The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers on PBS before the fear of being labelled partisan in a polarized domestic American scene forced the most bland neutrality on productions was incredible. Here, he covers every aspect of Iran-Contra scandal under Ronald Reagan with concise and appropriate anger.

Unreported World – Somalia

A 2006 look at Somalia on the Al Jazeera English program, Unreported World. Somalia is one of the most interesting places on the map today, and certainly one of the most tumultuous. Somalia is particularily interesting because it is a country defined by the borders of neighbors and not by anytype of sovereignty, making it perhaps the only and definitely the largest territory that never adopted the Westphalian system. Al Qaeda seems to want to open a “third front” in Somalia, but the fighting there has been intermittent and the rampant lawlessness and lack of major geopolitical importance negates attention.

Meet the Stans : Uzbekistan

This video is part three of a CBC four-part special about Central Asia, focusing on Uzbekistan. I’ll probably post the other parts later.

Cracking the Myths : Russian Geopolitics

From the description:

Cracking the Myths: Geopolitics
There are fears that Russia is still an aggressive state. Its image abroad is that Russia is the country with big geopolitical ambitions, a potential invader that wants to rule the world. But how many countries has it invaded in the last 20 years? Mark Ames is looking for answers to this and many other geopolitical questions in the new installment of the Cracking the Myths documentary series.

Presented by Russia Today, another international English-language media company (this one is state-owned) in a growing and neccesary field.

Cities of Light – The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain

I’ve actually seen a couple of better tv shows about the same subject, but this is the longest. Al-Andalus is an interesting challenge to the notions of east vs. west.

America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy

James M. Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (which has great site -> www.cfr.org), on the foreign policy of the Bush administration. According to Mr. Lindsay, the Bush foreign policy embraces Wilsonian interventionism while disregarding Wilsonian international institutions and focusing instead on national power.

Vacation

I’m in New England for the weekend, but there will be a huge amount of posts next week!

Securing the International Oil Supply

From the comments:

It took me two days to get through this, but it was a really good watch. It was interesting to see different sides explained, but it is hard to deny the consequences that Mr Klare outlines.

Current Event – Korean Reunification

I personally feel like this picture sums up the efforts of Korean Reunification by these two leaders quite well, but for more depth and background, let’s do a “current event” update.

Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Jong Il met in Pyongyang and signed a vague accord, pledging to work towards peace. The ultimate goal of reunification is obviously a long ways away because of the enormous cultural differences and hardline opposition in the South. The Independent isn’t even sure if the two countries are working towards reunification at all. Koreans, or at least businessmen speculating on land near the DMZ, seem to think the country will reunite and that that’s profits to be had.

al Jazeera presents an in-depth look at the current situation between the two Koreas.

Part One:

Part Two:

Just a note: I really like these al Jazeera in-depth news coverages; a guest on the show is actually from the country in question and theres only one of the usual American partisan pundist. So from here-and-on, I’ll be trying to syndicate current event coverage, focusing on northeast Asia.

Black Power – Pandora’s Box

With a fairly interesting premise for an educational show, this episode of Pandora’s Box focuses on Kwame Nkrumah’s plans for Ghana after colonialism. From the description:

A look at how former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah set Africa ablaze with his vision of a new industrial and scientific age. At the heart of his dream was to be the huge Volta dam, generating enough power to transform West Africa into an advanced utopia. But as his grand experiment took shape, it brought with it dangerous forces Nkrumah couldn’t control, and he slowly watched his metropolis of science sink into corruption and debt.”

I especially enjoyed the hindsight from active participants of both sides; the businessmen from the West betray profit-motivated decisions, i.e. importing raw materials for the Akosombo Dam instead of building the infrastructure for fear of nationalization, and the former government officials provide a glimpse into the dissapointment of not realizing a quick African rising.

Death of a Nation – East Timor

From the description:

“As Pilger gets an Austrlian diplomat to admit, East Timor was considered “expendable.”

But no one watching the massacre in the Dili cemetery can excuse the geopolitical machinations that led to this genocide.”

Australia’s expansion into the region is a really interesting story, although not covered here in a fair perspective, I guess.

Conversations with History – Seyla Benhabib

Yale political theorist Seyla Benhabib is UC Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler’s guest in a discussion of how political theory can further our understanding of globalization and its impact on the struggle for human rights.

Biofuels: Think outside the barrel

These Google tech talks are a great resource.

ABSTRACT On Wednesday, March 29th, by invitation from our co-founders and CEO, our special guest, Vinod Khosla, visited Google to deliver a tech talk about the emergence of ethanol as a viable, market ready, and competitive source of renewable energy.

Robert Reich: Why a Massachusetts Liberal Will Be the Next President

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich will offer his predictions about this fall’s historic civic exercise. His Distinguished Lecture in Public Policy is provocatively titled “Why a Massachusetts Liberal Will Be the Next President (and Other Amazing Prophesies)”.

Perfectly self-effacing for some predictions.

The Changing Dynamics of U.S. and Japan Relations

The Japan Studies Program at the University of Washington presents the third Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Lecture. Mr. Toyoo Gyohten, president, Institute of International Monetary Affairs and senior advisor, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd., is the featured speaker. In his talk, entitled ‘The Changing Dynamics of US-Japan Relations: Stability During Turbulent Global Economic Change,’ Mr. Gyohten discusses his views on how the US-Japan relationship is critical to global stability at a time when countries such as China and India are becoming stronger global economic powers

Anarchism in America

I’m really happy to have found this great documentary about anarchism in America. Underlying the entire movie is the lack of understanding of anarchism in the public as an ideology, i.e. “Ayatollah Homenin is an anarchist,” which still exists today.

AK Press has a copy on dvd

Democracy, Governance, and War in Oil-Exporting Nations

A very indepth panel discussion at the University of Chicago on the state of oil-exporting nations.

Intelligence Squared – A Booming China Spells Trouble

This past year was the first year for this Oxford-style debate series on NPR, Intelligence Squared, and I thought that every debate was thoughtful and provoking. This debate on the rise of China is my favorite from an American viewpoint, split up into an annoying 11 parts of youtube.

Liberty and Economics – Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises has had a major influence on libertarian ideas and (according to his foundation’s website) is the “uncontested dean of the Austrian School of economists”.

This video, unfortunately, suffers from having been produced by the institute who took his name; as a result, a lot of the narration and interview clips are simplistic and biased. This video does, however, provide a decent overview of von Mises ideas.

The Life of the Buddha

The Life of the Buddha.