Tag: Inequality

This album feels unreal in how brave it is. This motherfucker is really out here talking this hardcore of revolutionary shit I can still hardly believe it even after listening so intently to it all. “They fucked the slums so hard they gave birth to a resistance….” Carrying Dead Prez’ torch on here, telling folks in the hood to redirect their anger (& traumatized destructive expressions of it) at the system that oppresses them rather than their neighbors who might disrespect them. Hip Hop needed this album, bringing back that Panther energy. Please listen, it will blow your mind. ♥Neonn

“KXNG Crooked dropped a new album titled Good Vs. Evil, his third project of 2016. The LP sees Crooked donning the persona of a superhero from an alternate reality. In this universe, lower class citizens use violence to fight back against oppression.

“It all started when I was watching a news segment on the murders of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and all the other black people killed by Police” Crooked said. “I saw Tamir Rice’s mother on TV and the pain in her eyes made my blood pressure boil. No mother should lose a child like that. Then, I watched cops kill unarmed people on film and go home to their families like black lives didn’t matter. No charges and with paid leave. At the same time, I watched officers capture Dylan Roof alive and buy him a hamburger after he slaughtered nine black churchgoers. I thought to myself, are we under attack as black people to the point where I might have to shoot an officer just to survive a mere traffic stop? I thought, how crazy is it that we even have to think about in America (in 2016)?  Then I thought, how ill would it be to have a black superhero (that other black children can look up to; the same way we do Marvel characters) to tackle and these issues.” [XXL]

“To move forward in the United States, we must look back and confront the difficult history that has shaped widespread injustice. Revisiting a significant yet overlooked piece of the past, Hasan Kwame Jeffries emphasizes the need to weave historical context, no matter how painful, into our understanding of modern society — so we can disrupt the continuum of inequality massively affecting marginalized communities.”

“In the midst of loss and death and suffering, our charge is to figure out what freedom really means—and how we take steps to get there. Join Marc Lamont Hill, phillip agnew, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for an urgent conversation about the ongoing struggle for freedom in the wake of the 2020 election. The uprising of 2020 marked a new phase in the unfolding Movement for Black Lives. The brutal killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and countless other injustices large and small, lit the spark of the largest protest movement in US history, a historic uprising against racism and the politics of disposability that the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare. In his urgent and incisive new book We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, and Possibility, Marc Lamont Hill critically examines the “pre-existing conditions” that have led us to this moment of crisis and upheaval, guiding us through both the perils and possibilities, and helping us imagine an abolitionist future.”

Absolutely brilliant new film from Peter Joseph, my absolute #1 intellectual influence and philosophical hero. There is so much to say about this film, but it articulates the central thesis of the Zeitgeist Movement probably more effectively than any of their other work. Peter is always epically on-point in all his films and books and lectures, but the rest of his works are more strictly cerebral & analytical. True reality is very complicated, but this film manages to articulate it as clearly as I can imagine. Thanks again Peter, for illuminating the Truth for us all to see.

“InterReflections explores deep social issues. In three timelines our main story takes us into the future when ecological crisis and inequality has destabilized society. John Taylor, a defected government intelligence agent turned revolutionary leader, is captured by his former colleague and nemesis, Simon Devoe.”

“Fairness matters … to both people and primates. Sharing priceless footage of capuchin monkeys responding to perceived injustice, primatologist Sarah Brosnan explores why humans and monkeys evolved to care about equality — and emphasizes the connection between a healthy, cooperative society and everyone getting their fair share.”

❝ Society is broken. We can design our way to a better one.

In our interconnected world, self-interest and social-interest are rapidly becoming indistinguishable. If current negative trajectories remain, including growing climate destabilization, biodiversity loss, and economic inequality, an impending future of ecological collapse and societal destabilization will make ‘personal success’ virtually meaningless. Yet our broken social system incentivizes behavior that will only make our problems worse. If true human rights progress is to be achieved today, it is time we dig deeper―rethinking the very foundation of our social system.

In this engaging, important work, Peter Joseph, founder of the world’s largest grassroots social movement―The Zeitgeist Movement―draws from economics, history, philosophy, and modern public-health research to present a bold case for rethinking activism in the 21st century.

Arguing against the long-standing narrative of universal scarcity and other pervasive myths that defend the current state of affairs, The New Human Rights Movement illuminates the structural causes of poverty, social oppression, and the ongoing degradation of public health, and ultimately presents the case for an updated economic approach. Joseph explores the potential of this grand shift and how we can design our way to a world where the human family has become truly sustainable.

The New Human Rights Movement reveals the critical importance of a unified activism working to overcome the inherent injustice of our system. This book warns against what is in store if we continue to ignore the flaws of our socioeconomic approach, while also revealing the bright and expansive future possible if we succeed.

Will you join the movement? ❞

“Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges—who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class—investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges’ message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.

Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as “sublime madness” — the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this “sublime madness.”

From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion.”

❝ Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it. ❞

This is the greatest documentary of all time. This is the single most important item on this website. Please, please, please watch it. It fully articulates the true nature of our current global economic system, as well as the alternative system we must ultimately transition to in order to survive as a species. ♥Neonn

“Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) focuses on “Monetary-Market Economics” and its repercussions. Chapter 1 is treatment on “Human Nature”, noting that our social traditions are out of line with what constitutes positive human development. Chapter 2 details the core flaws of our economic system and how it is destroying us and the planet. Chapter 3 begins a thought exercise where our modern scientific understanding is considered as the starting point for human decision-making and Chapter 4 sets predictions of what is to come as society becomes more destabilized due to our outdated practices.”

❝ It is a well-established fact that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. The Spirit Level, based on thirty years of research, takes this truth a step further. One common factor links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree of equality among their members. Further, more unequal societies are bad for everyone within them-the rich and middle class as well as the poor.

The remarkable data assembled in The Spirit Level exposes stark differences, not only among the nations of the first world but even within America’s fifty states. Almost every modern social problem-poor health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness-is more likely to occur in a less-equal society.

Renowned researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett lay bare the contradictions between material success and social failure in the developed world. But they do not merely tell us what’s wrong. They offer a way toward a new political outlook, shifting from self-interested consumerism to a friendlier, more sustainable society. ❞

This is the film that launched the Zeitgeist Movement. After Peter’s first film presented a brutal ruthless criticism of everything existing without proposing an alternative system, Roxanne Meadows of the Venus Project sent him a copy of Jacque Fresco’s manifesto, The Best That Money Can’t Buy. That inspired him to make a film showing people why civilization indeed does not have to be this way. ~💜Neonn

“Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008) features former “Economic Hit-Man” and New York Times bestselling author, John Perkins, along with The Venus Project, an organization for social redesign created by Industrial Designer Jacque Fresco. Broken into four chapters, the 1st explains “Fractional Reserve Banking” and how Debt and Bankruptcy are inevitable realities. The 2nd exposes various levels of international corruption via the financial/corporate system. The 3rd then considers solutions to current social woes and the 4th gives a philosophical view with the hope to inspire change in the viewer.”