Democracy Now! Manfred Max-Neef and Derrick Jensen

Democracy Now! is something of our big sister program. For a number of years they have spearheaded the progressive radio and internet movement by bringing the world to us, the world as it is often unseen by the dominant corporate media.

On November 26th, they hosted two really compelling leaders, thinkers, and actors on sustainability. Watch it here.

The first is Manfred Max-Neef, a Chilean economist who has worked to understand poverty as it really is instead of an idealized version that we can create by valorizing it or by thinking that it is universally horrible. If you listened to our show with Donaldson Conserve and Shanai Haywood these issues of poverty came up strongly. And, if you listened in just a couple of weeks ago, you heard my interview with Alfredo Sfeir-Younis, also a Chilean economist who is working on some of these same issues. For both, sustainability is a central issue to any kind of development. And sustainability means doing less while being in love and loving everything. "We all know exactly what should not be done but we do it. How do you change that?"

Then Derrick Jensen came on the show and in typical fashion dropped proverbial and verbal bombs about modern society. In short: the modern industrial state must be stopped by people resisting it.

Where are we going? More importantly, what do you think of Max-Neef's assertion that the university is where we need to change things?