Author: Dave

The Looting Machine: Investigating Corruption in Africa

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtbypBGGY2E]

Mapping out the networks that link kleptocrats to middlemen, multinationals and markets is the key to understanding the dark side of the globalised economy. Tom Burgis, Financial Times investigations correspondent and author of a new book on the looting of Africa, discussed the tools required: following money trails, reporting from conflict zones, understanding the bigger context – and door-stepping Zimbabwe’s secret police.

What is the State?

Quentin Skinner’s Lecture What is the State? The question that will not go away.

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Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No

Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No (1983) is a documentary film directed, produced, and edited by Gary Conklin. The film follows famed American writer and political gadfly Gore Vidal in his quixotic campaign against incumbent California Governor Jerry Brown for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 1982. Vidal and State Sen. Paul B. Carpenter each won the support of 15.1% of voters in the primary election, but were easily outdistanced by Brown, who racked up 50.7% of the vote.

Adam Curtis: The Living Dead

The Living Dead is a series of three films focussing on the power of the past. It was the second major documentary series made by Adam Curtis. In it he investigated the way that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used by politicians and others. It was braodcast in 1995. The series features Paul Fussell whose book The Great War and Modern Memory is in the Listmuse 100 Best History Books of All Time list.

On the Desperate Edge of Now

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Panorama: Britain’s Secret Terror Deals

British security forces have been accused of involvement in dozens of murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Reporter Darragh MacIntyre investigates.

Robin on Syria for the BBC World Service

Pulse editor Robin Yassin-Kassab speaking to the BBC on a program titled Islamic State controls over half of Syria.

Islamic State controls over half of Syria (50 mins) | mp3

How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown

Professor Philip Mirowski author of Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, explains the intellectual history of Neo-liberalism, what Neo-liberals believe, making capitalists think differently, the role of think tanks in Neo-liberalism, the mythology of market supremacy, how Facebook teaches you to be a Neo-liberal agent, shaming and Neo-liberalism, how policy movements are built, climate and the affordable care act and Neo-liberal power and how the left can respond to Neo-liberal dominance.

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Jeremy Scahill: Dirty Wars – Full Documentary

Dirty Wars is a 2013 American documentary film, which accompanies the book Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield by Jeremy Scahill. The film is directed by Richard Rowley, and written by Scahill and David Riker.

Jeremy Scahill on Drone Warfare

Author Jeremy Scahill criticizes drone wars, the Western approach to the Middle East and Canada’s role in the war on terror.

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Quentin Skinner: How Machiavellian was Machiavelli?

Professor Quentin Skinner delivered a public lecture, How Machiavellian was Machiavelli?, at the University of York, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the composition of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, in 2013.