Progressive Commentary Hour

The first in our weekly program that will feature important documentaries and their director – beginning with the documentary Economics of Happiness by world renown environmental and social activist Helena Norberg-Hodges Helena Norberg-Hodges is an author, activist and filmmaker who is regarded by many as a pioneer of the “new economy” global movement. Earth Journal included Helena among the 10 major environmentalists and she has appeared worldwide in the media. Educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States, she specialized in linguistics, including studies at the University of London and at MIT. Since 1975, she has worked with the people of Ladakh, or “Little Tibet” in the western Indian Himalayas, to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values. For these efforts she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, or ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’. Helena is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture based in the US and UK, an organization that examines the root causes of our current social and environmental crises, while promoting more sustainable and equitable patterns of living. She is also a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, and a co-founder of both the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network. Helena’s book, Ancient Futures, has been described as “an inspirational classic”. She is also the producer and co-director of the award-winning film, “The Economics of Happiness”, which sheds on the failures and destruction wrought upon societies from corporate globalization and outlines a new economics based upon localization to rebuild communities

An in depth analysis of the political changes threatening Europe’s status quo and its economic implications for Europe and the US Marshall Auerback is a Fellow at the Economists for Peace and Security, a global strategist for the investment group Madison Street Partners in Denver and a Research Associate at the Levy Institute.  He has a wide range of expertise in the global investment arena, having covered the stock market for a decade along the Pacific rim and Southeat Asia and formerly ran the Asian-Pacific hedge fund for the Tiedemann Investment Group in New York.  Earlier Marshall has also covered investments in Russia, the former Soviet Republics and Africa.   He writes for Naked Capitalism, the Huffington Post, Truthout and many business and investment publications. Marshall has a magna cum laude degree from Queens University and a law degree from Oxford. Dr. Jack Rasmus is a professor of political economics at St. Mary’s College and Santa Clara University in California.  Prior to teaching, he was an economic analyst for several global corporations and an organizer, negotiator and business representative for several labor unions. At one time he was elected at the National First Vice President of the National Writers Union. Besides his articles for progressive news and commentary sources, he is the author of several books, the most recent being “Obama Economy: Recovery for the Few” (Palgrave-McMillan) which analyzes the reasons behind the failure of the Obama Administration to initiate a economic recovery and its consequences

Progressive Commentary Hour

Ratlines – the secret networks giving sanctuary to Nazi and Ustashi war criminals and a look at the forces that have shaped some of America’s most terrible recent events Peter Levenda is a philosopher and historian, who specializes in the interface between politics and religion and the occult. In the 1960s, for a very brief period he was involved with the American Orthodox Catholic Church, which had served as a front for American intelligence operations and was later implicated in the assassination of JFK.  He has a higher degree in religious studies and has written extensively about Eastern and Western spiritual and occult traditions and their interconnections with political and criminal events. Peter is a member of the American Academy of Religion, TAK (the religious studies honor society), and is a charter member of the Norman Mailer Society. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Peter is a veteran of private business, having worked with trade with China for 25 years, and is author of the Mao of Business. He has lived and traveled extensively throughout Asia and other continents. He is best known for his research and study about Nazi occult beliefs – Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult – with a forward by Norman Mailer.  His tome, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft is a monumental three volume set that we will touch upon during our conversation . His most recent publication is Ratline: Soviet Spies, Nazi Priests and the Disappearance of Adolf Hitler, a book that continues the research he began in Chile in 1979 about the escape routes for Nazi war criminals and scientists to the US, South America, the Middle East and as far as Indonesia and the far East

America’s Failed War on Drugs and the need to legalize marijuana. An in depth articulate investigation into marijuana use in America and its demonization by the government’s war on drugs; how it has increased incarceration in the private prison systems for industry profits, and the benefits for legalizing marijuana for medical use and entertainment. Judge James Gray has been a trial judge in Orange County, California for 29 years and has been a US candidate for Congress and the Senate for the Republican and later Libertarian Parties. He is one of the nation’s most articulate critics of the failures of our War on Drugs and supporters of the legalization of marijuana. Michael Ruppert is a former LAPD narcotics investigator and whistleblower who was forced out of the police department while holding its highest ratings. He has been at the forefront of exposing government and intelligence complicity in America’s international and domestic drug trade. Joseph Pietri is a former drug smuggler before and after Nixon’s declaration of America’s War on Drugs for several decades who operated out of south and southeast Asia. He is currently an active advocate for medical marijuana

Martha Rosenberg is an investigative health reporter, commentator and an editorial cartoonist who has written extensively on the dangers of industrial food and pharmaceutical drugs, devious practices by the Big Drug Makers, pharma advertizing, dangers of antibiotics and FDA incompetence in drug oversight for efficacy and safety.  She is a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle, Providence Journal and the Chicago Tribune. Martha has recently published her first book, “Born with a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp the Public Health” which includes many interviews with physicians, researchers and insiders willing to come forward to speak about the devious practices of the drug and food industrial complexes. Dr. Bruce Levine is a clinical psychologist in Cincinnati and an activist, author addressing the societal problems in our corporate healthcare system.  He is regular contributor to Z Magazine, Alternet, Adbusters, the Ecologist and the Huffington Post.  Bruce is a member of Mind Freedom International, and is on the Advisory Council of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Pyschology. His most recent book, “Get Up Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite” is a thorough investigation into the psychological underpinnings behind the American public’s passivity and aura of powerlessness to stand up against corporate and political powers who are removing the democratic freedoms in the nation

Big Food, Monsanto, GMOs and threats to American farming Ronnie Cummins is the Executive Director of the Organic Consumers Association and author of “Genetically Engineered Foods: A Self Defense Guide for Consumers”. He has been a life-long activist in the human rights, anti-nuclear, labor and agricultural movements. His current goal through the Association is to increase organic agriculture to at least 30 percent by the year 2015 and to further a global moratorium on genetically engineered crops.  www.OrganicConsumers.org David Murphy is the founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, a grassroots movement of more than 250,000 American farmers and citizens dedicated to reforming our food and agriculture. In 2007, he organized the Food and Family Farm Presidential Summit, where 5 of the 6 Democratic candidates pledged their support to help save family farm agriculture and laid out their plans to create a more sustainable future for rural America. www.FoodDemocracyNow.org

Manuel Pérez-Rocha helps to coordinate the Networking for Justice on Global Investment project at the Institute for Policy Research, an independent think tank for progressive policy making in Washington DC; he directed the Institute’s "NAFTA Plus and the SPP Advocacy Project," as part of the Global Economy Project. He is a Mexican national who has led tri-national efforts to promote just and sustainable alternative approaches to North American economic integration for more than a decade. Manuel worked for many years with the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade and continues to serve on its executive committee. www.IPS-DC.org NAFTA’s failed promises- big business prospers as poverty increases.

Politics of Medicine Pt 1 DEATH BY MEDICINE “In 2012, America has become the most overmedicated society in history. Indeed, there is a medication for every condition…We never stop to question why we need all these drugs.  We never even notice that they aren’t making us better, or that we can’t get off them once we start taking them.  Why do we refuse to see that despite all these medications we are nevertheless the sickest industrialized nation on earth?” Pt 2 THE FDA:  PIMPING FOR BIG PHARMA “Most Americans misunderstand what FDA drug approval means.  They believe that the FDA only approves drugs that are effective and safe, and that advertising of pharmaceuticals on television and in print has been approved by the FDA as well.  Ironically, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.” PART III  SCIENTIFIC STUDIES: CLINICAL EVIDENCE OR A LICENSE TO KILL? “After so many approved drugs and vaccines have later been shown to cause harm, somehow we miraculously wipe the slate clean after every incident and our faith in the pharmaceutical companies and the entire medical profession is restored to 100%”.