Making Contact

In the past decade, more and more political marching bands have been invigorating social movements. In some cases, they're the protest themselves. On this edition, we look at how musicians are stirring up public spaces; from the streets, to supermarkets to your Facebook feed.

Despite President Obama’s promise to change America’s broken immigration system, the dehumanization and detention of immigrants continues to rise. On this edition, Mexican-American journalist Maria Hinojosa speaks about the United States’ loss of humanity’ in dealing with immigrants and immigration.

Renowned author Chris Hedges paints a bleak picture of our world today, in rapid economic, environmental, and religious decline-but we still have a chance to turn things around. On this edition, Hedges speaks about his new book, The World as it is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.

Jamaica has a long history of police violence and corruption. In May 2010 a government crackdown left 73 people dead and a city in chaos. The majority of those victims are presumed innocent and their loved ones continue to seek justice.

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 broadcast the documentary film “COINTELPRO 101.” Today we hear the second half of the film, produced by the Freedom Archives.

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 US.  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.

African-Americans have endured more than 246 years of slavery, 100 years of racism and segregation. The trauma from that experience continues to impact African-Americans and society today. Dr. Joy DeGruy presents a discussion on post traumatic slave syndrome.

Racism in the American media goes back even further than the founding of the US. Now, media consolidation and shrinking news budgets are threatening to make things even worse. On this edition, a discussion on Race and the American Media, from the 2011 National Conference on Media Reform, featuring Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez, Rinku Sen from the Applied Research Center, and the first woman of color to anchor a major network news show, Carole Simpson. Special thanks to Free Press.

Almost 4,500 American soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqis have died since the start of the “Shock and Awe” campaign. Eight years later, we assess the consequences of the war in Iraq through an audio documentary, “The Cost of War: A Reflection on Eight Years in Iraq,” produced by KALW News.

Solidarity has long been used as an organizing tool, but it is shifting radically amidst a new political landscape and new technologies. Left Forum’s ‘Towards a Politics of Solidarity’ conference explores this in depth and discusses its impact today.