Aired 08/01/10 RAJ PATEL has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. Writer, activist, and academic, he is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, a researcher at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. He is the author of STUFFED AND STARVED and his latest THE VALUE OF NOTHING: HOW TO RESHAPE MARKET SOCIETY AND REDEFINE DEMOCRACY. http://rajpatel.org/

 

Aired 12/06/09

This past week marked the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Organization's confrontation in Seattle with 50,000 protestors against corporate globalization. We look back at Seattle and at the ten years in between with two guests who played important roles.

First, we talk with NORM STAMPER -- who oversaw the police response -- about those events and about his life and work in the decade since. Now retired, Stamper wrote the book, BREAKING RANK and has become a prominent spokesman for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against (Drug) Prohibition.

NORM STAMPER, former Seattle Police Chief author BREAKING RANK: A TOP COP'S EXPOSE OF THE DARK SIDE OF AMERICAN POLICING

http://www.normstamper.com/
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Second, KEVIN DANAHER, who was centrally involved in organizing the Seattle WTO protests. His goals remain the same but his focus has evolved. His latest books are THE GREEN FESTIVAL READER: Fresh Ideas from Agents of Change, and BUILDING THE GREEN ECONOMY: Success Stories from the Grassroots

http://www.globalexchange.org/
http://www.globalcitizencenter.org/
http://www.greenfestivals.com/

 

 

Aired 11/22/09

PHILLIPE DIAZ is writer director of a new documentary THE END OF POVERTY that exposes the roots of the south’s poverty first in colonialism and then in the policies of the World Bank, IMF and the WTO.

The film features: Nobel prize winners in economics Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; expert authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson, government ministers such as Bolivia’s Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, and leaders of social movements in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania.

THE END OF POVERTY’s opening line by narrator Martin Sheen: “Why, in a world of so much wealth, do we still have so much poverty, where billions of people live on less than one dollar a day?” According to writer-director PHILLIPE DIAZ, the ultimate goal of the film is to change the dialogue around the poverty debate from "poverty is a shame," to "poverty exists for a reason."

Born in Paris France, PHILIPPE DIAZ studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, and began his film career as a director in 1980. He produced a number of features both in France and the US, and in 2003, with a consortium of partners he created Cinema Libre Studio, to provide an alternative structure for intelligent, independent films. His directorial debut, THE EMPIRE IN AFRICA won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at Slamdance 2006.

According to Diaz, “The end of greed on Wall Street will not end poverty in the world. The problem is much deeper than that; it is centuries old. Our economic system since colonial times requires cheap labor and cheap resources from the global South to succeed and to finance our lifestyle in the North. Without changing that we will never alleviate poverty.“

http://www.theendofpoverty.com/