Yes, your monthly dose of electoralism has returned, you can breathe a sigh of relief again.


Estes, N. - Our History is the Future

In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.


Marx, P. - The Road to Nowhere: What silicon valley gets wrong about transportation

Road to Nowhere exposes the flaws in Silicon Valley’s vision of the future: ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft to take us anywhere; electric cars to make them ‘green’; and automation to ensure transport is cheap and ubiquitous. Such promises are implausible and potentially dangerous. In response, Marx offers a vision for a more collective way of organizing transportation systems that considers the needs of poor, marginalized, and vulnerable people. The book argues that rethinking mobility can be the first step in a broader reimagining of how we design and live in our future cities.


Malm, A. – How to Blow Up a Pipeline

In this text, Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop—with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines. Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women’s suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change.


Moore, H. & Tracy, J. - No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements

In June 1977, a group of white anti-racist activists received an alarming letter from an inmate at a New York state prison calling for help to fight the Ku Klux Klan's efforts to recruit prison staff and influence the people incarcerated. Their response was to form the first chapter of what would eventually become a powerful, nationwide grassroots network, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, dedicated to countering the rise of the KKK and other far-right white nationalist groups. This book tells the story of that network, whose efforts throughout the 1980s--which included exposing white supremacists in public office, confronting neo-Nazis in street protests, supporting movements for self-determination, and engagement with the underground punk scene--laid the groundwork for many anti-racist efforts to emerge since. Featuring original research, interviews with former members, and a trove of graphic materials, their story offers battle-tested lessons for those on the frontlines of social justice work today.


VOTE HERE

  • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I read the Andreas Malms book a couple months ago. It was a really good read, though not really instructional enough.😅 There's a lot of people around this site that could benefit from it. I wanna know more about The John Brown Anti-Klan clubs though.

  • buh [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    To any Feds monitoring this site, I want to go on record saying I do not approve of “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”

    • gueybana [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      How to blow up a pipeline is trash, trush me folks. You don't want to read this, try something else.

        • gueybana [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          gets lost in why we should blow up a pipeline (like, duh, we know, why else would we be reading this book?) and doesn’t talk about anything practical ie how to actually blow up a pipeline or organize. The farthest it goes to say is that you should focus your time on keying SUVs. It ends up being super lib.

          • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The farthest it goes to say is that you should focus your time on keying SUVs

            Oh so that’s where Robert Evans got the idea. From what I’ve heard it’s a pretty hand wavy thing. Like “imagine if 100 people went out every night and keyed 3 SUVs for a month straight”. Okay, how do you go from nothing to organizing 100 people? A real “draw the rest of the fucking owl” situation

          • Plants [des/pair]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            Yeah from what I've heard about it the title is a bit of false advertising as it's not actually about how to blow up a pipeline.

            Putting that aside, is it a good book for what it actually is?

            • gueybana [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              It’s short but I would still rather spend my time exploring these other options.

          • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            That's a shame, but I'm sure it has some catchy analogy that could reach libs about why violence might be the answer sometimes. I know how to put that argument in marxy term that makes sense to me, but would make a lib start whining.

            It's nice to really know your material and have someone else put it into words sometimes. Much easier to offload and adapt.

            • Sandinband
              ·
              2 years ago

              I think How nonviolence protects the state is an okay resource for convincing libs

          • HoChiMaxh [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            Due respect comrade, I don't think it's a good characterization of the book. He doesn't get lost in the discussion of when and why violent political action is appropriate, that is what the book is about.

            Off the top of my head the types of destructive political action discussed include shooting holes in pipelines, destroying heavy machinery for building fossil infrastructure by setting fire with oily rags, storming a coal factory, Molotovs in gas stations, but that is really not what the book is about and a cursory flip through the book or reading literally any synopsis would tell you that. You can find other books that outline specific tactics but the tactics aren't necessarily complex.

            I disagree that the idea that the central argument is so obvious it doesn't need to be discussed. If it was so obvious that we all have an ethical responsibility to perform industrial sabotage to end the climate crisis then people would probably be doing it.

    • HoChiMaxh [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Maybe this site will finally get Malm-pilled :inshallah:

  • corgiwithalaptop [any, love/loves]
    ·
    2 years ago

    So I actually have a copy of Pipeline that I'll be reading on tour in August. If we happen to choose that one I'll happily chime in from the road!

  • Sandinband
    ·
    2 years ago

    They all sound so good :stalin-stressed:

  • ajouter [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    you ever think about how crazy it is some rich guy just makes $5 million here and there and keeps at it

    like bro just give me some of that ill disappear for life you wont hear from me again

  • honeynut
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

  • glimmer_twin [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Damn, I was hoping choice one or four would win. Would be interesting to learn more about those historical movements that actually achieved something and organised people rather than read one dude’s ideas about something that should already be obvious to anyone using this website (direct action vs reformism/appeal to authority).

    I guess the book with the spiciest title wins lol. I’ll definitely be adding the other two to my reading list tho.