An unprecedented wave of online opposition to the SOPA and PIPA bills before Congress shows the power of a free internet. Today marked the largest online protest in the history of the internet. Websites from large to small "went dark" in protest of proposed legislation before the US House and Senate that could profoundly change the internet.
On the first anniversary of the Jan. 25th protests in Tahrir Square, we’ll speak to Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous live from Cairo. We will also air an excerpt of the new HBO documentary, "In Tahrir Square," featuring Sharif. We’ll talk to the filmmakers, Jon Alpert and Matt O’Neill.
Click to watch Democracy Now!’s interviews with directors and people featured in three documentaries just nominated for the 84nd annual Academy Awards.
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During the GOP primary, Mitt Romney has come under fierce attack for parking millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven. We speak with Tax Justice Network USA chair Jack Blum, a former top congressional investigator of financial crimes, who says tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Blum appears in "We’re Not Broke," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the United States and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. "Has [Romney] cheated? No," Blum says. "What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill... We must not only rewrite the Internal Revenue Code, but we must get a fair contribution from the very wealthy and from corporations, and that is the only way to balance the budget." [includes rush transcript]
Nuclear power has drawn wide support from both sides of the aisle, with both Republicans and Democrats advancing a pro-nuclear agenda even in the aftermath of last year’s Fukushima disaster in Japan. We speak with Sheena Joyce, co-director of the new documentary "The Atomic States of America," which is featured at 2012 Sundance Film Festival. We’re also joined by Kelly McMasters, whose book "Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town" inspired the film. Joyce says, "We used Kelly’s book and the town of Shirley as kind of a springboard into the issue, to just talk to people really on both sides, but mainly to speak to the people in reactor communities... We wanted to seek an intelligent dialogue." [includes rush transcript]
Robert Redford is well known as an actor, a director, a producer and an activist. Since 1980, through the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford has helped independent voices develop their craft—in film, in theater and in music—to reach larger and newer audiences. We speak with Redford about how independent cinema became his passion. "To me, stories that were worth telling were stories about what’s the truth beneath the truth that you’re given, or think you know... I wanted to focus on independent films to keep alive the independent spirit through storytelling and movie making." [includes rush transcript]
