January 2019 Acquisitions

Books:
Bill Finger et al, Batman Arkham: Clayface, 2017.
Nelson George, Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America, 2014.
Geoff Johns et al, Batman Arkham: Joker's Daughter, 2017.
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give, 2017.
The Little Black Songbook: Queen, 2012.

Music:
Syd Barrett, The Peel Sessions, 1991.
Sam Cooke, Eight Classic Albums, 2013.
Bob Dylan, Self Portrait, 1970.
George Harrison, Wonderwall Music, 1968.
Rick James, Rarities Edition: Street Songs, 2010.
Various, Blues Masters, Vol. 5: Jump Blues Classics, 1992.

"There Is a Growing Cost to Pretending We've Arrived at a Settled Consensus About Their Answers, or to Denying That They Are Even Real Questions"

"It is an inconvenient truth that there are many people who see the political landscape differently than we do, placing X at the center of their vision when we are sure they should be focusing on Y. It makes sense to try and convince such people that their vision is distorted, but we cross into a different territory entirely by insisting that X is actually a mirage. What you're talking about doesn't exist—and, even if it does, it's so insignificant that your desire to focus on it merely betrays your hidden agenda or bias. In other contexts, this mode of argument has been derided as gaslighting, or denialism, yet it has become increasingly common in liberal and leftist writing."

Anastasia Berg and Jon Baskin at The Point warn against short-circuiting debate.

"Classic Supply Side Rubbish"

"Cutting taxes on big corporations and the wealthy doesn't stimulate investment. It only creates a bigger national debt that has to be paid off somehow, sometime.
"And who's going to have to pay it off, either in higher taxes or fewer government services? You guessed it. Average Americans, who are already being shafted by Trump's policies.

Robert Reich at The Guardian writes that "Trumponomics is an abject failure."

"It Has Touched Almost Every Aspect of Cultural and Commercial Production"

"The school's founding proclamation made no mention of industry or new technology. Instead, it called for 'a new guild of craftsmen, free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavoured to raise a prideful barrier between craftsmen and artists!' It aimed to break down barriers between art and different forms of craft. It dreamt of 'a new building of the future that will unite every discipline', which would 'rise to heaven from the hands of a million workers as a crystal symbol of a new faith'."

Rowan Moore at The Guardian marks the centennial of the Bauhaus.

"Stop Thinking Like Individuals"

"If affordable mass transit isn't available, people will commute with cars. If local organic food is too expensive, they won't opt out of fossil fuel-intensive super-market chains. If cheap mass produced goods flow endlessly, they will buy and buy and buy. This is the con-job of neoliberalism: to persuade us to address climate change through our pocket-books, rather than through power and politics."

In a 2017 Guardian article, Martin Lukacs argues that "it's only mass movements that have the power to alter the trajectory of the climate crisis."

Arguing the World

"Dr. Glazer was one of the last survivors of a remarkable mid-century group, the New York Intellectuals. Its members were largely Jewish and, at least originally, almost exclusively on the left. Prizing argumentative brilliance, they excelled at hammer-and-tongs debate. The art critic Harold Rosenberg, a senior member, famously labeled the group 'a herd of independent minds.'"

Mark Feeney at The Boston Globe reports the death of Nathan Glazer.

"Is This the Future of Funny?"

"As if to clinch that point, just before Christmas, Russian-British comedian Konstantin Kisin pulled out of a gig for the Unicef on Campus society at London's School of Oriental and African Studies after refusing to sign a 'behavioural agreement form'. The form stated: 'By signing this contract, you are agreeing to our no-tolerance policy with regards to racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism.' Kisin told the Daily Mail: 'I grew up under the Soviet Union. When I saw this letter, basically telling me what I could and couldn't say, I thought this was precisely the kind of letter a comic would have been sent there.'"

At The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries asks, "Is standup comedy doomed?"

"The Emphasis Is on Visibility, Rather Than Real Action"

"Women have historically been politically marginalized and disenfranchised, and with an administration and Republican Senate majority that is actively hostile to things such as abortion rights, protections for vulnerable populations, social welfare programs and access to healthcare, there is a real hunger for women's concerns to be taken seriously and turned into political action.
"Women's March has taken advantage of that hunger and is trying to satisfy it with T-shirts and hashtags. It turns out antisemitism allegations and lack of financial transparency are not the only reasons to withdraw support from the organization. Our money, our time and our energy is better spent on more substantive fare."

Jessa Crispin at The Guardian asks, "What has the Women's March accomplished?"

"To Come to Terms With the Failure of the Cause"

"The first and perhaps the most important thing to note is that his historical work was never purely Marxist. Far from being a 'central European intellectual', as some have claimed, he was influenced above all by French intellectual ideas, particularly those of the group of historians associated with the periodical Annales. Hobsbawm’s mentor at Cambridge in the late 1930s and afterwards, the economic historian Mounia Postan, introduced him to the work of the Annales, inviting their leading figure Marc Bloch to Cambridge and sharing in many respects their belief in history as an all-encompassing discipline, dealing analytically not only with politics, economy and society but also with the arts and indeed all aspects of life in the past."

Richard J. Evans at The Guardian considers the life of Eric Hobsbawm.

"Gender Dynamics Had Always Been Part of It"

"And Americans today are likely to recognize the names of the most famous temperance activists not from that work but from their efforts for women's suffrage—not that those two weren't connected. In 1853, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the Women's State Temperance Society in upstate New York. Stanton would even refer to alcohol as 'the unclean thing.' It became clear to them that giving women the right to vote was only way they could ban alcohol. As Anthony put it in 1899, 'the only hope' for Prohibition was 'putting the ballot into the hands of women.'"

Olivia B. Waxman at Time explains that "Prohibition and women's suffrage went hand in hand."

"Arguably Serving as the Most Politicized and Abusive Branch of Federal Law Enforcement"

"The viciousness we are witnessing today at the border, directed at children and adults, has a long history, a fact that should in no way mitigate the extraordinary cruelty of Donald Trump. But it does suggest that if the U.S. is to climb out of the moral abyss it has fallen into, it has to think well beyond Trump's malice. It needs a historical reckoning with the true cause of the border crisis: the long, brutal history of border enforcement itself."

Greg Grandin at The Intercept discusses the history of the U.S. Border Patrol.

"She's Never Known a World Where Republicans Aren't Cartoonish Villains Who Reliably Act in Bad Faith"

"See, what passes for 'good faith' these days is nothing but reciprocal class courtesy among the urban professionals. Everybody under fifty understands this. Most young Americans can recognize bad faith. We see it all around us. That's why the clash between generations—between complacency and truth, between the real story and the official narrative—has been striking to watch."

Jason Rhode at Paste explains why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has had such an impact.

And Aaron Huertas at Medium presents "A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments."

"The Similarities in the Language Used When Referring to the Homeless and How Trump Refers to Immigrants"

"Dunsky has witnessed Venice's transformation from a battleground for gangs to one that boasts several Michelin-starred restaurants. A self-proclaimed progressive, Dunsky says he fears that recent gentrification has altered people's sympathies. 'There is a fever of money in Venice that has nothing to do with its past. Whatever progressive elements were historically here have dwindled, and they're being replaced by tech money.'"

Scott Johnson and Peter Kiefer at The Hollywood Reporter describe, in regards to homelessness in Venice, "residents who complain about the problem and then go on to criticize every proposed remedy."

The Unworthy

"The election of the most diverse Congress in history, and the presence of outspoken women of color in a chamber that has been dominated by white men for most of its existence, was bound to provoke these responses. When people of color enter elite spaces, they make those with unearned advantages conscious of how they've been favored by the system. That poses a choice to those whose access to such cloistered communities is unquestioned: They can recognize that others might also succeed given the right circumstances, or they can defend the inequities of that system in an effort to preserve their self-image, attacking the new entrant as a charlatan or the group they belong to as backwards."

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic explains how a "focus on undeserving minorities receiving unearned benefits at white expense is not an incidental element of modern Republican politics; it is crucial to the GOP's electoral strategy of dividing working-class voters along racial lines."

"Has Her Fair Share of Conservative Admirers"

"'As millions of mothers poured in the workplace,' Warren writes, 'it became increasingly difficult to put together a middle-class life on a single income. The combination has taken these women out of the home away from their children and simultaneously made family life less, not more, financially secure. Today's middle-class mother is trapped: She can't afford to work and she can't afford to quit.' The book, which is full of practical advice for families looking to transition to a single income, ends with Warren and her co-author, her daughter Amelia, arguing on behalf of a generous financial subsidy for stay-at-home mothers, a policy that might have been dreamed up by the Catholic heterodox economist E. F. Schumacher."

Matthew Walther at The Week calls Elizabeth Warren a "forgotten reactionary."

"People That Were Complacent About It Are Not Anymore"

"After 20 years of talking day in and day out to overwhelmingly white groups of people, I'm really clear that there is a profound anti-blackness in this culture. In the white mind, black people are the ultimate racial other. I used to shy away from 'Oh, don't make it a black-white dichotomy,' but I feel really clear. There are bookends. White is on one end, and black is on the other. Your relationship, where you are positioned between those two bookends is going to shape how you experience your life. Right? The closer you are to whiteness—the term often used is white-adjacent—you're still going to experience racism, but there are going to be some benefits due to your perceived proximity to whiteness. The further away you are, the more intense the oppression's going to be."

Isaac Chotiner at Slate interviews Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

Re-Take

Mike D'Angelo at Slate creates an off-the-cuff version of The Village Voice film critics' poll for 2018.

"You Would Be Amazed How Much Time I Spend on Twitter"

"There are so many people who've helped me get here that I'm sure I'll forget some, but I'm gonna try. Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association: The work you do is very important to me, and I am so proud and grateful to be here tonight. A big shoutout to Richard Arthur Prince, Robert Blake, O.J. Simpson, and John Wilkes Booth. We made it, boys, this is for all of us! Harvey—what can I even say? So much of my work wouldn't have been possible without you. Thank you to everyone at CAA, UTA, WME—hell, talent agents in general!—plus studio heads, producers, and the hardworking people in the marketing department. Moloch, Mammon, you can go to sleep now, I'll be home soon. If I forgot to thank you, rest assured that there'll be plenty of time for me to make it up to you later." 

At Slate, Satan thanks Christian Bale.

"Camaraderie and Comfort, Conspiracy and Chaos"

"The incidents provoked an immediate backlash from the French political class, and a spate of soul-searching articles in left-wing media about what the yellow vests were becoming. They could have saved their shock, because despite the legitimate economic pain and despair that have been highlighted by the protests, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, illiberal politics, and violent insurrectionism have been inextricable from the movement practically from its beginning."

Alexander Hurst at The New Republic warns that the gilets jaunes "have combined legitimate economic grievances with the worst of far-right politics."

"Surprisingly Timeless in Ways That Are, by Turns, Delightful and Depressing"

"The stories that document the growing pains of the socialist movement, including its squabbles over the utility of electoral politics, have present-day corollaries as well. In the collection's opening story, 'An Old Fable Retold,' a group of chickens gathers to debate which sauce they should petition to be cooked in come Christmastime, scoffing at the naive idealism of a young chicken that pipes up to ask why they must be killed and eaten at all. It's a send-up of self-defeating reformism that, from the perspective of the members of the American left campaigning today for single-payer health care and tuition-free education, might easily describe the lukewarm pragmatism of Democratic Party centrists. Then there's 'The History of a Giant,' in which a giant named Labour discovers that while his associates Liberal and Tory both profess to have his interests at heart, usually around election time, neither group will let him propose legislative changes in Parliament that might actually improve his lot in life. (Again, the average American worker today might say the same of Democrats and Republicans.) The only solution, Labour comes to understand, is an independent party."

At The Atlantic, J. C. Pan reviews Michael Rosen's Worker's Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Allegories from Great Britain.

"Options Are Available"

"The Trump era presents a host of new challenges for evangelicals who believe in the Gospel—the 'good news' of Jesus Christ. The first step in addressing these challenges must come through a reckoning with our past. Evangelicals have taken many wrong turns over the decades even though better, more Christian, options could be found by simply opening up the Bible and reading it. We must stop our nostalgic gaze into a Christian golden age in America that probably never existed to begin with and turn toward the future with renewed hope. It is time, as the great theologian of hope Jurgen Moltmann taught us, to 'waken the dead and piece together what has been broken.'"

John Fea at The Atlantic presents a "very short history of evangelical fear."

"Government Can Rebuild the Pipeline to the American Middle Class and the Belief in the American Dream"

"For years, reformers have focused on the impact that pre-k can have on young people as they grow into adulthood. Now, cities and states are working quietly to revolutionize public education again. More than a century ago, America sparked an explosion of social mobility by creating a robust system of public schools that run to 12th grade. By adding community colleges to the nation's public-school systems and educational requirements, we can do the same today." 

Rahm Emanuel at The Atlantic argues that "associate's degrees should be as accessible for the next 80 years as high-school diplomas have been for the past 80."

"And So Why Not Have a Conversation About How Socialist Policies Don't Only Impact Our Economy, but What About Our Personal Lives?"

"The rising tide should lift all boats, but it hasn't. Certainly, in the last 30 years, we can see all sorts of wage stagnation, we see growing inequality. The contemporary moment of capitalism that we're in has created a lot of risk for young people.
"They're in a very precarious situation because there's so little of a social safety net."

Paul Solman at the PBS NewsHour asks, "Could socialist policies give American women better lives?"

"An Important If Not Urgent Question"

"It's fitting that Putin's campaign to reimpose official lying would culminate in a glorification of the catastrophic Afghanistan war. And clearly, that campaign has swayed the mind of the president of the United States."

David Frum at The Atlantic wonders why Donald Trump is spreading Russian propaganda.

Post-Trump Populist Conservatism?

"But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.

Tucker Carlson at Fox News warns viewers that "socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal people."

At National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty thinks this over.

Forward to the Past

"To understand the future of post-advertising media, let's briefly consider its past. During a period of the early 19th century known as the 'party press' era, newspapers relied on patrons. Those patrons were political parties (hence 'party press') that handed out printing contracts to their favorite editors or directly paid writers to publish vicious attacks against rivals.
"That era's journalism was hyper-political and deeply biased. But some historians believe that it was also more engaging. 

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic argues that future journalism will return to nineteenth-century practices.

Dancing on the Wall

"The 1980s had been a decade of social division, nuclear paranoia and endless strife. Now, if you were in the right place at roughly the right time, what seemed to be superseding all that was a profound sense that a new era was opening, and many of the miseries of the previous decade would be over. By the end of 1990, Nelson Mandela was out and Thatcher was out; seven years later, the fact that New Labour was able to seize on a mood of pop-cultural optimism was proof that some of 1989's spirit had lingered on.
"But as the Blair years would prove, the legacy of 1989 would also curdle into hubris. In the summer of 89, the American economist Francis Fukuyama famously declared the final triumph of liberalism and the alleged end of history, a belief enacted in the real world by the application of brutal free-market economics to the newly liberated countries of eastern Europe, which spread a resentment that still runs deep. The fate of the Balkans proved that the euphoria of 1989 was often completely misplaced. And the same arrogance that defined the western powers' economic policies would lead on to the Iraq war–a fatal application of the cursed concept of 'liberal interventionism', which was 1989-era triumphalism all over."

John Harris at The Guardian looks to what was positive about 1989 as an antidote to what is negative about 2019.