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Election ’08: Can Politics and Healthcare Mix?
On this edition, we hear how Democratic activists have been pushing their party to make health care a priority for all. And we’ll hear a first hand account of how regular citizens led a movement and won their battle for universal health care in the San Francisco
read moreLive From Main Street Ohio: Will Your Vote Count?
This year Ohio is again a crucial swing state, and it remains to be seen whether changes in voting laws there and in other states will make the process better or worse for citizens who want to cast their votes.
read moreParental Notification: Protecting Our Youth?
We hear from a group in California that says a proposition requiring parental notification before abortion threatens the health, safety and rights of young women, especially communities of color and immigrant communities. We also visit Texas where both parental notification and consent laws have transformed the ways young women handle unexpected pregnancies.
read moreBattle for Bolivia
President Evo Morales nationalized foreign corporations and distributed the revenue to the poor. Now he’s pushing a new constitution that will weaken the power of the country’s traditional economic elite. But the conservative, pro-business opposition forces have blown up gas pipelines and murdered pro-government peasants, trying to provoke a civil war. How will the struggle turn out?
read moreWhatcha Gonna Do When The Well Runs Dry?
From Australia to Arizona, we take a look at three growing communities facing water shortages along with the pressure to grow. We’ll hear their different approaches to finding solutions — including denial.
read moreWhose Neighborhood is This Anyway? (encore edition)
Making Contact’s Joaquin Palomino speaks to former gang members, and other mission residents, about gang injunctions, a controversial legal strategy that’s divided the community. Some call it a solution, but many believe it’s an ineffective measure that does more damage than good.
read moreChile’s 9/11 (encore edition)
As US citizens observe the 4th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, few realize the dark significance of that day in Chilean history. Thirty two years ago, on September 11th, 1973, a US-backed military junta toppled Socialist president Salvador Allende, marking the beginning of decades of repression. Hundreds of thousands of Chileans fled to other countries, including the United States, in search of a peaceful existence. On this edition, a group of Chilean Exiles in the US reflect on the coup, and how music transformed their experience of terror into artistic expression.
read moreFor Us, By Us. Health Care after Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive disasters in U.S. history for human lives and destroyed property. And while a full three years have passed since the storm, New Orleans and the surrounding region are still in a state of “rebuilding”. How does this ongoing state of recovery translate into the daily lives of the city’s marginalized populations? We talk to activists and visionaries from the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic who are reinventing their community’s health and wellness landscape.
read moreLive From Main Street in Denver: So You Say You Want Change?
Laura Flanders hit the streets of Denver at the Democratic National Convention to find out what real, sustainable change looks like.
read moreBlack and African
African immigrants are the fastest growing segment of the black population in the U.S. But the cultural boundaries between black Americans and African immigrants are hard to break down.
read moreRhythms of Zapata (encore edition)
In the U.S., some communities of color have turned to ‘Zapatismo’, a culture of the Mayan indigenous movement in the jungles of southern Mexico, as a source of hope that a different world is possible. We go to East Los Angeles, where a number of Chicano artists inspired by the Zapatistas have been using music to raise awareness about social change in their own communities.
read moreWhen Your Back’s Against the Wall, You Gotta Dance: On the Frontlines of Reproductive Justice
Women, particularly poor and homeless women, young women and women of color, across the nation are struggling with access to quality comprehensive reproductive health services.
read morePrison Town, USA
In our special collaboration with public television’s P.O.V., Directors Katie Galloway and Po Kutchins take us to “prison town, usa” where they explore how the industry affects correctional officers, their families, and whole community.
read moreParadise Lost: Military Training in Makua Valley (encore edition)
Native Hawaiian and Making Contact intern Samson Reiny reports on what happens when the military takes over Makua Valley, a historically sacred land, and on how people are fighting back to reclaim this once pristine area.
read moreLive From Main Street: Miami’s Economic Crisis and Sustainable Future
Live from Main Street takes us to the streets of Miami, Florida for a town hall discussion of how local communities and grassroots groups are facing the economic and housing crunch while working to build a stronger sustainable city.
read moreWomen Rising XVII: Climate Change and Water
We profile two women activists taking on the global water crisis, warning us about the link between climate change and the loss of one of our most basic human requirements.
read moreVeterans Speak Out: Winter Soldier
In March 2008, hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans shared their personal stories showing how the military occupation of a foreign country inevitably leads to war crimes, an increase in racism, dehumanization, and sexism.
read moreStuffed and Starved
Raj Patel, ‘Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System’ author, who used to work for the World Bank, the WTO, and the United Nations, has become a harsh critic of the way those organizations set policies that he says lead to increasing hunger and food insecurity around the world.
read moreThousand Kites
A growing coalition of criminal justice reform activists, called Thousand Kites, are fighting for change and they’re doing it through music, theatre, and audience participation.
read moreLive From Main Street: Getting Heard this Election Season
Live from Main Street takes us to the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota where we explore what it takes to get heard this election year in the era of big media and diminished civil liberties.
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