what now? Books and resources
8 November 2024 [and occasionally updated]
The re-election of a literal fascist as U.S. president might seem shocking, but it’s not at all surprising. Here’s a good article to help put the current situation in perspective. The United States is a racist, misogynistic country founded on colonialist violence, genocide, imperialism, slavery, exploitation, and religious zealotry. Those aren’t unfortunate aspects. They’re built-in features. From this perspective the re-election of a fascist, white supremacist president — funded by fascist, white supremacist billionaires — is just the U.S. recapturing its roots. It's not a noble-yet-flawed experiment and never really has been. It's always been a dick-swinging, white-supremacist, patriarchal power game. There have just been a few pockets of nobility and humanity over the centuries that have served to temporarily push aside or paper over the slovenly, aggressively ignorant, bigoted heart -- and, crucially, to convince people who actually care about humanity that there is a legitimate chance for any more-than-superficial semblance of something called progress. Alas, it's always been a façade.
Here are a few introductory books and resources to start learning the reality about the U.S. and the forces that led to where we are now:
SPECIAL NOTE: Haymarket Books is offering “Ten Free Ebooks for Getting Free”, and I highly encourage you to grab them ASAP. They are not the ones listed below, but free is a great introductory price. If you don’t get them before the offer ends on 22 November 2024, then I encourage you to grab them anyway! Support small publishers!
Book: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong — James W. Loewen
Book: A People's History of the United States — Howard Zinn [It’s a bit long, but it doesn’t have to be read cover-to-cover. You can pick and choose chapters, which were written to be able to be read standalone. There’s also A Young People’s History of the United States, which is not quite as long :) ]
Book: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
TV Series: Exterminate All the Brutes — Dir. by Raoul Peck, based upon books such as the one above
Book: The New Jim Crow — Michelle Alexander
Film: The 13th — Documentary by Ava Duvernay on the same topic as The New Jim Crow
Book: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism — Naomi Klein
Book: Debt: The First 5,000 Years — David Graeber
Book: Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance — Noam Chomsky
Book: Are Prisons Obsolete? — Angela Y. Davis
Book: The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World — Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson [This is brand new, and I haven’t read it yet, but it appears to be a really good — and obviously extremely current — introduction to the topic.]
Book: The Autobiography of Malcolm X — As told to Alex Haley
Here are some good articles to help put the current situation in perspective:
Current Affairs magazine: How Standard US History Misrepresents The World — Nathan J. Robinson
The New Republic: Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won? — Michael Tomasky
The New Yorker: What Does it Mean that Donald Trump is a Fascist? — Timothy Snyder
Here are some ways to start finding community groups and mutual aid organizations in your area:
Mutual Aid Hub (U.S.)
Mutual Aid Wiki (world)
And here’s the part where I remind you: You’re not alone. There are literally millions of people like you who are shocked, sad, despairing, angry, and distressed right now. Stay with us. We need you and your ideas and your creativity and your love and your kindness to help protect the most vulnerable among us who will be hurt the most during the upcoming fascist Republican destruction. We need you.
