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Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. But social influence is a two-way street—our environments are themselves products of our behavior. Author Robert Frank joins us with insight from his book Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work, identifying ways to unlock the latent power of social context—perhaps even on a level that could save the planet. Frank draws our attention to the...
Topics: Psychology, Climate Change, Peer Pressure
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Mar 1, 2015
03/15
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Ed Mays
movies
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Decades later, the Vietnam war’s effects are still being felt by civilians and veterans alike. In American Reckoning, historian Christian Appy argues that, perhaps the most important legacy left by Vietnam is how the war “shattered the central tenet of American national identity.” As the Vietnam war showed, Americans are vulnerable to defeat and, according to Appy this haunting lesson has influenced everything from popular culture to foreign policy in the Middle East. He’ll examine...
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Jul 24, 2016
07/16
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 105
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Seattle’s $15 minimum wage took successful campaigning and public opinion to pass into law in 2014. Now, one of the local movement’s central figures speaks out about the struggle. David Rolf (president of SEIU 775) places the region’s organizing into a national context in The Fight for Fifteen. He also explains “middle out” economics and stresses the need for a national $15/hour rate. He’ll share stories from local activists (both current and farther back in Seattle’s history)...
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Mar 11, 2012
03/12
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 185
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Jeff Clements, Author and Free Speech For People Co-Founder, talks about his new book, "Corporations Are Not People" which tells the true story of how some of the largest corporations in the world organized to take over our government and Constitution, culminating in 2010 with the 5-4 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Clements, a lawyer and legal scholar served as Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Public Protection & Advocacy Bureau...
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May 26, 2013
05/13
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 545
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Gar Alperovitz speaks about why the time is right for a revolutionary, new-economy movement — what it would mean to democratize the ownership of wealth, what it will take to build a new system to replace the decaying one, and more. What people may be surprised to find out is that this revolution is already well under way in the United States with organizations like worker owned cooperatives, credit unions and local currency collectives already taking up a huge portion of the economy....
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Sep 29, 2013
09/13
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 437
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Economist Kshama Sawant is shaking up the Seattle political establishment with her run for City Council as an independent Socialist. Dubbed, "the strongest socialist candidate in the U.S. in decades", the shocking truth is that she actually stands a good chance of winning. Sawant garnered more votes in the primary than the Mayor, and last week she made the cover of the Stranger, the local weekly which came with a strong endorsement. This was in addition to a host of labor...
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Feb 28, 2016
02/16
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Ed Mays
movies
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Big money and special interest groups have become increasingly entangled with local, state, and national elections. Derek Cressman, director of Common Cause’s Amend 2012 campaign, says this is destroying the democratic process. Building on the themes in his book When Money Talks, he’ll explain the ways courts have stopped attempts to limit campaign spending, what a constitutional amendment limiting paid speech should say, and explain how citizens can help pass such an amendment. All...
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Apr 23, 2017
04/17
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 112
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When “doing good” starts to look like protecting one’s self interest, it’s a tricky business. While famous philanthropists like Bill Gates and Charles Koch are closely scrutinized, thousands of wealthy donors are at work below the radar promoting a wide range of causes. In The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age, author and lecturer David Callahan charts the rise of new power players and the ways they are shaping our society. In conversation with Paul...
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A longtime community organizer and professor of geography and Native studies at The Evergreen State College, explores the evolution of conflict to cooperation among Native American nations in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, Northern Plains and Great Lakes regions and their neighboring communities in protecting environmental resources from outside threats. Zoltan Grossman demonstrates that our ongoing fights for climate justice are not isolated struggles, but are founded upon a legacy of...
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Feb 19, 2012
02/12
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 940
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There is no substitute for community when it comes to preventing crime, responding to disasters, enhancing our health and happiness, caring for one another and our planet, creating a vibrant democracy, and advancing social justice. Strong communities are needed now more than ever due to the current economic and environmental crises. Yet, our communities and our democracy have also been in decline for some time. Government, non-profits and other institutions that are seeking to help are...
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Feb 2, 2014
02/14
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 220
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What matters most--policy change or personal change? What word better explains what we all want--happiness or well-being? How do we measure our success? The answers may surprise you.As we celebrate Take Back Your Time Day on October 24, TBYT's Executive Director will lead a discussion of the connections between time balance, happiness and ecological sustainability, suggesting that a reduction in American working hours could increase jobs, improve happiness and well-being and reduce our...
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Jan 31, 2016
01/16
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 292
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For forty years, internationally bestselling author David Shields subscribed to the New York Times, but recently he realized how “problematic” he found the seductively beautiful and consistently heroic composition of the paper’s front-page photos (especially of the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). In this discussion of his book War is Beautiful, Shields invites us into his ensuing research and analysis of NYT combat photography, which—according to Shields—aestheticizes war and...
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Aug 7, 2016
08/16
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 74
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With opposition to fracking growing, Hauter’s new book Frackopoly is just in time. One of the nation’s leading public interest activists, Hauter (Food and Water Watch) tells the story of the surprising mix of interest groups who paved the way for fracking and the technology that made these “sacrifice zones” possible. She also debunks common misconceptions on the economic benefits of fracking and sheds light on what grassroots organizations are doing to fight back. In order to cover the...
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365
Jun 10, 2012
06/12
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 365
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As the only nuclear-armed state that doesn’t acknowledge its possession of the bomb, Israel has created a special “bargain,” says Avner Cohen. Now, the rise of nuclear Iran, says the author of The Worst-Kept Secret, may threaten the subtle nuclear equilibrium that has dominated the Middle East in recent decades. Israel is now facing a unique and fateful dilemma, a challenge larger than any Israel has ever dealt with in the past. Cohen calls this “one of the most critical international...
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Apr 9, 2017
04/17
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 56
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Many Americans worry about the economic divisions in our country. In The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution, law professor Ganesh Sitaraman describes the founding generation of our country as a society of almost unprecedented economic equality. In conversation with Paul Constant of Civic Ventures and The Seattle Review of Books, he will discuss the intent of our founders and the fact that the Constitution they created does not include safeguards against capitalist extremes. Despite...
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We are being watched, but who’s watching? Author Pratap Chatterjee joins forces with artist Khalil to illustrate the complex history of mass surveillance since 9/11 with VERAX: The True History of Whistleblowers, Drone Warfare, and Mass Surveillance, a striking work of investigative journalism presented in the form of a graphic novel. Journalist Chatterjee visually outlines a fact-finding expedition into programs that guide missiles for drone strikes, “deep packet inspection” data-mining...
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Recent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression among activists, journalists, and politicians. To discuss new strategies for putting an end to police violence, the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health assembles a panel of community activists and experts—whose gathering commemorates the one-year anniversary of Charleena Lyles’ death at the hands of Seattle police. Join this critical conversation about the threat posed to public...
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Perhaps the most important global trend of the last few years has been the rise and transformation of information warfare. Researcher of media and propaganda Peter Pomerantsev asserts that in the digital age, real military engagement matters less than how it is broadcast—resulting is a constant deluge of lies, shock humor, absurdity, and fear-mongering designed to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth. Pomerantsev invites us to journey behind the enemy lines of the endless,...
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Recorded SAT July 13, 2019: CAGJ’s 13th Annual SLEE Dinner - Strengthening Local Economies Everywhere Keynote: Doria Robinson, Executive Director of Urban Tilth, "For the Love of Soil: Dismantling the Extractive Economy with Justice and Food Sovereignty" Doria Robinson is a leader in both the food sovereignty and climate justice movements. Trained as a Watershed Restoration Ecologist, Doria is the Executive Director of Urban Tilth, a community-based organization rooted in Richmond,...
Topics: Food, Sovereignty, Fair Trade
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Legendary for their size and intelligence, elephants are one of the most charismatic of megafauna. That they are under siege from poachers is no secret, and the rapidity of their declining numbers is horrifying. However, amidst the steady stream of bad news, photographer Art Wolfe and author Dr. Samuel Wasser offer hope that all is not lost. Wolfe and Wasser make their way to Town Hall with inspiring accounts from their book Wild Elephants: Conservation in the Age of Extinction. Through...
Topics: Elephants, Poaching, Africa
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As our technological capabilities expand, humanity finds ourselves confronting one of the most important questions of our time: how will digital technology transform our society? Author and speaker Jamie Susskind steps up to Town Hall’s stage to address this pressing question with perspectives from his book Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech. Susskind argues that rapid and relentless innovation in a range of technologies—from artificial intelligence to virtual...
Topics: Technology, Democracy, Freedom
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Oct 13, 2013
10/13
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Ed Mays
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eye 190
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In just five years Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. As she began to write about the experience of living through all that dying, she realized the truth behind the loss—and it took her breath away: Her only brother and her friends died because of who they were and where they were from, and because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered...
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Jun 15, 2014
06/14
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 604
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The author of 13 books, Rebecca Solnit writes on art, landscape, public and collective life, ecology, politics, hope, meandering, reverie, memory, and the power of story. Her most recent work, The Faraway Nearby, explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative, and by imagination. Her earlier books include River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (2004), for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book...
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1.3K
Sep 7, 2014
09/14
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Ed Mays
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Instant gratification has become the American way of life, and according to veteran journalist Paul Roberts, it has had a negative impact on our culture. From failed healthcare systems and environmental destruction, to unbalanced politics and the country’s “financial meltdown,” The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification analyzes how the current socioeconomic system has been wreaking havoc. He’ll offer a historical account of how America got to this place, recent...
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Sep 21, 2014
09/14
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 848
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Thom Hartmann gave this talk as part of Yes! Magazine’s fourth annual celebration and fundraiser. He discussed current economic and political trends, as well as climate activism offering his advice for a stable future. Based on historical trends, Hartmann’s The Crash of 2016 suggests the way forward lies in shifting focus from a profit model to a moral one — otherwise, the next “great crash” could happen any day. Hartmann is a national and internationally syndicated radio host,...
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Jan 25, 2015
01/15
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 214
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Kathleen Dean Moore and Rachelle McCabe: Variations on a Theme of Extinction: Rage, Rage, Against the Dying The truths of our time are deeply challenging – the on-rushing extinctions, the coming storms, and the moral necessity of safeguarding Earth’s beautiful lives. Words alone cannot express the urgency of action. And so we turn to music. University Unitarian Church is delighted to announce the inaugural Robert and Marianne Fleagle Lecture for outstanding leaders and thinkers in liberal...
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May 3, 2015
05/15
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 348
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When we get our story wrong, we get our future wrong. Much like the Trans-Pacific Partnership "trade deal", everything we are told about capitalism and our economy is a pack of lies. Time for a new story, says preeminent scholar and critic of corporate globalization, David Korten, the best-selling author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning. David has a brand new book, Change the Story, Change the Future - a Living Economy for a Living Earth. He is...
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Apr 2, 2017
04/17
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 110
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How Silicon Valley and the Defense Department Plan to Remake Public Education While those of us who believe in public education struggle against privatization efforts such as charter schools and high steaks testing, under the radar, a massive corporate takeover is underway. We are on the brink of being pushed into a new paradigm for education, known as “Learning Ecosystems.” This technology-based education is being planned by a slew of giant corporations and nonprofit foundations in...
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Sep 16, 2012
09/12
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 339
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Tom Carpenter is the Executive Director of Hanford Challenge ( http://www.hanfordchallenge.org ), whose purpose is to transform the Hanford nuclear site into a model of safe and effective cleanup. Hanford Challenge works closely with insiders and whistleblowers at Hanford, and keeps on top of developments there daily. Tom discusses the present state of Hanford cleanup, where things are changing for the better, and where we are still stuck in old and not-so-useful patterns. He has spent...
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Oct 14, 2012
10/12
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 247
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R2P has been the basis for justifying military actions in Libya — arguing for similar actions in Syria – and used, after the fact, to justify military intervention in Iraq. Clearly it’s important to discuss this issue. A government’s job is to protect its citizens. When it is unable to do so — or even violates its citizens’ rights — does the international community have a responsibility to respond? And in what manner? Hear an informed discussion about justifications and dangers...
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Sep 15, 2013
09/13
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 186
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U.S Rep. Jim McDermott invited his district to speak out on the idea of bombing Syria, Sep. 8 2013 in Seattle and they gave their thoughts. This video is of the entire event and includes clips from the local TV news broadcasts at the end for comparison. Camera by Todd Boyle Pirate Television: Pirate TV challenges the Media Blockade, bringing you independent voices, information and programming unavailable on the Corporate Sponsor-Ship. For more programming from Ed Mays or information about...
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Jan 5, 2014
01/14
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 310
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Austin photographer Peggy Kelsey traveled to Afghanistan in 2003 and 2010 to photograph and interview women about their lives. She chronicled these stories in her book: Gathering Strength: Conversations with Afghan Women. Join us as she shares some of these stories and pictures of some remarkable women who struggle for liberation and to rebuild a country ravaged by war. Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and University Book Store Watch Pirate Television in King County channel 29/77 ...
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Aug 2, 2015
08/15
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 181
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A recent paper written by former NASA scientist James Hansen and 16 other prominent climate researchers warns of glacial melting this century that could cause as much as a ten foot sea-level rise in as little as fifty years. This timetable is much faster than previously thought possible and if proven accurate, the international target of limiting global temperatures to a 2°C rise this century will not be nearly enough to prevent most major coastal cities from being rendered uninhabitable. ...
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Aug 23, 2015
08/15
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 221
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Empire As A Way Of Life – Economic Exploitation/Expansion, Ecological Destruction, Oligarchic Governance, Built on Genocides With Impunity. The primary meme of US culture is: Profits for a few (mostly men/patriarchy) through expansion at ANY cost = empire. Our national origins derive from forceful dispossession of others with total impunity (genocide #1) justified through a myth of exceptionalism, setting in motion a pattern of a Pretend society, built on lie after lie, from Manifest Destiny...
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Jul 3, 2016
07/16
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 209
favorite 1
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With Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008, pundits proclaimed the Republicans as dead as the Whigs of yesteryear. Yet even as Democrats swooned, a small cadre of Republican operatives began mobilizing for their recovery. David Daley (editor-in-chief of Salon) describes the actions of these men, including Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, and Chris Jankowski. Their “simple, yet ingenious plan” took a tradition of dirty tricks―known to political insiders as “ratf**king”―to an...
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Jul 10, 2016
07/16
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 170
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In today's post-truth political landscape, there is a carefully concealed but ever-growing industry of organized misinformation that exists to create and disseminate lies in the service of political agendas. Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters for America present a revelatory history of this industry--which they've dubbed Lies, Incorporated The World Of Post-Truth Politics--and show how it has crippled legislative progress on issues including tobacco regulation, public health care, climate change,...
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Jun 10, 2012
06/12
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 288
favorite 1
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As the only nuclear-armed state that doesn’t acknowledge its possession of the bomb, Israel has created a special “bargain,” says Avner Cohen. Now, the rise of nuclear Iran, says the author of The Worst-Kept Secret, may threaten the subtle nuclear equilibrium that has dominated the Middle East in recent decades. Israel is now facing a unique and fateful dilemma, a challenge larger than any Israel has ever dealt with in the past. Cohen calls this “one of the most critical international...
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Nov 13, 2016
11/16
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 341
favorite 0
comment 0
As a boy, growing up in Brooklyn, Carl Safina raised homing pigeons in his yard. Now, as an ecologist and award-winning science writer, he studies the thoughts and feelings of animals. Weaving decades of field observations with new discoveries about the brain, Safina has produced an intimate view of the lives and behavior of animals. From elephant families in Kenya, struggling to survive poaching and drought, to the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest, he...
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Dec 4, 2016
12/16
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 1,162
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We’ve all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut—as in the butterflies in our stomach when we’re nervous or the visceral lurching sensation that associates an upsetting discovery. While ancient healing traditions, like Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, have long recognized this relationship, Western medicine has largely failed to acknowledge the mind-gut connection. Dr. Emeran Mayer, professor of medicine and executive director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of...
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With developing international discussions of nuclear conflict, it’s critical that we gather context for the policies and legacies of nuclear weapons. To help us gain perspective, we invite to the stage Daniel Ellsberg, former high level defense analyst and legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers. In his book The Doomsday Machine Ellsberg offers us a first-hand account of America’s nuclear program in the 1960s, highlighting how our nation’s nuclear strategy has not...
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In the last five years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana. To many, continued progress seems certain. But pot was on a similar trajectory forty years ago, only to encounter a fierce backlash. Historian Emily Dufton takes our stage to share a comprehensive history of marijuana—from its decriminalization in a dozen states during the 1970s to its transformation into a national scourge by concerned parents, a movement paving the way for an aggressive war on drugs. Chastened...
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In May of 2014, thousands of fast food workers in 230 cities across the globe went on strike, protesting for a living wage, workplace protections, and the right to unionize. Today that fight persists in the form of the #FightFor15 movement, whose efforts have resulted in cities around the nation (including Seattle, New York City, and Los Angeles) instituting a rise to a $15 minimum wage. History professor and activist Annelise Orleck chronicles the fight for a living wage and the results of...
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Oct 28, 2012
10/12
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 132
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United Nations Association of the USA - Greater Seattle Chapter celebrates the 67th United Nations Day with Jim Moore World Community Service Chair for the Rotary Clubs in District 5030, Seattle. He currently coordinates Rotary International efforts against malaria in Zambia. And Stéphane Dujarric, Director of News and Media for United Nations Secretariat responsible for the UN's television and radio networks and it's website. Mr. Dujarric began his association with the United...
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Feb 19, 2012
02/12
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Ed Mays
movies
eye 346
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In the 1960s, Jamal Joseph exhorted students at Columbia to burn down their college; today he’s chair of its School of the Arts film division. Joseph, author of Panther Baby, chronicles his personal odyssey, from high-school honor student Eddie Joseph to his introduction to (and eventual leadership of) the Black Panther Party, to sentences at Riker’s Island and Leavenworth, and to the halls of Columbia, illuminating the life of a soldier inside the militant movement— and a life of...
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Jan 20, 2013
01/13
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 408
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One can only imagine the humiliation it must be that a black man is in the White House for all those bigoted rubes who were the target of Nixon's divide and rule "Southern strategy". This strategy not only played a big role in getting him elected but has been the central pillar of Republican rule in the South- a key reason for the stalemate in Congress that has forestalled social progress in the US for the last 50 years. Now with Obama’s re-election, some Southern states are...
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665
Jan 27, 2013
01/13
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 665
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At age 30, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus—The Minimalists—left their six-figure corporate careers, jettisoned most of their material possessions, and started focusing on life’s most important aspects. And once they embraced a minimalist lifestyle, they never looked back. Millburn and Nicodemus, authors of Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life, discuss their inspiring journey toward the simpler life. Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and University Book Store\ Watch Pirate Television...
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Apr 1, 2012
04/12
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 175
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Andrew Ross (Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU, and a Nation contributor) examines Phoenix, AZ, one of the fastest growing and least sustainable metropolitan regions: a city in the bull’s eye of global warming. Ross contends that if we can’t change the game in fast-growing, low-density cities like Phoenix, the whole movement has a major problem, and argues that solutions will come through political and social change rather than technological fixes. Ross is Author of...
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Sep 6, 2015
09/15
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 307
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Today, in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized indigenous communities and nations comprising nearly three million people. These individuals are the descendants of the millions of people who inhabited this land and are the subject of the latest book by noted historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the...
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In contrast to the anxiety surrounding our voting system, with stories about voter suppression and manipulation, there are actually quite a few positive initiatives toward voting rights reform. Professor Joshua A. Douglas, an expert on our electoral system, examines these encouraging developments in this talk discussing his new book "Vote for Us: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting". We learn how regular Americans are working to take back their democracy,...
Topics: Election Reform, Voting Rights, Democracy
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Apr 24, 2016
04/16
by
Ed Mays
movies
eye 211
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When nations go to war, governments, civilians, and soldiers are negatively affected. According to activist and author David Swanson (War is a Lie, When the World Outlawed War) there is no logical reason for war—the suffering overwhelms any potential good. He’ll offer an overview of America’s most recent wars and the lessons that can be learned from them. Swanson, a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will also offer practical ideas about what can be done to end war and give peace a real...
