Well not a sub-genre of Hip-Hop with much competition perhaps! But I think this is a great way to introduce this classic topic.

When Two Worlds Collide traces the heroic journey of a young indigenous leader forced into exile after resisting environmental ruin of Amazonian lands by big business. The filmmakers hope to bring this important documentary to completion by Sept 2012.

So far the project has received financial support from: Amiel & Melburn Trust, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Cinereach, Lush, Rooftop Films, The Sundance Institute, and The Tribecca Film Institute. However more funding is required.

I asked Matthew Orzel from Yachaywasi Films a few questions about the film.

Tell me about Yachaywasi Films

We are a team of three at Yachaywasi Films and have been living in Peru for the past 4 years working on When Two Worlds Collide. Yachaywasi' (ya-chai-wasi) vision is to create innovative, artistic and thought provoking documentary films with a call to action, which explore world and socio-environmental issues. Whilst pushing the boundaries of how documentary films are made and perceived, YFs aim to strengthen the personal, intuitive response of the audience. We bring under-reported issues to international attention through the power of cinematic filmmaking and passionate story telling aiming to inspire individuals and societies to become catalysts for change - both locally and internationally.


I note that you require another $5000 for 'When Two Worlds Collide' How much is needed in total?

We are asking for $5000 as it is what we need for the next stage. Fundraising is an on-going process and at the moment we are trying to raise enough to pay for immediate production costs. The entire budget is almost $400,000. we have raised at least $200,000. I know it sounds like an awful lot but for high end docs it really isnt. Also.... more public (non-returnable funding) funds we get... more we can give back to the communities involved in the production.

In the past few weeks the fight for the Amazon has led to the murder of several high profile activists. Why is a documentary so important?

Film and television can be very powerful tools. After finding out what was happening in Peru, we knew it was our responsibility as filmmakers to get the message out there, to provide a voice to the voiceless. In addition to the amazing work of the NGO's on the ground working to do this, we hope this film will compliment their efforts by taking this issue to the mainstream. We are planning to attach the film to an international campaign that will bring further awareness to the issue. The film will be screened throughout South America, the U.S and Europe in cinemas and film festivals as well as Universities, Schools, Colleges and local communities. We want to build awareness about the problems facing communities of the Amazon and will provide positive actions for audiences to take.

This documentary is more than just a story, its real life, about real people who are suffering because of unfair corporate and governmental actions. The Peruvian Amazon is the 2nd largest after Brazil and with corporations already taking over 75% of the Amazon and with more to come we have to act with great urgency. Audiences need to understand and feel what is going on in the Amazon, how real people are affected by wrong decisions and where the consequences can lead us - this film will be a portal into the lives of the Amazonians for world audiences to understand and feel what they are going through.

How can people help?

One way the public can show their support  is by donating to our Kickstarter page, bridge funding ends on Wednesday Jun 22,  - 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1882866795/when-two-worlds-collide

Depending on the denomination of your donation you are eligible to free DVD's as well as other unique opportunities.

People can also help by sharing the link for the trailer http://vimeo.com/10805348  and by visiting the facebook fan page and sharing it with as many people as possible: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1251400164#!/event.php?eid=231138216902382

And all I know is the sun is shining, yet we fight on through the night
while the burgs are melting and the sea is rising
I don’t know so I ask them why
Yeah, why are they refusing to listen
why are these troops on a mission
and why are they shooting these victims over their view on religion
yeah why do we all search for love like we got cupids addiction
why with politicians you can’t tell the truth from the fiction
why do we pollute where were living
why are these youth put at risk
and why is this fool on dominion kept us consumed in this prison

I don’t want them to look back when the future was written
and know we killed ourselves with nuclear fission and stupid decisions
Shit I’d rather an asteroid due for collision then know the planet got fucked by the human condition

sing the tune with conviction!
All I know is the sun is shining yet we fight on thought the night
while the burgs are melting and the sea is rising I don’t know so I ask them why
And all I know is the sun is shining yet we fight on through the night
well if you don’t know shit I don’t know I guess all we can do is ask them why

yeah I’m an old school poet I cherish the ink
that cosmic cowboy that doesn’t care what they think
real magic isn’t card tricks big cribs and cars bitch
it’s making something out of nothing through this hardship
and even though we know that the earth is weak
we still bomb each other and idol what the churches speak
it’s like this land is either un by labour or liberal
but don’t get entwisted their the same as the criminals
open your eyes simply notice the issue
that we stuck to our guns without promoting the pistol
we only orchestrated the sound that we all love
split because of colour but bound because of blood
so before we all blow and they sell the scene
know that the only thing that’s bullet proof is my self esteem
see this is way beyond cash, and ego tripping it’s an epic electric eso ecosystem
Grow with me!


All I know is the sun is shining yet we fight on thought the night
while the burgs are melting and the sea is rising I don’t know so I ask them why
And all I know is the sun is shining yet we fight on through the night
well if you don’t know shit I don’t know I guess all we can do is ask them why

I don’t have to tell you things are bad
everybody knows things are bad
polluters recognise the icecaps are melting quick
Kids trust no one and why else would they
the air is unfit to breathe, our food is unfit to eat
It’s an inferno land, polluters recognise the icecaps are melting quick
Fuck all that shit; we are here together in this country as one
as fucking one!
It’s all about peace, love and unity
sing it, peace, love and unity
All I know is the sun is shining yet we fight on thought the night
while the burgs are melting and the sea is rising I don’t know so I ask them why
And all I know is the sun is shining yet we fight on through the night
well if you don’t know shit I don’t know I guess all we can do is ask them why

The brilliant documentary 'The War You Don't See' has already screened here in the UK. The film provides a fascinating account of the misreporting of war by mainstream sources and detail's how this manipulation occurs. It is illuminating albeit repugnant to glance deeper at it's manifestations.

John Pilger is seemingly bamboozled as to why the film has been banned 'at the last minute' and has written this letter, released on his website:

I am writing to you and a number of other friends mostly in the US to alert you to the extraordinary banning of my film on war and media, 'The War You Don't See', and the abrupt cancellation of a major event at the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe in which David Barsamian and I were to discuss free speech, US foreign policy and censorship in the media.

Lannan invited me and David over a year ago and welcomed my proposal that they also host the US premiere of 'The War You Don't See', in which US and British broadcasters describe the often hidden part played by the media in the promotion of war, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The film has been widely acclaimed in the UK and Australia; the trailer and reviews are on my website www.johnpilger.com.

The banning and cancellation, which have shocked David and me, are on the personal orders of Patrick Lannan, whose wealth funds the Lannan Foundation as a liberal centre of discussion of politics and the arts. Some of you will have been there and will know the Lannan Foundation as a valuable supporter of liberal causes. Indeed, I was invited in 2002 to present a Lannan award to the broadcaster Amy Goodman.

What is deeply disturbing about the ban is that it happened so suddenly and inexplicably: 48 hours before David Barsamian and I were both due to depart for Santa Fe I received a brief email with a 'sorry for the inconvenience' from a Lannan official who had been telling me just a few days earlier what a 'great honour' it was to have the US premiere of my film at Lannan, with myself in attendance.

I urge you to visit the Lannan website www.lannan.org. Good people like Michael Ratner, Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald are shown as participants in discussion about freedom of speech. I am there, too, but my name is the only one with a line through it and the word, 'Cancelled'.

Neither David Barsamian nor I have been given a word of explanation. All my messages to Lannan have gone unanswered; my calls are not returned; my flights were cancelled summarily. At the urging of the New Mexican newspaper, Patrick Lannan has issued a one-sentence statement offering his regrets to the Lannan-supporting 'community' in Santa Fe.  Again, he gives no reason for the ban. I have spoken to the manager of the Santa Fe cinema where 'The War You Don't See' was to be screened. He received a late-night call. Again, no reason for the ban was given, giving him barely time to cancel advertising in The New Mexican.

There is a compelling symbol of our extraordinary times in all of this. A rich and powerful individual and organisation, espousing freedom of speech, has moved ruthlessly and unaccountably to crush it.

 

With warm regards

John Pilger

The godfather of hip hop has died aged 62. A poet that fused political commentaries of oppresion and hope with blues, soul, jazz and an evolving style of oral overlay.

In the top video, A poem 'Work for peace, The Military and the Monetary' (are turning parts of our planet in to cemetaries)

An explanation of the meaning of his most well known  piece ''The revolution will not be televised' is included in the lower video.

On this day (11th May) in 1981 Bob Marley died after losing an 8 month battle with cancer. Astonishing to think that all he acheived occured in a life that lasted only 35 years. He was exposed to the staunch realities of abject poverty, low pay (formerly an autoworker)  disease and a lack of political rights. This discontent and disillusionment provided the passion, drive and material  for his words and actions. He urged proactivity amongst the repressed ’Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your rights. Nonetheless the sharp revolutionary edges, that were clearly at his core have somehow been commodified away. Trippy psychadelic posters on teenage walls, Ganja leaves, The compilation album, Legend that I think everyone my age had a copy of when it was first released 'on tape' with soft focus image on the front. A kind of more acceptable, less controversial, less abberant, capitalist re-branding. In the book Reggae and Caribbean Music, Dave Thompson writes about the commercialized pacification of Marley's more militant edge:

Bob Marley ranks among both the most popular and the most misunderstood figures in modern culture ... That the machine has utterly emasculated Marley is beyond doubt. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of Che Guevara and the Black Panthers, and pinned their posters up in the Wailers Soul Shack record store; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated, and dressed the part on an early album sleeve; whose heroes were James Brown and Muhammad Ali; whose God was Ras Tafari and whose sacrament was marijuana. Instead, the Bob Marley who surveys his kingdom today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Of course it has assured his immortality. But it has also demeaned him beyond recognition. Bob Marley was worth far more.

I'm not one for deifing people but I can't help but wander how his political brain would have developed if he was still amongst us today; A rastafarian who practiced italism a movement with many convergences with modern ecosocialist thinking. It's also interesting to note that his children are involved in sustainable organic agriculture and business and believe that their Dad would have approved. In the book by Derek Wall, Babylon & Beyond, Nandor Tanczoz first Rastafarian member of parliament reminds us of the diverse contrbutions this school of thought has on modern green politics " If you chop the word 'capitalism' and discard cap 'italism' is the system that remains"

Less well known and incredibly aligned with the ecosocialist message is how Bob Marley is so significant for many indigenous communities e.g. Australian Aboriginals  burn a sacred flame to honor his memory, members of the Native American Hopi and Havasupai tribe consider Marley to be the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy and In Nepal he is considered to be an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu.

In short, he argued that there needed to be a revolution, one that would have to be pragmatic and one that would take place primarily from within the opressed & working class, his green credentials are a given! (Bob Marley was an ecosocialist!)

In the next 72 hours, conservative lawmakers could move a bill that would make being LGBT in Uganda a crime punishable by death. Click the link below to sign the petition demanding that Ugandan President Museveni stop the human rights violations by publicly vowing to veto the "Kill the Gays" bill.

Click this link to sign the petition

More information in the video below:
(This film needs funds to proceed. You can contribute by clicking this link)

A Facebook group has been set up for people to pay their respects to the heroic activist Vittorio Arrigoni:

"A celebration of the fantastic life of our friend and hero
Vittorio Arrigoni. And also in honour of fellow freedom fighter and
martyr Rachel Corrie - and thousands more like them.

"Bring you own country's songs and experiences. Bring all aspects of the cultural side of your struggle wherever you are joining in from, As William Wallace once said before a famous battle -"Dance the best you can!"

Whilst the world's mainstream press are diverting attention from anything significant in the world, distracted by extensive coverage of the royal wedding the taxpayers paid for; which is having brain washed children all over the country dressing up as Willy and Kate and taking part in mock weddings and which has several dictators on the guest list, between them boasting a panoply of humanitarian atrocities, Vittorio has received little attention. This small group has only managed to get the attention of 280 people. Vittorio is worth a million royal weddings. In fact the comparison is nonsensical because the royal wedding has no value. Here is the link for group: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178006965582521&index=1

Here is some background information on what Vittorio fought for and inevitably lost his life for from the brilliant songwriter David Rovics.

This pamphlet is bang up to date, taking in to account the recent events in Fukushima. It can be ordered here along with Martin Empson's other brilliant pamphlet, 'Marx and Ecology' which I purchased from the man himself at a climate march last year.

Here is an excerpt:

The nuclear industry continues to argue that nuclear power is needed. They tell us that nuclear power can be safe and environmentally friendly. They say nuclear generation is the only way that we can produce low carbon electricity. Yet in the five years since I wrote this pamphlet the industry still has not been able to prove any of these assertions. Nuclear power remains a net producer of greenhouse gases. There is still no long term solution for the problem of the radioactive waste and nuclear power is costly as ever.

The nuclear power industry cannot be trusted. There is a history of cover-ups and falsification of safety reports. In the late 1990s and again in 2002 the Tokyo Electric Power Company which ran the Fukushima plant admitted falsifying safety reports.

In the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima disaster several governments have announced that they will delay the further expansion of their nuclear programmes.

Socialists and environmentalists must argue that this should become permanent.