Political Advocacy Audiobooks | Politics

The Accident of Color: A Story of Race in Reconstruction

In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to nineteenth-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude. During Reconstruction, a movement arises as mixed-race elites make common cause with the formerly enslaved and allies at the fringes of whiteness in a bid to achieve political and social equality for all. In some areas, this coalition proved remarkably successful. Activists peacefully integrated the streetcars of Charleston and New Orleans for decades and, for a time, even the New Orleans public schools and the University of South Carolina were educating students of all backgrounds side by side. Tragically, the achievements of this movement were ultimately swept away by a violent political backlash and expunged from the history books, culminating in the Jim Crow laws that would legalize segregation for a half century and usher in the binary racial regime that rules us to this day.

Daniel Brook (Author), David Sadzin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sand and Blood: America's Stealth War on the Mexico Border

A damning portrait of the U.S.-Mexico border, where militaristic fantasies are unleashed, violent technologies are tested, and immigrants are targeted. Over the past three decades, U.S. immigration and border security policies have turned the southern states into conflict zones, spawned a network of immigrant detention centers, and unleashed an army of ICE agents into cities across the country. As award-winning journalist John Carlos Frey reveals in this groundbreaking book, the war against immigrants has been escalating for decades, fueled by defense contractors and lobbyists seeking profits and politicians--Republicans and Democrats alike--who relied on racist fear-mongering to turn out votes. After 9/11, while Americans' attention was trained on the Middle East and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the War on Terror was ramping up on our own soil--aimed not at terrorists but at economic migrants, refugees, and families from South and Central America seeking jobs, safety, and freedom in the U.S. But we are no safer. Instead, families are being ripped apart, undocumented people are living in fear, and thousands of migrants have died in detention or crossing the border. Taking readers to the Border Patrol outposts, unmarked graves, detention centers, and halls of power, Sand and Blood is a frightening, essential story we must not ignore.

John Carlos Frey (Author), Gustavo Rex (Narrator)

Audiobook

Helping the Good Do Better: How a White Hat Lobbyist Advocates for Social Change

How to effect positive social change by the top progressive white hat lobbyist in Washington. HELPING THE GOOD DO BETTER pulls back the curtain on the corridors of power in Washington to reveal how social change really happens. This book offers lessons from the trenches on how some of this generation's most defining social issues-AIDS, disabilities, global poverty, cancer, human trafficking, national service, early childhood education, and social entrepreneurship -- engendered landmark federal policies. Each chapter tells the story of how a particular issue was shaped by the movements and legislation at the center of public debate. Each case provides powerful lessons about how coalitions are built, strategies crafted, and powerful interests challenged in high-stakes, no-holds-barred political battles. Doing good requires more than just providing programs and services. It requires coordination, organization, and a new, stronger emphasis on and dedication to advocacy. Participating in advocacy is no longer a luxury -- it is a necessity. Visionaries and activists together with 'white hat' lobbyists -- people who understand the power of politics and who are able to put it to work to serve the public interest -- have won some of the most transformative policy fights in recent times. The culmination of those experiences, of fighting and winning on behalf of public interest causes, is presented here in a new theory for social change. Successful campaigns and movements must possess a lobbyist's combined approach to policy, politics, and press. Leveraging these 3 Ps, with true passion and discipline, can create results that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. An insightful first-person guide to advocacy by a white-hat lobbyist who was in the rooms where historic social changes were made, HELPING THE GOOD DO BETTER is a direct and honest look at government in action and the behind-the-scenes players who help make progress a reality. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 12.1px; font: 13.0px Times} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 12.1px; font: 13.0px Times; min-height: 16.0px} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 10.1px; font: 13.0px Times; min-height: 16.0px} p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 10.1px; font: 13.0px Times}

Thomas F. Sheridan (Author), Eric Jason Martin, Eric Martin (Narrator)

Audiobook

La indignación activa

Este es un libro-mitin para apelar a la acción, porque, como dice el autor, 'muchos nos indignamos al ver las noticias, pero de lo que se trata es de movilizarse y no de mirar para otro lado'. Esta obra es un ideario que resume en muy pocas páginas las ideas de la actualidad que más preocupan al autor. El objetivo es dirigir al lector hacia una reflexión que le permita tomar posición. El eje central es la necesidad de actuar frente a una política obsoleta y degradada y a una clase política que ha olvidado a los ciudadanos, para mover a una sociedad que ha sufrido los efectos de la corrupción añadidos a una crisis económica. Sin solución de continuidad, la aparente mejora económica lleva a una incentivación del consumo que, al no haberse resuelto los problemas de fondo, nos está llevando de nuevo a una mayor desigualdad. Grabado en español ibérico (España).

Baltasar Garzón (Author), Miguel Coll (Narrator)

Audiobook

How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property

Ben Price reveals that our Constitution and legal system were intentionally designed to give more rights to the wealthy propertied class than the rest of us and exposes how this hamstrings our ability to effectively address a host of pressing social and environmental problems-and what we can do about it. Many of today's most serious issues-homelessness, gun violence, fracking, prison privatization, predatory lending, and many more-resist resolution because the "rights of property" undermine the rights of people. Issues that undeniably affect whole communities are determined by the courts to relate primarily to property, contracts, and corporations and are removed from the public sphere and immunized from public governance. There's a reason for this. Ben Price tells the story of how the Federalists-the more conservative faction of the Founding Fathers-secretly drafted the Constitution as a counterrevolutionary document. It restored to the colonial 1 percent privileges overturned by the revolution, avoiding a popular backlash by bestowing rights on wealth itself, rather than creating a British-style personal aristocracy. These rights of property deprive the majority of their ability to self-govern and weaponize government in ways that let the "minority of the opulent" (in James Madison's phrase) use the Constitution to block local policies that compete with their interests. Price details often shocking examples of how the supposedly unalienable rights of individuals and communities are blithely disregarded. But he also describes how over 200 communities have drafted their own bills of rights that push back against the primacy of property and how we all can join this struggle to return America to what the revolutionary generation intended.

Ben G. Price (Author), Sean Pratt (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre

"A series of harrowing, unforgettable tales...Had [Liao Yiwu] not fled the country in 2011, they may never have emerged. An indispensable historical document." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) From the award-winning poet, dissident, and "one of the most original and remarkable Chinese writers of our time" (Philip Gourevitch) comes a raw, evocative, and unforgettable look at the Tiananmen Square massacre through the eyes of those who were there. For over seven years, Liao Yiwu—a master of contemporary Chinese literature, imprisoned and persecuted as a counter-revolutionary until he fled the country in 2011—secretly interviewed survivors of the devastating 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Tortured, imprisoned, and forced into silence and the margins of Chinese society for thirty years, their harrowing stories are now finally revealed in this gripping and masterful work of investigative journalism.

Liao Yiwu (Author), Edward Chen, Francois Chau (Narrator)

Audiobook

Die Menschenrechte / Human Rights - Verkündet von den Vereinten Nationen am 1. Dezember 1948 (Ungekü

Jeder kennt die zehn Gebote. Aber kennt auch jeder jedes Gebot? Genauso ist es mit den Menschenrechten. Sie sind ständig in aller Mund, aber wer könnte die einzelnen Rechte aufzählen. Vielleicht noch das Recht auf ein Leben in Freiheit, in Würde, Gleichheit für alle, Folterverbot - viel mehr aber fällt uns dazu nicht ein. Und da die Menschenrechte überall immer mehr mit den Füßen getreten werden - auch bei uns in den demokratischen Ländern - müssen wir sie kennen. Nur dann können wir die Rechte der Anderen und unsere verteidigen.

Nomen Nominandum (Author), Christian Brückner, Juli Zeh (Narrator)

Audiobook

The End of Policing

Recent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression. Among activists, journalists, and politicians, the conversation about how to respond and improve policing has focused on accountability, diversity, training, and community relations. Unfortunately, these reforms will not produce results, either alone or in combination. The core of the problem must be addressed: the nature of modern policing itself. This book attempts to spark public discussion by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control. It shows how the expansion of police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice-even public safety. Drawing on groundbreaking research from across the world, and covering virtually every area in the increasingly broad range of police work, Alex Vitale demonstrates how law enforcement has come to exacerbate the very problems it is supposed to solve. In contrast, there are places where the robust implementation of policing alternatives-such as legalization, restorative justice, and harm reduction-has led to a decrease in crime, spending, and injustice. The best solution to bad policing may be an end to policing.

Alex S. Vitale (Author), Michael Butler Murray (Narrator)

Audiobook

Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work/Biography. In Across That Bridge, Congressman John Lewis draws from his experience as a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement to offer timeless wisdom, poignant recollections, and powerful principles for anyone interested in challenging injustices and inspiring real change toward a freer, more peaceful society. The Civil Rights Movement gave rise to the protest culture we know today, and the experiences of leaders like Congressman Lewis, a close confidant to Martin Luther King, Jr., have never been more relevant. Despite more than forty arrests, physical attacks, and serious injuries, John Lewis has remained a devoted advocate of the discipline and philosophy of nonviolence. Now, in an era in which the protest culture he helped forge has resurfaced as a force for change, Lewis' insights have never been more relevant. In this heartfelt book, Lewis explores the contributions that each generation must make to achieve change.

John Lewis, John Robert Lewis (Author), Keith David (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fulfilling Social and Economic Rights

One of the most ambitious legacies of the 20th century was the universal commitment to ensure freedom from want as a human right. But to what extent are countries across the world living up to this commitment? This path breaking book develops an innovative, evidence-based index for comparing performance on education, food, health, work, and housing across very differently situated countries and over time. It explores the factors influencing performance and provides empirical evidence to resolve some long standing controversies over the principle of 'progressive realization'. By defying the boundaries of traditional research disciplines, this work fundamentally advances our knowledge about the status of and factors promoting social and economic rights fulfillment at the dawn of the 21st century.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Susan Randolph, Terra Lawson (Author), Karen White (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Democracy Fix

Despite representing the beliefs of a minority of the American public on many issues, conservatives are in power not just in Washington, DC, but also in state capitals and courtrooms across the country. They got there because, while progressives fought to death over the nuances of policy and to bring attention to specific issues, conservatives focused on simply gaining power by gaming our democracy. They understood that policy follows power, not the other way around. Now, in a sensational new book, Caroline Fredrickson-who has had a front-row seat to the political drama in DC for decades while working to shape progressive policies as special assistant for legislative affairs to President Clinton, chief of staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, deputy chief of staff to Senator Tom Daschle, and president of the American Constitution Society-argues that it's time for progressives to focus on winning. She shows us how we can learn from the right by having the determination to focus on judicial elections, state power, and voter laws without stooping to their dishonest, rule-breaking tactics. We must be ruthless in thinking through how to work to change the rules of the game to regain power, expand the franchise, end voter suppression, win judicial elections, and fight for transparency and fairness in our political system.

Caroline Fredrickson (Author), Laurel Lefkow (Narrator)

Audiobook

Know Me Now

A gripping suspense thriller from CWA Debut Dagger winner CJ Carver. A SUICIDE. A MURDER. A CONSPIRACY. DIGGING UP THE PAST CAN BE DEADLY . . . A thirteen-year-old boy commits suicide. A sixty-five-year old man dies of a heart attack. Dan Forrester, ex-MI5 officer, is connected to them both. And when he discovers that his godson and his father have been murdered, he teams up with his old friend, DC Lucy Davies, to find answers. But as the pair investigate, they unravel a dark and violent mystery stretching decades into the past and uncover a terrible secret. A secret someone will do anything to keep buried . . . A gripping suspense thriller for fans of Angela Marsons, MJ Arlidge and Peter May, from CWA Debut Dagger winner CJ Carver For fans of Angela Marsons, MJ Arlidge and Peter May. Narrated by Peter Silverleaf.

CJ Carver, Cj Carver (Author), Peter Silverleaf (Narrator)

Audiobook

Political Advocacy Audiobooks in Politics