AE
The Social Security Act of 1935, the Wagner Act of 1935, the GI Bill of 1944, and other New Deal & Fair Deal legislation were all implemented not by a central federal government, but by local governments. Some of these bills intentionally left out protections for specific jobs that were primarily being done by black people (farm workers & maids, specifically) As such, these bills were intentionally implemented to “maintain the racial order” of Jim Crow. It was affirmative action for the benefit of white people.
These bills led to the greatest transference of wealth to the working class in US history and created the “middle class” as we colloquially understand it. However, the overwhelming majority of black people were left out of this transference. This has COMPOUNDED over the generations. Many white families can draw a direct line from these bills to their current material conditions. This has led to a widening of the racial wealth gap.
The purpose of Affirmative Action as implemented today is to rectify the federally mandated historical injustices of the Jim Crow era. It is used to right particular past wrongs. “Properly tailored and bounded in time, they can help transcend, once and for all, not only the practice of racism but its enduring legacies.”
I think every person reading this can agree with me in saying that we should craft our society where affirmative action is not necessary to achieve economic equality among races, but we have not achieved that ideal world. We could do it in a generation. We could eliminate poverty for all and have a much more egalitarian society. But that would require a lot more work than past generations were willing to push for. I hope you will join me in trying to achieve that ideal society.
This book chronicles, in a matter-of-fact way, the history of these programs and how they were INTENTIONALLY crafted to prevent racial equality. It provides the necessary historical context to understand why affirmative action is still needed today. It fits in well as a bridge between “The Souls of Black Folk” (1903) by W.E.B. Du Bois, which further elaborates on the failure of reconstruction, and “How to be an Anti-Racist” (2019) by Ibram X. Kendi, which elaborates on how to craft a more egalitarian society.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the history of race in the US and the history of affirmative action.
This is far and above the most important book I've ever read. Everyone in the USA should know the atrocities their government actively funded and encouraged over the last 75 years around the globe. We have never reconciled with these atrocities, and this failure is partially why our politics is so backward compared to the other wealthy countries.
There's a reason why so many rabid lunatics scream about “socialism” without having any idea what that word means. There's a reason why so many poor countries' citizens migrate to our country. There's a reason why the global south is poor. It's all neatly connected.
The US Government is responsible for the overwhelming majority of human-induced atrocities of the last 75 years in order to prevent the creation of a more equitable, egalitarian world. Now we live in a world with the US being the singular global superpower, draining the wealth of the weaker nations to satiate the unquenchable thirsts of the rich and powerful.
I encourage every single person who is reading this sentence to read this book.
Before reading this, I was worried it would be the “enlightened centrist” take on US interventionism. My fears were absolutely correct. “The case against regime change in the Middle East in this book is a practical, not a moral, one.” The author very clearly supports the lie of American Exceptionalism and cares more about utility than morality. He worked in the Obama Whitehouse so no shock there.
This book is a mildly more conservative successor to “Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq” (2006) by Stephen Kinzer. But it has a much narrower focus (just Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, & Syria). Of course we haven't learned our lesson since 2006 so the latter 3 nations are a new edition not covered by “Overthrow”. For those interested in learning more about Iraq specifically, the podcast “Blowback” goes into much greater detail and I would strongly recomend it.
The author is a pragmatist and steeps the reader into the “damned if you do, damned if you don't” quandaries that presidents faced when deciding if overthrowing the ruler of a sovereign nation would be tactically wise. The history of the last 70 years is clear: don't do it. The author has no moral code guiding him, merely a metaphorical spreadsheet and cost-benefit analysis. It's pure coincidence that he and I agree on this specific subject. He is not opposed to US interventionism, military or otherwise. He's just against regime change, specifically. This made the book extremely frustrating to read.
I would only recommend this book to those who've already read “Overthrow” and want to learn more about 3 recently added victims of US Imperialism, or if you're a liberal/reactionary who thinks interventionism is effective and want to learn why you're wrong but aren't willing to entertain the possibility that US imperialism is fundamentally unethical.
I'm not gonna pretend to know what it's like being black in the USA. But after reading this book and “We Were 8 Years in Power: An American Tragedy” (2017) by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2019, and a few others, I'm starting to pick up some patterns. There seems to be two camps in the black community:
• Those who see the poverty and brutality and suffering faced by people in their communities as being directly caused by their material conditions and those in power. This is exemplified by Coates, MLK, Ibram X. Kendi, and Du Bois. And...
• Those who see the poverty and brutality and suffering faced by people in their communities as being the fault of those suffering in the communities. This is best exemplified by Booker T. Washington, Bill Cosby, Barrack Obama, Ben Shapiro, every conservative ever, and most white Democrats.
As an aside, it's always a lot of fun reading really old books and seeing the author dedicate an entire chapter to just completely trashing their intellectual colleagues in the most eloquent ways possible. Couldn't tweet your shade back then, had to send it through a publishing house. Du Bois had an entire chapter dedicated to verbally destroying Booker T. Washington and it's the best chapter of the book, IMO.
So anyway, I fall into the former of those two categories and this book provides fascinating insight into the failure of Reconstruction. We've never reconciled with this failure and we're still reeling from it to this day.
I found this book fascinating and would recommend it to anyone interested in a snapshot of history not discussed enough.
This falls into the category: “The Lie of American Exceptionalism”
This book covers anti-fascist action before the start, and far to quickly after the end of, WW2. Yes. Antifa is as old as fascism. It didn't appear out of nowhere to unseat DJ Trump. It's older than he is. And Antifa will go away as soon as the fascists go back into hiding. If you would like to know more about the history, ideology, and methodology of the anti-fascist movement, this book has you covered. For those who have denigrated Antifa in the past, check this out if you want to better understand the movement so as to provide historical context and to help verify if you're actually just a fascist sympathizer.
Theory is hard. Reading theory is hard. But it's important. It's not for everyone. It took two different tries for me to finish this book. When we live in a world full of propaganda, it's wise to go to the source. My biggest complaint about ML is how the state can whither away while maintaining environmental sustainability, preventing environmental disasters, etc. Lenin never had to wrap his head around climate change, PFAS, superfund sites, etc.. But hey. Theory evolves. Read this if you're interested in theory. It's the most approachable, but there are more modern alternatives that might be even more approachable.
I read this book, then the Antifa book immediately after. Both show that, if you actually look at history and not media bloviation or your own biased opinions, violent action is sometimes (not always, not every time) justified in responding to injustices. We don't know this history because our media and textbooks are full of anti-revolutionary propaganda. Our 1960's history has been Disneyfied like Grimm's fairytales. We think MLK marched and then boom all the racism just up and vanished. This whitewashing of history is intended. It is purposeful. It is to prevent more radical, grassroots revolutionary action from disrupting the status quo. Learn your history. If there's one overarching lesson I've learned from reading all these books, it's: LEARN YOUR HISTORY before passing judgement, before making assumptions, before claiming you know everything needed to know about a subject. The saddest part about this book is that the version I had came out right before the George Floyd protests got big, which became the largest movement in US history. I'm sure the author will release a revised version that provides more historical contextualization of that movement.
You are not immune to propaganda. I am not immune to propaganda. No one is immune to propaganda. In a country that opposes censorship, indoctrination, and propaganda, that country's government would be required by law to make their files on media cooperation open to the public and require studios to explicitly declare any cooperation in the opening credits of their films, television shows, and videogames. After reading this and the “Lies” book, it's clear that the US citizenry is one of the most indoctrinated populations on earth. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn what media has been directly influenced by state propagandists, the methodology used by said propagandists, and the history of US Propaganda. [Highly Recommended]
This is one of my favorite books of the year. It is insanely fascinating and is partially a biography of my new favorite person: Major General Smedley Butler. A man who helped stop a fascist coup. A man who strongly spoke out against war, seeing it for what it is: state-backed capitalist rackets. Read this book just to hear some of the speeches from this man. Or at the very least just look up some of his quotes. He's amazing.
This book is about how Nazis came to the US in the 1930's to understand how we subjugated the Negro, and used what they learned to craft the Nuremberg laws. It's a great book if you want to understand the worst parts of US history. It also explains how the KKK were the proto-fascists.
If you can't bring yourself to read a whole book about this, at least read the 2017 Atlantic article that gives you the gist. The final chapter kinda derailed the book to talk about a bunch of legalese I didn't really understand. If you read the Atlantic article and want to know more, check it out, otherwise just stop at the article.
Gotta say, I just can't get behind this guy's ideas.
To know how to defeat an enemy, you must understand your enemy. This is the foundational text of the most complex, difficult to pin down political ideology in history. After reading it, I have come to the conclusion that I am very much AGAINST fascism. Anti-fascism. Aunty Fuh. If you want to have a foundational understanding of fascism (so you can help fight it) then give it a shot. It's pretty short.
This is really just a long form essay. Hardly a book but the algorithm recommended it so here it is, padding the list. It's a rather un-compelling metaphor for why being relentlessly greedy is actually bad. I was unimpressed. I guess this might be useful to some extreme reactionaries? But even then, it's still a 92-page book that they sure ain't gonna read. Show em the Einstein socialism article instead.
This is a series of speeches & talks by one of the last living radical leftists who weren't murdered by the federal government. I really like what she has to say but I want to read more from her. I plan on reading more books from her because this one was pretty disappointing. Lots of interesting stuff, but for being the first book of hers I've read, I wanted more structured substance. My fault. Not hers. I would only recommend this if you've run out of her other material to read. Anyone got any good books of hers you'd recommend?
I love talking with people about the policies I support: M4A, GND, UBI, universal pre-k, etc.. Inevitably, it always comes back to the thought-terminating cliché “but how are ya gonna pay forrr ittttttttt?” Before, I would wax poetic about taxing billionaires and cutting defense spending and the conversation would derail. This book will help you reset the way you think about “The National Debt.” The fear-mongering myths that the US government is “flat broke” or is “mortgaging our grandchildren's future” are just that: Myths. Modern Monetary Theory asserts that a government that has total control in printing their own currency (like the US, Canada, Japan, UK) cannot run out of money. We should not worry about the national debt because these types of governments should not be run like a household. Or, to put it more simply: Money isn't real. The stock market isn't real. “The national debt” isn't real. People dying from preventable illnesses is real. Homelessness is real. Childhood hunger is real. Human suffering is real. Let's solve real problems instead of bailing out the rich or bombing more countries. There is no excuse for solving these real problems beyond greed and selfishness. I recommend this book to anyone who is tired of hearing “But how are we going to payyy for it” When bringing up systemic solutions to the needless suffering of billions.
Highly Recommended
I was never interested in history while in school. I didn't take a single history class in college. But over the last 3 years, I've learned the vast importance of understanding human history and how it shapes our present. (Thank you DJT for making me hate listening to NPR and switch to audiobooks instead). This book explains more than a dozen specific topics & themes high school history books intentionally leave out and the indoctrinating philosophies injected into them (spoiler alert: it's white ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, sexism, class erasure, and nationalism). It also explains why the corporations who “write” these books have a vested interest in making them terrible for students. I STRONGLY implore every teacher read this book. I also very much recommend every current or former student who found history boring to read this book to understand why, and learn what you missed.
Highly Recommend
When this book was first published, I came across the author's AMA and thought was interesting. I was trying to get all my ebooks & audiobooks from the library at the time, so I recommended they add it to their collection. In 2020, they emailed me saying it's been added to their collection so I gave it a read. I had this big block of text written out for it's own separate review after finishing it a few months ago but never got around to posting it. I intend on doing more in-depth reviews of books as I finish them next year, unless I don't. Who knows?
Popular psychology books like this one are written for laymen. There's this small area between “edgy freshman psych student who thinks their references and jokes are funnier than they really are” and “just a phd thesis in book form” where I find pop-psy enjoyable to read. This book falls wayy off the cliff on the former side. The bad jokes, dumbed-down language, and prolific use of ‘I' & ‘my' delegitimized the research by emphasizing the author and his opinions. This was probably done because of the subject matter. But I did not enjoy that very much.
This book will help you understand that you're really not that weird for having fantasies or desires outside of what we were raised to believe is “normal”. The only thing I really got out of this book was: brief psychological explanations of why people have certain kinks & fantasies, and the percent of people surveyed who have certain kinks & fantasies. The rest was all stuff I already knew or bad jokes. It could have been boiled down into a research paper and I'd have liked it more. That's my kink: dry, humorless science articles about interesting topics.
I would recommend this book if you or your partner is interested, yet somewhat apprehensive, in expanding your romantic horizons, or if you just want to get a better understanding of the human condition with regards to sexuality, gender, and romantic fantasies.
Big Dick Wolfe here with another banger. People say they like Democracy. But if you like Democracy so much, why not bring it into the workplace? You want more individual freedom? Why not overthrow the small business tyrants and corporate oligarchs to give you more freedom where you spend most of your waking life, your job? I love Democracy. I want more Democracy. This book explains how to make that happen.
Highly Recommended
This book is a good foundational, introductory text for those interested in learning more about the ideology. A lot of people (like me) think Social Democracy (like seen in Scandinavian countries) is far too reformist to qualify as Socialism, and actual Marxists would concur. This book is all-inclusive, which I wasn't a fan of. It's an ok place to start but I've got some videos that might be better to help you differentiate the ideologies.
An interesting prediction of a totalitarian, classist, capitalist future. It's hard to accept a possible fascist future for the US that includes the complete abandonment of any sense of puritanical dogma and the patriarchal family unit and instead has a liberated sexual culture. Apparently a new show came out for this but it wasn't very good. They say this is among the top 100 greatest books of all time. Given my complete disinterest in reading fiction, I will abstain from commenting on this accolade. And I will abstain from recommending/not recommending either book in this category for that reason.
I had a vague understanding that “Free Trade” is actually worse for the working class than we've been lead to believe. Developing nations have more success in growing their economies by installing protectorate tariffs, then slowly opening their markets over time. That's how every powerful nation became powerful. But now the powerful nations are using their power to pressure weaker nations to eliminate any protectorate tariffs, causing more long-term harm to the people of that country. This is how neoliberals, the IMF, & the World Bank are actually neocolonialists: trying to drain the wealth from developing nations to further enrich wealthier ones.
Highly Recommended
None of us have even a remote understanding of the history of indigenous peoples because even the most undeniable horrors have been thoroughly whitewashed for the sake of maintaining the lie of American Exceptionalism. This book provides some understanding to the horrors that fell the people that lived on the land we're living on now, including the multiple genocides committed against them, starting with those committed by Columbus himself. They weren't the savages. We were.
Highly Recommended
This book is a more grounded & scientific companion to the book I read & recommended last year: “Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment” (2017) by Robert Wright. Both describe humans' thinking capacity the same: Instinct/emotional/“the elephant”/system 1 vs analytical/systematic/slow/“the rider”/system 2. A really interesting book to understand how we think about problems, and might help you think a little more carefully.
