Peacestock Video Archives
2013 - 2017
Mr. Blum is perhaps the foremost documentarian of U.S. foreign policy ‘mishaps’ in the world. Leaving the State Department in 1967 over his opposition to the Vietnam war, Blum commenced researching and writing a series of ongoing critiques of America’s interventions throughout the world since WWII. In 1999, Mr. Blum was one of the recipients of Project Censored’s Exemplary Journalism awards. In 2006, sales of Blum’s book Rogue State skyrocketed following Osama Bin Laden’s recommendation that Americans read the book to understand why the U.S. is so hated in the Middle East. Currently, Blum publishes a monthly newsletter, Anti-Empire Report, providing current analyses of ongoing American misadventures overseas. His books include:
West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Memoir
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
Rogue State: a Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy…the Truth About U.S. Foreign Policy and Everything Else 69 minutes
Website: www.williamblum.org
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
Kathy Kelly
Kathy Kelly is a tireless peace activist, pacifist, author and founder of Voices
in the Wilderness but now a co-leader and co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She lives in Chicago. IL when she is not speaking all over the world and residing in Afghanistan or Iraq helping promote peace and justice. Kelly was in Bagdad when the 2003 Iraq War started and she experienced the “Shock and Awe” with her Iraqi friends. When Voices in the Wilderness became a target of relentless U.S. judicial action it was dissolved and that is when Kelly’s present organization was formed, Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
71 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is Associate Professor of Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Jack is a graduate of St. Olaf College where he majored in Political Science. He did his theological training at Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he received a Master of Divinity degree. Jack is an activist academic whose life and work are focused on addressing the political, economic, faith, and foreign policy dimensions of hunger and poverty.
Jack is the author of thirteen books, some of which have been used by progressive social change movements in this country and throughout the world. The focus of recent writings has been on religion, violence and “sacred” texts, and authentic hope. His recent concerns focus on the “most important decade” in which problems linked to climate change, declining U.S. power, and economic systems and priorities that foster inequality and ignore ecological sensibilities, present both challenges and opportunities. His new book, Authentic Hope: It’s the End of the World as We Know It but Soft Landings Are Possible is available from Orbis Books.
Jack is one of the founders of the Minnesota Arms Spending Alternatives Project (www.mnasap.org) a grassroots initiative to build a state-wide movement to shift federal spending priorities from militarization and war to meeting essential needs.
Jack sought but did not receive DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) Party endorsement for U.S. Senate in 2008. He is married to Sara Nelson-Pallmeyer and has three daughters (Hannah, Audrey and Naomi). He loves to play racquetball and to garden. 62 minutes.
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
Melissa Hill
MELISSA HILL is a Minneapolis peace activist and critic of the surveillance state. Over the past three years, she helped lead local organizing efforts in the Twin Cities area for WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Besides her efforts for peace and anti-war causes, she started the blog “Track the Police”, encouraging the use of public record laws to track the movements of the police themselves. Her blog was recently featured on Al Jazeera America.
She also has the rare distinction of being represented by the ACLU twice, in two different states, in cases involving violations of her First Amendment rights. In one case, as an independent journalist with Twin Cities Indymedia, she had her footage stolen and video camera broken during the 2009 Pittsburgh G-20. In the other case, Melissa was detained, searched, and trespassed for chalking “Don’t Enlist, Resist” on a public sidewalk outside a federal building. Fortunately, this case resulted in a settlement asserting the right to chalk outside of federal properties in Minneapolis. Thus, she encourages everyone to pick up a piece of chalk and assert that right!
Besides activism, she also enjoys biking, travel, photography, and caring for a crew of cats. 34 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
Jeff Nygaard
JEFF NYGAARD is a working-class intellectual of Norwegian, German, and Irish heritage who grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota. Jeff has been an activist, writer, editor, and teacher based in Minneapolis for the past 40 years, and has worked at a variety of jobs, including work as a snow shoveler, courier, grocery store worker, and cab driver. Since September of 1998 he has published his own free newsletter on media, politics, and culture called “Nygaard Notes: Independent Periodic News and Analysis.” His work has appeared in the Star Tribune, Z Magazine, Counterpunch, Access Press, and various other publications. Jeff also appears on a monthly cable TV show on media, and semi-regularly on KFAI Radio in the Twin Cities. E-mail subscriptions to Nygaard Notes are free, and paper subscriptions are available for the cost of printing and mailing. Subscription information on the web at www.nygaardnotes.org 72 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
Ben Wizner
BEN WIZNER (@BenWizner) is director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, which is dedicated to protecting and expanding the First Amendment freedoms of expression, association, and inquiry; expanding the right to privacy and increasing the control that individuals have over their personal information; and ensuring that civil liberties are enhanced rather than compromised by new advances in science and technology. He has litigated numerous cases involving post-9/11 civil liberties abuses, including challenges to airport security policies, government watchlists, extraordinary rendition, and torture. He has appeared regularly in the media, testified before Congress, and traveled several times to Guantánamo Bay to monitor military commission proceedings. Ben is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law and was a law clerk to the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. 108 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Chante Wolf
Chante Wolf served in the U.S. Air Force from 1980 – 1992 where she was trained as an Air Traffic Controller, then cross-trained into Top Secret Telecommunications and Cryptographic (COMSEC), Computer Security. Additionally she worked on the Honor Guard and the Base Exercise Evaluation Teams. During her 12 years in the service Chante was stationed at Keesler AFB, MS; McCord Air Force Base, WA; Zaragoza Air Base, Spain; Eskasher, Turkey; Williams Air Force Base, AZ; and King Fhad International Airport, Saudi Arabia for her deployment to the Persian Gulf War from January 10th to March 15th 1991. Chante currently lives in Minneapolis, MN where she is an internationally published and award winning photographer, an active member of Veterans For Peace, a volunteer at Freedom Farm Therapeutic Horse Riding (a program for women veterans), a facilitator with the Combat Paper Project, and a writer with the Warrior Writers and War Veterans Book Workshop.
28 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Thomas R. Smith
Thomas R. Smith has had hundreds of poems published on three continents. In the United States, his poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His poems were included in Editor's Choice II (The Spirit That Moves Us Press), a selection of the best of the American small press, and in The Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribner). His work has reached wide national audiences on Garrison Keillor's public radio showWriter's Almanac and former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser's syndicated newspaper column, American Life in Poetry. He is author of six books of poems, Keeping the Star (New Rivers Press, 1988), Horse of Earth (Holy Cow! Press, 1994), The Dark Indigo Current (Holy Cow! Press, 2000), Winter Hours (Red Dragonfly Press, 2005), Waking Before Dawn (Red Dragonfly Press, 2007), and The Foot of the Rainbow (Red Dragonfly Press, 2010). 28 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Dr. James Hansen
Dr. James Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. His early research on the clouds of Venus helped identify their composition as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has focused his research on Earth’s climate, especially human-made climate change. Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth. Dr. Hansen has received numerous awards and is recognized for speaking truth to power, for identifying ineffectual policies as greenwash, and for outlining actions that the public must take to protect the future of young people and other life on our planet. 9 min
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Nate Hagens
Nate is a well-known speaker on the big picture issues facing human society. Until recently he was lead editor of The Oil Drum, one of the most popular and highly-respected websites for analysis and discussion of global energy supplies and the future implications of energy decline. Nate is currently on the Boards of Post Carbon Institute, Bottleneck Foundation, IIER and Institute for the Study of Energy and the Future. Nate addresses the opportunities and constraints we face after the coming end of economic growth. Nate addresses the evolutionarily-derived underpinnings to status, addiction, and our aversion to acting about the future and offers suggestions on how individuals and society might better adapt to what’s ahead. Nate has appeared on PBS, BBC, ABC and NPR, and has lectured around the world. He holds a Masters Degree in Finance from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. Previously Nate was President of Sanctuary Asset Management and a Vice President at the investment firms Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers. 82 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Kathy Kelly
Kathy is a tireless peace activist, pacifist, author, founder of Voices in the Wilderness and now a co-leader and co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She spoke about her recent internment and current events.
16 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Andrew Henderson Documentary
Documentary abut Police militarization and Police misconduct by Andrew Henderson, Chapter 23 VFP member and Iraq War Vet.
11 minutes
.
Rev, David Smith
Rev. David Smith, Catholic Priest and retired professor of theology, was founding director of the Justice and Peace Studies program at the University of St. Thomas. He first visited Israel in 1968 when he was a graduate student in Rome, and studied in Jerusalem at the Ecole Biblique for two years in the mid 1970s. He was a member of a Michigan Peace Team of third-party nonviolent peacemakers in Gaza in the summer of 2005 and in the West Bank for three months in the fall of 2007. He is co-author of the book Understanding World Religions: A Road Map for Justice and Peace (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007–currently under revision for a second edition) which studies the ways various world religions interact to support or interfere with justice and peace, with Israel-Palestine as a case study. He has traveled extensively worldwide to study poverty, justice, and peace. 54 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Michael German
Speaking as one of the keynote speakers was Michael German, a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Programat the New York University of Law, which strives to ensure that our US government respects human rights and freedoms in conducting the fight against terrorism. German worked for sixteen years as a special agent with the FBI where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations. He left the FBI in 2004 after whistle blowing on the deficiencies of the FBI’s counterterrorism operations. Mr. German then worked with the ACLU in Washington D.C. office. German is a prolific writer and has appeared on many news media programs. He wrote his first book Thinking Like a Terrorist: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent which was published in 2007. Another recent book is The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. One of his essays was entitled, “Why Doesn’t the Intelligence Community Care Whether Its Security Programs Work?” 120 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Dr. Todd Green
Dr.Todd Green is an associate professor of European and American religious history and interfaith dialogue at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where he has taught for eight years. He acquired his Ph.D at Vanderbilt University. He also teaches in Europe and is the past co-chair of the Religion in Europe Group of the American Academy of Religion. He also is currently on the editorial board for the journal Religions. He is a prolific writer of books, essays and blogs for The Huffington Post. His most recent book is The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (Fortune Press 2015. Dr. Green is also editor for Islam, Immigration and Identity (MDPI 2014). Dr. Green has appeared regularly on CNN, NPR, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, as well as others.
90 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Michael German Interwiew
Michael German Peacestock 2016 Interview.
8 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
.
Bruce Gagnon
Bruce Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He was a co-founder of the Global Network when it was created in 1992. Between 1983–1998 Bruce was the State Coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice and has worked on space issues for 30 years. In 1987 he organized the largest peace protest in Florida history when over 5,000 people marched on Cape Canaveral in opposition to the first flight test of the Trident II nuclear missile. He was the organizer of the Cancel Cassini Campaign (launched 72 pounds of plutonium into space in 1997) that drew enormous support and media coverage around the world and was featured on the TV program 60 Minutes. Bruce has traveled to and spoken in England, Germany, Mexico, Canada, France, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Australia, Scotland, Wales, Greece, India, Brazil, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Czech Republic, South Korea, and throughout the U.S. He has also spoken on many college campuses including: Loyola University, Drake University, Syracuse University, Cornell University, University of Michigan, Cal Poly State University, University of Pittsburgh, California Institute of Technology, University of Oregon, University of Alaska Anchorage, Marquette University, Brown University, Hunter College, University of Arkansas, University of Florida, Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia), University of Maine, and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (India). Project Censored (from Sonoma State University, CA) named a story on space weaponization by Bruce as the 8th Most Censored story in 1999. Again in 2005, Project Censored picked an article on space issues by Bruce as the 16th most censored story of the year. 90 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, M.Div. is a graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota where he majored in Political Science. He did his theological training at Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he received a Master of Divinity degree. He is the author of numerous articles and books on faith, hunger, the arms race and U.S. foreign policy. His books include Hunger for Justice: the Politics of Food and Faith (Orbis Books, 1980), Water More Precious Than Oil (Augsburg Publishing House, 1982), The Politics of Compassion (Orbis Books, 1986), War Against The Poor: Low Intensity Conflict and Christian Faith (Orbis Books, 1989), Brave New World Order: Must We Pledge Allegiance (Orbis Books, 1992), Families Valued: Parenting and Politics for the Good of All Children (Friendship Press, 1996), School of Assassins (Orbis Books, 1997), his first novel, Harvest of Cain (EPICA, 2001), Jesus Against Christianity: Reclaiming the Missing Jesus (Trinity Press International, 2001), and School of Assassins: Guns, Greed and Globalization (Orbis Books, 2001). Nelson-Pallmeyer served as National Program Coordinator of the Politics of Food Program with Clergy & Laity, and directed the Minnesota-based Hunger and Justice Project for the American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America. He is Assistant Professor of Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. 90 minutes
Published with permission of Bill Sorem, producer, videographer and editor.
No video from 2018 Peacestock