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29 Dec 971205 Winona LaDuke - An Indigenous View of North America Native peoples are at a crossroads. They possess the experience of sustainability based on years of observation and tradition. Yet they find their culture stereotyped and demeaned. Because indigenous peoples have the resources, lands and waters demanded by urban areas thousands of miles away, they are targeted by industrialism's impulse to dominate nature. Winona LaDuke is one of the most brilliant and articulate representatives of indigenous perspectives. At the age of seventeen she spoke at the UN on behalf of Native Americans. She is a founding member of Women of All Red Nations and director of the Land Recovery Project on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. An inspiring speaker, she was the 1996 and 2000 vice-presidential candidate of the Green Party, the first Native American to run for national office. She is the author of All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. 22 Dec 971203 Noam Chomsky - The Myth of the Free Market There is endless talk about the free market and its virtues. Entrepreneurs compete on level playing fields and the public benefits. The chasm between such fantasies and reality is acute and growing wider. The existing free market depends heavily on taxpayer subsidies and bailouts. Corporate welfare far exceeds that which goes to the poor and needy. Noam Chomsky, internationally renowned MIT professor, has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for more than four decades. He is in such demand as a public speaker that he is often booked years in advance. And wherever he appears, he draws huge audiences. The Guardian calls him, "One of the radical heroes of our age." He is the author of Power and Terror, Middle East Illusion and Hegemony or Survival." He's done a series of interview books with David Barsamian including The Common Good and Propaganda and the Public Mind. 15 Dec 971202 Medea Benjamin - Nike, Reebok and the Global Sweatshop The sneakers and clothes you are wearing are probably made in the Third World. More and more US manufacturers have closed their domestic plants and shifted their production overseas. Corporate managers claim these moves are necessitated by an increasingly competitive global business environment. How and under what conditions are these goods being made? Who does the work? Who profits? Medea Benjamin frequently travels to and documents human rights violations in the Third World. She's co-founder and co-director of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based organisation. She has written extensively on international issues. She led a delegation to Indonesia to investigate the situation there. 8 Dec 971201 Loretta Ross - Welfare Scapegoating and Human Rights The election of George W. Bush as the US president has caused concern among many African American communities. This AR program, recorded in 1997, poses the question, will anything change under the new US administration? It also poses some questions for our own race relations debate. The connection of economic justice and human rights was proposed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. FDR said, "We have come to a clear realisation of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. We have accepted a second bill of rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station, race or creed." Four years later the United Nations expanded on Roosevelt's vision and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Loretta Ross is on the front lines of the struggle for racial equality and social justice. She is Director of the Centre for Human Rights in Atlanta. She was one of the first African American women to direct a rape crisis centre. She was also the Program Director at the National Black Women's Health Project. Loretta Ross spoke at the Urban Justice Centre in New York. 1 Dec 971104 Robert Lifton, Roger Smith and Peter Balakian - Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide Imagine if someone told you the Holocaust never happened or that slavery never existed. Your eyes would roll. The Armenian Genocide is a historical fact yet Turkey, the perpetrator, continues to deny it. This is not the case of a few crackpot individuals or small groups falsifying and fabricating history. This denial has the power, prestige, authority and financial support of the Turkish government. That the coverup persists is a scandal with broad political, cultural and moral implications. This program features a lively discussion with Robert Jay Lifton, Roger Smith and Peter Balakian. Robert Jay Lifton is a distinguished author and professor at the John Jay College of the City University of New York. Roger Smith teaches at William and Mary and is recognised as an expert on the Armenian Genocide. Peter Balakian teaches at Colgate University and is a well known poet and author. 24 Nov 971103 John Cavanagh - Global Economic Apartheid A new world economic order is being fashioned by global corporations. With few restraints and controls, they are able to move capital, jobs and factories to Mexico, China, Honduras and Bangladesh. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations. Wal-Mart is bigger than 161 countries. September 19, 1996. John Cavanagh is a specialist in international trade, economics and development issues. He is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the Transnational Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the co-author of Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations in the New World Order. 11 Nov 971101 Herbert Schiller - The Corporate Packaging of the Public Mind Corporate control of media is rapidly expanding. The Telecommunications Act allows media giants to own even more radio, TV, cable and phone services than before. Herbert Schiller contends that the capability of private resource rich conglomerates constitutes the true levers of contemporary power. Their influence and impact on shaping public opinion is enormous. Herbert Schiller, professor emeritus at UC/San Diego, is a preeminent authority on corporate power and the media. His books include Information Inequality. 3 Nov 971004 Helen Caldicott - Technology, Spirituality and the Future of the Planet The planet is not in good shape. As a 1995 Worldwatch Institute report states: "Evidence that the world is on an economic path that is environmentally unsustainable can be seen in shrinking fish catches, falling water tables, declining bird populations, record heat waves and dwindling grain stocks, just to name a few." In various ways, nature's limits are beginning to impose themselves on the human agenda, initially at the local level, but also on a global scale. The steady depletion of resources and the pollution of air and water have reached the point in many countries where the economic effects include the loss of production and jobs. In the US, the home of ever-larger shopping malls and shopping channels, frenzied consumer patterns continue unabated. Right-wing politicians and their corporate allies seek to reverse hard-won environmental protection laws. Helen Caldicott, an Australian-born paediatrician, is a world-renowned environmental activist. She was the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organisation which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the author of Nuclear Madness, Missile Envy and If You Love This Planet. Her autobiography is titled, A Desperate Passion. 27 Oct 971003 Edward Said - The Shrinking Horizon of Hope: The Mideast Peace Process The peace process between Israelis and Palestinians is teetering. The current round of negotiations began in Madrid and culminated with the Oslo Accords and the much-celebrated 1993 signing in Washington. The pundits assured us that the long-time rivals had finally come to terms. Today, few express such optimism. Large parts of the West Bank and Gaza remain under Israeli military occupation. Elections, like troop withdrawals, have been postponed again and again. Expansion of settlements continues. There is repression, terrorism, violence and counterviolence. The central issue remains: two peoples lay claim to the same land. Will there be a just compromise where both groups can live in peace and dignity? The alternative is a permanent prescription for conflict. Edward Said, internationally renowned Columbia University professor, practically invented the field of post-colonial studies. His great work, Orientalism has been translated into many languages and is widely used in colleges and universities. The New York Times called him, "one of the most influential literary and cultural critics in the world." As one of the few advocates for Palestinian rights in the US, he was the target of vilification, death threats and vandalism. The Economist said he "repudiated terrorism in all its forms and was a passionate, eloquent and persistent advocate for justice for the dispossessed Palestinians." He was a trenchant critic not just of Israeli policies, but also of Arafat, the corrupt coterie around him and the despotic Arab regimes. He felt strongly that intellectuals had a special responsibility to speak out against injustice, challenge power, confront hegemonic thinking and provide alternatives. His memoir Out of Place won the New Yorker Book of the Year Award. Edward Said died in New York on September 25, 2003. 20 Oct 971002 David Korten - When Corporations Rule the World In this important and timely program, David Korten documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the largely successful efforts of global corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere to serve their narrow financial interests. The market system is blind to all but its own short-term gains. Korten suggest ways to create a just and sustainable economic system. David Korten did his graduate work at Stanford. He taught at the Harvard Business School. An insider in the development establishment for about thirty years, he worked for the Ford Foundation and the US Agency for International Development. Having severed his ties to the past, today he is president of the People-Centered Development Forum. He is the author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism. 13 Oct 971001 Charlie Kernaghan - Reports from the Global Factory: Kathie Lee, The Gap and Disney More and more US-based corporations are 'outsourcing' their production. The new sites of the global factory are in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Haiti, El Salvador and Mexico. Clothing, shoes, toys and sporting goods are often made by youngsters working in sweatshops, where wages are inadequate, hours are long and working conditions endanger safety and health. In this compelling and amusing presentation, Charlie Kernaghan spoke to a group of trade union leaders from the US, Canada, Australia and Japan at Harvard. Charlie Kernaghan is the executive director of the National Labor Committee, an independent human rights organisation based in New York. He is prominent in the movement in drawing attention to and helping correct the overseas labor practices of US corporations like Kathie Lee, The Gap and Disney. The New York Times calls him "the labor movement's mouse that roared." 10 Oct 970904 Michael Parenti - Costs of Empire Discussions about empire are carefully controlled and constructed. It's fine to talk about the Byzantine, Ottoman and British varieties. However, the subject of US empire, when not ignored outright, is couched in euphemisms like the 'free market' or 'free trade'. Other favourites are 'national interest' and 'national security'. US global intervention is framed in terms of altruism and good intentions. The costs of empire are borne by Americans, but the profits go to the Fortune 500. Michael Parenti is a distinguished political scientist, author and lecturer and one of this country's foremost independent political analysts. He received his Ph.D. from Yale. He has taught at major colleges and universities in the US and abroad. He is the author of numerous books including Against Empire, The Terrorism Trap and the highly acclaimed The Assassination of Julius Caesar. 29 Sep 970903 Jose Ramos-Horta - East Timor, Indonesia and the United States East Timor is an island east of the fabled Bali and north of Australia. It was invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The ensuing occupation has resulted in the greatest proportional genocide since the Holocaust. The US was a long-time ally of the Suharto led Indonesian dictatorship. The East Timorese, with increasing international support, are continuing their struggle for self- determination. Jose Ramos-Horta is co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize. He is a major figure of the East Timorese resistance movement. 22/23 Sep 970901 / 970902 Noam Chomsky - Propaganda and Control of the Public Mind (Pts. 1 and 2) Most people associate the term 'propaganda' with totalitarian dictatorships like Iraq or North Korea. Yet propaganda, in different shapes and forms, is an important element in democratic societies. The control and use of images and information can alter perceptions, frame debate and influence opinion. This special two-part program features Noam Chomsky in a seminar given at Harvard to trade union leaders from the US, Canada, Australia and Japan. February 7, 1997. Noam Chomsky, internationally renowned MIT professor, has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for more than four decades. He is in such demand as a public speaker that he is often booked years in advance. And wherever he appears, he draws huge audiences. The Guardian calls him, "One of the radical heroes of our age." He is the author of Power and Terror, Middle East Illusion and Hegemony or Survival." He's done a series of interview books with David Barsamian including The Common Good and Propaganda and the Public Mind.