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July 11
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Alex
marked as to-read:
The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition (Paperback)
by John McMillian
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
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Alex
is currently reading:
Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out (Paperback)
by Chesa Boudin, Kenyon Farrow
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
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read in July, 2008
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Alex
is currently reading:
Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (Paperback)
by Dan Berger (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
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read in July, 2008
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Alex
gave
to:
I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Paperback)
by Charles M. Payne
bookshelves:
history,
movement
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in May, 2008
Alex said:
"a more detailed review coming soon!
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June 10
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Alex
gave
to:
Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times As a Weatherman (Hardcover)
by Cathy Wilkerson
bookshelves:
biography,
history,
movement,
sds
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my rating:
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read in June, 2008
Alex said:
"This is probably the most important book on the Weathermen written by one of its participants, tackling the many difficult inner complexities and questions that haunted the explosive project while remaining deeply committed to progressive social chan...more
This is probably the most important book on the Weathermen written by one of its participants, tackling the many difficult inner complexities and questions that haunted the explosive project while remaining deeply committed to progressive social change and anti-racist organizing. In the end, this book taught me quite directly how and why the WUO went astray, and how a lack of open and participatory democracy can distort even the brightest of movements.
Wilkerson starts off slow by talking a lot of her middle-class childhood, and first stumblings into activism at Swarthmore College, supporting poor blacks organizing in Chester through the ERAP project there, and winding up in SDS as the Vietnam War heats up. A few years later, Wilkerson wanders even more clumsily into becoming the editor of SDS' weekly paper New Left Notes, just in time for SDS' grappling with the emergence of women's liberation. She then spins off into the orbit of Weatherman, again accidentally stumbling into joining their cadre in Chicago just before the Days of Rage "Bring the War Home" through street fighting with police.
Here the book becomes deeply enthralling, full of enigma as Wilkerson delves deeper into the unique and strange cult-like Leninism of Weather, all the while questioning why the rhetoric and macho posturing of imminent revolution and armed struggle doesn't match her inner voice. In this inner conflict, the desire to belong and to sacrifice everything as a privileged white person for the national liberation movements of Third World peoples and blacks within the US, leads Wilkerson to silence that inner questioning voice and to commit passively to do whatever the Weather leadership (who appear to know what they're doing) tell her. Despite the apparent flaws of Weather politics, Wilkerson lets her attraction to certain male leaders and the appeal of being part of a revolutionary vanguard convince her to fatefully arrange for her estranged father's townhouse to become the setting for a Weather collective to haphazardly build bombs which were to be used to blow up a military Officer's ball, and the rest is history.
Wilkerson, an accidental survivor of the ensuing blast, writes with a determination and a wise clarity about those events that defined an era of resistance to US imperialism, and the errors taken by impatient movement leaders which contributed to the general defeat of the left over the next several decades. Now, at a time when the US is again openly asserting its imperial aims, a nuanced and complex understanding of where the old SDS went wrong is desperately needed, and Wilkerson here makes a major contribution to our understanding by asking tough questions, like
How do we build a revolutionary movement in the heart of Empire that is democratic and liberatory, while moving with sufficient urgency to stop the assault on the globe?
What is the role of privileged whites (and students) in supporting the liberation of blacks, Latinos and other oppressed nationalities when those groups demand self-sufficiency and separation from white involvement?
How can movement organizations sustain necessary militancy and collective structure (especially in the face of state repression), while also remaining supportive and nurturing of individual voices, particularly those of women, queer folks, trans folks, youth, people of color, working class folks, and others who have been silenced by dominant society?
What does revolution even mean in the post-industrial US?...less
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June 09
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Alex
gave
to:
Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Anti-War Movement (Hardcover)
by Carl Oglesby
bookshelves:
biography,
history,
movement,
sds
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in May, 2008
Alex said:
"Carl Oglesby, former high-level security worker for a defense contractor-turned SDS President, writes a personal view of SDS and the movement against the Vietnam War that is insightful, amusing, and cutting. However, Oglesby has a clear bias and it'...more
Carl Oglesby, former high-level security worker for a defense contractor-turned SDS President, writes a personal view of SDS and the movement against the Vietnam War that is insightful, amusing, and cutting. However, Oglesby has a clear bias and it's hard to know how much of his account (which is largely based on his memory of various heated conversations) is completely fair or accurate. Also, Oglesby's account ends up being more depressing than inspiring, as he falls into some pessimism about the prospects for movement building, largely based on his experience of SDS cannibalizing itself.
Worth reading though, mostly because it's a quick and interesting read that cuts through a lot of bullshit about the romantic 60s, and hits the reality of war and social change with simple and rough words.
Oglesby reviews his rise to power in SDS straight out of working for Bendix Corporation, and how years later this fact was used by the RYM/Weatherman faction to create suspicion and have him expelled from SDS' National Council (not Marxist-Leninist enough). The Weathermen are definitely the villians in this retelling, probably to a highly exaggerated degree, but not for bad reasons.
He also explores how his relations with his family, including his wife and children, and separately, his Southern family, were strained by his movement activism and non-stop work against the war, and how this related to his strong conviction that the movement needs to appeal to ordinary people who don't already agree with us, and not alienate them with more-radical-than-thou posturing.
Anyway, it's worth reading for the SDS history, but don't expect to be blown away. I'm following this up with reading Cathy Wilkerson's memoir, David Gilbert's book No Surrender, and Dan Berger's Outlaws of America to get a more well-rounded retelling of SDS' history. I also recommend SDS by Kirkpatrick Sale, which is the most detailed overview.
...less
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May 13
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Alex
gave
to:
The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (Paperback)
by Daniel Yergin
bookshelves:
history,
oil
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my rating:
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read in April, 2008
Alex said:
"Yergin's classic book The Prize surveys a sweeping history of oil, and its storied relationship to War, Geopolitics, and Imperial ambitions. The strengths of the book are its thoroughly detailed accounts of events such as World War II, The Arab Oil ...more
Yergin's classic book The Prize surveys a sweeping history of oil, and its storied relationship to War, Geopolitics, and Imperial ambitions. The strengths of the book are its thoroughly detailed accounts of events such as World War II, The Arab Oil Embargo, and the various European/American meddlings in the Middle East region. No other book takes such a comprehensive view of oil's geopolitical history, and at 800 pages this book actually seems short for such a major topic.
On the other hand, there are some severe limitations to Yergin's analysis. Yergin tells the story of oil from a mainstream/dominant perspective, which means the entire history is in the words of capitalists, heads of states, diplomats, etc.; in a word, the story of oil is told from the perspective of imperialism.
There is also very little critical analysis of the horrible atrocities committed by these powers in their "epic quest", so the oil capitalists and U.S. state agencies come out looking like intrepid realists rather than the greedy and ruthless destroyers they are.
Yergin praises Jimmy Carter for his "human rights record" and cautious attempts at conservation, but bland liberalism doesnt get deep enough below the surface, and he makes no criticism of the horrors of so-called "alternative fuels" like Coal Liquefaction, Tar Sands, etc. Exxon-Valdez, Three Mile Island and other environmental catastrophes are glossed over, and global warming is barely mentioned, leaving the reader with no real understanding of the environmental or social effects of global oil exploitation. Petroleum as a source of war and conflict is discussed, but not in a way that truly explains the sheer horror of mass-industrial violence unleashed by the energy source.
In sum, a useful book for background knowledge of some of the 20th century's grandest geopolitical events, but not useful at all for critically understanding the tragedies of those events, nor how oil has fueled that tragedy.
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May 08
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Alex
gave
to:
The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot (Paperback)
by Naomi Wolf
bookshelves:
history,
sociology
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2008
Alex said:
"Naomi Wolf's short, straightforward book is a warning that the prospects for fascism emerging in America are real and growing. She lays out 10 steps that governments take in order to concentrate power and stifle dissent, on the road to fascism, all ...more
Naomi Wolf's short, straightforward book is a warning that the prospects for fascism emerging in America are real and growing. She lays out 10 steps that governments take in order to concentrate power and stifle dissent, on the road to fascism, all of which are underway in the good ol' US of A.
1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat
2. Establish Secret Prisons
3. Develop a Paramilitary Force
4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens
5. Infiltrate Citzens' Groups
6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens
7. Target Key Individuals
8. Restrict the Press
9. Cast Criticism as 'Espionage' and Dissent as 'Treason'
10. Subvert the Rule of Law
This issue is obviously incredibly relevant today, and I happen to agree that fascism is an imminent threat in the US. But I wasn't terribly impressed by this book. Although I believe the author is or maybe was a radical, the arguments here are very very much within the liberal framework, or even right-libertarian framework, and the pro-U.S., pro-Constitution rhetoric, while serving a function here, does actually cover up the fact that this nation was built on state terror and repressive violence. It's not a new thing.
I think this book also alienated me a bit because it's heavy on scare-tactic language, and even some implications bordering on conspiracy theory. These all served to make the book something more of interest to the (largely white, male) middle class as opposed to the truly dispossessed of this nation, who would actually be the ones likely to suffer most under a fascist system.
What this book DOESN'T do is probably the most important thing, inspire HOPE that regular people can actually PREVENT emergent-fascism, or undo it. Wolf tries, but ultimately I think the effect is to actually scare us and the impression one gets is a gloomy, we're-fucked, bleak future. Intellectually, that may be alright, but if the intent is to move people to action, this fails horribly and may actually be counterproductive.
Worth skimming, but there should be, and probably are, much better books on the subject of the U.S.' decline into fascism....less
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Alex
gave
to:
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (Paperback)
by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
bookshelves:
movement,
tools-for-change
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in March, 2008
Alex said:
"This is a pretty wonderful collection of essays, put together by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, covering the rise of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and it's vampiric and co-opting effects on radical movements for social change. Some of ...more
This is a pretty wonderful collection of essays, put together by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, covering the rise of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and it's vampiric and co-opting effects on radical movements for social change. Some of the essays are more compelling than others, but I particularly found the historical background of the NPIC undercutting and distorting radical movements of the last 25 years revelatory. Plus the case-studies of groups that went for the 501(c)3 tax status and got the foundation grants, only to have it delegitimize and undermine their organizing, were extremely worth reading.
Why does that happen, you ask? Why does foundation funding have to liberalize and professionalize our organizations? Can't we sneak around the funders' requirements and strings?
There are a wide variety of empirical as well as theoretical reasons put forth in this volume to explain why an organization dependent on grants for its existence will become co-opted into serving the interests of capitalism and government, not their grassroots constituencies, so I'll leave it to you to read the book to learn more.
What's the alternative? Grassroots fundraising! Membership dues, selling t-shirts and baked goods, collecting for services like trainings, and good old-fashioned donation drives!
To be free to craft our own (radical) agenda we need to be self-sustained. Read it!...less
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