The Rap Album That Changed My Mind About Law Enforcement
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2024
- In 2014, an album came out at just the right time to set me on a path to prison abolition, and I think there's a lesson for us all.
#runthejewels #hiphop #police #abolition
Title music: "Abolicious" by me
/ abolicious
Songs Cited: Early and Close Your Eyes by RTJ
Films Cited: Office Space, A Few Good Men, The Examined Life
Books Cited: The Capacity Contract (Simplican) and Are Prisons Obsolete (Davis)
Creators Cited: Thought Slime and Philosophy Tube
Commenters Cited: Fern
Transcript: justpaste.it/2...
Regarding what you said about how some people might think they’re not adding much to the movement because they don’t have high subscriber counts or production budgets, I think it’s important to remember that an ounce of actual, real-life organizing is worth a ton of online propaganda work.
That’s not to say the online sphere isn’t important, we need advocates there too, but the bulk of the struggle takes place offline. Whether it’s study circles, street protests, putting up posters, or handing out fliers, that work is worth so much more than whatever, say, Vaush is doing.
My advice to young leftists is this: if you can, get in contact with a local revolutionary socialist organization and start doing offline work with them.
Oh yeah, 100% and I probably should have been clearer about there. Feeding your hungry neighbor, getting new socks on cold bare feet, these things make a HUGE material difference in a way that videos and streams just don't. It's one thing for me to say "a better world is possible" but it's another thing entirely to prove it to a flesh and blood human in your community.
Still important to remember that, I agree, but also, do what you can. Online is a great way for people traditionally unable to participate in those organisations.
I know I'm severely limited due to fatigue, disability and money. And the online sphere is a way I can help organise people to participate IRL. Someone needs to do the reminder notices and coordination in movements. Someone needs to act as quartermaster and supplies manager. Online communication means I can do that from bed, on days where I can't leave bed or my house.
Online participation isn't only making videos and online drama, and it's important to remember that online accessibility makes it so people who are normally excluded can participate too (like, parents who can't get babysitters to go to meetings cause money is tight, disabled and chronically ill people, people who may experience other health conditions that flare up periodically and unpredicatably, people with limited time, or people who live far away from the organisation).
Just a reminder from an affected Warrang Wobbly 😉
@@TheShadowChesireCat for sure! Online work is still very important, especially if that work is in service of the material struggle.
Maybe offline vs online work wasn’t the best way to express what I was thinking; I think a better way to divide things is organizing vs individual advocacy. Whether what you’re doing is online or offline, the important thing is working with other people to bring about a better world.
Individual action isn’t nothing of course, but I think that as a Wobbly you’ll agree that an organization of comrades gets a whole lot more done.
every bit counts. i think vaush is doing really amazing work helping people build and understand rhetoric that has real use in everyday life. especially when discussing highly politicized issues with right wingers. when our rights are getting taken away at this current pace, we need to work with whatever we can.
Yes! As Mildred themself has been known to say: join an org, you nerds!
I've done just that, and can confirm, meatspace organizing is the perfect antidote to arguing with reactionaries online! And there's nothing quite so inspiring as visiting a picket line!
"Fuck it the Lord will sort em" is one of the single most powerful lines I've ever heard. It touches on so many aspects of our attitudes towards so many things
It's a reference to Pope Innocent, Arnald Amalric and the Cathars at the Beziers Massacre.
I love how twisted people have gotten that monologue from a few good men. Jack Nicholson is the bad guy people, not the hero.
It's a tale as old as language. Repeating sentences and monologues out of their original context to aid one's position. Anyone who's seen that movie knows that the entire drama of it is asking what is justifiable in a dangerous life? The movie comes pretty firmly down on not murdering someone.
Show me the money!
Growing up in small rural towns, I always knew cops had a shit job that made them act like assholes but thought they ultimately were decent people. Then I moved to Atlanta and lived through the 2020 BLM protests. I saw how simultaneously callous and detached police were, how they would escalate any interaction while crying victim. Somehow oppressed while holding the guns.
@@calebh373 Judging by the experiences of people in all major cities, it's every police officer.
@@calebh373 ACAB is a thing for a reason.
As a rule people are smart, driven, considerate, compassionate, and generous. But we constructed a society where people are living under systems, or locked into hierarchies that make them uninformed, unmotivated, callous, cruel, and/or greedy.
Cops get the worst of that, especially in the USA. In a very real sense the purpose of a police force is to keep ordinary people under the control of the state, while most cops are also themselves ordinary people. So the culture in the police force and the training someone must undergo to become a police officer necessarily has to indoctrinate them, turn them into a true believer. Otherwise they would realize that 95% of their job is to intimidate and scare people into toeing the line of whatever the people in power dictate is the correct behavior at the moment. The remaining 5% is catching enough high profile drug dealers and murderers that the propaganda of "protect and serve" can be maintained even to themselves.
I love your theme song on Snl
@@calebh373 It's the institution of policing itself. It's not that all cops are necessarily bad people, but that their job makes it near impossible not to do bad things.
@@calebh373 Learn how to read
I’m a little more than a decade older than you, I wasn’t quite a teen when my mother (parents were long divorced) became a Chicago cop. She had always been a cop groupie before becoming one, which even as a little kid I thought was weird. Being on the job so changed her that by my late teens she wasn’t the mother I knew growing up, we grew very much apart, and by 23 or so I went totally no contact. It was 25ish years before I spoke to her again, to introduce her to her 16 year old granddaughter. That was 3 years ago. She and my daughter have a relationship, but she and I never will. She’s still in the cult. Still believes things that are categorically untrue. Still believes I’m an 11 year old looking at the world.
Is there a song that changed my world? Yeah. My senior year of high school, and also the third high school I had attended, I had music class. Our teacher was a cool guy, I wish I had made more effort to know him. I think he was old enough to have been in the Vietnam War, a thought that never occurred to me until after what I’m about to tell you. One of our assignments was to write a paper about our favorite artist or band, and also make a mix tape of some of their songs and explain what we knew about the songs. This was the 1989-1990 school year, I was a huge fan of Kate Bush, no one else I knew was so I was alone in this.
About 2 months after I turned in the paper and the tape, we walk into class one day, and he was way more somber than I had ever seen him. He asked everyone to sit down and quite down, and everyone realized this was different, because they all did. He put his boom box on his desk, popped in a tape, and played a song. One of the songs I gave him with my assignment. The song played, the room was quiet, but also had a “wtf?” vibe. When the song was done he asked for a few minutes of quiet and self reflection, and then we went back to business as usual. He didn’t talk about the song, didn’t say where it came from, didn’t acknowledge me (all good as I had no desire to stand out or even be noticed). But I knew that song had a big impact on him, and it made me realize that I could have a big impact on others, that a kid could bring a grownup to a halt and make them think.
The song was Pull Out the Pin by Kate Bush, and essentially is a look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Vietnamese fighter.
Thank you for sharing that!
@@ThatDangDad Hey, thank you! Just across the border in SD, but if you ever hold a meet up in the cities, I’d love to buy you a coffee or a beer.
awesome story. i’m only 20 but my grandfather is a purple heart from Vietnam, and those scars from the few months he was there still haunt him now. Thinking about how at my age he was fighting through hell is a humbling thought.
@@curedive1157 My father was drafted for Vietnam, went through boot camp and all that. They had him on the trucks with the rest of his platoon to ship out when they stopped the truck and hauled him off. He had spent several years as a child in the Philippines and caught malaria. Malaria never goes away once you catch it, and when you have outbreaks they can be debilitating, so they didn't want to send him into a tropical jungle (where outbreaks would be more frequent). Instead they made him a Drill Instructor, training other people to go over. And, I think as a kind of punishment, he was regularly tasked with overseeing the unloading of KIA soldiers in body bags from returning flights. So he sent live bodies over and received dead ones back here. REALLY messed him up, I think worse than going and fighting would have. Weirdly I may very well owe my life to malaria...
@@hundejahre sheesh thats fucking brutal. It's kind of Yin and Yang huh?
RTJ fucking rule, dude.
Glad to see tangible proof of the ways they’ve changed lives.
I grew up listening to Christian music exclusively, it was the only thing I felt like I was allowed to listen to. That kept me pretty well isolated from radical ideas, except one slipped through. August Burns Red released the song Identity when I was in my first year of college and there's this line that says "it kills me to hear you say you choose to love me. I was hoping that would be a given, given our history."
I spent my entire life hearing parents talk about their kids who had "left the fold" and saying things like "we just choose to love them" or "we love them anyway" and I always thought that was so noble, but with one line this christian band I respected was able to gut punch me. Suddenly I recognized that the way we talk about lgbtq people in churches is insulting. That started the germ of an idea that just made me squirm uncomfortable in the pews for a few years until it finally grew into where I am today. Christians are great at creating their own safe spaces isolated from "worldly" ideas, so those few who are willing to sprinkle different ideas in there are invaluable IMO.
Their Messengers album has to be one of my favorite
I couldn’t handle that exact hypocrisy and moved on to a different understanding.
Hearing System of a Down's BYOB on the radio when I was 10, and subsequently getting into them more broadly, got me into anti-authoritarian, anti-war, and anti-elite thinking. I believe that primed me for the far-left politics that I adopted a few years later. More recently, discovering Solar Punk by way of Saint Andrewism helped me be less of a doomer about the environment because it gave me a vision of a world where humanity can coexist with nature.
Hard to believe the same band that made BYOB openly support their Trump supporter bandmate.
@@kaeleklund6728 i do find it disappointing that he somehow is conservative now, but they’re all friends before they’re band mates. we all probably have friends that we disagree with on things, but still have a good friendship
@@kaeleklund6728 wait what? This is the first I'm hearing about this. Educate me, please?
this. i grew up on system of a down and the likes and i credit them (and my parents for exposing me to them) for my "anarchism" and anti-war thinking. i'm really glad other people like this exist
@@boonejbruce john dolmayan is a trump supporter. the rest of the band though isn't, as far as I'm aware
On the subject of rap music, actually... when I was young, I was the kind of asshat who'd say something like "the c in rap is silent". I think the song that changed my mind on it was Freedom of Speech, by Above the Law, on the soundtrack to the movie Pump up the Volume. It's got a few lines about how rap's an art form and the people who make it are speaking from the heart - and also about how the rest of us didn't want to hear it. I realized then that the growing list of artists I was "making an exception for" weren't the exception, they were the rule, and an awful lot of what they're saying was coming from a place of pain and a struggle that was intersectional with a lot of the pain & struggle I've experienced as a queer person. I won't get melodramatic or say that it changed my life, but it did open my eyes up to the fact that I have more in common than not.
I love that!
Above The Law are an under rated West Coast Gem 💎! Still blast Black Superman at the BBQ!
I was the same way, The first thing that really hit me was MF. DOOM's part in "November Has Come" from Demon Days, not because it was particularly profound but because it was easy to recognize just how talented he was.. I know that's sort of a trope... white boy's listening to MF. DOOM that is... But what really helped lend me some perspective was Mos Def (now goes by Yaseem Bay and if you haven't given him a listen you definitely should). Mike and El-P really spoke to me too. I saw Mike and El before they became RTJ (in Boston for their R.A.P. Music / I'll sleep when you're dead tour), then again for RTJ 1/2/3. Really nice genuine guys, and their music really comes from the heart.
“What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye was an album that felt like it let me truly grieve over the pains that came with living in poverty. It articulated a lot of feelings I couldn’t and allowed me to explore them, and I was able to start understanding how these things affected me and others on a deeper level.
Its refreshing and much appreciated to witness a "Conventional White Person" speak intellectually about Hip Hop Culture and have more to say than "I don't really like rap, but Eminem is the greatest rapper of all time!" SUBSCRIBED
Wow way to generalise against an entire race of people!
@@ReanuKeevesAus it generally happens in rap comments. Guess you're one of those people.
@@ReanuKeevesAus You can fact check me goof. Tf are you on. You out here acting this ain't a Google sight. Talking heavy with ignorance😂
@@ReanuKeevesAus did I say all white people are conventional?
@@rickeybernard8156 ah you've said something stupid and refuse to elaborate!? What a power move from this guy folks!
Thanks for these - I'm former law enforcement as well, and while I never arrested anyone, I went through the same anti-authoritarian spiral you did. Close Your Eyes and Count to Fuck is also my favorite and I got upset at Killer Mike too, until I realized he's right. I was military, and that line triggered memories of what happened at Abu Grahib. I wasn't there, but it clicked different and I was taught about the atrocities, and knew people who felt that the only wrong committed was getting caught.
I learned from RTJ. I learned from Kendrick Lamar. I learned from Childish Gambino. I learned from Rage Against the Machine when I finally listened with open ears.
I find it comforting that I'm not the only former LEO that made the swap to a hard left stance.
I'm now a chemist, and plan to specialize in Environmental Chem. I'm terrified of the evil in humans hearts, especially the evil that seems like benevolence to the weirder. I'm certainly never going to be out on the front lines, but I'm not afraid to talk about authoritarian worldviews, and my experience with law enforcement informs many of my arguments.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Awesome, thank you so much for sharing!!
I know I'm way late, but that's got to be one of my most favorite transformation stories ever. I hope life finds you well and happy these days, and thanks for sharing.
Thank You 🙏 for reassuring me that my belief “PEOPLE CAN CHANGE” for the positive is not as fantastical as I often fear!!
Perhaps Hope Springs Eternal?
🙏☮️❤️🤲
That's something I learned after becoming 30. Talked with an elderly neighbour about our then PM completely wrecking everything with the stock austerity. "You can't say that! He's the prime minister!" "Umm... He's an engineer who tried to bring wood-fueled cars back and that was just one of his bankrupties. I have a BBA and a bunch of knowledge about social issues. I think I'm quite qualified to say what goes wrong in this issue." "But.... HE'S THE PRIME MINISTER! HE HAS TO KNOW! HE JUST HAS TO!"
That's when I realized that most of the people who support the liberals and nationalists and so on, aren't evil. They just lack the mental tools to process the situation. School never gave those tools to them. Why would've it? Teaching them some basic concepts about power dynamics, economics and sociology has gone a long way in changing minds for me. You just have to approach them kinda sneakily so they don't get mentally entrenched right off the bat. 😉
i changed from left to right after 2020 the left is the new authoritarians.
I know your big point was about how no one single thing gives you a road to damascus moment, but for me, I went into the movie Snowpiercer a liberal, who thought that incremental government reforms were going to improve lives step by step until we had achieved safe and comfortable lives for everyone. I didn't think equality would ever be achieved, but that liberal democracy would keep taking concrete steps towards it essentially forever, and it would be improving the entire time.
I joke that I left the movie a hardcore anarchist. That isn't quite true, I didn't self identify as an anarchist until almost 2017, but Snowpiercer completely changed how I thought about society and its goals and the function of poverty, and the invention of crime as a function of control by the state. I cannot overstate the effect Snowpiercer had on me, but it's perhaps a bad example of what you're getting at here, because unlike RTJ2, I think Snowpiercer was specifically made by someone trying to change the minds of people like me about exactly this kind of thing.
Other than Snowpiercer, big ups to Sargon of Akkad for being so incredibly hateful and obviously wrong about so many things that I bounced off Gamergate even though I was a shithead atheist at the time, and even bigger ups to Hbomb for making fun of Sargon, which solidified me going over to the left. Most of all, I have my wife to thank for radicalizing me with knowledge and analysis of disability justice and I hope in turn to continue to radicalize her on labor issues.
My dad also played Utah Phillips and Woodie Guthrie for me when I was a child, before I understood unions. That ended up being really big for me too.
Snowpiercer whips ass
Sargon out there doing the Lord’s work. Praise be to the big Marxist in the sky!
I think of that movie A LOT.
that bit about Sargon about killed me lol
I'm not a big fan of Death Cab for Cutie (That's not me insulting them, I'm just not very familiar with their work). In one of their songs (I Will Follow You Into The Dark), there's a line that hits me everytime I hear it: "I held my tongue / As she told me, "Son / Fear is the heart of love" \ So I never went back". I was raised Evangelical, to see someone, even someone fictional, look at an idea that horrible and just say "No" with no excuses or explaination moves me to tears. He rejected it for no reason other than that it was terrible. He didn't ask anyones permission or try to to convince them. He just opted out. I hope that example helps some kids. (sorry about the weird formatting, not sure how to handle lyrics.)
I needed this. I'm struggling so much with being furious about the ideas I was raised with. Like especially right now. I'm so tired of feeling like I need to make my anger make sense to the people around me. It makes sense to me and I wish that were good enough for me to be convinced that my own emotions are valid.
I was raised Evangelical too. When my narcissistic ex dumped me, I shortly deconverted from Christianity because I realized that the god I was raised with is just as narcissistic as my ex.
@@ergotoxicosis I needed it too. It's been about 20 years since I left, and that anger and need to be understood still comes back sometimes. I hope you're doing alright (or at least moving towards it). Despite what you've been told, you deserve to be happy, just for being a person. We all deserve it.
I will follow you into the dark by death cab for cutie is a runner for one of the most beautiful songs ever written imo. A song about someone following their lover into the afterlife, even if heaven and hell both don't exist, a love so deep you would enter an eternal abyss just to be with them.
Fear is not the heart of love, but love can give you heart in times of fear.
"Only thing that close quicker than our caskets be the factories".
👉✊
I always say, you can read 1000 pages of theory or you can just listen to Z.d.l.R sing "Fuck the g-rides, I want the machines that are makin' em."
@@ThatDangDad love you brother, I'm glad you're on our side.
That being said, I pretty much only listen to death metal or quality hip hop, since you're a fan of hip hop, check out "Prof".
Start with "Squad Goals".
“The current criminal justice system needs to be abolished and replaced with something that, while having some broad features in common with the current system, would have utterly different underpinnings,” Robert Sapolsky, neuroendocrinologist who actually knows how brains function and what makes people do what they do. So many horrible systems in place just because theyve always been there, so people trying to imagine alternatives sounds insane to them.
Good for you on your growth!
My parents are liberal capitalists, I grew up idolizing police and the military. So i joined the military in 2011 after having worked a few years in the restaurant industry. I noticed something about my job, we didnt have to worry about profits, we just had to make sure the mission was completed safely and effectively. We were all paid the same regardless of how much we worked or how hard the work was, generally speaking. We had food and housing allowances to help ensure we could afford to live wherever we got stationed. We had lots of time off, competent and free medical care, comfortable work environment for the most part, pay scale increased with responsibility and training, pay scales increased fairly and regularly without creating major wealth gaps, and a long list of other things that just made sense. I began to wonder why they couldnt give this to everyone, and the more I researched, the more left I inevitably became. I learned about the military industrial complex, the intention defunding of education and targeting those communities. I learned about the frequency of innocent deaths in the name of capitalism disguised as “freedom”. I became ostracized for not wanting Trump to be president. I was teased for liking “killary”, even though I insisted that I simply didn’t want Trump because of his racist and misogynist antics. It became exhausting repeating myself every day.
One day, on a deployment, we were shown a video. I worked with an aerial recon group and we were seeing footage from recent missions. We had a live narrator explaining the footage. Men with AKs, guys with cell phones, driving trucks, repairing bridges, standing guard… no real evidence of any wrongdoing, just “check out these ISIS guys”. There was an uproarious cheer when the bombs finally dropped, leveling buildings and obliterating human beings. I looked around hoping: surely i’m not the only one not enjoying this… but everyone was in their feet, clapping and screaming. I began discussing early separation as soon as I got home from that deployment. Luckily it was a time where they needed people out anyways, so I was lucky. Now I regret it sometimes, because I think I would be good at radicalizing comrades now, having had the time to educate myself.
appreciate you sharing your story!
Hahahaha "we had plenty of time off" HAHAHAHAHSHAHAHAHAHAHABAGAHA
if it makes you feel any better, we can now see that it doesnt matter who the president is really. the government will do the same things they planned on doing for so long
@@Mindstangle I was always mids because I was single haha, and if there wasn't anything to do we just went home. I worked alone for years but once I got another airman trained up we split shifts 😂 but that's how work -should- be.
@@ThatDangDad Thank you for yours! I cry nearly every time you release a video because, having only had secondhand effects on the world, I still struggle with my veteran status. I can't imagine having to live with having been a cop, and feeling this hatred after having been a part of it for so long. I just sympathize really hard with that.
You said something this video about being obligated to make content because the more voices we have, the greater the chances that our voice will be the one that flips one person, and if that's what it takes, facing anxiety and making content is a reasonable price to pay.
You know, I enlisted with a willingness to die for my country. I lost that will a long time ago... But I've recently found it again. This is the fight worth fighting. I cry when I think about having to face my brothers and sisters who will fight to the death defending capitalism. The past few years I've been educating myself as much as I can to understand and justify a plausible utopia. It's so easily doable if the police and military just stopped enforcing unjust laws, but with the hatred, the ultranationalism, the "patriotism", and the worship from a loud, brainwashed, exploited population, there will always be much more reinforcement than disenchantment...
Anyways, thank you for your content. ACAB, but everyone is redeemable if they use their position to make change, necessarily abandoning the establishment and trying to encourage others to make a truly informed decision.
Just found you and I want to say how much I appreciate how boldly and directly you face your past. It can be so hard to swallow having been someone you regret being, and I feel like as humans we tend to try to dance around those things out of guilt and shame. Embracing those parts of myself is something I've tried to be better at, and I have the highest level of respect for people I see doing that. Props, my guy
Honestly, a lot of the stuff that put me on to leftism was just, like, definitions?
Like a tweet that someone took a screenshot of and posted to Pinterest. It was someone describing the difference between personal and private property, and then saying that private property should be abolished, and I agreed, because I realised how many issues that would solve. This was back when I thought socialism was when the government does stuff.
It was definitely also helpful to have a friend who was already a leftist, and was willing to put up with me asking a few stupid questions.
I know this isn’t always the case, but sometimes it really does help to just tell someone the actual meaning of concepts they’ve been lied to about. Even if they don’t immediately agree, it might help them to not see socialists as inherently bad people, and open them up to actually listening to socialist ideas.
This is exactly why the right absolutely has to convince their base that all of these lefty ideas are pure evil outright, because then you will be too scared to look into it even a little bit. If you go and look into it yourself you will see how freaking ridiculous right wing politics are compared to left wing politics.
i swear that most people are pretty much communists but are afraid to say or think that because of decades of hardcore propaganda teaching people from toddler age that communism is the enemy of america. we spent more money fighting communism here and in other countries than we've spent improving the quality of life for the working class here lol. its not about money at that point obviously, its about retaining power over people and continuing to get pleasure from harming them.
It's pretty funny how all the socialist projects of the 20th century have either collapsed or liberalized by allowing private property. 🤣
Same here, I just started researching the terms I would come across on social media and I slowly started shifting further left.
A lot of the thing that drives me off Leftism is the hatred for the rural and the gun owning.
I don't care how many people drive their cars into the swamp on my road, I should still be allowed to leave my house!
Don't drive on the dirt road if you don't live here!
Exposure to Brazilian religious and philosophical syncretism, mostly via Gilberto Gil's extraordinary music/lyrics (after I learned Portuguese), led me on a long path of deconversion from evangelical Christianity to vague spirituality, and ultimately to atheism (with a few Dillahunty-esque kicks towards that conclusion). Learning about South American history and the US's involvement in it sent me on a path towards leftism, as well. It all started from hearing João Gilberto play a famous bossa nova song on a South Florida jazz station one night. "Corcovado". That led to an obsession with Brazilian music that took my life to an entirely different direction. Would I have ended up in the same place via a different means? Hard to say.
Wow a fellow Joao Gilberto fan in the wild! I heard O Pato when I was 15 and fell in love with his music. I think Saudad Fez Um Samba is the melody I always seem to remember the most clearly these days though. Id love to learn more about his idea of what bossa nova was. He said Chega de Saudade was his creation of the quintessential bossa nova song.
João Gilberto's live at Carnegie hall version of O Pato makes me sob with joy. The first time I heard it, I blasted it on repeat for three straight hours. It is simply the most beautiful and sweet piece of music I've ever heard. The way the artist so lovingly imitates the "quien" of a duck never fails to make my heart melt.
It's stuff like this that makes me think if Im capable of experiencing such incredible life affirming joy from something as simple as a man singing about a bunch of water fowl, surely most other people are capable of a similar kind of life affirming joy. And then I wonder why this pursuit of life affirming joy isn't very normalized!
Honestly if there's any reason why I'm a leftist, it's not because of some theory or argument (though those are a part). It's because we are all capable of emotion. The same suffering and the same joy. Those emotions are what make existence meaningful to us. I simply can't help but to believe that we ought to do everything in our power to help others feel joy.
Sorry for the diatribe 😅
This song means a lot to me.
That's what I said. Sodium Chloride
Someone put Os Mutantes & Milton Nascimento on a mix for me when I was a teen, so that led me to Brazilian music from pre 1986. Man, Bolsonaro was a gut punch. I’m listening to Sangue Latino by Secos & Molhodos a lot these days bc YT has some great uploads of the band performing that song.
I’ve been way into Milton Nascimento lately Clube da Esquina is such an amazing record.
A huge part of my "political journey" or "radicalization" or whatever was my first year in college when my Professor had us do a multimedia project on whatever we wanted in relation to the topics from the book Chasing the Scream. That book helped me a lot too, but in particular it was learning about Bud Osborn's life and activism that led me to realize how harmful punitive measures, especially relating to policing, could be for those suffering from drug addiction. I read a lot about his life and poetry and decided to write a rap about it since I've been rapping since like sophomore year of high school. I'm 23 now and a socialist, and Professor Cook and Bud Osborn were the first ones to lead me in this direction which I am thankful for
Two books changed my life personally. One was The Lazy Crossdresser by Charlie Jane Anders, and the other was Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein. Before reading those books, I though that to be a trans woman, you had to fit into a certain box. You had to be hyper feminine, looks like a supermodel, and only be attracted sexually to men. And that wasn't me, so I didn't think transition was a viable option for me. Anders and Bornstein opened up my mind and helped me realize that that was misogynist bullshit, and it set me on a path to becoming the woman I always felt I was and who I am today, even though I'm not super feminine and am more comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt than dresses most days. Bornstein's book also started pushing me to the left, politically. I mean, I'd always leaned a little left, but I still mostly bought all the pro-Capitalist bullshit we're fed as school children. Bornstein made me realize I should really question a lot of my long held beliefs. She was talking about doing that with beliefs about gender, but it wasn't a long trip from there to questioning other long held beliefs. Also. RTJ is awesome. Walking In the Snow off RTJ4 is a must listen.
when I was in middle school I listened to a lot of Rise Against. I don't think I fully comprehended the ideas in their lyrics, but coming at it with retrospect, I think that made a good bit of fertile ground for my current political ideas. In 2015 I had a friend recommend me RTJ and I didn't really do anything with it until spring 2020 when I was anxious and idle out of my mind and looking for new music and randomly remembered and checked them out, right before they dropped RTJ4. From there I was introduced to Aesop Rock and MF DOOM whose styles inspired me to start writing my own poetry. I find poetry an incredible way to process emotions and experiences, something about creative word choice, rhythm, and rhyme really helps me distill my thoughts down into clear ideas.
For me, the first part of my shifting left (bc my parents are right leaning and that sorta turned me to the right) was back in 2013/2014 during Gamergate. At first I was watching anti-feminist anti-liberal videos on youtube, but then I saw one where they clipped Anita Sarkeesian talking about her harassment to mock her. I'm not sure why, but I went and watched her video to see the full context of what the harassment looked like, and it *terrified* me. Imagining something of that scale happening to me or anyone I knew seemed like a living nightmare. Then I was hit with the realization that she's *actually* living what would be my nightmares, and she was living it because of beliefs like the ones I'd grown into. That was the first prompt to re-examine what I believe politically and why.
See, that's what happens when you take the time to look at context. You just can't stay an @sshole. It's like NoFX says - "once you see the end don't justify the means, it's just that 180 degrees"
Amusingly in my case Sarkeesian caused me to have an irrational guilt trip over everything, being an avid gamer, but then the response by Liana Kerzner helped me to understand more of the context Sarkeesian was working from and also presented a lot of the same feminist ideas in a way that didn't feel hostile towards me as a young man who likes video games. Granted, Liana's more of a centrist with progressive learnings, but her content in 2015 was the first step to me shifting to the left.
As a child in the early 90s, I read a book by Monica Hughes called Invitation to the Game. I think that story more than any other has informed a lot of my views on capitalism, automation, inequality, environmental issues, and so much more. It's no staggering work of incomparable genius- it's a short middle grade novel read by a child slightly too young in a comfortable environment of privilege, but I don't know if I'd be who I am now without it.
sick, i love when that happens
Hey! That book had the same effect on me, and I will never forget it.
I'm a year late to the party, but Also Same.
I discovered RTJ back in 2018 and have been hooked ever since. I don't know if it was necessarily life changing, but it was still refreshing to find more music akin to that of Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down that focus on topics such as police and prison reform/abolition that formed me into who I am and what I believe in today.
I also really appreciate your segment at the end, talking about how "Oh I'm just one bland person! How can I make an impact when others already have done so?" I've wanted to get out there and stream for the longest time, as friends have even told me they think I would find some success there, but it's kinda discouraging when I see so many big channels and communities already, so I think to myself "Everyone's eyes are on them. You're not gonna be seen, so why bother?" and then I'm back at square one.
First thing that comes to mind with music would have to be Tracy Chapman, Talkin About Revolution and Behind the wall. A contrast on one album of such heart and hope and also brutal sorrow of a bloody system and society. I found you through thoughtslime shortly after discovering that channel, keep up the good work.
I grew up in West Belfast at the end of our low intensity civil war, that people call "the troubles". We had literal army patrols on our streets back then. Being politicised was never really a question.
One thing I'll say that really got me aware of the big picture stuff was the channel 4 documentary about Ken Sarowiwa, a poet and political activist murdered by the state in another country with whom Britian had a historic colonial relationship and in which the Shell Oil company played a big role. Young as I was I knew enough about my people's own history and present circumstances that parts of the story resonated, showed me that what we had been going through though unique was not special and got me thinking about the big picture, about what I would come to understand as Capitalism as a world system. Taught me it wasn't just about "catholics vs protestants". This was in the early to mid 90s, I couldn't have been older than 13.
normally i would turn my head away from someone who came to MN as a cop but i appreciate this story. we need more people like you. i grew up in the TC and it seems far too few people in charge understand the danger of the sheep metaphor.
In 2006 I joined a choir after moving to my current city. Through that choir I met someone who told me about another choir with the local symphony, doing a piece by one of my favorite composers. In that choir I met a gal who, through Facebook posts (try to remember Facebook in 2008!) got me into argentine tango dancing. Doing that I met someone who started a blues dancing scene in our city in 2009. I then got my sib into both of those dances. Through blues dancing I started traveling to all sorts of dance festivals all over the west coast and a few inland, and started meeting a lot of people. Some festivals also had a dual role as activist training camps. For one reason or another, the blues/fusion partner dance scene on the west coast is SUPER queer and SUPER leftist. Not entirely, but disproportionately. Many of the friends I made, directly and indirectly, through dance and music scenes led steadily to my radicalization and also surely hastened my realization I was a girl in 2017. My sib went on to become a teacher and DJ for dance events, also met many people including many partners, one of whom steadily for many years now, and does much more activism than I do. I can trace all this back to joining a choir and loving Ravel.
It really means a lot as former law enforcement on a similar journey started in part by the lyrical genius of RTG to hear I'm not alone.
“Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd is probably the album that is most responsible for how I’ve turned out, as it started me on the ever left-ward, anti-corporate path that I’ve been on since late 2016, and as such has influenced my tastes in music substantially.
Also, keep up the good work, these videos are great to watch and always interesting for me.
Check out animals if you havent, for some reason alot of people overlook that one.
@@davidcagle920 I do listen to Animals on a somewhat regular basis, it’s a great album and it definitely isn’t as popular as it ought to be.
Firstly; it's so cool you're up and down the comments engaging with people.
"Franco-Unamerican", by NOFX absolutely stuck in my brain. It was probably '03 and a friend mentioned the song. As a young teen in SoCal, punk rock was part of the scene at the time and I had lots of friends into it. But this was the first time I heard, understood, and acknowledged the leftist views in a work all at once. I didn't know where punk came from and had no idea that it was political to the core. The line about foreign policy being everything outside of california really hit me. Even though I was pretty assimilated, I am an immigrant and something about the framing of the line really hit me as being true to the culture i'd been placed into. It was exactly true to how people around me thought and how little they cared about where I was from.
The song was comprehensible, but there were tons of absolutely mysterious references i'd never heard of up to then. I started looking up and reading to understand every lyrical reference. I knew I don't want to be another I-don't-care-ican. The door was open.
I grew up in Orange County. I have gotten my ass kicked in the pit at Public Storage/Chain Reaction more times than I can count!
Before War On Errorism I thought NOFX was just another shit drunk punk band. That whole album lives up to its name
Brother, salute to you for sharing your journey and experiences. RTJ has literally changed my life. They are the true definition of the creator’s work and gift to the people. I am an old hip hop head born in 1980, and I can honestly say they are the greatest overall sound I have ever heard. Yes, I love the Wu, Outkast, Biggie, and Big L, but these two guys have given the people inspiration and vision unlike no other. RTJ FOREVER!! ✌🏽
“Conquest of Bread” by Kropotkin completely changed my outlook on human history. Sent me down a rabbit hole I’m still falling down.
10:03 I call this feeling the "Oh, I actually never thought of it that way!" response. You hear just the right thing at just the right time to either completely rewrite how you think of something, or start you in that direction
Public Enemy's "911 is a joke". Heck, the whole Fear of a Black Planet album. "Fight The Power" is an anthem. I remember when my friend had to hide his NWA album from his parents.
One of the most influential videos I’ve ever watched was a PBS idea channel video and the follow-up comment discussion video from about 2014 on the topic of “what is violence?” By turning away from a definition reliant on only physical forms of violence and instead seeking to define it around the concept of limiting the autonomy of an individual, such a definition of violence becomes a much more powerful tool to the general “left” cause. Both in the sense that it provides an easily digestible explanation for structural and social forms of violence without relegating them as a somehow more acceptable form of violence, but also that offers a more morally acceptable justification to engage in the kinds of violence necessary to overcome the violence wielded against us by our opposition. Essentially, the same sentiment shared by killer Mike in the second RTJ quote mentioned in this video.
Run the Jewels is truly a great duo & superb project. Everyone of their albums are great.
My life was changed by the videos EJ and Luna make. Ik they aren't small creators, but their welcoming attitude and decent analysis helped me a lot
9:59 There's a reason we've had Zach screaming 'wake up' at the top of his lungs since 1992. No matter how loud you go or how hard, you have to get through. Not saying that's cause to despair, just that it's never as easy as just being right.
This is a fantastic video! I belive haveing an ex-cop voice can bring a lot of perspective to the left, and I hope you create more videos such as these. I remember a video where you said you didn't just want to be the cop guy who went left, or something like that, and I understand, yet a voice like yours could be very eye-opening to many.
As a musician wondering what the hell am I even doing here to help anyone in these times, wishing I could be a doctor or something, this is really well timed. Thank you.
moments of realisation & shifts in consciousness like this are deeply interesting to me because so often people are resistant (even when provided with hard evidence somehow.) excellent as usual big man
Hi I’m a small leftist RUclipsr in Minneapolis no one has ever heard of lol. Thanks for making this video, it’s inspiring and motivating. One of the big things that pushed me from neoliberalism to radical feminist anarchist was actually a video series by the RUclipsr Innuendo Studies, called Angry Jack. It helped me kill the brain worm that everyone is operating from this rational, let’s make everything okay for everyone standpoint. I know it sounds dumb written out like that, but I think a lot of us are taught to assume the best in everyone in a way that makes us vulnerable for abuse and harm. Anyways, thanks for the content!
Also shout out to the online Nazi I encountered and constantly debated on a forum in 2013. Dude went full mask off and I got to see what we would be up against. Once you know they are fighting a war you gotta pick a fucking a side.
Be the rational person in a world of irrationality, if not for others then do it for yourself
I used to listen to rap for just bangers, labeling all rap as just talking about the same things, then one day I came across an album called To Pimp A Butterfly. It completely changed my perspective on ethnicity, and helped me change as a person overall. Never thought a rap album could make me mature until then.
for me this album was just reaffirming of my beliefs, but I'm glad it was so poignant for you. RTJ is my favorite rap group by far and it's largely because of these political stances. so honest and rhythmic. good on you for being an older dude with the ability to change your mind about things. p.s. I'm gonna make a little jam in your honor
Your talk at the end was very inspiring. We truly cannot anticipate the impact of our creations, nor the outcome of our life's past. Currently working on my first novel at 29, and am learning music software. Thanks for your insightful videos!
This video is awesome, and the work you’re doing on this channel is well appreciated. Many of the things you said hit right home with me, especially about appreciating oneself and what you add to the cause. I think mindset is extremely important, and we all pick up the current in different ways, but we all work together to bring the world that’s best for us all into existence!
RATM was a huge influence on me as a young man, as was System Of A Down. I appreciate this video and its hopeful endnote. Congratulations on being one of the only good cops, a thing that I wholeheartedly feel that one can only achieve by first quitting their job. I appreciate what you do. Also apropos I was apparently the 187th viewer lol
now THAT'S a 187 on a cop we can all enjoy! ;)
@@ThatDangDad Indeed I think that's something that this video touched on in a way often hard to explain to your average liberal. As revolutionaries we do not seek to do violence for violence sake, we seek to end it; However, as they say, sometimes you need to break a few eggs. Would Cuba be free of Batista's rule without revolutionary violence? Would Russia or China have overthrown feudalism through nonviolence? Would Vietnam or Haiti have been able to simply vote against colonial rule? Obviously not. We do not wish to do violence and when the left does engage in such acts they are almost universally in self defense or defense of the enslaved or otherwise oppressed.
i’m not socialist but very open minded and enjoy watching other opinions. your speech at the end about your artwork or creations having an impact when hitting at just the right moment is very inspiring. thank you!
Two things,
My friends for *weeks* had been unsuccessfully trying to convince me that voting wasn't going to get us anywhere but it wasn't until I listened to "vote for anything" by Menteroja and Johnik that the concept finally clicked.
Second, up until a few months ago, like a lot of leftists, I was mulling around calling this and that fascist without much rhyme or using, but a RUclipsr by the name of Post-Comprehension introduced me to the academic consensus on what Fascism is and since then I've delved into getting a specific understanding of fascism, conservative, and liberalism as their own distinct ideologies and it's helped me a ton in arguing against people with those ideologies
Voting does get conservatives places though, like the supreme court
Compulsory voting is one of the most important democratic laws there is. America's failure in this regard has been damaging its democracy for decades.
my husband introduced me to RTJ after picking up their album at a record store... he may have gotten directed to it by someone, can't recall. love it. forever. powerful stuff.
Brilliant work, bud! I loved the timeline graphics. I’ve never seen how ideas from different times can come into our lives in a certain order to grow our perspective so clearly explained before, and it was helpful in encouraging me to get back to what I was doing. Thanks for all you do bud!!
I was glad I had mentioned exactly 8 specific years cuz otherwise I wasn't sure how to depict it on screen lol
I've been watching you for awhile now. I just wanted to thank you for this message. I needed to hear exactly this, and I needed to hear it right now.
This channel is extremely underrated! I love it so much, more people should enjoy these videos
I love to listen to many rap artists, Killer Mike, Rebel Diaz, and Bambu, are my top 3 out of many others. And like you said, its all about hearing from many walks of life to at least give yourself perspectives on others life experiences. I grew up in working class families and had a sliver of the experience, but listening to the diverse artists, really helps me feel more for those who were not as privileged as I am.
ACAB all the way. And congratulations on your deprogramming comrade.
This is really encouraging and hopeful information that we can slip passed people’s awful thoughts to help make a much more loving world. 💝
it was a bit of jojo and a bit of my experience being an engineer that helped me grow and accept myself as nonbinary. See manly men do emotional things and beautiful men do strong things helped me deconstruct an identity i never understood. Being afab in engineering i understand the struggle women face but i never felt an identity to the title of "female engineer" it made me feel angry beyond being disenfranchised in an industry of predominantly cishet white men with conservative views. The BLM movement gave me the courage to share with my partner who i am
Jojo rules. Bucciarati is my masculinity icon lol
Hehe that's kinda funny 😁😁
JoJo slaps fo sho😄😅
Meeting someone at a lame party in sophomore year of highschool led to my discovery of PhilosophyTube and Contrapoints, which took me from center-left to far left in about the span of a year. Changed the course of my college education and social life, too. Thanks for the communism, Isabel!
Look forward to every one of your videos, your perspective is fascinating and very much needed. Keep it up dad!
Keep doing what you do, love your stuff man
That Dang Dad is an RTJ Fan?
Yeah, that Tracks! I think you look waaaay less coppish clean shaven.
BunchezanBunchez..🎵🎶BoooombabooooombaBoooooombaBooooombaboombaBoooombabooooomba
i have a fuzzy memory and i know a LOT has influenced me, so trying to summarize or name specific ones is hard for me
however, i will say i appreciate the insight into law enforcement you bring. it's actually made me sympathetic, and feel for the abuse all the officers have to go through in training. it helps for engaging with them, and others, who want to keep cops around. it's just another reason why police need to be abolished
also thank you for the second half of your video
I’m intrigued/excited by the Title of this video! LETS GO!! 👏🔥🥊
Someone once tweeted something along the lines of, " I think 'tomboy' was our generations way of talking about gender neutrality." And whelp.... here I am living my best life 🤷♂️
12:05 hit me so hard. I’m not a content creator or anything, I’m a physician, and I often feel powerless as a leftist in our current political climate. I have strong opinions and the passion and knowledge to advocate for change, but I don’t have the time (finishing up training, working 80+ hour weeks with the annual income of a waiter). I’ve been telling myself over the past couple of years that just having political discussions with friends/family/coworkers is better than nothing, but in the current political climate it doesn’t feel like it is. You’ve inspired me to continue my part in this and not feel so down about my perceived lack of impact, and not to be afraid to put myself out there even more. Thank you.
Also you just earned a sub haha
"Darkness" by Rage Against the Machine on "The Crow" soundtrack was the first protest song I ever heard and it was a moment. Great 90's alternative compilation on its own, but that song stood out.
Subscribed. I saw your “How Being a Cop Broke my Brain” first, this is my second video.
I don’t exactly remember what initiated my journey into the Left, but it was most likely little seeds of doubt planted along the way from works I unfortunately can’t remember.
It definitely helped that a few years back, while being in college, I got the opportunity to work with people from all over my country (Romania), within the context of an international student organisation; this most likely contributed to my open-mindedness not just for the sake of it.
This is especially true, within that organisation, for when I became part of a local leadership team (in 2019) and I was the only guy, along with 6 other girls.
Juvenile comments of “haha, that’s hot” aside, I think this had a huge impact on the way I viewed women as a whole, even though I was already on the right track from previous experiences with diversity in the organisation. As a team, we were basically forced to intertwine our ways of thinking when dealing with problems, and I think this really boosted my empathy levels to the max.
Then COVID happened, and sudden unemployment hit me, so while job hunting I had more free time; this is when I got into long-form video essays, so you know what that means: HBomb, Philosophy Tube, Contrapoints were my shepherds during the start of my official journey into the Left.
I could go on, but tl;dr you’re completely right about the “you don’t know how your work will impact people” part, and I’m happy I found your channel in the noise ❤
This was a powerful reminder. It can be easy to forget this when doubt creeps in. Thank you!
I hope this goes viral.
I am a guardian of the vibe 🌟
Edit OH SHIT!!! the Dysco Elysium tattoo!
A couple years ago, Canadian progressive metal artist Devin Townsend released an extremely well produced banger by the name of Spirits Will Collide. At that time in my life, I had just moved out of my home town and had lost every single person I had ever known due to a coming-out. Additionally I was unemployed with no chance of finding any job, no marketable skills or social skills and suffering from crippling gender dysphoria, depression and extreme social anxiety. I had never in my life been this bitter. The song hit me in just the right way. It very literally talks about perseverance in the face of absolute hopelessness. Living on simply for the act of living itself. Townsend's connection between kickass prog metal with lyrics like 'Don't you forget that you are loved, it's hard enough' and 'This isn't where this ends' cut so deep into my soul and made me feel things I hadn't considered possible. I played it dozens of times on repeat, crying on the couch with my eyes closed, in my mind my future and past selves visualized and materialized into an epic struggle of my deepest emotions. Something in me changed that day, I've never been the same since. In the years past that I have found true love, my dream job, have massively improved on my mental health, basically turned my life around in almost every way. I've become a good person who tries her best to brighten the lives of everyone around her. Without Spirits Will Collide, I would have never been able to grow this way. Some of you will look up the song and find it extremely cringe, which yea, I can't disagree with that. But it was exactly what I needed in that moment.
Under the right conditions, cringe can be based.
What brought me on this path was typical classical Punk rock of the 80s and then stuff like Anti-Flag. Only rap stuff I got into was the Beastie Boys. Then I heard RATM and then got into more Rap and now I like Rap as much as the metal and punk genres.
what you do just hit me just right. thank you.
This is a fantastic album. I love Run The Jewels. Killer Mike's solo work is also excellent
This video feels like it’s the first time I’m seeing you, but I think I’ve seen one or two of your videos before. Anyway, to respond to your call to action and your question on who has impacted me in some innocuous, albeit impactful, way you have with this video. Your description on how you changed your mind. Your time table on how you went from one belief you one diametrically opposed to it. I resonate with that so much.
I’ve been wanting to start something up for so long now but I’ve never had the right spark, the right motivation, the right means to get off my ass and into the trenches.
The last five minutes of this video is exactly that motivation I need. An inspiration for me to make a podcast called no body asked, because well no one has ever really asked me about what I think. This has made me come off as shy, uninformed, unintelligent, undesirable, unnoticeable… all because I just don’t speak my mind because no one asks me. I’m more than happy to do so, but no one offers me that platform. So instead of waiting I’m simply going to craft my own platform and invite others to join if they’d like.
Thank you so much!
Hells yeah! I flippin love Killer Mike. Run the Jewels definitely contributed to my leftist radicalization.
JU$T is still on my repeat playlist atm ^_^ (my bad this is from RTJ4)
JU$T is my favorite from RTJ4. Basically if you let Zack de la Rocha guest on your track, that's my favorite
Is this reverse clickbait? You delivered exactly what the title says and then added one of the most encouraging messages I've ever heard. What a bonus!
My gateway was Dead Kennedys "Frankenchrist" album, which led me to getting the others, then his Lard albums, then his spoken word double and triple CDs (remember those?) then his collaboration with Mojo Nixon "Prairie Home Invasion," which led me to researching American folk songs as a part of history of the labor movement, and etc etc etc.
As a black Minnesotan who has organized for BLM and fought against police brutality and is deeply traumatized from it I’m SO thankful to hear that you found the light and I didn’t have to stand across lines against you.
Knowing that people can change and step away from the cult of copoganda gives me hope that fighting against police brutality and for abolition isn’t fruitless work. People do learn and change.
BLM bought mansions over your trauma and effort.
Excited to watch this one later
If I hadn't been beforehand, this video would've made me a subscriber! I'm always SO happy to find other Jewel Runners! "Everybody down throw the pistol and fist!"
During my childhood I wasn’t too interested in music. Yes I would listen to it quite often and played in band at school but it wasn’t something I was particularly passionate about it. I just saw it as either a class to do or a medium to consume much like movies or video games. That was until I started to listen to hip hop during middle school. The genre’s way of storytelling and vocal structure was something that really intrigued me. I also watched a lot of video of rappers free-styling and just being themselves and I thought they were so cool and I wanted to emulate their brand of charisma, so I started to write raps of my own and soon I became addicted coming up with rhymes and telling stories through rap. It made me want to be a rapper and make my own songs which lead me to learning how to make music digitally and I had a lot of fun making them so I picked up the piano and guitar just so I can play and make more music. Now, I am about to become a senior in high school and Music (especially rapping) is all I want to do and all I see myself doing after I graduate and I will stop at nothing in order to achieve my dream of becoming a rapper.
As far I'm concerned you're already a rapper you just ain't getting paid for it. Yet
Also if you've created anything yet you should post on here and let me know when you do
Thank you man. I'm a fan of RTJ which is probably why the algo suggested you but loved your perception on them and what impact they made on you. While also reminding me to finish this damn album that I've been working on since 2012/2013. You're absolutely right, I'm not sure what my work will do for others just yet.
Complete opposite end of the musical spectrum (and far less explicit politically), but one of my first musical touches of leftist rebellion came from Accept's classic metal anthem "Balls to the Wall" ("Watch the damned! They're gonna break their chains!"). The blood-pumping guitar riffs and evocative lyrics made me think more often about rebellion and righteous anger against oppression.
More local and more politically explicit angles, Brazilian band Nação Zumbi with its incredible "manguebeat" and brazen political messaging (one of their songs, "Banditismo por uma questão de classe", opens with a verbal salute to the Black Panthers, Zapata and other leftist revolutionaires) also ended up making a huge impact.
This tale of all the influences, and the call to create... much appreciated. I hope I can get over my mental road-blocks and create. I definitely have ideas for stuff. Thanks, Phil!
Ghost's album "Prequelle" helped me deal with Covid as well as with my mother's death. After I was able to get back into wrestling, I used songs from that and other albums as inspiration for promoting matches and what I put into storylines.
Ghost rules
I'm glad I found this channel. Love the vibe and the information within the video. Keep up the great work!
Holy crap that line from Close Your Eyes hit like a truck. Wish I had heard this back in my cop days. Could have helped. Putting this on now.
This is a great story. Thanks for sharing. What set me on the path of radicalization was the realization that of all the times I was arrested as a youth I never ended up with a criminal record yet all the POC I ran with ended up entangled in the criminal justice system. We would get arrested together but cops would always say something like" you seem like a good kid and deserve another chance" and I would get let go with a warning. Once I figured out that the color of my skin had something to do with me being a " good kid" I could never look at the world in the same way.
Ty for good content
This is a very succinct analysis of the current state of hip hop and how it is impacting the American landscape
It's always interesting and enlightening to hear these things from the angle of someone who's worked law enforcement, thanks for the videos. Also two questions:
1. Is there somewhere we can get hold of the music you make for the videos? They're incredible bangers.
2. Where the hell do I get that T-shirt?
I throw them up on Soundcloud whenever I remember. I'll try to do that tonight
As for the shirt, I've had this for years, no recollection where I got it :(
@@ThatDangDad Extremely dope, thank you! Also I love the tattoo, I'm glad Disco Elysium has resonated so hard with people
I don't mix and master very well (cuz I'm lazy and don't need to for title music lol) so YMMV on if this sounds good on a car stereo but here ya go - soundcloud.com/tehomfm/abolicious
Maybe I agree with you. And, perhaps, I downloaded this video and watched it a bunch of times. And, hypothetically, in the video I plan on making I choose to reference this channel because of the amazing content therein. And then, MAYBE, I specifically say this is a channel I would highly recommend to anyone that may have felt the police have ever over stepped their bounds. I guess, in such specific conditions, AND ALSO because I, myself, enjoy RTJ, well, then, I have to say,
I've enjoyed this video so much. Keep it up. Please.
who's to say whether or not i enjoyed this comment...
Love your channel!
Your end graph about how randomly we hopscotch around to build or challenge our worldviews was such a great visualization. Could easily be a cool video itself. Anybody who has questioned themselves or b questioned ideas have similar paths they could share. Such a real cool thing to think about: how you got where you are.
My own political growth story involves video games, music, and the right ppl at the right time. I enjoy thinking about how random and improbable events or connections have life long impacts.
Thank you for pointing out that you never know what effect you may have on ppl.
Just saw you asked us to share at end. Here's my quick version:
I grew up in a relatively apolitical home. Some music I listened to in high school primed me for ideas (system of a down, rage, etc). Thanks to an MTV show, I got introduced to a new hip hop group (jurassic 5). I got really really into them and they hinted at other people and ideas. They were slated to be on a new Tony hawk game so I had to get it. That game introduced me to new music. Incidentally, one artist I heard of from the game was el-p, half of rtj. When I started college, I went to the record store to get some albums. The store had flyers for a activist event which introduced me to some local activists and the rest is history.
Mtv2, Tony hawk pro skater, and other random factors laid the groundwork and I ended up being in the right place at the right time as a result.
I just found the channel and immediately subbed. As someone who has law enforcement family rn. I understand that if given better options and education they would take it and not be reactionary. And I hope to build a future for them and others to help humanity grow. Also Although Sanders and online independent media showed me I was more than liberal. I love finding left leaning and thought provoking music in punk, rap and every genre. You’re almost as cool as my dad dude :)
Just discovered your channel and just want to thank you for doing what you do. I work nights by myself and videos like these keep me sane and eager to make good use of my time. To answer your question, Codefendants - This is Crime Wave. While I was already an abolitionist, this album definitely fuels the fire.
A song by the band Strike Anywhere called "Notes On Pulling The Sky Down." I heard it at 14. It is revolutionary yet hopeful. Lyrics like : "... the rules are set to tear us apart...the system is built to keep us from ourselves... blinded from the fact we are at war" were the first little brain worms, Marx before Marx. Years later, when I was exposed to ideas like alienation from one's labor, and the undermining of class consciousness that is a built-in featureof the capitalism, the door was already open a crack thanks to one little punk rock song.
That last point you made is a really good one. I just recently watched one of Vaush's streams where they talked about the current supreme court attacks on your rights and people, of course, asked what they can do. And Vaush told them to go organize. But people kept asking what they can do besides that and he told them to go and canvas for the Democrats to delay the Republican's plans or to raise awareness in other ways and this and that. But people would not stop asking and everytime they were presented with another option, there were people in chat so sure that this wouldn't work, or that they lacked the ability to do it, or that there was some other insurmountable problem for them. And I think it comes from the fact that we feel so small and helpless and we're so sure that anything we could possibly do is insignificant in the grand scale. But, as you say, we can't really know that ever. It's just so hard to keep that in mind, when all the little ways in which an action of yours may indeed have a positive impact somewhere down the line, we don't ever hear or see any of it. It just happens in some far off place in someone's mind and you never get evidence of your good deed, so it seems like everything you do is useless.