Action Speaks! takes on:
Conflict and Amusement in America

This year Action Speaks! examines how the border between conflict and amusement is disappearing and what it portends for good TV…are we all embedded?

The popular Action Speaks! series of specials returns in October with four one-hour programs looking at contemporary issues by using underappreciated dates of the twentieth-century that changed America.

Host Marc Levitt assembles a panel of scholars, artists, practitioners, and government officials, and adds archived sound and audience participation to create Public Radio’s most lively and entertaining discussions.

2011 topics:

• 1961 – President Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Complex Speech
• 1972 – The Birth of Pong and Video Games
• 1971 – The American Family; Our First Reality TV Show
• 1981 – President Reagan Fires Air Traffic Controllers

COST: FREE
LENGTH: 1 hour
AVAILABLE: PRX, CD, FTP (email for instructions)

NEW EPISODES AVAILABLE WEEKLY STARTING OCTOBER 15th

PREVIOUS years episodes available now on PRX
For more information, visit www.actionspeaksradio.org

With our country mired in its worst economic collapse since the great depression, history can be a guide for what actions our nation should or shouldn’t take to provide for its citizens and whether or not it is time to re-set our priorities.

1993 The Creation of Hilary Clinton’s Taskforce on Healthcare - Is the patient stable, improving, or failing? What are the chances of survival for a nation divided on health reform?  As we enter into what will be the next big stretch of our nation’s effort to reform the health care system, Action Speaks looks back on Hilary Clinton’s 1993 Healthcare Taskforce. What can past failures tech us about the present stakes, struggles, and special interests in the health care arena?  AVAILABLE: October 19th (on PRX and Content Depot) & November 2nd (on CD)

1932 The Highlander Center Opens Its Doors – First door-to-door, now e-mail-to-email, will community organizing have the same power in a virtual community? How will we organize for change in the 21st Century? How has mobilizing the public changed in the world of Web 2.0 from the days of the Highlander Center’s multiracial labor and Civil Rights organizing? Does Internet based organizing mean less or more ‘Bowling Alone’? AVAILABLE: October 26th (on PRX and Content Depot) & November 9th (on CD)

1972 Nixon Visits People’s Republic of China – What began as a Ping Pong match is now a game of ‘Chicken’…the US and China; partners or enablers? In the past 30 years, China has transformed from agricultural superpower to manufacturing giant, from capitalist enemy to the biggest U.S. lender. To understand the impact of the relationship between the U.S. and China on the future of our economy and its foreign relations, Action Speaks is heading back in time to follow President Nixon on his historic visit to China. AVAILABLE: November 2nd (on PRX and Content Depot) & November 16th (on CD)

1951 The Birth of Levittown – Can the suburbs be fixed? What does sustainability look like in a land of 3 car garages, shopping malls, single use zoning and houses on steroids? Action Speaks takes a look at the birthplace of suburban utopia, Levittown. In just over 50 years, the American suburbs have physically transformed the landscape of our country and redefined the middle class. Will the suburbs be able to turn ‘green’? Can bastions of ‘white flight’ and individualism reflect our nation’s demographic diversity and the need for community? AVAILABLE: November 9th (on PRX and Content Depot) & November 23rd (on CD)

Marc Joel Levitt is the Host/Creative Director of the nationally award winning, 12 year old radio show, Action Speaks!: Underappreciated Dates That Changed America, a topic driven panel based radio show taped at downtown Providence, R.I.’s community art space AS 220.  Originally broadcast on Providence’s NPR affiliate, WRNI, the programs are now heard on over 100 stations across the country.

The goal of Action Speaks is to use less appreciated moments in United States history as points of departure for discussions around their context and contemporary implications. Another goal for Action Speaks is to make these cross-disciplinary discussions available to a general public.

Marc is a writer, storyteller, educator, radio host, TV host, filmmaker and land use activist living in Wakefield, RI and NYC. He has won awards for his story recordings, for work in his unique musical/narrative historical storytelling style, for his work in radio and for his work in the arts and in the humanities.

A 1971 graduate of Cornell University, Marc has also created the nationally recognized Charles Fortes Elementary School Museum-in-a-School Project and the educational philosophy called Site Specific Education.
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