Film Sessions: Those Darn Gravel Teens
Capitalism vs. Freedom
Ok, so as I mentioned in my last Update, I’m still trying to ease myself back into the flow of content creation after a brutally intensive month-long No Fugazi Podcast project. Right now, I’m struggling to finish essay length pieces so in between bouts of writer’s block, I’m kind of picking away at the smaller bits of content and post sharing I try to do in addition to my regular writing.
At the end of September I shared a short, educational video from the newly-founded Youtube channel for The Gravel Institute; a sort of crowd-funded, do-it-yourself counter project to the ubiquitous free market fundamentalist psyops on Youtube – a notable example would of course be the PragerU videos.
The basic idea here is to create short, interesting and eye-catching educational videos attacking some of the most omnipresent right wing propaganda that underpins our entire society to this day. While a lot of this stuff will certainly seem like an exercise in “My Little Democratic Socialism” to the experienced radical, the simple truth is that you have to start somewhere and what makes the Gravel Institute videos so effective is that they require no prior investment and rarely last longer than six minutes.
In this video, entitled Capitalism vs. Freedom, popular Democratic Socialist political candidate, law professor and activist Zephyr Teachout obliterates the lie that free market capitalism creates a more free society, exposes the dark underbelly of authoritarian corporate rule and the effect vast sums of private sector money have on politics. Of particular note is Teachout’s lengthy discussion of wage-slavery by another name and the hire-at-will economic policies in America.
Again, it’s not perfect but as a back of the napkin attack on capitalism, the free market, corporate rule and the power of monopoly, you could do a lot worse in five and a half minutes.
Additional Resources
The Gravel Institute Youtube Channel
Zephyr Teachout Wikipedia Page
– nina illingworth
