News and Public Affairs Day on 05/11/12

Four prominent activists, David Barsamian, Helen Caldicott, Ralph Nader, and Winona LaDuke, on the challenges of our time. All talks were recorded in Portland in the last month.

• David Barsamian on "The Media, History and Occupy the Economy."
  David Barsamian is the host of Alternative Radio and the author of many books with great thinkers of our time, most recently "Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism" with Richard Wolff. Barsamian speaks about the ways mainstream media is tied to the those with economic and governmental power and how that affects what they say. This then leads to his thoughts on the importance of alternative media.
  He talks about history and how government, corporate giants and media were connected in various acts of repression and the stomping of the expressions of the people in attempts at real democracy/socialism around the world.
  He works toward this being a crucial moment in time to rise up, the importance of the occupy movement and the need to act locally step by step to create social change. (PREVIEW)
   
• Helen Caldicott on "Rising Up to Save the Planet"
  Helen Caldicott is an acclaimed physician, author and anti-nuclear activist who has been called “the single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crisis.
  Caldicott says we have a nuclear psychosis. She brings up the reverence for life that physicians have and how that helps them see the extreme dangers in the way we are living. She also is asking "what will it take to get people actively working against nuclear?" She has some interesting info on the continuing dangers of Fukushima among other things. (PREVIEW)
   
• Ralph Nader on "Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win"
  Ralph Nader is a legendary consumer advocate, lawyer, author and tireless anti-corporate activist.
  Nader talks about the thesis in his book "Getting Steamed." His idea is that by exposing the many crimes of corporatism including health insurance companies working to stop doctors from delivering care, nuclear power companies demanding loan guarantees out of your wallet, pharmaceutical companies putting your life on the line, bank bailouts galore and corporate profits soaring on the backs of Wal-Mart wages should make people mad enough to rise up. (PREVIEW)
   
• Winona Laduke on "Where Are We Going and How Are We Going to Get There?"
  Winona Laduke is an activist, author and a member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and serves as co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network and as the executive director of Honor the Earth.
  LaDuke talks about the various ways (her) people and the land have been exploited and violated, and the projects that she has been part of that have helped create some local sustainable economic success. But her talk is really about figuring out where we are going and how to get there in the world we live in with all its problems. (PREVIEW)