FILMS FOR ACTION
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How Should We Protest Neo-Nazis? Lessons From German History
How Should We Protest Neo-Nazis? Lessons From German History
After the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, many people are asking themselves what they should do if Nazis rally in their city. Should they put their bodies on the line in counter demonstrations? Some say yes.
Laurie Marhoefer
This Cool Desert House Made from Plastic Bottles Tackles Two Problems in One
This Cool Desert House Made from Plastic Bottles Tackles Two Problems in One
An engineer in Algeria has developed an ingenious new house building technique on a desert refugee camp. He wanted to build a home for his grandmother that would beat the heat and sandstorms, and plastic bottles were readily available. Filled with sand and straw and encased...
Jeremy Williams
Peter Joseph & Abby Martin on Abolishing Capitalism
Peter Joseph & Abby Martin on Abolishing Capitalism
Peter Joseph is the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, a grassroots, worldwide organization that advocates an alternative economic system based on sustainability, cooperation and human need. His most recent book, ‘The New Human Rights Movement,’ delivers a startling exposé...
45 min
The Future of Activism
The Future of Activism
The times certainly are a-changing.
Juan Manuel and Martin Kirk
Reporting on Climate Change Is Harmful if You're Not Offering Solutions
Reporting on Climate Change Is Harmful if You're Not Offering Solutions
Once-celebrated author and thinker Daniel Pinchbeck can't find an audience for his new book. He has a few ideas why.
Katie Bain
14 Reflections on the 2017 DSA Convention
14 Reflections on the 2017 DSA Convention
In order for the Democratic Socialists of America’s 2017 Convention to be successful, three major tasks needed to be accomplished this past weekend. 1. Members needed to develop meaningful relationships with comrades from around the country. 2. Members had to participate in...
Michael Stivers
How Bosses Are (Literally) Like Dictators
How Bosses Are (Literally) Like Dictators
Americans think they live in a democracy. But their workplaces are small tyrannies.
Elizabeth Anderson
Defend the Sacred - What Is Sacred Activism?
Defend the Sacred - What Is Sacred Activism?
Martin Winiecki speaks about 'What is Sacred Activism?' in the opening speech (6th of August 2017) of the international gathering 'Defend the Sacred - Envision a global alternative' in Tamera. 
12 min
How We Can Prevent Nuclear Apocalypse
How We Can Prevent Nuclear Apocalypse
A short film exploring transitional steps that countries can adopt which could lead to preventing nuclear weapon conflicts.
7 min
A Turning Point on the Left? Libertarian Socialist Caucus Debuts at Democratic Socialist Conference
A Turning Point on the Left? Libertarian Socialist Caucus Debuts at Democratic Socialist Conference
The Democratic Socialists of America, a traditionally progressive socialist organization founded in 1982, has seen its membership increase from roughly 5,000 to 25,000 members in the past year following the Bernie Sanders campaign and the subsequent election of Trump. Now...
Adam Weaver
Our Activism Must Be Focused on Serving the People
Our Activism Must Be Focused on Serving the People
Our organizing can't just speak to the everyday crises of people's lives under capitalism. It has to intervene in them.
R.L. Stephens
An Introduction to World Socialism - a Post-Capitalist Society
An Introduction to World Socialism - a Post-Capitalist Society
The present economic system is based upon the class ownership of the means of living. It is not geared to meeting our needs but to making profits for those who own the world’s resources. The gap between the rich and everyone else is now greater than ever before. Oxfam reports...
3 min
A Manual for a New Era of Direct Action
A Manual for a New Era of Direct Action
Movement manuals can be useful. Marty Oppenheimer and I found that out in 1964 when civil rights leaders were too busy to write a manual but wanted one. We wrote “A Manual for Direct Action” just in time for Mississippi Freedom Summer. Bayard Rustin wrote the forward. Some...
George Lakey
How Seattle Voted to Tax the Rich
How Seattle Voted to Tax the Rich
Seattle further cemented its reputation as one of the most progressive cities in the U.S. last week, when its City Council passed a law to tax the rich, sponsored by socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant along with Councilmember Lisa Herbold. The law places a 2.25% tax...
Adam Ziemkowski and Rebekah Liebermann
The Urbal Fix: Creating Truly Sustainable Cities
The Urbal Fix: Creating Truly Sustainable Cities
A solution-oriented film about creating sustainable and democratic cities. 
60 min
Thich Nhat Hanh - Being Love: Teachings to Cultivate Awareness and Intimacy
Thich Nhat Hanh - Being Love: Teachings to Cultivate Awareness and Intimacy
Weaving together traditional stories, personal experiences and core concepts, Thich Nhat Hanh offers step-by-step practices that foster understanding and intimacy in any kind of relationship: between lovers, parents and children, even those who have done us harm.  According...
73 min
How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’
How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’
While many of us work to create a better world, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in...
George Lakey
On Left Activism: Breaking Up Is Easy, but Sticking Together? That's the Real Test of One's Ideals
On Left Activism: Breaking Up Is Easy, but Sticking Together? That's the Real Test of One's Ideals
There is good reason for people on the left to have divisiveness on their minds. In the news and on social media, the leftists that are shown most often are those that are ranting and raging at each other, calling each other out over this badly-phrased thought or that...
A. E. Elliott
Meet the School That Hates Rules
Meet the School That Hates Rules
Most students are told to be seen and not heard. “Democratic schools” offer a refreshing alternative.
Brian Foglia
Positive Insignificance
Positive Insignificance
Embrace paradox. Embrace the unknown. Surrender who you think you are into what is.
2 min
Why We Need to Democratize Education
Why We Need to Democratize Education
Achieving comprehensive social change requires radical alteration of everything, including education. But most of the attempts to reform the educational system are limited. What is needed is a democratization of education through the introduction of alternative egalitarian...
Yavor Tarinski
How to Create Democratic and Ecological Cities
How to Create Democratic and Ecological Cities
For the past few months we have published a series of posts on New Compass introducing social ecology, discussing possible future environmental scenarios, studying the crisis of capitali
Jonathan Korsár and Svante Malmström
The Paris Climate Deal Won’t Save Us – Our Future Depends on De-Growth
The Paris Climate Deal Won’t Save Us – Our Future Depends on De-Growth
When Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate deal, the world reacted with outrage. And rightly so: the agreement represents a remarkable achievement in international diplomacy – a breakthrough after 20 years of failed climate negotiations. But as we...
Jason Hickel
Bay Area Nonprofit Transforms Businesses Into Worker-Owned Cooperatives
Bay Area Nonprofit Transforms Businesses Into Worker-Owned Cooperatives
There's been a lot of talk about where the Baby Boomer generation will live as they age. Several interesting, sharing-based housing alternatives such cohousing and senior villages have emerged as potential options. But what about all the businesses that Baby Boomers own? What...
Cat Johnson
Ending Racism Requires Us to Take Up Class Struggle, To Shift the Material Conditions That Gives Race Practical Meaning
Ending Racism Requires Us to Take Up Class Struggle, To Shift the Material Conditions That Gives Race Practical Meaning
Pierre Fulton was black. He was poor. He had struggled his entire life. He had been in trouble with the law as a youth. Armed robbery, drug distribution, and gun possession were all on his record. It was now 2015 and Pierre was thirty. He had turned his life around. He got a...
R.L. Stephens
Be the Change in the Messed up World - ​Rob ​Greenfield at Tedx
Be the Change in the Messed up World - ​Rob ​Greenfield at Tedx
Individual actions can amount to change at a large scale. In his talk, Rob explains how this applies to environmentally friendly living. His extreme activism initiatives, such as the “Trash Me” campaign he ran in New York in 2016, are meant to awaken our consciousness on the...
18 min
Organizing in 'Small Town USA'
Organizing in 'Small Town USA'
On March 8, a crowd of over 50 protesters in Geneva, New York, (population 13,261) occupied the office of Republican Congressman Tom Reed. The occupation was part of a women’s strike organized in connection with International Women’s Day by the Geneva Women’s Assembly.
Liberation Staff
Juneteenth: Praise the Lorde, Audre Lorde
Juneteenth: Praise the Lorde, Audre Lorde
Happy father’s day to the fathers, and to our fathers’ fathers, and their fathers’ fathers, and all the way back to Grandfather Sky. Past there to before there were fathers, because all was just ONE.
Tai Amri Spann-Ryan
The Message: We Need Juneteenth Today
The Message: We Need Juneteenth Today
On Sunday, June 18th, 2017, Tai Amri Spann-Ryan gave a powerful and moving sermon at the Lawrence, KS Unitarian Fellowship in celebration of Juneteenth and the on-going struggle for liberation. The talk audibly left the crowd speechless for several seconds afterward. It is...
23 min
Rebuilding New Orleans Lower 9th Ward One Store at a Time
Rebuilding New Orleans Lower 9th Ward One Store at a Time
In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward was one of the few neighborhoods where relief came slowly. Less than 25% of its pre-Katrina population has returned and many houses have been abandoned or mowed down. As a result, the USDA officially listed the...
6 min
Why Affordable Housing Needs to be a Right, Not a Privilege
Why Affordable Housing Needs to be a Right, Not a Privilege
It’s time to ensure that no American has to worry about where they and their families will sleep tonight, says housing consultant James Stockard.
James Stockard
Liberation Theory: a Working Framework
Liberation Theory: a Working Framework
Liberation is both the undoing of the effects and the elimination of the causes of social oppression. The achievement of human liberation on a global scale will require far-reaching changes at the institutional level and at the level of group and individual interactions...
Ricky Sherover-Marcuse
Scaling Up: Ideas about Participatory Democracy
Scaling Up: Ideas about Participatory Democracy
A common objection against participatory democracy is that, yes, it is a beautiful idea, but it can only work at the local level, like the neighborhood, the small town or the village. Our modern world is too complex, too global and interconnected – and we are simply too many...
Sveinung Legard
Re-Learning Hope: a Story of Unitierra
Re-Learning Hope: a Story of Unitierra (2016)
RE-LEARNING HOPE is the story of Unitierra, an autonomous university in Oaxaca, Mexico that is immersed in, and has emerged from, the social and indigenous movements of the region. The film tells the story of this emergence of Unitierra and its powerful critique of...
70 min
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist
Doughnut Economics, the new book by Kate Raworth, is out now.  These animations tell the story of the book's seven ways to think in 60-second bites. Check out the full set as they come online at 
9 min
How Peer-To-Peer (P2P) Politics Can Change the World, One City at a Time
How Peer-To-Peer (P2P) Politics Can Change the World, One City at a Time
The Commons is maturing politically, its methods and principles becoming more visible and its participants winning municipal elections in a variety of European cities. How did this happen, and what happens next? First, a look at our present political context, and then some...
Stacco Troncoso & Ann Marie Utratel
Berlin Residents Pool Their Money to Buy City’s Electricity Grid
Berlin Residents Pool Their Money to Buy City’s Electricity Grid
Returning power — and profit — to the people.
Natalie Holmes
Wild Bees Can Help Honey Bees—How Your Yard Can Support Them
Wild Bees Can Help Honey Bees—How Your Yard Can Support Them
Although farmers have come to rely on imported honey bees, wild pollinators are hardier.
Lori Panico
Want to Get “Back to the Land?” You’re Not Alone
Want to Get “Back to the Land?” You’re Not Alone
Each generation has had one common desire: to live a more honest, ethical life of self-sufficiency and oneness with nature.
Nancy Matsumoto
5 Uses for Baking Soda - From Deodorant to Cleaning
5 Uses for Baking Soda - From Deodorant to Cleaning
Baking soda isn't just useful for cooking. You can use it as a deodorant, cleaning paste for rusty metal, heartburn relief, and more.
2 min
Why Social Change Is Slow
Why Social Change Is Slow
Without collective action, social change will be slow.
4 min
Autogestió: Adventures Into the New Economies of Catalonia
Autogestió: Adventures Into the New Economies of Catalonia
Catalonia is at the forefront of new economic thinking. They are a region rich in social currencies and in projects and people creating functioning post-capitalist societies. In June 2015, while in the midst of arranging the launch of the Exeter Pound, a local currency for...
53 min
The Streets Barber - Giving Haircuts to the Homeless
The Streets Barber - Giving Haircuts to the Homeless
Nasir Sobhani of Melbourne, Australia, aka The Streets Barber, gives free haircuts to the homeless to help them feel clean, empowered, and understood. Life on the streets is rough, with homeless people often ignored or abused to the point that they no longer feel human -- and...
1 min
A Goal and Strategy for Anarchism
A Goal and Strategy for Anarchism
It should be quite obvious, but apparently it’s not, that we can’t devise an anarchist revolutionary strategy until we have a clear idea of what it is we’re trying to achieve.
James Herod
How Working Less Could Solve All Our Problems. Really.
How Working Less Could Solve All Our Problems. Really.
Shorter workweeks could help reduce accidents, combat climate change, make the genders more equal, and more, contends historian and author Rutger Bregman.
Rutger Bregman
A Design School for Planetary Collapse
A Design School for Planetary Collapse
Storm clouds gather for a future that will be turbulent and dangerous. We need designers ready for this future.
Joe Brewer
Guidelines for Alliance-Building: Working Assumptions for Winning Allies and Being an Effective Ally
Guidelines for Alliance-Building: Working Assumptions for Winning Allies and Being an Effective Ally
Since, under present world conditions, everyone either is now, or has been, or will be at some time a target of social oppression, and since everyone is now, or has been, or will be in a non-target group in relation to some other group’s oppression, alliance-building is for...
Ricky Sherover-Marcuse
On the Wildness of Children: The Revolution Will Not Take Place In The Classroom
On the Wildness of Children: The Revolution Will Not Take Place In The Classroom
“In Wildness is the preservation of the World.” Thoreau says it in “Walking,” and Jack Turner, in his exquisite collection of essays, The Abstract Wild,  questions how many of us have any idea what it means.   P
Carol Black
An Appeal for a Creative Nonviolence
An Appeal for a Creative Nonviolence
I was around 14 when I heard about Concentration Camps for the first time. 
Dieter Duhm
We Don't Need Them
We Don't Need Them
But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no reason to conspire.  They needed only to rise up and shake themselves, like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose, they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning. ...
Joe Carpenter
Just Fix It: Showing up
Just Fix It: Showing up
What does it take to create change in a world in desperate need of it? Mike Prather explains the story of the dust mitigation and ‘restoration’ of the Owens Dry Lake.
5 min
Towards a Perspective on Eliminating Racism: 12 Working Assumptions
Towards a Perspective on Eliminating Racism: 12 Working Assumptions
Because racism is both institutional and attitudinal, effective strategies against it must recognize this dual character. The elimination of institutionalized racism requires a conscious project of attitudinal transformation. The deliberate attempt to transform racist...
Ricky Sherover-Marcuse
Basic Income Isn’t Just a Nice Idea. It's a Birthright
Basic Income Isn’t Just a Nice Idea. It's a Birthright
A basic income could defeat the scarcity mindset, instill a sense of solidarity and even ease the anxieties that gave us Brexit and Trump
Jason Hickel
Community Repair: Pop-Up Alternatives to a Throwaway Society
Community Repair: Pop-Up Alternatives to a Throwaway Society
A not-so-quiet repair revolution is taking place in communities across Britain. Consumers, fed up with having to throw away broken phones, toasters and other appliances, are instead meeting to learn how to repair them and to extend the lifetime of their products. These repair...
​Christine Cole, Alex Gnanapragasam
'An Idea Whose Time Has Come': Lawmakers Roll Out Plan to Expand Worker Ownership
'An Idea Whose Time Has Come': Lawmakers Roll Out Plan to Expand Worker Ownership
'Giving workers a seat at the table and their fair share of the profits they help produce is one way to even up the playing field and give hardworking Americans a chance to create an economy that works for everyone'
Lauren McCauley
Incredible Edible Todmorden - From Market Town to Food Producing Pioneers
Incredible Edible Todmorden - From Market Town to Food Producing Pioneers
What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change...
13 min
Hacking Apartheid - Cryptography Tools for Activists
Hacking Apartheid - Cryptography Tools for Activists
“Cryptography is the ultimate form of nonviolent direct action.” - Julian Assange
Sophie Toupin
The Scottish Start-Up Making Roads with Waste Plastic
The Scottish Start-Up Making Roads with Waste Plastic
Engineer Toby McCartney explains how his Scottish start-up MacRebur is persuading councils to use local waste plastic to build roads. Two English councils have already started building roads this way.
3 min
What Happens When You Bring Meditation to Public Schools
What Happens When You Bring Meditation to Public Schools
Classrooms all over the country are trying something new: sitting and breathing.
5 min
The Bentley Effect
The Bentley Effect (trailer)
The extraordinary tale of a community who defied the gas juggernaut. Filmed over five years, The Bentley Effect documents the highs and lows of the battle to keep a unique part of Australia gasfield-free. This timely story of a community’s heroic stand shows how strategic...
4 min