Connecting the Dots

This episode is centered around Anand Giridharadas' book: Winners Take All. Anand is a phenomenal speaker, writer, analyst, and he has incredible insight and understanding regarding contemporary social issues, especially pertaining to our elites. I recommend following him on social media/twitter if you want more exposure to his insights and perspective. This book covers issues with inequality, extreme hoarding and extreme charity, opportunist, and self exalted leaders who insinuate change, but preserve the status quo. Although this book was not one of my favorites, I still recommend it due to the power of its content. 

LINK TO THE BOOK: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/winners-take-all-the-elite-charade-of-changing-the-world_anand-giridharadas/18603433/?resultid=2c2bec34-a635-446b-8b8f-8f7676f2be87#edition=21309754&idiq=40895548

PROTEST SONG RECOMMENDATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUGE8Y07-2k

LINK TO THE SPEECH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H32z45o0WxA

A great and critical book by Andrea Mcdonnell and Susan j. Douglas. They elaborate beautifully on how celebrities and celebrity culture has affected American culture. This episode hopes to elaborate on that just a bit and show how celebrity culture affects us individually and collectively. They also talk about in great detail how technology has been fundamentally useful for celebrities going back to radio, film, television and social media. This episode specifically focuses on social media as it is contemporarily and arguably the most culturally relevant and relatable. The book also talks about how essential celebrities are for capitalism and this episode also expands on that as well. This is an incredibly detailed and thorough book that looks at America's biggest cultural icons from the Beatles to the Kardashians and it reflects us as a people and how we respond to these celebrities, for better or for worse. 

LINK TO THE BOOK: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/celebrity-a-history-of-fame_susan-douglas_andrea-mcdonnell/20332628/?resultid=8b84c65b-1c8e-40c9-bff5-7d9cbae9ce7c#edition=21655026&idiq=32425307

PROTEST SONG RECOMMENDATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syeyKhfChfA

PLOT TO OVERTHROW AMERICA TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Xu6FuP-IM

LINK TO THE SPEECH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qkU-evkvMo

CELEBRITY CULTURE EXEMPLIFIED: https://twitter.com/Epithymia__/status/1385684052544397315?s=20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH7InxylzRU

This episode is covering the book: Because We Say So, by Noam Chomsky. The book is actually a collection of short essays, covering many different issues and topics such as: threats to world peace, issues with Iran, Gaza, and Palestine, the 2012 election, Edward Snowden, and many more. This podcast episode covers the assault on public education, global warming, and the Vietnam war specifically. Its a dense book honestly, but it provides a lot of information. It does take some work to sit through and read and understand, but a lot of insight and information can be extracted as well. Although some of the information is dense, maybe even complicated, Chomsky really makes readers reflect on the state of the world and our current world order. 

LINK TO THE BOOK: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/because-we-say-so_noam-chomsky/14075776/?resultid=7a838459-6a37-4560-b1dd-d08db98b6ae9#edition=9698543&idiq=19966207

PROTEST SONG RECOMMENDATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI9hDxVDobI

LINK TO THE SPEECH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U

A great, independent, non partisan book that covers issues related to our way of policing, the war on drugs, and militarized policing. The author, Radley Balko, provides loads of research and exposes a lot of history and scenarios in which policing methods and tactics clearly run wild, hurting and killing people as a result. The author asserts that our militarized way of policing is contradictory to the professed values of a free society and America. This isnt just a book about cops though, Balko emphasizes that our politicians, lawyers, prosecutors, and judges all play a part in the emboldening and empowerment of police officers, at the expense of the people. 

LINK TO THE BOOK: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/rise-of-the-warrior-cop-the-militarization-of-americas-police-forces_radley-balko/699579/?resultid=78acd366-6560-4422-a50b-9417142d52cc#edition=9022633&idiq=10770518

PROTEST SONG RECOMMENDATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU

LINK TO THE SPEECH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PeqTXDyG0k

EPITOMIZATION OF MILITARIZATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3TFV2bTj38

This episode is based on Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This is a must read for anyone looking to expand their ideas and proposed solutions to our social issues. A great book for students, educators, instructors, and parents as well. The author provides a new way of looking at/engaging with the world and he proposes an entirely new style, method, and approach between the student/teacher dynamic. This is a book for anyone who links education to social change. New ideas and conversations are desperately needed and this book is a great source that may provide this. 

LINK TO THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pedagogy+of+the+oppressed&crid=7GX1E8P7PYOZ&sprefix=pedagogy+%2Caps%2C-1&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_8

PROTEST SONG RECOMMENDATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxF_-M-A9ME

LINK TO THE SPEECH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imq5DS6PZMo

GO FUND ME LINK:

Please consider donating (if you can) to my friends daughter who is currently battling stage 3 cancer.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/jazzy-and-rivera-family?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

Back in the game. This is the first episode of a new season and this episode is centered around a book titled, The Revolution We Expected by Claudio Naranjo. This has quickly become one of my favorite books and there's a reason why I chose this one to kick off a new season. Its unique, expanding, thought provoking, and should lead to genuine and profound reflection if read with an open mind and heart. The back of the book sums up the work nicely, as the author makes "a final call to humanity to awaken to our collective potentials". It covers topics related to the patriarchy, education, human development, self awareness, and even the utilization of meditation. This man applies his brilliant mind and perspective to all of these issues and this is only to the benefit of the reader. I'd rather you actually read and experience the book for yourself instead of listening to this podcast, so get to it. If anyone is interested in spirituality, meditation, humanization, and the remedy of our social and political issues, this is the book for you. And if not, try and expand your mind and give it a chance anyways. 

Huge thanks to my brother Andres for providing the new intro song and another huge thanks to my partner for providing a new mic for better audio. 

LINK TO THE BOOK:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-revolution-we-expected-transforming-education-and-society-for-a-post-patriarchal-future/24883889/?resultid=123cb5b6-73dd-4aee-8fea-729fbc80d5a0#edition=26583182&idiq=41478154

PROTEST SONG RECOMMENDATION: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=721JQZw6Spg

LINK TO THE SPEECH:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5E9gS4RZOo&t=172s