Books to read for the current world situation

[COVRTDESIGN]

I have started reading more, especially when it comes to trying to understand the mechanisms at which humans, specifically Americans, (Canadians as well) are programmed to believe what they believe.

I just finished, again:
Walter Lippmann Public Opinion. Written in 1923 and he was one of the most influential minds of that time frame.
Propaganda by Edward Bernays, (who multiple times talks about Walter Lippmann)
Jurgen Habermas A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics.

All HIGHLY recommended for what is going on right now and how to better understand the socioeconomic impacts and simply the people that you are around, that shape the narrative and though processes of politics.

I would love to get a "book club" for these political topics, so that we can all learn more and bounce ideas off of each other for the upcoming storm. Any recommending reading of any kind, is always welcome!

[thollandpe]

I was looking for Every Man by Jackson Katz, but found this instead.

The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Can Help (Frisco Book Review)

It really gobsmacks me how so many of our young men are drawn into a culture of misogyny, which is part and parcel to the shitstorm we’re in.

Also, I’m guessing that Katz’s days of consulting for the U.S. Military are over. Because a personified example of his teachings is at the helm. Fist emoji, flag emoji, flame emoji.

[Peter Polack]

Stolen Pride: Loss, shame, and the rise of the right-Arlie Russell Hoschschild

War- Bob Woodward

Lucky Loser- How Donald Trump squandered his father's fortune and created the illusion of success-Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig

Autocracy Inc.: The dictators who want to run the world-Anne Applebaum

Everyone who is gone is here: The United States, Central America, and the making of a crisis- Jonathan Blitzer

24/7 Politics:Cable television and the fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News- Katherine Cramer Brownell

The death of truth: Notes on falsehood in the age of Trump- Michiko Kakutani

Why we did it: A travelogue from the Republican road to hell-Tim Miller

Our own worst enemy: The assault from within on modern democracy-Tom Nichols

The cult of Trump-Steven Hassan

I'm not making any statement here-these are some of the books I've read in the past two years.

[ides1056]

James, by Percival Everett. Actually, everything he has written. Never underestimate the stupidity of a cracker.
The Premonition, by Michael Lewis. Get ready for the next one.
The Postcard, by Anne Berest. How genocide works.

[j44ke]

Autumn of the Patriarch - Gabriel Garcia Márquez

[hampco]

Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

Washington Journal - Elizabeth Drew (Yes, it's Watergate, but the hubris, corruption, and illegality are mirrored today)

[suspectdevice]

V.I. Lenin - What is to Be Done

Hamid Dabashi- On Edward Said

Thomas Sankara- Thomas Sankara Speaks

Sharon Smith- Subterranean Fire

Howard Zinn- A people’s History of the United States

Murray Bookchin- Post Scarcity Anarchism

[COVRTDESIGN]

V.I. Lenin - What is to Be Done

Hamid Dabashi- On Edward Said

Thomas Sankara- Thomas Sankara Speaks

Sharon Smith- Subterranean Fire

Howard Zinn- A people’s History of the United States

Murray Bookchin- Post Scarcity Anarchism

Any ones in particular to read first?

[beeatnik]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1324005777...=migrant%20che

“A chef’s gripping quest to reconcile his childhood experiences as a migrant farmworker with the rarefied world of fine dining.

Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes.

Mexico City–based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo’s story: from Máximo’s kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai’s first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo’s hometown of San José de las Pilas. What emerges is a moving portrait of Lalo’s struggle to find authenticity in an industry built on the very inequalities that drove his family to leave their home, and of the artistic process as Lalo calls on the experiences of his life to create transcendent cuisine. The Migrant Chef offers an unforgettable window into a family’s border-eclipsing dreams, Mexico’s culinary heritage, and the making of a chef.”

[COVRTDESIGN]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1324005777...=migrant%20che

“A chef’s gripping quest to reconcile his childhood experiences as a migrant farmworker with the rarefied world of fine dining.

Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes.

Mexico City–based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo’s story: from Máximo’s kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai’s first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo’s hometown of San José de las Pilas. What emerges is a moving portrait of Lalo’s struggle to find authenticity in an industry built on the very inequalities that drove his family to leave their home, and of the artistic process as Lalo calls on the experiences of his life to create transcendent cuisine. The Migrant Chef offers an unforgettable window into a family’s border-eclipsing dreams, Mexico’s culinary heritage, and the making of a chef.”

As a former chef, this one excited me! Thanks!

[suspectdevice]

Listen Echappist pal,
America IS the 4th reich. If you aren’t down with rounding up Nazis and Nazi collaborators and removing them from society- well, that’s fine, i suppose.
I was pushed into “libertarian” thought in highschool… I read the books, I went to the meetings, I volunteered for the candidates… and then the privilege of growing up rich, white and coastal wore off, and it became time to actually look at the world from a historical-material perspective.

Yes, i very much believe in Authoritarian Communist solutions to the problem of Fascism. Liberal democracy is not equipped to fight existential battles. The colonial boomerang is circling back on the heart of the empire, and closing in fast. If your peer group isn’t spending time at the rifle range and working hard at the gym… you aren’t preparing for the future of America.

[BBB]

Listen Echappist pal,
America IS the 4th reich. If you aren’t down with rounding up Nazis and Nazi collaborators and removing them from society- well, that’s fine, i suppose.
I was pushed into “libertarian” thought in highschool… I read the books, I went to the meetings, I volunteered for the candidates… and then the privilege of growing up rich, white and coastal wore off, and it became time to actually look at the world from a historical-material perspective.

Yes, i very much believe in Authoritarian Communist solutions to the problem of Fascism. Liberal democracy is not equipped to fight existential battles. The colonial boomerang is circling back on the heart of the empire, and closing in fast. If your peer group isn’t spending time at the rifle range and working hard at the gym… you aren’t preparing for the future of America.

If rounding up Nazis and Nazi collaborators and removing them from society is the aim, then maybe you'll need to access the Terrorist's Handbook for your reading materials (quickly followed by some hefty legal tomes if the Nazis et al are removed from society and the goon squad come calling).

[zetroc]

I'm starting "Germany 1923" by Volker Ullrich this week.


Recommendations:

"Twilight of Democracy" by Anne Applebaum. Also her "Red Famine" about the Holodomor in Ukraine.

"The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic" by Benjamin Carter Hett

"The Death of Truth" by Michiko Kakutani

"Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right" by Matthew Dallek

"Anti-intellectualism in American Life" by Richard Hofstadter

"Fascinating Fascism" by Susan Sontag (an essay - https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum4...ingfascism.pdf)

"Ur-Fascism" by Umberto Eco (another essay - https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/)

"Who Goes Nazi?" by Dorothy Thompson

"America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators" by Jacob Heilbrunn

"Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth" by Ingrid Robeyns

"Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning" by Timothy Snyder

"On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service" by Anthony Fauci, M.D.

"Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" by Hunter S. Thompson

"Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain" by Paul Preston

"Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation" by Nicholas Guyatt

"Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–1948" by Dan O'Meara

[beeatnik]

^ In a generation or two, concerns about Nazism will be analogous to Protestant fears over Roman Catholic hegemony in the early 20th century. The Matrix will not introduce another Inquisition and Nazism will remain a 20th century anomaly/atrocity. It’s history, man. Literally.

And, ya, there are a few hundred “Nazis” in remote Idaho.

[takashi]

^ there are various genocides happening now

[beeatnik]

In Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand and North America?

[takashi]

unless Gaza and Sudan are in those regions, no

[beeatnik]

While the reality of the Israeli state and its policy of ethnic cleansing can only exist in a world where Hitler makes war against England, I don’t see how National Socialism leads to genocide in Sudan.

[classtimesailer]

Not a book but since Genocide came up a Documentary is recommended:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002bm1y