boycott

Anyone But Me is a hit teen show, viewed over 4.5 million times in its first two seasons. That's pretty impressive for a show that is only available on the Web. The drama, which was financed for two seasons by a private investor, was created by Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward to do something different, and with few models for a successful Web TV show to follow, they have had to chart their own course. Anyone But Me, they say, is not just a show but a community, and its LGBT-friendly themes have struck a chord with the show's loyal audience. They join Laura in studio to talk about the third season of the show, how they got started, and their upcoming web-a-thon to raise funds to keep going. Expectations were high following the end of South African apartheid. Yet, even though the ANC promised to redistribute 30% of the land in 5 years, by 2000, less than 5% of the land was redistributed. Despite the alleged end to the apartheid regime, there were still familial and ancestral ties to the land compounded by pervading racism. Yoruba Richen made the film, “Promised Land,” to explore the black, the white, and the shades of gray of post apartheid tensions. The film follows the Mekgareng, and impoverished tribe, removed from their land forty years ago as they try to reclaim their land from wealthy, white farmers and developers. The land issue becomes a “ticking time bomb,” posing an ever-present threat to volatile post-apartheid South Africa. Yoruba Richen joins us in the studio to describe the politics and process of her research and film-making, and South Africa as it exists today. Finally, Courtney Young just returned from her hometown in Louisiana, and has some words on exactly what BP's oil is killing in the Gulf.

As we celebrate the life and legacy of U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, we take a look back at another recent discussion of one of the biggest civil rights struggles of our time: the fight to liberate the Palestinian people. Not long ago, the UN Human Rights Council released the Goldstone Report, sharply condemning Israel's actions in the recent fighting between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza strip. Today we rebroadcast our show from the day that report was released, with activists Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the PLO, Neve Gordon, senior lecturer at Ben-Gurion Univesity and Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, to discuss the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. Then, Hasan Kwame Jeffries talks about the legacy of the African-American struggle for freedom. And author and poet Remi Kanazi performs some of his new work. We also looked at community banking, back in the news as the hearings start up over the financial crisis, and the fight over the health care bill still isn't over either. We can't say for certain what Martin Luther King would do were he still with us. Still, we thought it an appropriate acknowledgement of his legacy of concern and struggle for the rights of all people, while we take the day to honor his memory, to re-air this program.

We discuss the medicalization of childbirth with Katherine Abelson, Elan McAllister and Debra Pascali-Bonaro. Earlier this year, we had a discussion in studio about the strategies of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS) in pursuit of a just peace in the Middle East. Is it a productive strategy, or will it do more harm than good? Alec Loorz was inspired by "An Inconvenient Truth" to become an educator on the issue of climate change. Founding his own organization, Kids vs. Global Warming, Alec continues to fight fossil fuels and other contributors to global warming, and encourages his peers to do the same.

International pressure is mounting on Israel to end the occupation. More than 1,000 filmmakers, actors, and writers recently called for a protest of the Toronto Film Festival’s spotlight on Tel-Aviv. You can read the Toronto Declaration here. Meanwhile an international boycott is growing. Neve Gordon, in a recent editorial, explains why it is time to boycott Israel.