New Media We Recommend

Below is a list of new materials that we have read/watched in recent weeks. The comments are not a “review” of the material, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these books are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.

Revolutionary Women: A Book of Stencils, edited by Queen of the Neighborhood – Too often when people refer to or mention popular movement people they tend to still be men. This collection of short biographies makes the point that in whatever movement over the past 2 hundreds years there have been passionate and articulate women who have engaged in revolutionary action. The book features 30 women, such as Lucy Parsons, Harriet Tubman, Emma Goldman, Marie Equi, Haydee Santamaria Cuadrado, Ani Pachen, Anna Mae Aquash, Comandante Ramona, Malalai Joya and many more. Each description of these women comes with a full-page stencil image. This is a feminist book that, in the words of the editor, “delivers a swift kick to the groin of deep-rooted patriarchal history.

Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance, by Jason Hribal – What do animals do when they are abused and have their freedom stripped from them? They fight back! Fear of the Animal Planet is ground breaking, not just because it has numerous stories about animals fighting back against their abusers, but because it articulates the fact that animals have agency, they have the capacity to feel, to reason and to act. This book will not only appeal to the animal rights reader, but to anyone who really wants to understand how animals who are captive in zoos, circuses and marinas respond to abuse and deprivation. A sobering book, which also inspires.

Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, by Francis Fox Piven – This is an excellent introduction into the idea that what has brought about radical social change in this country has been through the commitment and efforts of ordinary people. For anyone who has read Piven’s book Poor People’s Movements, this book is an excellent companion. Piven, who is currently under attack from the likes of Glen Beck, look at how ordinary people have made changed and influenced policy in the US through what she calls Disruptive Power. The book is only 150 pages, but provides excellent examples and analysis of the power that ordinary people have demonstrated in this country in bringing about change.

The Other Side of Immigration (DVD), by Roy Germano – This documentary, which is based on interviews with 700 Mexicans, is an excellent resource for people who care about immigrant and human rights. The film doesn’t just look at immigration, it asked the hard questions about why people are coming from Mexico. Listening to people talk about the economic changes in the past 20 years, the inability to make a living working the land and the lack of opportunities, it becomes clear that what motivates most Mexicans to come to the US is to seek a better life and to provide for their families. The film is in both English and Spanish with lots of extras based on the director’s interviews.