Radio Free Maine revs up

In the past couple days, we've gotten a few announcements from Roger Leisner over at Radio Free Maine, letting us know that he has a new round of progressive-topic DVDs being released. They can be rented at Videoport in Portland, or online at audible.com.

Here they are:

1) Noam Chomsky speaks on "The Changing Face of Latin America" on April 4, 2008 (33 minutes, including Q&A). To quote from Leisner's summary, "at the 11th Annual M.I.T. Sloan School of Management Latin Conference on Innovation for Growth. Chomsky notes his agreement with previous speakers about the positive change in South America, but reminds the audience that 'Central America has not recovered from Reagan’s terrorist wars, and may never recover from them, and of course there’s a long, terrible history that I don’t have to account.'"

2) Noam Chomsky speaks on "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: Inconclusive Violence in the Israel-Palestine Conflict" on May 9, 2008 (90 minutes, including Q&A). Leisner says: "Marking the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian exodus in 1948 - al Nakba - or as Chomsky noted 'the destruction of Palestinian society.' Using the words of Israel’s founders via Israeli historians and archives, Chomsky paints a picture of ethnic cleansing and theft of property and land. ... Quoting Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, Chomsky advances the proposition that America was conceived as an Empire."

3) Chris Hedges speaks on "Covering War and Conflict as a Foreign Correspondent" at Bowdoin College on February 10 (70 minutes). Hedges, a former international correspondent for the New York Times, is now teaching and studying at the Nation Institute and Princeton University.

 4) Shachaf Polakow, Leila Farsakh and Noam Chomsky talk about "Principled Resistance to the Israeli Occupation" at Boston's First Parish Church on February 17, organized by Unitarian Universalists for a Just Peace in the Middle East.