This podcast features a talk University of Maine graduate Sarah Bigney gave on Thursday September 25, 2008:

“The Two Fair Trade Movements: Bridging the Divide Between Buying Coffee and Repealing NAFTA”

Sarah Bigney is organizer at the Maine Fair Trade Campaign, a statewide coalition of 50 organizations for building a just, sustainable, and democratic economy. (Check out their site for information on current campaigns, including the one to oppose the Panama Free Trade Agreement.)

This talk was part of the Fall 2008 Thursday controversy series sponsored by the Marxist-Socialist Studies Interdisciplinary Minor, and co-sponsored by the Maine Peace Action Committee (MPAC) and Campus Activities and Events, with support of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University.

Additional photos (described in the talk) are posted below the fold.

(These will be updated with more descriptions if they become available.)

The previous post included the full-length keynote talk by Joseph Gerson. There is more information HERE.

Download, rss, and iTunes links are found at this site. The download links are directly below each post. Rss and iTunes links are below near the end of the righthand column.

The first half of this WERU-broadcast version is part of the keynote given by Joseph Gerson of AFSC in New England. He is introduced first by Ilze Pertersons of the , then by Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

Four additional speakers from the event then address a wide range of local activism on war & peace, environmental, labor, and foreign policy issues. They include:

• Mary Beth Sullivan of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space who discusses economic conversion of Bath Iron Works
• John Banks, Natural Resources Dir. of the Penobscot Nation on local environmental issues
• Steve Husson of Food AND Medicine in Brewer discussing Labor and the Employee Free Choice Act
• Professor Doug Allen of the University of Maine, who ties everything together.

Please also visit the marvelous audio archive site at WERU where you can listen to any WERU public affairs program in case you miss it over the air (or live outside the WERU signal range).

Two additional links that may be of interest are Bruce Gagnon’s excellent blog, Organizing Notes, and the Peace and Economic Security Program for the American Friends Service Committee in New England.

Shot at the Labor Temple in Brewer, Maine, this video is a trip through the Underworld featuring job stress, pension loss, health care failure, & crushing debt. Worker solidarity is the only way to slay these monsters. Created by William Rice for the Eastern Maine Labor Council & Food AND Medicine, October 2007.