. Here is a rich buffet of his deep but lucid writings on real history, political life, empire, wealth, class power, technology, culture, ideology, media, environment, gender, and ethnicity - along with a few choice selections drawn from his own life experiences and political awakening.

Parenti serves on the board of judges for Project Censored, and on numerous advisory boards as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought. He is the author of twenty books - Cody's Books

Bio

Michael Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. Michael Parenti has won awards from Project Censored, the Caucus for a New Political Science, the city of Santa Cruz, New Jersey Peace Action, the Social Science Research Council, the Society for Religion in Higher Education, and other organizations. In 2007 he was awarded a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Representative Barbara Lee. During his earlier teaching career he received grants or fellowships from the Louis Rabinowitz Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Brown University, Yale University, State University of New York, and the University of Illinois. For several years he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He now serves on the board of judges for Project Censored, and on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, Education Without Borders, and the Jasenovic Foundation; as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought.

The live webcast of the conference was on Nov. 7, 2007. The recorded webcasts are currently available for playback.

I. PROPAGANDA THEN AND NOW: WHAT ORWELL DID AND DIDN'T KNOW

II. DECEIVING IMAGES: THE SCIENCE OF MANIPULATION

III. SOLUTIONS: THE FUTURE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

In his classic essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell described political speech as consisting “largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Six decades later, the tactics of disinformation and manipulation diagnosed by Orwell persist on the political battlefield, along with new propaganda techniques made possible by advances in scientific knowledge and modern technology.

There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America invites historians, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, government officials, and political consultants to assess the current state of public discourse — and journalism’s response to it — one year before a hotly contested presidential election. The panels explore the past, present, and future of deceptive political speech, and assess what can be done to bring more realism and honesty into the conduct of America’s public affairs.

What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, an anthology featuring twenty prominent writers and thinkers, has been published to coincide with the conference.

Deceiving Images : The Science of Manipulation

http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/deceiving-images-science-manipulation

MODERATOR: Nicholas Lemann, dean and Henry R. Luce Professor, The Journalism School, Columbia University.

PANELISTS: George Lakoff, Co-Founder and Senior Fellow, Rockridge Institute and the Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, UC Berkeley · Frank Luntz, political pollster and consultant; author of Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear · Drew Westen, professor of psychology/psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Emory University; author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America (http://www.nypl.org/live/multimedia/orwell)

On the 60th anniversary of Orwell's Politics and the English Language, George Orwell described political speech as consisting largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Some six decades later, many symptoms of manipulation and propaganda diagnosed by Orwell persist on the American political landscape, along with new disinformation techniques enabled by modern technology.

Historians, scientists, philosophers, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, image-makers, and public figures will debate in three separate sessions the current state of political discourse and journalism's response to it on the dawn of a bitterly contested presidential campaign.

Part I - Propaganda Then and Now: What Orwell Did and Didn't Know

Part II - Deceiving Images: The Science of Manipulation

Part III - Solutions: The Future Political Landscape

Each session will explore the past, present, and future of deceptive political speech, and assess what can be done to bring more realism and honesty into the conduct of America's public affairs.

This event is co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute.

Propaganda Then and Now:

What Orwell Did and Didn't Know

Summary
On the 60th anniversary of Orwell's Politics and the English Language, George Orwell described political speech as consisting "largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Some six decades later, many symptoms of manipulation and propaganda diagnosed by Orwell persist on the American political landscape, along with new disinformation techniques enabled by modern technology.

Historians, scientists, philosophers, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, image-makers, and public figures will debate in three separate sessions the current state of political discourse - and journalism's response to it - on the dawn of a bitterly contested presidential campaign.

Moderator:

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society; former dean, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Panelists:

Konstanty Gebert, Warsaw-based former Solidarity activist; columnist and international reporter, Gazeta Wyborcza

Masha Gessen, Moscow-based author and journalist; contributor to The New York Times, The New Republic, and US News and World Report

Jack Miles, senior fellow for religious affairs, Pacific Council on International Policy; distinguished professor of English and religious studies, UC Irvine

George Soros, chair of Soros Fund Management LLC; philanthropist and author

NYPL Event Description

The Relevance of Social and Affective Neuroscience to Education

USCRossier 

Dr. Mary Helen Immordino Yang, Ed.D. is a cognitive neuroscientist and educational psychologist who studies the brain bases of emotion, social interaction and culture and their implications for development and schools. She is an Assistant Professor of Education at the Rossier School of Education and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, where she was formerly a joint postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Robert Rueda and Antonio Damasio. A former junior high school teacher, she earned her doctorate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where she was the recipient of grants from the Spencer Foundation and the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. She is the Associate Editor for North America for the journal Mind, Brain and Education, and the inaugural recipient of the Award for Transforming Education through Neuroscience, co-sponsored by the International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES) and the Learning and the Brain Conference. She lectures nationally and abroad on the implications of brain and cognitive science research for curriculum and pedagogy.

Changing Minds About Climate Change - Paul Thagard

WICI Seminar: November 19, 2008
Waterloo Institute for Complexity & Innovation
http://www.sig.uwaterloo.ca/
University of Waterloo

Why have most scientists come to believe that global warming is caused by human activity? Why do some politicians such as Sarah Palin resist this conclusion? Belief, change and resistance can be explained by neurocomputational models of explanatory and emotional coherence. Minds and societies are complex, multilevel systems that can be changed by intervention on feedback loops at multiple levels.

Speaker Profile

Paul Thagard is Professor of Philosophy, with cross appointment to Psychology and Computer Science, and Director of the Cognitive Science Program, at the University of Waterloo. He is a graduate of the Universities of Saskatchewan, Cambridge, Toronto (Ph. D. in philosophy) and Michigan (M.S. in computer science). He is the author of Hot Thought: Mechanisms and Applications of Emotional Cognition (MIT Press, 2006), Coherence in Thought and Action (MIT Press, 2000), How Scientists Explain Disease (Princeton University Press, 1999), Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science (MIT Press, 1996; second edition, 2005), Conceptual Revolutions (Princeton University Press, 1992), and Computational Philosophy of Science (MIT Press, 1988); and co-author of Mental Leaps: Analogy in Creative Thought (MIT Press, 1995) and Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery (MIT Press, 1986). He is also editor of Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science (Elsevier, 2007), and Associate Editor of the journal Cognitive Science.

He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Cognitive Science Society, and in 2007 received a Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize.

Social Innovation & Resilience:

A Complexity Approach to Change and Transformation

Lecture Presentation Slides (.pdf)

Frances Westley joined the University of Waterloo as the JW McConnell Chair in Social Innovation in July 2007. In this role she will head up a Canada wide initiative in social innovation, SiG (Social Innovation Generation), a cross sectoral partnership to build capacity for social innovation in Canada funded by the J.W McConnell Family Foundation, University of Waterloo and the Ontario government. Dr. Westley is a renowned scholar and consultant in the areas of social innovation, strategies for sustainable development, middle management and strategic change, visionary leadership and inter-organizational collaboration. Her most recent book, Getting to Maybe (Random House, 2006) focuses the dynamics of social innovation, and institutional entrepreneurship in complex adaptive systems. Experiments in Consilience (Island Press, 2004), focuses on the dynamics of inter-organizational and interdisciplinary collaboration in the management of ecological and conservation problems.

Waterloo Applied Complexity and Innovation Seminars

"Organized religion will mess you"

Why Don't Scientists Fear Hell?

"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."

Giordano Bruno - burned alive by the catholic church in 1600, using real flames, presumably because they feared their God might do a sloppy job.

The 11th hour

With contributions from over 50 politicians, scientists, and environmental activists, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, and journalist Paul Hawken, the film documents the grave problems facing the planet’s life systems.

Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans’ habitats are all addressed. The film’s premise is that the future of humanity is in jeopardy. The film proposes potential solutions to these problems by calling for restorative action by the reshaping and rethinking of global human activity through technology, social responsibility and conservation.

Not all scientists agree on the fact that global warming is an immediate threat. Although every scientist in this movie apparently does. Every expert interviewed stressed the fact that human involvement in the fight against global warming is mandatory. This is due to the fact that the increased anthropogenic cycle is pinned down as the main cause of climate change in the movie.

The role of humans in the destruction of the environment is explained from the viewpoint of several different professional fields: environmental scientists, oceanographers, economic historians, medical specialists, etc. The best example of this came from philosopher Wade Davis who theorized that to people, “You are either a person or property,” referring to mankind’s view on land and natural resource.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_11th_Hour_%28film%29

• The Trap - 1 - Fuck You, Buddy


• The Trap - 2 - The Lonely Robot


• The Trap - 3 - We Will Force You to Be Free

A series of three films by BAFTA-winning producer Adam Curtis that tells the story of the rise of today’s narrow idea of freedom. It will show how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today’s idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War. It was then taken up by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, until it became a new system of invisible control.

"The Israel-Palestine Conflict: What we can learn from Gandhi"

Norman G. Finkelstein Maastricht University talk

Journey From the Psychology of Evil

to the Psychology of Heroism

Lecture by Philip Zimbardo during the 2008 Reunion Homecoming Classes Without Quizzes program. Why do good people turn evil? In what sense are evil and heroism comparable? How could the little old Stanford prison experiment reveal parallels and insights about the abuses by military guards at Abu Ghraib?

Philip Zimbardo, professor of psychology, emeritus, is internationally recognized as a leading "voice and face of contemporary psychology" through his widely seen PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology, his media appearances, best-selling trade books on shyness, and his classic research, The Stanford Prison Experiment.

The Lucifer Effect:

Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

About the Lecture

Perhaps no one comprehends the roots of depravity and cruelty better than Philip Zimbardo. He is renowned for such research as the Stanford Prison Experiment, which demonstrated how, in the right circumstances, ordinary people can swiftly become amoral monsters. Evil is not so much inherent in individuals, Zimbardo showed, but emerges dependably when a sequence of dehumanizing and stressful circumstances unfolds. It is no wonder then, that Zimbardo has lent both his expertise and moral outrage to the case of U.S. reservists who perpetrated the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

Zimbardo’s latest book, The Lucifer Effect, attempts to understand “how good people do evil deeds.” His talk outlines his involvement as expert witness for the defense team of one of the military police officers responsible at Abu Ghraib, and also provides a rich history of psychological research into the kind of behavior transformations evident in Iraq. First, Zimbardo presents a slideshow of Abu Ghraib abominations, including some digital photos that were not widely distributed by the media. Then he digs deep into the archives for a horrifically illustrated tour of experiments that make a persuasive case that certain, predictable situations corrupt people into wielding power in a destructive way.

He describes Stanley Milgram’s 1963 Yale-based research demonstrating that people will behave sadistically when confronted by “an authority in a lab coat.” A vast majority of the subjects delivered what they were told were dangerous electric shocks to a learner in another room, to the point of apparently killing the other person. Researchers skeptical of his results replicated them. This time, professors demanded that students shock real puppies standing on electrified grills. Zimbardo’s own prison experiment turned an ordinary group of young men into power-hungry “guards,” humiliating equally ordinary “prisoners” in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building. The descent into barbarity was so rapid that Zimbardo had to cancel the experiment after a few days.

The recipe for behavior change isn’t complicated. “All evil begins with a big lie,” says Zimbardo, whether it’s a claim to be following the word of God, or the need to stamp out political opposition. A seemingly insignificant step follows, with successive small actions, presented as essential by an apparently just authority figure. The situation presents others complying with the same rules, perhaps protesting, but following along all the same. If the victims are anonymous or dehumanized somehow, all the better. And exiting the situation is extremely difficult.

Abu Ghraib fit this type of situation to a T, says Zimbardo. The guards, never trained for their work helping military interrogators, worked 12-hour shifts, 40 days without a break, in chaotic, filthy conditions, facing 1,000 foreign prisoners, and hostile fire from the neighborhood. They operated in extreme stress, under orders to impose fear on their prisoners. Zimbardo believes the outcome was perfectly predictable, and while never absolving these soldiers of personal responsibility, believes justice won’t be done until “the people who created the situation go on trial as well: George Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George Bush.”

The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram

John Pilger - Freedom Next Time

Australian journalist, author, film maker John Pilger speaks about global media consolidation, war by journalism, US military's quest for domination/hegemony in the post 9/11 era, false history in the guise of 'objective' journalism. Filmed in Chicago at Socialism 2007: Socialism for the 21st Century by Paul Hubbard. June 16, 2007 Broadcast on Democracy Now - The War and Peace Report - August 7, 2007

War On Democracy by John Pilger

'The War on Democracy' was John Pilger's first major film for the cinema. Set in Latin America and the US, it explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3739500579629840148

Con ánimo de lucro es un documental que habla sobre la pobreza del tercer y el primer mundo, analizando las dos sociedades desde las ONG, la televisión, la educación, los políticos y la religión, poniendo en duda la aplicación de los 8 objetivos del milenio y proponiendo una solución.

Con ánimo de lucro no pretende dañar a ninguna persona ni medio, solo mostrar los errores que se cometen para reflexionar como solucionarlos.

Con Ánimo de Lucro te hará reflexionar sobre tu actitud, y la importancia de cambio que un solo individuo puede poseer.

El documental se filmó en dos partes: En Nicaragua entre finales de Enero y principios de Febrero, y en Barcelona a finales de Abril hasta Agosto.

-Cada 24 horas 25.000 personas mueren de hambre.-1000 millones viven con menos de 1 dolar al día.-Las guerras y la violencia matan a 900.000 humanos al año.

¿Por qué?

Orwell Se Revira No Seu Túmulo

O realizador Robert Kane Pappas investiga o que a mídia não gosta de falar: Sobre si. Reconstituindo meticulosamente o processo pelo qual a imprensa têm distorcido e frequentemente negado acontecimentos noticiosos reais, Pappas apresenta uma eloqüente e fascinante mistura de profissionais da mídia e de orientadoras vozes intelectuais na imprensa.

Legendas em português

The Life or Death Struggle for Journalism and Self-Government

Media critic and historian, Robert McChesney, talks about the essential role of journalism for meaningful democracy, and puts forward a radical proposal to address the challenges faced my news media in the current economic crisis, and into the future.

pdxjustice Media Productions

HOME: O Mundo é a nossa casa

HOME, filme da autoria do realizador francês Yann Arthus-Bertrand, é constituído por paisagens aéreas do mundo inteiro e pretende sensibilizar a opinião pública mundial sobre a necessidade de alterar modos e hábitos de vida a fim de evitar uma catástrofe ecológica planetária.

YouTube - HOME (English with subtitles)