Political Advocacy Audiobooks | Politics

Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements

Examining the significance of the Movement for Black Lives, Reckoning uncovers a broadly applicable argument for the democratic necessity of social movements. Barack Obama famously said that the purpose of social movements is to get a seat at the table. However, as Deva Woodly argues in Reckoning-a sweeping account of the meaning and purpose of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)-the value of such movements is something much more profound: they are necessary for the health and survival of democracy. Drawing from on-the-ground interviews with activists in the movement, Woodly analyzes the emergence of the M4BL, its organizational structure and culture, and its strategies and tactics. She also shows how a unique political philosophy-Radical Black Feminist Pragmatism-served as an intellectual foundation of the movement and documents the role it played in transforming public meanings, public opinion, and policy. Interweaving theoretical and empirical observations throughout, Woodly provides both a unique portrait of the movement and a powerful explanation of the labor social movements do in democracy. A major work that speaks to both scholars and activists, Woodly's account of the rise and spread of M4BL will reshape our understanding of why the movement is so important-and so necessary-for democracy.

Deva R. Woodly (Author), Deanna Anthony (Narrator)

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The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea

The harrowing story of a woman who escaped famine and terror in North Korea, not once but twice. ‘A gripping, suspenseful and cathartic memoir that tells a story of pain and perseverance and makes the moral case for asylum.’ David Lammy MP North Korea is an open-air prison from which there is no escape. Only a handful of men and women have succeeded. Jihyun Park is one of these rare survivors. Twice she left the land of the ‘socialist miracle’ to flee famine and dictatorship. By the age of 29 she had already witnessed a lifetime of suffering. Family members had died of starvation; her brother was beaten nearly to death by soldiers. Even smiling and laughing was discouraged. The first time she ran, she was forced abandon her father on his deathbed – crossing the border under a hail of bullets. In China she was sold to a farmer, with whom she had a son, before being denounced and forcibly returned to North Korea. Six months later guards abandoned her, injured, outside a prison camp. She recovered and returned China to seek her son, now six, before attempting to navigate the long, hard road through the Gobi Desert and into Mongolia. Clear-eyed and resolute, Jihyun’s extraordinary story reveals a Korea far removed from the talk of nuclear weapons and economic sanctions. She remains sanguine despite the hardship. Recalling life’s tiny pleasures even at her darkest moments, she manages to instill her tale with incredible grace and humanity. Beautifully written with South Korean compatriot Seh-lynn Chai, this compelling book offers a stark lesson in determination, and ultimately in the importance of asylum.

Jihyun Park, Seh-Lynn Chai (Author), Rosa Escoda (Narrator)

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Wie kann ich was bewegen? - Die Kraft des konstruktiven Aktivismus

Immer mehr junge Menschen wollen sich für politische, soziale und ökologische Ziele einsetzen. Raul Krauthausen und Benjamin Schwarz ermutigen durch Gespräche mit erfolgreichen Aktivist*innen und inspirieren zu eigenem Engagement. Lange galt Aktivismus eher als Synonym für krawalligen Protest denn als ernsthafte politische Arbeit. Indem Krauthausen und Schwarz den Begriff des konstruktiven Aktivismus in die Debatte einführen, schaffen sie ein neues Verständnis: Konstruktiver Aktivismus ist ein leidenschaftliches politisches Instrument, das nichts mit schwarzen Blöcken aller Couleur zu tun hat, sondern radikal und konsequent für die konkrete Veränderung aktueller Umstände kämpft. Aber wie schafft man es, wirklich etwas zu bewegen? Welche Aktionen, welches Engagement kann tatsächlich Veränderungen herbeiführen? Dafür gibt es viele gute Beispiele und darum bilden die Gespräche mit konstruktiven Aktivist*innen ein Zentrum des Buches: Luisa Neubauer (Fridays for Future), Carola Rackete (Seenotretterin), Gerhard Schick (Bürgerbewegung Finanzwende) u.v.a. berichten von ihrer Arbeit, ihren Erfahrungen, auch ihren Ängsten und Niederlagen, vor allem aber darüber, warum Aktivismus eine Bereicherung ist - für die Gesellschaft und für das eigene Leben.Die Buchausgabe zu 'Wie kann ich was bewegen?' ist erschienen in der Edition Körber, Hamburg 2021-

Benjamin Schwarz, Raul Aguayo-Krauthausen (Author), Simone Scheuer (Narrator)

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Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions

Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder- Michael Savage has the cure. With grit, guts, and gusto, talk radio sensation Michael Savage leaves no political turn unstoned as he savages today's most rabid liberalism. In this paperback edition of his third New York Times bestseller, Savage strikes at the root of today's most pressing issues, including: Homeland security: 'We need more Patton and less patent leather . . . Real homeland security begins when we arrest, interrogate, jail, or deport known operatives within our own borders . . . One dirty bomb can ruin your whole day.' Illegal immigration: 'I envision an Oil for Illegals program . . . The president should demand one barrel of oil from Mexico for every illegal that sneaks into our country.' Lawsuit abuse: 'Lawyers are like red wine. Everything in moderation. Today we have far too many lawyers, and we're suffering from cirrhosis of the economy.' 'Pure Savage. Very effective, very timely, very hot.' American Compass Book Club An accompanying table and appendix are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

Michael Savage (Author), Vince Wallace (Narrator)

Audiobook

Insurrection: Rebellion, Civil Rights, and the Paradoxical State of Black Citizenship

The little-known and under-studied 1807 Insurrection Act was passed to give the president the ability to deploy federal military forces to fend off lawlessness and rebellion, but it soon became much more than the sum of its parts. Its power is integrally linked to the perceived threat of black American equity in what lawyer and critic Hawa Allan demonstrates is a dangerous paradox. While the Act was initially used to repress rebellion against slavery, during Reconstruction it was invoked by President Grant to quell white-supremacist uprisings in the South. During the civil rights movement, it enabled the protection of black students who attended previously segregated educational institutions. Most recently, the Insurrection Act has been the vehicle for presidents to call upon federal troops to suppress so-called 'race riots' like those in Los Angeles in 1992, and for them to threaten to do so in other cases of racial justice activism. Allan's distinctly literary voice underscores her paradigm-shifting reflections on the presence of fear and silence in history and their shadowy impact on the law. Throughout, she draws revealing insight from her own experiences as one of the only black girls in her leafy Long Island suburb, as a black lawyer at a predominantly white firm, and as a thinker about the use and misuse of appeals to law and order.

Hawa Allan (Author), Hawa Allan (Narrator)

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Corruption: A History of Criminals, Rapists, Murderers, and Dictators

This combo book contains information about the following individuals: Al Capone Charles Manson Edmund Kemper Jack the Ripper Lizzie Borden Pablo Escobar Ted Bundy Adolf Eichmann Benito Mussolini Enver Pasha Francisco Pizarro Josef Mengele Oliver Cromwell Paul Joseph Goebbels Pol Pot Robespierre Rudolf Hoess Torquemada

Kelly Mass (Author), Chris Newman (Narrator)

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Evil History: Warlords, Criminals, Dictators, and Murderers

This is a massive combo with 26 audiobooks! You'll find biographies of the following people in here: 1 Alexander the Great 2 Attila the Hun 3 Genghis Khan 4 Hannibal Barca 5 Napoleon Bonaparte 6 Suleiman the Magnificent 7 Vlad the Impaler 8 William the Conqueror 9 Adolf Eichmann 10 Benito Mussolini 11 Enver Pasha 12 Francisco Pizarro 13 Josef Mengele 14 Oliver Cromwell 15 Paul Joseph Goebbels 16 Pol Pot 17 Robespierre 18 Rudolf Hoess 19 Torquemada 20 Al Capone 21 Charles Manson 22 Edmund Kemper 23 Jack the Ripper 24 Lizzie Borden 25 Pablo Escobar 26 Ted Bundy

Kelly Mass (Author), Chris Newman, Doug Greene (Narrator)

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Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System

From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in "expert witnesses" and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science. In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant's clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the "science" that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo. At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider's perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant's true crime narrative.

M. Chris Fabricant (Author), Chris Henry Coffey (Narrator)

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México a cielo abierto: De cómo el boom minero resquebrajó al país

Entre 2001 y 2017 las mineras extrajeron de México una cantidad equivalente al doble del oro y la mitad de la plata que los españoles se llevaron en los 300 años que duró la Colonia. La minería es uno de los negocios más jugosos del país... pero no para los trabajadores o las comunidades donde se desarrolla. Deja una utilidad anual de $200,000 millones de dólares, de los cuales muy pocos se ven reflejados en la calidad de vida de la sociedad mexicana, que en cambio sí sufre los estragos de la explotación desmesurada. Solapadas por el gobierno desde hace al menos veinticinco años, cuando se firmó el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, cerca de 267 compañías -principalmente canadienses y estadounidenses- operan en México sin escrúpulos ni restricciones. Lo peor de todo es que a su alrededor convergen los peores males que aquejan a nuestro país: corrupción, desgobierno, narcotráfico, violencia, pobreza y desplazamiento. Esta investigación, que el reportero J. Jesús Lemus realizó por los cuatro rincones del país, revela por primera vez las operaciones ilegales de la industria minera que, por increíble que parezca, opacan la brutalidad del narcotráfico, y lanza una alerta urgente sobre los peligros que representan para la soberanía y la supervivencia de nuestro país. Parte del acervo real y existente, que por límite de espacio y secrecía profesional no se agregó al mismo: https://randomhouse.box.com/s/h0f9nbst7vejrwrekkcm0rp43wrwj9g4 https://randomhouse.box.com/s/2kmkguft16z75z6hq35nkxdfrvt51vsg

J. Jesús Lemus (Author), Rafa Serrano (Narrator)

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Los de adelante corren mucho: Desigualdad, privilegios y democracia

¿Por qué América es la región más desigual del mundo? ¿Qué explica esta injusta realidad? Todos somos iguales, ¿pero por qué algunos son más iguales que otros? En México -y de hecho en todo el continente americano- la desigualdad ha permitido a unos pocos miles de hombres (rara vez son mujeres) dominar las decisiones políticas y económicas. Las élites han modelado la historia para asegurarse el poder, el dinero y, con frecuencia, la impunidad. Hay momentos históricos en los que cambian las élites. La desigualdad permanece. ¿Cómo se conforman las clases dominantes y qué principios las rigen? ¿Cuáles son sus contradicciones? ¿Por qué se pelean y de qué modo se intercambian favores? ¿Cuándo se les imponen límites y cómo se relacionan con el resto de la sociedad? El examen profundo de las oligarquías exige poner bajo la lupa la idea misma de igualdad, para descubrir que es un concepto más problemático de lo que parece a primera vista. Definirla ya es un reto; determinar sus alcances, una labor con hondas implicaciones éticas y políticas. Esta obra acepta el desafío y explica por qué los de adelante corren mucho, y los de atrás...

Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra (Author), Daniel Cubillo (Narrator)

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It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom

How far does the idea of academic freedom extend to professors in an era of racial reckoning? The protests of summer 2020, which were ignited by the murder of George Floyd, led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors? It's Not Free Speech considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy-theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles-one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion-they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses. Faculty across the nation can develop protocols that account for both the new realities-from the rise of social media to the decline of tenure-and the old realities of long-standing inequities and abuses that the classic liberal conception of academic freedom did nothing to address. This book will resonate for anyone who has followed debates over #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, and 'cancel culture'; more specifically, it should have a major impact on many facets of academic life, from the classroom to faculty senates to the office of the general counsel.

Jennifer Ruth, Michael Bérubé (Author), David Chandler (Narrator)

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Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism

The modern white power movement is now a global, transnational phenomenon. In this sweeping, authoritative account, Daniel Byman traces the key moments in the white power movement's evolution in the United States and around the world and then details its many facets today. Using a wide range of sources, Byman explodes several myths about white power terrorism and identifies dangerous gaps in current policies. For almost two decades since 9/11, white supremacist terrorism has been relegated to a secondary concern in the US and Europe despite shocking episodes of violence from New Zealand to Norway to South Carolina. Because white power terrorists' grievances echo mainstream debates and their violence often exacerbates polarization, their political impact can be inordinately high even if the body count is low. As Byman stresses, they are not a hidebound movement seeking to turn back the clock, but are dynamic, drawing on ideas from around the world and exploiting the most cutting-edge technologies, especially social media. White power terrorists, however, have many weaknesses. They are divided, with poor leadership, and often attract the incompetent and the criminal as well as the dangerous and deluded. If governments act decisively and treat white power terrorism with the same urgency they use to manage jihadist violence, then the threat can be reduced. This will require aggressive law enforcement, international intelligence cooperation, crackdowns by technology companies, and other forceful steps. Spreading Hate will be essential reading for anyone worried about this increasingly networked movement that threatens to grow more dangerous in the years to come.

Daniel Byman (Author), James Lurie (Narrator)

Audiobook

Political Advocacy Audiobooks in Politics