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Curated playlist

American anti-capitalists

  • Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr. died at the age of 39, yet his autopsy showed the heart of a 60 year old, according to his biographer Taylor Branch. Branch attributed the damage to stress. The causes were many. King was jailed repeatedly, attacked…
  • John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a produce market to survive. He later won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
  • Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
  • Bernie SandersBernie Sanders delivered a speech in the United States Senate on the 10th of December 2010 that lasted 8 hours and 34 minutes. His target was a tax bill that would extend the Bush-era rates, which he argued favored the wealthiest…
  • Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.
  • Hunter S. ThompsonHunter S. Thompson's Gonzo style began as a Kentucky Derby deadline scramble. He mailed pages ripped from his notebook.
  • Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died four months before Blade Runner opened. He never saw the film that made his name famous.
  • Arthur MillerArthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in less than six weeks. He finished the first act in less than a day.
  • Malcolm XMalcolm X left the Nation of Islam in 1964 and flew to Mecca. There he saw Muslims of all colors treated as equals.
  • Mark RuffaloMark Ruffalo has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which ties a record. Each nomination came for a different kind of man. Ruffalo is an American actor and producer, and the road to that record was…
  • Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse analyzed Nazi ideology for American spies before students made him a hero.
  • Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky wrote his first article at age 10, about the fall of Barcelona.
  • Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin was eleven years old when she mailed her first short story to Astounding Science Fiction. The magazine sent it back. She then submitted nothing else for ten years. Nearly sixty years of publishing lay ahead of her after…
  • Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur wrote and recorded the album The Don Killuminati in three days. Mixing took four more.
  • W. E. B. Du BoisW. E. B. Du Bois died in Ghana the day before the March on Washington. He was 95 and had renounced his U.S. citizenship.
  • Erich FrommErich Fromm argued that falling in love is not love at all. His 1956 book The Art of Loving became a bestseller.
  • Christopher HitchensOn the 8th of October 2011, Christopher Hitchens collected the Richard Dawkins Award at the Texas Freethought Convention. It was his final public appearance. Christopher Eric Hitchens, a British and American author and journalist, had been…
  • Angela DavisAngela Davis was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, then acquitted by an all-white jury.
  • Cornel WestYale punished Cornel West for a protest arrest by canceling his 1987 spring leave. He then commuted to Paris to teach.

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