Activism

On "Democracy Now!" this week, hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales celebrated the centennial of the "Dust Bowl Troubadour," Woody Guthrie, who was born on July 14, 1912. Guthrie was a transformative figure in American music, bringing American folk songs and the music of working class America into the mainstream, simultaneously elevating it and expanding upon it.

This week on "Moyers and Company," host Bill Moyers welcomed scientist, philosopher and activist Vandana Shiva, who, in his words, has become "a rock star in the global battle over genetically modified seeds." Shiva was trained as a physicist, but has become an outspoken voice against the predations of giant global firms like Monsanto and Coca-Cola. She is the author of several books, including her latest, Making Peace with the Earth.

NSA whistleblower William Binney was interviewed by internet journalist Geoff Shively at the HOPE Number 9 hackers conference in New York on Friday.

Last fall, the Environmental Protection Agency warned that Monsanto's Bt corn, which was genetically engineered a decade ago to ward off rootworms, is now falling prey to worms that have developed resistance to the plants' built-in insecticide. The EPA also expressed concern that Monstanto's monitoring was “inadequate and likely to miss early resistance events.”

Last week, as Americans focused on the Supreme Court's rulings on the Affordable Care Act and Arizona's new anti-immigrant law, a "disturbing" decision got lost in the shuffle.

In an interview with The Guardian's Gary Younge, veteran activist Noam Chomsky expressed his thoughts about the Occupy movement and whether it can be expected to have any impact on United States politics.

A new Android application released by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ) and OpenWatch.net allows users to secretly record police encounters and automatically save their recordings to a public website for all to see.

For the better part of a decade, Takeru Kobayashi of Japan was the unofficial king of July 4th: his ability to eat nausea-inducing numbers of hot dogs at the annual hot dog eating contest at Coney Island drove spectators and, eventually, live nationally-televised coverage of the event. But since 2010, Kobayashi has been barred from the stage as part of a labor dispute with Major League Eating (MLE), which both organizes the contest and, in Kobayaski's words, "owns" the eaters. And, for the first time, he opened up to SB Nation's Amy Nelson about the terms of the contract that ended his association with the League.

In a blistering Independence Day weekend interview with PBS's Bill Moyers, historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad dissected the contradictions between the American belief in equality and freedom and its actual treatment of its own citizens.

Speaking to the hosts of CBS This Morning on Friday about the plot of his new drug war film "Savages," filmmaker Oliver Stone took a moment to help his interviewers understand his affinity for marijuana, saying that it helped him and many others avoid "becoming a beast" during the Vietnam war.

Tuesday night on Current TV's "The Young Turks," host Cenk welcomed Sister Diane Donoghue of #NunsOnTheBus, a group of progressive Catholic nuns who are traveling coast-to-coast by bus. The women are bucking the Catholic church's male hierarchy and spreading what they hope is a message of social and economic justice by protesting the slew of federal cuts to programs for the needy proposed in the Republican budget outlined by Wisconsin Congressman Rep. Paul Ryan (R).

Despite being shut inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London while his appeal for diplomatic immunity is considered, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has published another episode of his show for Russia Today, featuring interviews with two of the world's foremost revolutionary thinkiers: Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali.

A video that fifteen year old twins Anna and Rachel Otto created on "Occupy Wall Street, Day 23" has won them an award for "Compelling Imagery" in the Second Annual CNN iReport Awards.