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GRITtv: March 19, 2010
As the health care bill drags toward a finish line, conservative opponents of the bill are raising a specter with some long history--"States' Rights." They claim to be able to nullify the federal reform bill on the state level, but the argument for states' rights has been made before to prevent progressive action from being taken, particularly around racial equalityDedrick Muhammad, senior organizer at the Institute for Policy Studies, and Nathan Newman, executive director of the Progressive States Network, join Laura to talk about what states' rights really means, and how it can be good for progressives as well as bad.Continuing our coverage of the seventh anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we bring you artist Wafaa Bilal. This Iraqi-American, who has lost family members in the conflict, garnered headlines around the world in 2007 when he lived in a gallery for 30 days with a webcam and a Web-controlled paintball gun: anyone around the world could try and shoot an Iraqi with a yellow paintball--and over 65,000 paintballs, from over 130 countries, were shot his way.GRITtv’s Sam Alcoff visited Wafaa Bilal as he performed his new piece "...and Counting." A special thanks to Sophie Gore Browne and Jason Abbruzzese for their help with this report.One Palestinian village provides a hopeful note for the conflict in this week's featured documentary, Budrus. An unlikely organizer unites Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian and Israeli, men and women in an nonviolent campaign of resistance to the construction of the separation wall.The film is directed by award-winning filmmaker Julia Bacha (Control Room, Encounter Point), and produced by Bacha, Palestinian journalist Rula Salameh, and filmmaker and human rights advocate Ronit Avni (formerly of WITNESS, Director of Encounter Point).Finally, Laura is very concerned about Bart Stupak's mental health. He's been having such a rough time of it lately...
Video Length: 1650
Date Found: March 20, 2010
Date Produced: March 19, 2010
View Count: 19
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