Wednesday 30 October 2013

Speech: Julia Bacha - Pay attention to nonviolence



In 2003, the Palestinian village of Budrus mounted a 10-month-long nonviolent protest to stop a barrier being built across their olive groves. Did you hear about it? Didn't think so. Brazilian filmmaker Julia Bacha asks why we only pay attention to violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict -- and not to the nonviolent leaders who may one day bring peace.

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Video: Louis C.K. on mobile phones



Louis C.K. discusses the effects of mobile phones on children and adults and the importance of learning how to be yourself without having to do something.

Great stuff!


Friday 11 October 2013

Video: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch


The Great Pacific Garbage Patch from Ben Segall on Vimeo.


Some more links about it:


Speech: Vikram Patel - Mental health for all by involving all



Nearly 450 million people are affected by mental illness worldwide. In wealthy nations, just half receive appropriate care, but in developing countries, close to 90 percent go untreated because psychiatrists are in such short supply. Vikram Patel outlines a highly promising approach -- training members of communities to give mental health interventions, empowering ordinary people to care for others.

Monday 7 October 2013

Speech / Video: President Roosevelts' message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies / Ralph Nader on DemocracyNow!

Original Article written by Aris Chatzistefanou for Info War - June 2013 (Translated from Greek by Pele)


In a VERY interesting article i found on the web, journalist Aris Chatzistefanou presents this old but valuable speech of President Roosevelt to the Congress about democracy - fascism and the concentration of economic power . The date was 29 April, 1938.

In addition, he shares a video of Mr.Ralph Nader, a well known American political activist talking to the online channel of Democracy Now of how large powerfull corporations have taken over America. Both parts of the video at the end of the speech.


SPEECH:

To the Congress:

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.


Both lessons hit home.

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole.


THE GROWING CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER.

Statistics of the Bureau of Internal Revenue reveal the following amazing figures for 1935:

Ownership of corporate assets:

Of all corporations reporting from every part of the nation, one-tenth of 1 per cent of them owned 52 per cent of the assets of all of them; 
and to clinch the point: