"That Retreat Is Shortsighted and, Ultimately, Dangerous"

"Free speech as a value has historically been the domain of the American left: In the 1950s, its archenemy was Republican senator Joseph McCarthy; Black civil-rights leaders saw it as essential to the success of their movement; and in 1988, Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush tarred his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, as a 'card-carrying member of the ACLU.' But over the past ten years, Donald Trump and other right-wing provocateurs have co-opted free-speech values to advance an agenda often at odds with liberalism and social justice (see Elon Musk's X), while Democrats, progressives, and, arguably, the ACLU have retreated from the ideal that free speech needs to be protected regardless of the viewpoint being expressed."

Jordan Heller at New York discusses if "there is truth in the depiction of the ACLU of the Trump era as prioritizing social-justice work over the viewpoint-neutral defense of civil liberties."

"The War May Have Been Fought on Battlefields, but It Was Won in Libraries"

"Hitler also reviled what he called Tintenritter, or 'ink knights': academics, writers, librarians. What could they offer to the mighty Wehrmacht? As it turns out, the seemingly pointless and definitely un-martial labor of OSS's scholar-spies and the Chairborne Division gave the U.S. essential intelligence about German infrastructure—the kind of intelligence that Graham writes the Nazis never bothered to develop about Britain, and that would have made its bombing raids even more devastating."

Greg Barnhisel at The New Republic reviews Elyse Graham's Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.

"A Post-Constitutional Moment"

"Instead, the special counsel's report delivers a confession of the helplessness of the U.S. government. Smith asserts that there was sufficient evidence to convict Trump of serious crimes—and then declares the constitutional system powerless to act: The criminal is now the president-elect; therefore, his crime cannot be punished."

David Frum at The Atlantic reacts to the release of "Special Counsel Jack Smith on his investigation of Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election."

"Ideas Themselves Have a Unique, Uncontested Power to Infiltrate and Corrupt Our Minds and Soul"

"This movement's profound fear of intellectual engagement reveals a deep insecurity about its own beliefs—after all, truly robust ideas don't require such elaborate protection—and, in fact, a profound respect for the power of ideas. You don't construct elaborate systems of thought prevention unless you believe, on some level, that exposure to new, better ideas really could transform society."

J. Dylan Sandifer at The New Republic explains "Why the Christian Right Demonizes Discourse."

Even the Stars Are Ill at Ease

"The more complicated answer is that these fires are an especially acute example of something climate scientists have been warning about for decades: compound climate disasters that, when they occur simultaneously, produce much more damage than they would individually. As the climate crisis escalates, the interdependent atmospheric, oceanic and ecological systems that constrain human civilization will lead to compounding and regime-shifting changes that are difficult to predict in advance. That idea formed a guiding theme of the Biden administration's 2023 national climate assessment."

Eric Holthaus at The Guardian writes that "[c]onditions for a January firestorm in Los Angeles have never existed in all of known history, until they now do."

Oliver Wainwright argues that "[t]he city needs greater urban density, not more firebelt bungalows." (At CalMatters, Ben Christopher also questions how L.A. should or should not rebuild.)

And Adrian Daub looks to earlier L.A. writers like Mike Davis.

Dan Walters at the Ventura County Star considers the criticism of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass.

And Mark Z. Barabak at the Los Angeles Times criticizes the critics.

"They Indeed Are Replaying the Shadow Side of the Revolution in Their Adherence to Conspiratorial, Violent, and Racist Views That Stemmed From Their Fear of Losing Power"

"Most liberals and many conservatives would recoil at the notion that the people who rampaged through the Capitol Building, injuring police officers and threatening to lynch the vice president and speaker of the House, deserve the label of patriot. Yet as we approach the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding, a candid consideration of some of the darker aspects our history, too often overlooked, supports the claims by rioters that they were following in many of our Founders' footsteps, as are millions of Trump supporters today—just not in the way they think."

Andrew Lawler at The Bulwark explains how January 6 insurrectionists connect to 1776.

"To Restore a Fundamental Principle of Fairness to Our Economy"

"But the FTC's decision to stop enforcing it decades ago triggered a seismic shift in America. It gave massive chains like Walmart free rein to squeeze suppliers for unfair discounts. Walmart's expansion went unchecked; manufacturers consolidated and shuttered factories; jobs vanished; and thousands of small businesses folded, leaving hollowed-out Main Streets and food deserts in their wake. Outside of the collapse of US manufacturing, few economic forces have done as much damage to the American landscape in the past 50 years."

Ron Knox at The Nation discusses a revival of the Robinson-Patman Act.

Nice Work

"He graduated with a first from University College London before entering national service for two years. 'After about three weeks of basic training… I was quite sure that I wanted to go back to the academic life,' he said."

Ella Creamer at The Guardian writes an obit for author David Lodge.

2024 Favorites

The Late Adopter selects...
Albums:
Nada Surf--Moon Mirror (New West) 
Cast--Love Is the Call (Cast)  
Green Day--Saviors (Reprise) 
MJ Lenderman--Manning Fireworks (Anti-)
Kid Kapichi--There Goes the Neighborhood (Spinefarm) 
Jesus and Mary Chain--Glasgow Eyes (Cooking Vinyl) 
Black Crowes--Happiness Bastards (Silver Arrow)   
Black Keys--Ohio Players (Nonesuch) 
Dee C. Lee--Just Something (Acid Jazz)
Paul Weller--66 (Polydor)

Songs:
Nada Surf--'Second Skin'
Cast--'First Smile Ever' 
Ride--'Peace Sign'
MJ Lenderman--'She's Leaving You'
Liam Gallagher and John Squire--'I'm So Bored'
Offspring--'Make It All Right'
Decemberists--'Burial Ground' 
Green Day--'1981'
Dee C. Lee--'Don't Forget About Love'
Paul Weller--'Rise Up Singing'

December 2024 Acquisitions

Books:

Babiuk, Beatles Gear, .

Bendis, Jinx, .

Eltis, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, .

Gaddis, The Landscape of History, .

Tamron Hall, A Confident Cook, .

Howard et al, Catwoman Vol. 4, 2024.

Val McDermid, 1989, .

Melville, Moby Dick, .

Elseworlds: Superman Vol .1, .

Movies:

The Aristocrats, 2005.

The Ipcress File, 1965.

Music:

Archies, Christmas Album, .

Bad Brains, I Against I, .

BellRays, Meet the BellRays, 2002.

Redd Kross, Red Cross EP, .

Various, Crime Jazz, .

"A Better Ex-President Than President"

"Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world--Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation's highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s."

Bill Barrow of the Associated Press reports the death of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

Jos Joseph at The Hill writes that "Jimmy Carter was the Christian most politicians pretend to be."

Lindsay M. Chervinsky at The Bulwark adds that "Jimmy Carter redefined his legacy after his presidency."

But Jonathan Schlefer at The Nation contends that by "[t]urning sharply toward neoliberalism (before that term was commonplace) and weaponizing markets, [Carter] set the US economy on its path toward lousy working-class wages and steeper financial crises."

"2024's Pop Was All About Sharing the Moment"

"And you could see it in the commotion caused by the return of Oasis. Whatever else you make of it, Oasis's oeuvre is absolutely predicated on collective experience: their songs sound like songs written specifically for vast crowds of people to bellow along to en masse; they're probably best experienced in the middle of said crowd, drunk, with your arms around your friends. Indeed, collective experience is so entrenched in Oasis's appeal that their music has literally become a signifier of it. In recent years, advertisers have reached for Stand By Me and Round Are Way in commercials tagged, respectively 'it's a people thing' and 'we can all do our bit for our community'."

Alex Petridis at The Guardian writes that "there remains an innate desire for collective experience, for music to provide a sense of community."

"Tedium, Skill, Pleasure, Camaraderie, Exhaustion, Power, and Freedom"

"While so much of Montgomery's writings were focused on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the worlds of work he described have ended up having far more in common with the way we work today than even he might have anticipated. Many of the service-sector workers who have started to organize in recent years—healthcare workers, teachers, screenwriters, actors, and, yes, academics—are people who have strong professional and ethical codes for their work and have become accustomed to some measure of workplace autonomy. They see their freedom at work and their sense of power to do it well threatened by the arbitrary power of their bosses and the sometimes faceless forces of capital. The American workers of today come from many backgrounds and many parts of the world, their politics shaped in part by their experiences in their countries of origin, as was the case for the immigrant workers of the late 19th century whose stories Montgomery told. They are people spurred to action by a rebellion against the imperatives of a new age of scientific management and drawn together by their common plight. They are artists whose day jobs in game stores and coffee shops foster just enough passion and solidarity to try to organize a union. All of this might have been familiar to the iron molders, glass blowers, coopers, and others of the early years of the 20th century."

Kim Phillips-Fein at The Nation reviews A David Montgomery Reader: Essays on Capitalism and Worker Resistance.

In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen

"All of this steered my own work in a new direction. I decided to write a critical genealogy of another cherished contemporary ideal: freedom. I wanted to examine why the identification of liberty with a minimal state, which seemed so dominant in the 2010s, had come about. In exploring this question, I was able to build both on my own earlier work on French eighteenth and nineteenth-century political thought as well as on a vast literature on early-modern conceptions of freedom produced by Quentin Skinner and other Cambridge School historians. In his seminal Liberty Before Liberalism, Skinner had recovered an older way of thinking about freedom he called republican (or neo-Roman) which equated liberty not with an absence of state interference, but with establishing popular control over state power.[16]"

At The Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum, Annelien de Dijn writes about "How I became an Intellectual Historian."

"'A Ritualistic, Disciplined Quest Through the Wasteland of Rabid Consumption'"

"Killian's largely five-star reviews of books, movies, poetry, CDs and the occasional object he may or may not have actually purchased (King's BBQ Potato Salad, Aveda Sap Moss Conditioning Detangler, Gerber baby food that is 'as resolutely sweet as a twenties Irving Berlin standard') are learned, often laugh-out-loud funny, frequently moving, guilelessly enthusiastic and intellectually generous. The biggest laugh is that he conceived of a way to produce a wholly idiosyncratic art project on the ground of corporate real estate."

At The Washington Post, Melissa Holbrook Pierson reviews Kevin Killian's Selected Amazon Reviews.