Network (1976)

Activist Cinema Episode 5 - Network (1976) is simply one of the best American films.  Period.  It also happens to be a satire that ended up being so prophetic that the satire has fallen away in the decades since it was initially produced.  Giant, international corporations buying up the TV airwaves and forcing the News Divisions to turn a profit by mixing in more and more entertainment at the expense of the public service they were originally intended to serve.  Sound familiar to anyone?  This film predicted media consolidation, the rise of reality TV, corrupt news broadcasts and so much more. [Click to Listen]

Economic Collapse II: The Sequel

Five years after the 2008 economic collapse, how are we as a civilization doing?  All of those new Wall Street regulations are keeping the banks in line.  All of the 'too big to fail' banks have been broken up.  Community banking has taken over as the dominant banking system.  The nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures kept millions of families off the streets.  The SEC has been bringing law suits of major banks and investment firms by the hundreds to the court system.  Bankers have been going to jail in record numbers and paying appropriately high fines for their criminal acts.  It's exactly the world that President Hope and Change promised the voters five years ago. [Click to Listen]

Occupy Wall Street Year Two

It's been a long, long two years since OWS started up in the heart of the financial district in NYC. The ripple effects of this movement are too diverse and too numbered to fully catalog in a short podcast.  Instead we take a look at the arithmetic of protests attendance.  The corporate media dismisses protests and movements (like the coverage of OWS Year One) when they say the numbers are too low, but what do these numbers actually represent?  At what point are the assemble more powerful than the elected?  This episode ends with a reading of the Declaration of Occupation. [Click to Listen]

The Shadow of the Past Holds the Future Hostage

On this anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks, we take a look at the events of the day from a different point of view.  The wonderful folks over at CrimethInc have a poster titled "The Shadow of the Past Holds the Future Hostage".  This is a "Story Time with Mic Check Radio" episode where we read this thought provoking analysis in full. [Click to Listen]

Climate Change Apocalypse

This is it!  The one and only episode where we take a look at the climate change "debate".  It's caused by humans, it's not caused by humans, it's getting hotter, it's getting colder...it's enough to keep us humans busy yelling at each other and not addressing the facts behind all of these accusations.  Earth's climate is changing and it doesn't care if humans survive.  So start prepping people!  The governments of the world aren't going to help. [Click to Listen]