Decisions: How Do We Animals Decide What To Do?

We make thousands of decisions every day: where to go, what to do, when to do it. Join UCSD's William Kristan and discover how neurons, synapses, and chemical input play out in decision making.

Dignity, Human Rights, and Torture

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron for a discussion of the legal concept of dignity, its origins in law and morality and its emergence as a foundation for human rights. In the conversation, Professor Waldron also talks about the importance of preserving liberal values in the fight against terrorism, and, in this context, he criticizes the torture memos for their assault on human dignity.

Mind Wars: Conversations from Penn State

Super soldiers equipped with neural implants, suits that contain biosensors, and thought scans of detainees may become reality sooner than you think. Find out how neuroscience is changing modern warfare, and discover the ethical implications with guest Jonathan Moreno.

Center for Bioethics

1. Dr. Amy Gutmann, University of Pennsylvania President

introduces the Penn Media Seminar on Neuroscience and Society

2. Living in a Neurosociety: A Neuroethics Overview
Dr. Martha Farah, professor of natural sciences and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Penn.
Recent developments in cognitive and affective neuroscience that have enabled new applications of neuroscience.
Ways that neuroscience will impact our lives, beyond the science lab and medical clinic, in the home, office, classroom, courtroom and battlefield.

3. What Lurks Behind the Brain Image: Differentiating Neuroscience from Neuro-Bunk

Dr. Geoffrey K. Aguirre, assistant professor of neurology and member of the Center for Functional Neuroimaging at Penn.

What can and can't be claimed from a functional neuroimaging study.

Use of functional MRI to "read brains"

4. Neuroethics - Are Better Brains Better?

Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, professor of neurology at Penn and faculty member of Penns Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

Ethical dilemmas arising from advances in the neurosciences.

Enhancing cognitive and emotional states in normal subjects.

Patients and physicians challenges in cosmetic neurology.

5. Transhumanism: Enabling and Transcending the Human Brain

Dr. Susan Schneider, assistant professor of philosophy and an affiliated faculty member with Penns Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science.

Philosophical controversies surrounding cognitive enhancement.

Neuroscience, science fiction and the self

6. The Criminal Brain: How, Could and Should We Change It?

Dr. Adrian Raine, professor of criminology and psychiatry at Penn.
An examination of the brain basis to crime and violence.

What we can do to prevent future crime and the neuroethical implications

7. The Brain and National Defense: A Neuroethics History

Dr. Jonathan Moreno, professor of medical ethics and of History and Sociology of Science at Penn.

The role of brain research in national defense.

How modern neuroscience may contribute to national intelligence operations and concerns

8. The Brain and the Person: Does Neuroscience Challenge Personal Moral Agency?

Dr. Stephen Morse, professor of law and professor of psychology and law in psychiatry at the Penn Law School.

The new neuroscience and its impact on the criminal law's theory of responsibility

Why do some succeed where others fail?

What makes high-achievers different?

Malcolm Gladwell, two-time number one national bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, discussed his latest book Outliers and more at a Penn alumni event at the Hudson Union Society.

"Brain Research and National Intelligence" at Engaging Minds

Jonathan D. Moreno is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Ethics and of History and Sociology of Science at Penn.

MIND WARS: Brain Research and National Defense

A provocative book that reads like an edge-of-your seat investigation into the intertwining worlds of science, technology, and government, Mind Wars is the first ever systematic overview of brain research and national security.

Jonathan Moreno unearths a multitude of questions about federal defense agencies’ interest in the burgeoning field of neuroscience and describes the many fascinating ethical and policy issues that may emerge from this relationship.

Moreno, one of the best-known bioethicists in the US, calls for the scientific community to be more engaged in dealing with the unintended consequences of their work. As new kinds of weapons are added to the arsenal already at the disposal of fallible human leaders and their war fighters, we need to be sure we understand how they are used.

Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense

Drugs to improve soldiers' abilities? To confuse enemies? Devices controlled by or controlling people's minds? Will neuroscience provide the weapons of the future? Jonathan Moreno, nationally distinguished bioethicist, discusses the connections between national security and brain research and argues that there is a need to contemplate the ethical, political and social implications of these advances.

Center for Bioethics

Sheldon Rampton : The Wires that Control the Public Mind

GoogleTechTalks

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. ... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind." -- Edward Bernays, founder of the public relations industry.

Billions of dollars are spent each year in the United States alone on public relations, a little-understood profession that has become a modern propaganda-for-hire industry. "Publicity" was once the work of carnival hawkers and penny-ante hustlers smoking cigars and wearing cheap suits. Today's PR professionals are recruited from the ranks of former journalists, retired politicians and eager-beaver college graduates eager to rise in the corporate world. They hobnob internationally with corporate CEOs, senators and U.S. presidents. PR wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony "grassroots" front groups, spy on citizens, and conspire with lobbyists and politicians to thwart democracy. In today's electronic age, they use 800-numbers and telemarketing, advanced databases, and "video news releases" -- entire news stories written, filmed and produced by PR firms and transmitted electronically to thousands of TV stations around the world. Canned news from PR firms is designed to be indistinguishable from real news and is increasingly taking its place, used as "story segments" on TV news shows without any attribution or disclaimer indicating that what viewers are seeing is in fact subtle paid advertisements. On the internet as well, PR firms have created slick websites that promise to inform the public while pushing hidden agendas. Example include:

the Greening Earth Society (funded by the coal industry), which claims that global warming is actually good for the environment
the Foundation for Clean Air Progress (which opposes regulations to control air pollution)
the African American Republican Leadership Council (a conservative organization headed by white Republicans)
Working Families for Wal-Mart (secretly funded, of course, by the Wal-Mart itself)
Project Learning Tree (sponsored by the logging industry)

PR firms create front groups as part of what they call the "third party technique." The basic idea, as described by one PR executive, is to "Put your words in someone else's mouth." They realize that their messages are more likely to persuade the public if they come from seemingly independent "third parties" such as a professor or a pediatrician or someone representing a nonprofit citizens' group. The problem is, these third parties are usually anything but neutral. They have been handpicked, cultivated, and meticulously packaged to make you believe what they have to say--preferably in an "objective" format like a news show or a letter to the editor. And in some cases, they have been paid handsomely for their opinions.

Speaker: Sheldon Rampton
Sheldon Rampton researches deceptive PR firms for the Center for Media and Democracy and is the co-author, with John Stauber, of books including "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damned Lies and the Public Relations Industry"; "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With your Future": and "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq." He will discuss the Center's work including its website, Sourcewatch.org, a wiki-powered collaborative research project to document the "names behind the news."

Patricia Churchland – Stony Brook Mind Brain Lecture 2008

Event overview:
As we come to understand the role of genes in neuronal wiring, and neuronal wiring in the production of behavior, we are newly confronted with questions about choice and responsibility. Although questions concerning what free choice really amounts to have long been at the center of philosophical reflection, new discoveries, especially from neuropharmacology and neuropsychology, have lent them a special and very practical urgency. In the courts, in the education of children, and in general in daily life, we assume that some decisions are freely made and that agents should be held accountable for those decisions. On the other hand, we see the range of allowable excuses from responsibility broadening as we begin to understand the role of certain neuropathologies in aberrant behavior. These developments take place against the public policy debate concerning the right balance between considerations of public safety, justice, fairness, and individual freedom. From the perspective of neurophilosophy, I shall address some of the broad questions in this arena, including the theological and metaphysical contention that free choice is uncaused choice, and the proposal that pragmatic and scientific considerations can yield the best working basis for assignment of responsibility.

Decisions, Responsibility and the Brain

Neuroscientist Patricia Churchland explores how the human mind functions in guiding one's decisions.

Democracy Now

Historian Alfred McCoy: Obama Reluctance on Bush Prosecutions Affirms Culture of Impunity

A Short History of Psychological Terror

UCtelevision

Alfred McCoy, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, explores the history and use by the CIA of psychological torture in terms of how this particular form of torture was discovered, perfected and made legal.

How Do We Predict the Future: Brains Rewards and Addiction

In this fascinating presentation, The Salk Institute's Terry Sejnowski explores how by its nature the human brain is susceptible to the effects of addictive substances. Series: "Grey Matters"

What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are (TSN Webcast)

Book Description

This exciting, timely book combines cutting-edge findings in neuroscience with examples from history and recent headlines to offer new insights into who we are. Introducing the new science of cultural biology, born of advances in brain imaging, computer modeling, and genetics, Drs. Quartz and Sejnowski demystify the dynamic engagement between brain and world that makes us something far beyond the sum of our parts.

The authors show how our humanity unfolds in precise stages as brain and world engage on increasingly complex levels. Their discussion embraces shaping forces as ancient as climate change over millennia and events as recent as the terrorism and heroism of September 11 and offers intriguing answers to some of our most enduring questions, including why we live together, love, kill -- and sometimes lay down our lives for others.

The answers, it turns out, are surprising and paradoxical: many of the noblest aspects of human nature -- altruism, love, courage, and creativity -- are rooted in brain systems so ancient that we share them with insects, and these systems form the basis as well of some of our darkest destructive traits. The authors also overturn popular views of how brains develop. We're not the simple product of animal urges, "selfish" genes, or nature versus nurture. We survive by creating an ingenious web of ideas for making sense of our world -- a symbolic reality called culture. This we endow to later generations as our blueprint for survival.

Using compelling examples from history and contemporary life, the authors show how engagement with the world excites brain chemistry, which drives further engagement, which encourages the development of cultural complexity. They also share provocative ideas on how human development may be affected by changes in our culture. Their insights, grounded in science and far-reaching in their implications, are riveting reading for anyone interested in our past, present, and future.

Behavior and Our Brain

What makes us who we are? What makes us fall in love, become addicted to chocolate, or become a musician? Renowned neuroscientist Terry Sejnowski, whose cutting edge research has unlocked many of the mysteries of the brain, joins our host, David Granet, to discuss this fascinating topic.

Social Science and the Public Good

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes the President of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Craig Calhoun, NYU's University Professor of the Social Sciences, for a discussion of the challenges confronting social science research. Topics covered include studying social movements; the changing nature of the research university; adaptation and change in the social sciences; and revitalization to of the public good. Professor Calhoun also analyzes the role of ideas in contributing to the current economic crisis and discusses the Obama movement in comparative perspective.

Nations Matter: Culture, History and the Cosmopolitan Dream

The Strong Force

David Gross, the 2004 Nobel Laureate in Physics and the director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, talks with veteran journalist Jerry Roberts about why scientists love KITP.

The Great Turning: Epic Passage

Our time is a defining moment for the human species. We have a brief window of opportunity to navigate the passage from a 5,000 year Era of Empire characterized by violent domination to an Era of Earth Community characterized peaceful partnership. This passage to a new level of species maturity promises a more secure and fulfilling life for everyone. Its successful navigation requires that we free ourselves from the illusions of a cultural trance that blinds us to the higher order potentials of our human nature.

We now have an unprecedented opportunity to turn the human course. This opportunity is born of a convergence of the imperative created by a potentially terminal global crisis and the possibility created by a global communications revolution.

A Three-Fold Crisis

The cause of the crisis is three-fold.

• Over consumption: Growth in human consumption resulting from a combination of population growth and growth in consumption per capita is depleting the natural life support system of the planet, disrupting natural water cycles and climate systems, and threatening human survival.
• Inequality: Unconscionable and growing concentration of financial power in a world of ever more intense competition for a declining base of material wealth is eroding the social fabric to the point of widespread social breakdown.
• Pathological Governing Institutions: The most powerful institutions on the planet, global financial markets and the transnational corporations that serve them, are institutions of Empire dedicated to growing consumption and inequality. They convert real capital into financial capital to increase the relative economic power of those who live by money, while depressing the wages of those who produce real value through their labor. These institutions respond to environmental and social crises with palliatives that side step the need to reduce overall consumption and reallocate resources from rich to poor. To do otherwise would be contrary to their legal and financial imperatives. We cannot expect the institutions that got us into the crisis to get us out of it.

Part 2: Cornel West and Carl Dix on Race and Politics in the Age of Obama

One week after the NAACP’s 100th anniversary celebrations, we speak to Princeton University professor Cornel West and Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party about the current state of Black America. West is a professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University and the author of numerous books on race. Dix is a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and was one of six GIs in 1970 who refused orders to go to Vietnam and served two years in prison for his stance.

Watch, read, or listen to Part 1 of this interview

Trinity Institute Keynote : David C. Korten

trinitywallstreet

David C. Korten is a visionary proponent of a planetary system of local living economies. His now-classic bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World, was called "a must-read" by commentators ranging from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Londons Financial Times. Dr. Kortens most recent book is The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.
Following his presentation, Korten answers questions from conference participants.

Globalization: Values, Responsibilities & Global Justice

Jakob von Uexkull delivers the 6th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity's Future at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mr. Uexkull is the founder of the Right Livelihood Awards, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prizes. He is also the founder of the World Future Council, a body of 50 globally recognized wise elders, pioneers and youth leaders. In this talk, von Uexkull deals with the issues of values, responsibilities and global justice in relation to globalization.

The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism

Welcome to MichaelMoore.com

SiCKOCure.org

Standing up to the Madness

The award-winning sister-brother team of Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and investigative journalist David Goodman traveled the country to detail the ways in which grassroots activists have taken politics out of the hands of politicians. "Standing up to the Madness" tells the stories of everyday citizens who have challenged the government and prevailed.

Amy Goodman is an internationally acclaimed journalist and host of the daily grassroots global news hour Democracy Now!, which airs on more than 600 radio and TV stations around the world and on Democracynow.org. David Goodman is an award-winning independent journalist, the author of seven books, and a contributing writer to Mother Jones.

Democracy Now! - Tour Site

Other Voices TV: Building the Green Economy

A conversation with Kevin Danaher and Shannon Biggs Co-Authors of the new book: Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grassroots After centuries of economic activity based on extraction, exploitation, and depletion, we now face undeniable environmental threats. New business models that save or restore natural resources are critical. But how can we translate that insight into more sustainable practices? Building the Green Economy shows how community groups, families, and individual citizens have taken action to protect their food and water, clean up their neighborhoods, and strengthen their local economies. Their unlikely victories—over polluters, unresponsive bureaucracies, and unexamined routines—dramatize the opportunities and challenges facing the local green economy movement. Other Voices is a monthly TV program produced by Peninsula Peace and Justice Center in Palo Alto, CA

KEVIN DANAHER on Global Justice

Author, activist and Co-Founder of Global Exchange KEVIN DANAHER talks about goals and strategies for breaking the corporate hold on politics and economics.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on The Alcove with Mark Molaro.

Dr. Tyson is Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He is also the host of the PBS science program Nova scienceNOW. His latest book is the bestselling "Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandries". Dr. Tyson ruminates on all things cosmic - our expanding universe, black holes, asteroids threatening our planet and other phenomena. He discusses the need for more scientific literacy, the science versus religion debate, and he touches on the challenges he has faced to become an astrophysicist who happens to also be African-American. As always, we are enlightened and entertained by this remarkable scientist and educator.

Beyond Belief '06 - Neil deGrasse Tyson First Talk (Full)

Neil deGrasse Tyson was born and raised in New York City where he was educated in the public schools clear through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Tyson went on to earn his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia.

Steven Nadler talk on Spinoza - Part 1

Steven Nadler talk on Spinoza - Part 2

Steven Nadler, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, gives a talk on Baruch Spinoza at Beyond Belief 2006, touching on Spinoza's conception of God and morality.

Spinoza heavily influenced Einstein's beliefs about God and ethics. He said:'It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem — the most important of all human problems.'
Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion & Survival

Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America

The Man Who Sold The World - Pt. 1

The Man Who Sold The World - Pt. 2

About a month ago, historians ranked Ronald Reagan as the 10th best president in US history. Apparently these folks have forgotten just how much damage "The Gipper" actually did to America. When you look at his track record, you can trace almost every aspect of today's economic disaster back to Reagan's policies of deregulation, tax breaks, and complete lack of oversight for industry. In spite of this, Republicans today are still crying for the good ol' days of Reaganomics. Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio discusses the truth about The Gipper's presidency with William Kleinknecht, author of the new book "The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America."

YouTube - golefttv's Channel

The Man Who Sold the World

Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America

William Kleinknecht is a veteran reporter and crime correspondent for the Newark Star-Ledger. He has previously covered the crime beat for the New York Daily News. He has won awards from the Associated Press and the American Society of Professional Journalists, and has contributed to American Journalism Review, National Law Journal and the Boston Phoenix. The author of New Ethnic Mobs: The Changing Face of Organized Crime in America, he lives in Glen Rock, New Jersey.

About the Book
The myth of Ronald Reagan's greatness has reached epic proportions. The public rates him as one of the most popular presidents, and Republicans everywhere seek to cast themselves in his image. But award-winning journalist William Kleinknecht shows in this penetrating analysis of his presidency that the Reagan legacy has been devastating for the country—especially for the ordinary Americans he claimed to represent.

So much that has gone wrong in America—including the subprime mortgage crisis and the meltdown of the financial sector—can be traced directly to Reagan's policies. The financial deregulation launched in the 1980s freed banks and securities firms to squander hundreds of billions of dollars and make a shambles of the economy. Boom-and-bust cycles, obscene CEO salaries, blackouts, drug-company scandals, collapsing bridges, plummeting wages for working people, the flight of U.S. manufacturing abroad—these are all products of Reagan's free-market zealotry and his gutting of the public sector. Reagan pioneered the use of wedge issues like race and the war on drugs to distract America while his administration empowered corporations to lay waste to our traditional ways of life.

In the spirit of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?, Kleinknecht takes us to Reagan's hometown of Dixon, Illinois, to show that he was anything but a friend to Main Street America. Relying on detailed factual analysis rather than opinion, The Man Who Sold the World is the first major work to explode the Reagan myth.

Too Big To Fail

The Austin Lounge Lizards perform their satirical ode to bank bail-outs. Written by Lindsey Eck.

Any company that is too big to fail is too big to exist!

VIEWPOINT: The Populist Moment

Everyone agrees: The populist fires are burning. But whats next? Bob Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for Americas Future, thinks our historic moment could push Obama farther to the left. But only if the forces of the left start pushing.

American News Project

By Nick Penniman Mike Fritz

Much has been said about white working-class voters. But those who've been doing all the talking are pollsters and political operatives. As part of our Long View series, ANP traveled to rural Virginia to talk to someone who's lived the life and knows from personal experience what those voters are thinking -- author Joe Bageant. His highly-acclaimed recent book, Deer Hunting With Jesus, was lauded by one reviewer as a "raging, hilarious, and profane love song to the great American redneck." In addition to being that, it's also one of the most prescient pieces of analysis about American politics and culture in this election year.

What Will the Creationists Do Next?

Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc. explores how the failure of Intelligent Design to survive a legal test of its constitutionality led it to evolve new strategies which call for teaching the "strengths and weaknesses of evolution" or the "critical analysis of evolution" which are creationism in disguise.

Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0

Sir Harold Kroto, Chairman of the Board of the Vega Science Trust, a UK educational charity that produces science programs for television, in 1996 shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of a new form of carbon, the C60 Buckminsterfullerene. He has received the Royal Society's prestigious Michael Faraday Award, given annually to a scientist who has done the most to further public communication of science, engineering or technology in the United Kingdom.

Richard Dawkins interviews Daniel Dennett for "The Genius of Charles Darwin", the Channel 4 UK TV program which won British Broadcasting Awards' "Best Documentary Series" of 2008.

Why We Believe in Gods

Andy Thomson talk at the American Atheist 2009 convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Scientists above are the respondents in the sub-category dealing with the controversy of evolution vs. creationism.

Select Videos

Skewed views of science

A look at the pitfalls of arguing against science from incomprehension or emotion.

Open-mindedness

A look at some of the flawed thinking that prompts people who believe in certain non-scientific concepts to advise others who don't to be more open-minded.

Insidious Creationism:

the intellectual abuse of children through creationist books, comics and literature

James Williams, University of Sussex, England

The science education curriculum in the UK does not fully engage students with the theory of evolution until late in their schooling (ages 14-16). Creationists expend a lot of time, money and energy influencing primary age children with comic books, magazines and videos that contain creation pseudoscience with some elements of real science. By promoting their tales of vegetarian T. rex in the garden of Eden and on Noah’s ark as factual and the mixing of real science with pseudoscience, creationist misconceptions are embedded in children’s minds at an early age. Research shows that established misconceptions are difficult to overcome. This wilful distortion of real science in favour of pseudoscience is nothing less than intellectual abuse. While creationists have a right to publish and voice their views, no matter how far from real science they may be, the science education community must respond by introducing evolution and the reality of how life developed and diversified much earlier in the curriculum to combat the establishment of creationist misconceptions.

Philosopher and BHA Distinguished Supporter, A C Grayling, speaks at the Darwin, Humanism and Science Day Conference on the 6th June.

YOU CAN'T BE A SWEET CUCUMBER

IN A VINEGAR BARREL

A Talk with Philip Zimbardo

When you put that set of horrendous work conditions and external factors together, it creates an evil barrel. You could put virtually anybody in it and you're going to get this kind of evil behavior. The Pentagon and the military say that the Abu Ghraib scandal is the result of a few bad apples in an otherwise good barrel. That's the dispositional analysis. The social psychologist in me, and the consensus among many of my colleagues in experimental social psychology, says that's the wrong analysis. It's not the bad apples, it's the bad barrels that corrupt good people. Understanding the abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working the night shift in that 'little shop of horrors.

Who Are the American Fascists?

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges explores the rise of the Christian right in America, drawing parallels with the rise of fascism in Europe prior to the Second World War. How does the vision of the United States as a Christian nation relate to our Bill of Rights? Why does Hedges identify the increasing political power of Christian fundamentalism as a war against America?

GRITtv with Laura Flanders

In the United States, the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially in recent years. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the number of Americans who do not earn enough to feed themselves and their families. It is likely that some 50 to 60 million Americans, or one in five, are hungry. How is it possible in the land of plenty? And what does the recession reveal about America’s social safety net?

Sasha Abramsky, a senior fellow at Demos and the author of Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It, Aubretia Edick, a longtime Wal-Mart employee, Franceska Dillella, a mother of three whose struggle to navigate New York’s homeless shelters with her three children was recently profiled in the Indypendent, Mary Brosnahan, Executive Director of the Coalition for the Homeless on why the subject of hunger and homelessness has received so little attention.

Then, a new film about life under Kim Jong Il explores the legacy of isolation and totalitarianism on the people of North Korea. NC Heikin, director of Kimjongilia: A Film About North Korea and Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, discuss the role of culture and information in a totally closed society. The name of the film comes from a hybrid red begonia created in honor of Kim Jong Il’s 46th birthday.

Finally, The Uptake with an update on the Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

Thanks to DJ Spooky and the Austin Lounge Lizards for video in tonight’s show

AN EVENING WITH VANDANA SHIVA

eon3

International food sovereignty and deep democracy activist VANDANA SHIVA shares her views on the current planetary situation in an event presented by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), KPFA Radio 94.1 FM, and Navdanya International

ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY - Steps to a Post-Capitalist System

eon3

Political economist, planetary activist and author Walden Bello, in an interview with EON producer Mary Beth Brangan, gives his commentary on events at the April, 2009 G-20 Summit and ASEAN meeting. He lays out his vision of a 'post-captialist system of economic democracy,' thinking outside the boxes of the failed neo-liberal and neo-conservative paradigms that have created the current global economic, ecological and climatic crisis. For more information: WaldenBello.org FocusWeb.org EON3.net info@EON3.net

TheVandana Shiva - New Food Wars : Globalization GMOs and Biofuels

UCtelevision

Across the world, food riots are taking place. Scientist and activist Vandana Shiva explores whether the future will be one of food wars or food peace. She argues that the creation of food peace demands a major shift in the way food is produced and distributed, and the way in which we manage and use the soil, water and biodiversity, which makes food production possible. 17th Annual Margolis lecture at UC Irvine.

The World According to Monsanto - HQ & Full Length

711Rene

A great documentary exposing the evil agricultural nightmare called Monsanto and the story of Roundup and Roundup Ready Soybeans. A 2004 documentary film which makes an in-depth investigation into unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly made their way onto grocery stores in the United States for the past decade. It voices the opinions of farmers in disagreement with the food industry and details the impacts on their lives and livelihoods from this new technology, and shines a light on the market and political forces that are changing what we eat. The film decries the cost of a globalized food industry on human lives around the world, and highlights how international companies are gradually driving farmers off the land in many countries. Potential global dependence of the human race on a limited number of global food corporations is discussed, as is the increased risk of ecological disasters -- such as the Irish Potato Famine (1845--1849) -- resulting from the reduction of biological diversity due to the promotion of corporate sponsored monoculture farming. The issue of incorporating a terminator gene into plant seeds is questioned, with concern being expressed about the potential for a widespread catastrophe affecting the food supply, should such a gene contaminate other plants in the wild. Legal stories reported by the film related how a number of farmers in North America have been sued by Monsanto; and the defendant of the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser case is interviewed.

The media material presented in this production is protected by the FAIR USE CLAUSE of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, which allows for the rebroadcast of copyrighted materials for the purposes of commentary, criticism, and education.

O Mundo Segundo a MONSANTO (Legendado)

ANTIGMOS

"A experiência mostra que a coexistência entre a agricultura transgênica e convencional ou orgânica não é apenas possível, mas ocorre de forma pacífica em todo o mundo."
"Imagine um mundo que preserve a natureza, o ar e a água.
Se pudéssemos produzir mais...com menos agrotóxicos...sem desmatamento. É um mundo de transgênicos. Uma iniciativa da Monsanto...com o apoio da Associação Brazileira De Nutrologia."
(Antigo anúncio da Monsanto no Brazil).

O documentário "O Mundo segundo a Monsanto",http://www.arte.tv/fr/1912794.html mostra a a história da principal fabricante de organismos geneticamente modificados (OGM's), a Monsanto http://www.monsanto.com/Pages/default.aspx cujos grãos de soja, milho e algodão se proliferam pelo mundo, apesar dos alertas de ambientalistas.
A diretora, a francesa Marie-Monique Robin, baseou seu filme - e um livro de mesmo título - na empresa com sede em Saint-Louis (Missouri, EUA), que, em mais de um século de existência, foi fabricante do PCB (piraleno), o agente laranja usado como herbicida na guerra do Vietnã, e de hormônios de aumento da produção de leite proibidos na Europa.
O documentário destaca os perigos do crescimento exponencial das plantações de transgênicos, que, em 2007, cobriam 100 milhões de hectares, com propriedades genéticas patenteadas em 90% pela Monsanto.
A pesquisa durou três anos e a levou aos Estados Unidos e a países como Brasil, Índia, Paraguai e México, comparando as virtudes proclamadas dos OGM's com a realidade de camponeses mergulhados pelas dívidas com a multinacional, de moradores das imediações das plantações pessoas que sofrem com problemas de saúde ou de variedades originais de grãos ameaçadas pelas espécies transgênicas.
Marie-Monique Robin relatou em entrevistas divulgadas pela produção do filme que tentou em vão obter respostas da Monsanto para todas essas interrogações, mas que a companhia decidiu "não avaliar" seu documentário. Um capítulo do livro, intitulado "Paraguai, Brasil, Argentina: a República Unida da Soja", relata o ingresso desse cultivo nesses países, que estão hoje entre os maiores produtores do mundo, por meio de uma política de fatos consumados que obrigou as autoridades do Brasil e do Paraguai a legalizar centenas de hectares plantados com grãos contrabandeados.
A legalização beneficiou obviamente a Monsanto, que pôdo cobrar assim os royalties por seu produto.
Marie-Monique Robin é uma famosa jornalista independente, que, em 2004, gravou um documentário sobre a Operação Condor chamado "Esquadrões da Morte: A Escola Francesa"- para o qual entrevistou vários dos maiores repressores das ditaduras militares dos anos 70.

Veja tambèm:
Engenharia Genética: O Maior Golpe do Mundo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn1GTw16FiM
O Veneno esta na Mesa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WNAIDi6nRw

Michael Parenti : Terrorism Globalism and Conspiracy

DebatesAndLectures

OCTOBER 9, 2002, VANCOUVER: Dr. Michael Parenti, one of North America's leading radical writers on U.S. imperialism and interventionism, fascism, democracy and the media, spoke to several hunded people at St. Andrews Wesley Church in Vancouver. Dr. Parenti has taught political science at a number of colleges and universities in the United States and other countries. He was written 250 major magazine articles and 15 books and is frequently heard on public and alternative radio.

"1984" Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic dystopian novel by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of falsifying records and political literature, thus effectively perpetuating propaganda, who grows disillusioned with his meagre existence and so begins a rebellion against the system. The novel has become famous for its portrayal of surveillance and society's increasing encroachment on the rights of the individual. Since its publication the terms Big Brother and Orwellian have entered the popular vernacular. Orwell, who had "encapsulated the thesis at the heart of his novel" in 1944, wrote most of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the island of Jura, Scotland, during 19471948 while critically ill with tuberculosis. He sent the final typescript to his friends Secker and Warburg on 4 December 1948 and the book was published on 8 June 1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 50 languages. The novel's title, its terms, its language (Newspeak), and its author's surname are bywords for personal privacy lost to national state security. The adjective "Orwellian" denotes many things. It can refer to totalitarian action or organization, as well as governmental attempts to control or misuse information for the purposes of controlling, pacifying or even subjugating the population. "Orwellian" can also refer generally to twisted language which says the opposite of what it truly means, or specifically governmental propagandizing by the misnaming of things; hence the "Ministry of Peace" in the novel actually deals with war and the "Ministry of Love" actually tortures people. Since the novel's publication "Orwellian" has in fact become somewhat of a catch-all for any kind of governmental overreach or dishonesty and therefore has multiple meanings and applications. The phrase Big Brother is Watching You specifically connotes pervasive, invasive surveillance. Although the novel has been banned or challenged in some countries, it is, along with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Kallocain by Karin Boye and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, among the most famous literary representations of dystopia. In 2005, Time magazine listed it among the hundred best English-language novels published since 1923. The book has often been misinterpreted as an attack on socialism, and Orwell himself had occasion to refute such claims, both privately and in public. In a letter to Francis A. Henson of the United Automobile Workers, dated 16 June 1949 (seven months before he died), excerpts from which were reproduced in Life (25 July 1949) and the New York Times Book Review (31 July 1949), Orwell stated the following: "My recent novel [1984] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions ... which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. ...The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere." In his 1946 essay, "Why I Write", Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist. Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, one of three intercontinental totalitarian super-states. The story occurs in London, the "chief city of Airstrip One", itself a province of Oceania that "had once been called England or Britain". Posters of the ruling Party's leader, "Big Brother", bearing the caption BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, dominate the city landscapes, while two-way television (the telescreen) dominates the private and public spaces of the populace. Oceania's people are in three classes — the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proles. The Party government controls the people via the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), the workplace of protagonist Winston Smith, an Outer Party member. As in the Nazi and Stalinist regimes, propaganda is pervasive; Smith's job is rewriting historical documents to match the contemporaneous party line, the orthodoxy of which changes daily. It therefore includes destroying evidence, amending newspaper articles, deleting the existence of people identified as "unpersons".

nineteen eighty-four 1984

Energy Self-Reliant States: Homegrown Renewable Power

David Morris, vice President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, discusses a recent report detailing how many states can be energy self reliant.

New Rules Project

Liberty Bound, a US Citizen's journey of discovery into the lies, oppression, and corruption that has invaded her country since 9/11. Through original footage, archived footage, and interviews with people such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, and Michael Ruppert, Liberty Bound explores the state of the union and its ostensible move toward fascism. We talk with people who have been interrogated by the Secret Service and threatened with arrest for doing such benign things as sending an email, turning around during a Bush speech, and having a philosophical discussion on a train.

Liberty Bound - Sous-titré français

The Secret History of the American Empire

with John Perkins, author of Confessions of An Economic Hit Man.

Perkins zeroes in on hot spots around the world such as Venezuela, Tibet, Iraq, Israel, Vietnam and others and exposes the network of events in each of these countries that have contributed to the creation of the American Empire and international corruption in "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth About Global Corruption" - Cody's Books

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
by John Perkins

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Part I

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Part II

The Inside Story of How America Turned From a Respected Republic into a Feared Empire

"Economic hit men,” John Perkins writes, “are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder.”

John Perkins should know—he was an economic hit man. His job was to convince countries that are strategically important to the U.S.—from Indonesia to Panama—to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development, and to make sure that the lucrativeprojects were contracted to U. S. corporations. Saddled with huge debts, these countries came under the control of the United States government, World Bank and other U.S.-dominated aid agencies that acted like loan sharks—dictating repayment terms and bullying foreign governments into submission.

This extraordinary real-life tale exposes international intrigue, corruption, and little-known government and corporate activities that have dire consequences for American democracy and the world.

Lies, War, and Empire - Part I

Lies, War, and Empire - Part II

Michael Parenti Political Archive

Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern on the Occupation of Iraq.mpg

George McCollough - IraqEyewitness.org

The chief US weapons inspector in Iraq during the period leading up to the 2003 US invasion (and also a Republican and a former US Marine officer), Scott Ritter is in a unique position to know first-hand about the adminstration's lies about WMD. He here delivers a scathing indictment of US Iraq policies, and of the passivity of the US public and political system in condoning them. He's followed by 27-year-CIA veteran Ray McGovern, who elaborates on Ritter's indictment.

Raymond (Ray) McGovern linked with Fact-Based Intelligence Prevails on Nukes and Iran, with Ex-CIA: War with Iran in the offing, and with Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Ray McGovern is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. He was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them … (full text).
See this videos:

• Interview with 27-Year CIA Veteran Ray McGovern
• Ray McGovern on the Neocons and Impeachment
• Ray McGovern 0wns Donald Rumsfeld
• Ray McGovern Confronts Rumsfeld
• Ray McGovern on Tucker Carlson
• Ray McGovern on need for independent intelligence

The Battle to Control America's Media

Eric Klinenberg, Sociology Professor at New York University.

The Corporate Manipulation of Community Values

Sharon Beder is a visiting professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong.

Sharon's research has focussed on how power relationships are maintained and challenged, particularly by corporations and professions. She is interested in environmental politics; the rhetoric of sustainable development; the philosophies behind environmental economics; and trends in environmentalism and corporate activism/public relations. Most recently she has broadened her research interests to critique various manifestations of neoliberalism including privatisation and deregulation, market solutions to social problems and the business takeover of school education.

She has written 10 books, around 150 articles, book chapters and conference papers (many available for download here), as well as designing teaching resources and educational websites.