A Conversation With Actor Ernie Hudson. Discussing his life journey taking him to creative places he never imagined - even while having to struggle for respect and recognition as an African-American. And what it meant to him to collaborate on Concept East in Detroit, where he was instrumental in establishing the Actors Ensemble Theater as a breakout voice for emerging African-American writers and directors to appear in their own work - bypassing stereotypical or nonexistent opportunities for them elsewhere.

And, juggling multiple characters right now, including playing deserted spouse Lili Tomlin's new boyfriend on Gracie And Frankie, and holding his own as a sort of 4th Ghostbuster, among a trio of tough women in that movie. And...

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

** "I think we went to some places that we thought were extreme, but in light of what's going on in the world right now, it probably wasn't extreme enough."

Ernie Hudson Talks Playing The Political Fix-It Man, To Nick Nolte's Worst President In The World, In 'Graves.' Or is he?

** "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit, from continuing their kind."

No, this was not a declaration of population purification in Nazi Germany - though it could have been. But actually predating the Third Reich years prior - in the United States Supreme Court. In a decision instituting eradication of the physically and mentally challenged. And which is the subject of the German dramatic feature Fog Of August, a terrifying and perplexing film delving into the elimination of children and adults considered 'defective' - and seemingly a dress rehearsal for the holocaust death camps to come. But where instead of Nazi stock villains, delusional, simultaneously elegant and creepy health care workers convinced they're performing acts of mercy for the incurable, affectionately administer tasty raspberry juice toxic potions and a diet of nutrition free soup guaranteeing death by starvation.

And clearly a dress rehearsal for the genocidal death camps to come, the program known as T4 mulls taking it to the next level of eliminating the anti-social and prison inmates - a program shockingly continuing long after the war in a US occupied Germany - during which the opportunistic Catholic Church - which owned the particular institute that is the criminal site of the film - simply turned the other cheek to the Nazis. 

And where young rebellious ethnic gypsy boys rounded up like Ernst (played remarkably by Ivo Pietzcker) are sent to perform slave labor. But who soon figure out the horrific pseudo-benevolent crimes taking place. And made even more immensely deplorable  by discovering at the film's end, that Ernst Lossa was an actual child slave subjected to the atrocities there.

And back to the incredulous rejection of Fog Of August for Oscar consideration, well the US has plenty to hide in that regard - considering their own hidden history of population cleansing long before the Nazis thought of it. Including forced or secret sterilization historically, primarily of women of color - counting as well at teaching hospitals and performed for practice by medical students.

Also, forced sterilization of the mentally handicapped - laws passed fom 1897 to 1909 in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Washington State and California. The Supreme Court declaring sterilization of the handicapped constitutional for a time, Justic Oliver Wendall Holmes proclaiming in that decision, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

And by 1965, 30% of women in Puerto Rico were sterilized, the government declaring the rationale being 'too many unskilled laborers and not enough jobs.' And in the 1970s, thousands of Native American women were sterilized without their permission - along with 20,000 mostly black and Latina women in California. And let's not forget the death panels considered under the Obama administration, as a government health care cost cutting measure. 

As for Germany, detailed in the postcript for Fog In August, nearly half a million human beings were sterilized, and 70,000 later murdered - for wartime budgetary constraints. 

A feature of the Kino German Film Series. More information is at: Kinofestival nyc.com

**  "A Call To Art Rather Than Arms...And, a lot going down on both coasts, everywhere in between and all around the world. "

Poems from the New Resistance; Nasty Women Everywhere; Starving miners and steel workers walking on hunger marches begging for food; A secret meeting of workers putting potato sacks over the windows; And, a corporate lawsuit against poetry. Closing out Women's History Month this March, with an encore presentation of poetry airing on International Women's Day. Julia Stein and Liza Bear read from their work.