Confronting the Authorities

New World Notes #685, 28:26  (April 20)
Broadcast quality MP3 (39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB) 

Historian Jill Lepore

Two features connected by the belief that we need to organize, confront Authority, and radically change (not just "reform") the system.

First we'll hear Jordan Brown's short movie, Forget Shorter Showers. The film features a reading of a good essay by radical environmental activist Derek Jensen.

Then part 2 of Jill Lepore's article on the history of police forces, "The Long Blue Line." Lepore shows the police's roots in the control of Black slaves and in the military's imperial adventures abroad.

Environmental activist Derek Jensen

Jill Lepore is David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. Her article "The Long Blue Line"  appears in The New Yorker magazine, July 20, 2020.

Part 1 of "The Long Blue Line" is read in NWN #683.

Jordan Brown's film Forget Shorter Showers was released in 2015.