Making Contact

It's the second most-traded commodity in the world after oil but how much do you think about your cup of coffee? From coffee farmers in Colombia to the trash produced by your single-cup coffee machine, Making Contact andGreen Grid Radio team up to count the costs of your morning cup o'joe. Featuring: Jairo Martinez, Mariana Cruz, Suzana Angarita,coffee farmers Jeff Goldman, former executive director FairtradeResource Network Jeff Chean, Principal and Chief Coffee GuyGroundworks Roasters John Hazen, single-cup coffee machine owner Rebecca Jewell, recycling program manager for Davis Street Transfer Station

The alternatives to prison are few and far between. And after serving time, the options for getting back on your feet are even worse. Finding food, a job and a place to live with a criminal record can become an almost impossible task. On this edition, Women building their own support network after being released from prison. We'll hear "A New Way of Life and the New Underground Railroad" a documentary by Chris-Moore Backman. Featuring: Susan Burton, A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project executive director and founder; Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness author; Alika Savage, Yolanda Brown, Renee Levi, Maisha Bailey, Sabrayiah DeMoss, Samantha Jenkins, A New Way of Life residents. For More Information:A New Way of Life Re-Entry ProjectThe Sentencing Project Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted Peoples MovementCritical ResistanceMichelle Alexander-The New Jim CrowBringing Down the New Jim Crow

Women Rising radio profiles food sovereignty activists from India, Mexico, and Native American communities. If you are interested in GMOs, TTP, seed saving, herbal medicine, food, trade & activism –then tune in! Featuring: Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya Adelita San Vicente Tello, founder of Semillas de Vida Sage La Pena, Native American, ethno- botanist and food sovereignty activist Kanyon Sayers-Roods, Native American youth educator

In the midst of police shooting community members and gunmen shooting police, and as the republican and democratic conventions wrap up, we look back at the history of secret surveillance and disruption of organizations dissenting and struggling against all odds. COINTELPRO, the secret FBI project to infiltrate and disrupt domestic organizations thought to be "subversive," targeted many African-American, Native-American, and other movements for self-determination by people of color in the U.S.. Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted more than 2,000 COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) operations. This week we broadcast the second half of the documentary film "COINTELPRO 101," produced by The Freedom Archives. Special thanks to The Freedom Archives.

In the midst of police shooting community members and gunmen shooting police, and as the republican and democratic conventions wrap up, we look back at the history of secret surveillance and disruption of organizations dissenting and struggling against all odds. COINTELPRO, the secret FBI project to infiltrate and disrupt domestic organizations thought to be "subversive," targeted many African-American, Native-American, and other movements for self-determination by people of color in the U.S.. Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted more than 2,000 COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) operations. Over the next two weeks, we'll be broadcasting the documentary film "COINTELPRO 101." Today we hear the first half of the film, produced by the Freedom Archives. Special thanks to The Freedom Archives. Featuring: Liz Derias, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement Bob Boyle, attorney Jose Lopez, Puerto Rican Cultural Center executive director Lucy Rodriguez, Puerto Rico Independence movement leader and former political prisoner Ward Churchill, Native American activist and author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Native American activist and author Leonard Peltier, political prisoner Ricardo Romero, Al Frente de Lucha co-founder Priscilla Falcon, University of Northern Colorado Hispanic Studies professor Francisco Martinez, Chicano/Mejicano activist and attorney. CORRECTION: Making Contact staff inadvertently misstated attorney Bob Boyle's name as Bob Doyle in the audioversion of the COINTELPRO 101 documentary (Part 1). We apologize for the mistake.

Ross McKenzie was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but after 15 years on Lithium, he wasn't getting any better. He decided to take matters into his own hands, get off the drug, and find out why so many people are being told they have mental illnesses. This week on Making Contact, we bring you an abridged version of the film Bipolarized; Rethinking Mental Illness, chronicling McKenzie's journey. Featuring: Ross McKenzie, diagnosed with Bipolar disorder Ross McKenzie's mother and sister Gwen Olsen, former pharmaceutical rep Laura Delano, psychiatry survivor Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America Dr. Charles Whitfield, trauma recovery specialist Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing

Fredy Villanueva was playing dice in a park in Montreal North when police officers arrived. In less than a minute, the 18-year-old was fatally shot by police. Eight years later, what happened in those sixty seconds remains unclear. The documentary play Fredy tries to untangle what happened before and after the shooting, as it asks questions about racial profiling, systemic discrimination, and the promise of art for social change.

In cities across the country, black women – many of whom have been on the front lines of the Movement for Black Lives – are lifting up the names of their sisters killed by police. This March, Manolia Charlotin, a multimedia journalist with the The Media Consortium, and Cat Brooks, artist and organizer with Oakland's Anti Police-Terror Project sat down at a community event in San Francisco to talk about Say Her Name and what it looks like to build a movement that centers black women. Jamison Robinson, Yuvette Henderson's brother, talks about the difference it makes when a community comes together to demand justice after the police kill someone. Featuring: Jamison Robinson, brother of Yuvette Henderson Manolia Charlotin, journalist with The Media Consortium Cat Brooks, artist and organizer with the Anti Police-Terror Project

Existing in two worlds can complicate your identity and complete it–whether it's understanding your medicine man grandfather, to deepening the concept of love through a different tongue, these storytellers takes us around the world from Colombia to Papua New Guinea, seeking definition and connections with presumably different cultures. Featuring: Francis Rojas Jeremiah Barber William Guillermo Ortiz, Curandero / Medicine Man Florentina Mocanu-Schendel, Doctoral Candidate at Stanford University Warama Kurupel, Limol Village Leader Grace Maher Robai Reend Donai Kurupel Pingam Uziag Jenny Dobola Loni Garaiyi Sandra Dikai Merol Kwe Manaleato Kolea

Who is Charles Koch–really? Who are the members of "the Network"?—a semi-secret group assembled by the Koch brothers? How are the superrich's priorities transforming American society? Journalist Jane Mayer spent several years searching for some of those answers, and her new book is titled Dark Money, the Hidden History of the Billionaires. Mayer is interviewed by Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief James Bennet. Featuring: Jane Meyer, author of Dark Money, the Hidden History of the Billionaires James Bennet, Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief