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Art is Our Weapon: A Conversation With Climbing Poetree

Alixa and Naima are two poets who together make up Climbing PoeTree, an award winning performance duo. Mixing poetry and politics they seek to use their words to educate and inspire. On this edition, we hear performances by Climbing PoeTree and find out where such inspiring artists find their own inspiration.

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Saving or Selling the Planet? REDD, Climate Change and Indigenous Lands

Around the world communities are already facing the impacts of climate change. Now international organizations, like the World Bank, are pushing a policy that asks polluters to offset their pollution by paying governments to protect forests. But is it working? On this edition, we take a closer look at this policy and ask, is it a plan to save the planet, or just sell it off? We’ll hear from indigenous activists and extracts from “A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests” by Jeff Conant, narrated by Dania Cabello.

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Education Not for Sale

Around the world, students have been taking to the streets. They’re opposed to rising tuition fees and cuts to education. On this edition, we’ll hear how students in Quebec helped bring down the government and why Chilean students are back out on the streets again. We’ll also speak to an activist in Puerto Rico who says she’s had enough of US-style higher education.

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The Penalty is Exile: How Immigration and Criminalization Collide

Under President Obama more than 1 million people have been deported from the United States. Immigration officials claim that many of those being deported are criminals. On this edition, producer Cory Fischer-Hoffman investigates the connection between immigration and the criminal justice system and the impact this burgeoning relationship is having on immigrants.

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Microfinance: How it Lost Its Way and Betrayed the Poor

Hugh Sinclair, the author of Confessions of a Microfinance Heretic, in conversation with KALW radio host Rose Aguilar. Sinclair tells the story of how he learned the dirty truths behind the banking sector that’s creeping across the “developing” world.

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COINTELPRO 101 (Part 1) ENCORE

Over the next two weeks, we broadcast the documentary film “COINTELPRO 101,” about the secret FBI program which ran from 1956-1971, and disrupted many movements for self-determination by people of color in the U.S.. Today, we hear the first half of the film, produced by the Freedom Archives.

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Drones: A New Death From Above – Medea exclusive

Highlights from an interview with Medea Benjamin. Interview conducted by Making Contact’s Lisa Rudman and Salima Hamirani– June 20, 2012, Hear the full show, “Drones: A New Death from Above.”

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Drones: A New Death From Above

We bring you voices from Pakistan of families destroyed by drone strikes. And, we hear from Medea Benjamin and other activists working to build a global movement against this controversial military technology, which accelerated after 9/11.

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Returning Fire: Interventions in Video Game Culture

Interactive, realistic, pro-war video games have become part of American culture. But protestors and artists are finding ways to turn the virtual world into a place where the military hero narrative can be questioned. On this edition, we hear excerpts from the movie Returning Fire: Interventions in Video Game Culture, written and directed by Roger Stahl.

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Lessons of Nagasaki

The US dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Three days later, Nagasaki also fell victim. On this edition, we commemorate the anniversary of the bombings with excerpts from two documentaries, Hiroshima Countdown and Nagasaki Journey

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