Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe (born July 21, 1969) is a former United States Marine and Gulf War veteran, turned peace activist, who has organized a human shield action in Iraq and was a passenger on the MV Mavi Marmara during the Israeli commando raid on the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” humanitarian mission. Continue reading Ken O’Keefe: Injustice is Traumatic
Videos
National Geographic’s Inside Secret America: American Sex Slave (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=171jCPjxeXE
Many Americans believe that human trafficking is limited to foreign countries. But here in America, the sex trade is thriving. The average age for entrance into the sex industry is 12-14 years old and the vast majority of females who are coerced into sex trafficking have limited options for escaping the lifestyle.
In this episode of National Geographic’s Inside: Secret America, investigative journalists Mariana van Zeller and Darren Foster go undercover and explore the world of sex trafficking in the United States. They gain an insider’s perspective from victims, outreach workers and law enforcement officials who are on the front lines fighting to stop this American tragedy.
They begin their journey with two volunteer outreach workers in Charlotte, N.C. who assist victims of sex trafficking. The team gains firsthand experience in the level of psychological intimidation a pimp can have over a trafficking victim while attempting to counsel a distraught victim. Outreach workers report that 75% of traffickin
g victims are forced into sexual servitude by a pimp or handler. More surprisingly, not all pimps fit the stereotype of the flamboyantly attired street hustler. Some appear to be successful business professionals.
Taina Bien-Aimé – The Dangers of Legalizing Prostitution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFnjSk93P0E
Taina Bien-Aimé is the Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). CATW is the first and oldest international non-profit organization dedicated to ending trafficking in women and girls and related forms of commercial sexual exploitation as practices of gender-based violence.
Prior to this position, Taina was the Executive Director of Women’s City Club of New York (WCC), a multi-issue advocacy organization that helps shape public policy in New York. She was a founding Board member of Equality Now, an international human rights organization that works for the protection of the rights of women and girls and later served as its Executive Director (2000-2011). She was Director of Business Affairs/Film Acquisitions at Home Box Office (1996-2000) and practiced international corporate law at the Wall St. law firm, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton (1992-1996).
Taina holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law and a Licence in Political Science from the University of Geneva/Graduate School of International Studies in Switzerland.
The End of America
In The End of America (2008), best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.
The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.
In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us–with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets–that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.
According to Wolf:
Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty.
Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots effort to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion.
Richard Wilkinson: How Economic Inequality Harms Societies
We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.
Public health researcher
In “The Spirit Level,” Richard Wilkinson charts data that proves societies that are more equal are healthier, happier societies. Full bio
Nick Hanauer: The Pitchforks are Coming
Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer is an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France. Hear his argument about why a dramatic increase in minimum wage could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity … and prevent a revolution.
Further Viewing:
Majority Report: Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer Discusses How Trickle Down Economics Fails to Create Job Growth
Nick Hanauer: Saving American Capitalism
Venture capitalist and TED Talks sensation, Nick Hanauer, explains why capitalists should be the most concerned about the staggering rise in U.S. economic inequality and the struggling middle class.
Pope Francis addresses joint session of U.S. Congress
Pope Francis made history Thursday September 24, 2015, with his address to a joint session of Congress — the first ever by a sitting pope. His remarks touched on America’s democratic tradition, religious tolerance, immigration and economic disparity.
Pope Francis asserted:
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.
The pope then compared the “work” of Congress to the work of the prophet Moses:
Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation,” he explained. “On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.
After praising American values and historic American figures such as Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Merton, the pope decried the trend of religious radicalism that has caused many innocent lives to be brutally lost. Explaining that “no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism,” he stressed the importance of combating religious violence:
This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind,” Pope Francis declared. “A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms.
At a time when their is seemingly great tension towards certain religious views in America, Pope Francis argued that the “voice of faith” needs to continue to be heard in order to allow faith-based works to continue strengthening the country:
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society,” the pontiff stated. “Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.
As the son of immigrants, Pope Francis touched on how America is a land founded by immigrants and urged the United States, which takes in about 70,000 refugees every year, to continue opening its doors to the world’s refugees and even immigrants coming from Latin America.
Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions,” he said. “On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation; to respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’
Pope Francis then discussed the importance of serving the less impoverished members of society:
I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable.
Owens Jones: The Politics of Hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQqXfDbRWA
Owen Jones, a British columnist, author and political activist speaks at the 2015 FutureFest about how the “Politics of Envy” is being used to redirect the middle class’s anger about the economic climate away from the policymakers and towards the lower class. Jones is a regular columnist for The Guardian and the New Statesman. He is also the author of ‘Chavs’ and ‘The Establishment.’
The Poet of Poverty (2010)
The following video excerpts are from the 2010 documentary film Poet of Poverty. This unique documentary investigates how a city like Camden, NJ, which is annually ranked among the poorest and most dangerous cities in America, can come into existence in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. The film is based on the letters of Father Michael Doyle, a local parish priest, which are narrated by Martin Sheen.
“I Feel Safe Here”
The film’s opening segment was written in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and accompanies the image of a child walking past boarded-up buildings and trash-filled streets on his way to school.
“A seventh grade boy in Sacred Heart School made this comment after the frightening destruction of the twin towers in New York that killed 2,700 people. ‘I feel safe here,’ he said. It was an amazing statement because most people are shocked in their shoes and scared to death. ‘You’re not afraid,’ he was asked. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid because if the terrorists fly over Camden, they’ll think they have done it already.’”
“Hope in Camden”
This second two minute segment, entitled “Hope in Camden”, features Martin Sheen narrating the poem The Dolphins Danced on Arlington to the visual of impoverished children in Camden at play in a makeshift pool built from a discarded hot tub and their imagination. The poem reads:
“One day God sent a message from of all places Arlington Street, and it brightened up the doorway of my mind. On Arlington, in the awful heat, on that Godforsaken street without light or life, ugly, urban decay at levels straining the imagination, seven children were splashing in cascading water like shining wet dolphins in the sun. Somehow, they had hauled a discarded hot tub from Adventure Spas on Chelton Avenue, opened a fire hydrant and the powerful pressure sent the water upward on an old sheet of plywood into the tub and sent the children into ecstasies of delight in spite of all the awful misery around them…Nothing could daunt the wild surge of their young lives and hopes. What is it about hope? Does its real inspiration only rise out of the tragic emptiness to take its pure and unsupported stand against all odds?”
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Camden Civil Rights Project 