Reviews and Comments

Harvey Milk lived many different lives before becoming the first openly gay politician in California:

"There were seemingly many Harveys as he drifted for years through various stages, fumbling to find the niche from which he could fulfill the high, vague aspirations of his childhood. There was Harvey the supermacho college jock and navy deep-sea diver. Harvey the high school math teacher and earnest mentor to young people. Harvey the buttoned-down Wall Street securities research analyst and cheerleader for the protolibertarian presidential candidate and darling of the right wing Barry Goldwater. Harvey the long-haired, bead-wearing hippie. Harvey the actor, associate producer, and gofer to a Broadway celebrity. Harvey the businessman and leader of a business community. Harvey the progressive politician and gay icon. Each earlier “life” represented some genuine (if contradictory) aspect of Harvey Milk—and in each transformation he thought for a while that he had found himself. But it was only in his final life, as an openly gay politician, that he discovered who he had wanted to be all along."

"He championed workers, women, racial minorities, the disabled, senior citizens—all who suffered at the hands of the fat-cat insiders. He fought hard for San Francisco’s strong gay rights ordinance; and he fought equally hard for rent control and the city’s divestment from apartheid South Africa. Harvey Milk’s politics were strongly influenced by his gay identity. But just as deep an influence was his Jewish identity, and especially the values that liberal Judaism holds dear."

Harvey Milk might be most famous for his prophesy: ""If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country." Milk would be proud to see the shattered remains of closet doors strewn about America.

If you'd like to know more about Harvey Milk, I suggest Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death by Lillian Faderman (@lillianfaderman).

https://slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1421406116

The popular understanding of the Dulles name today peaks in conspiracy theories in the absence of a necessary understanding of how the Dulles brothers changed American foreign policy and fueled the Cold War.

The concentration of wealth, power, and privilege amassed by John Foster Dulles (JFD) and Allen Dulles (AD) is extreme. As boys, they learned about foreign policy from their grandfather, Secretary of State John W. Foster, while meeting diplomats and power brokers from all over the world. After passing the bar, JFD and AD joined the influential law firm Sullivan & Cromwell using his grandfather's influence. At Sullivan & Cromwell, they learned to force the foreign policy preferences of America's wealthiest individuals and businesses.

Both brothers were heavily influenced by WWII. AD started to work in espionage before any organized spy agency existed in the US. JFD continued to support American business with the Third Reich while AD united junior partners at Sullivan & Cromwell to stop JFD.

In 1953 Eisenhower appointed JFD as U.S. Secretary of State and AD as the Director of Central Intelligence. Together, the brothers enabled the US to impose its will and the will of its business interests on emerging nations in the name of fighting communism.

AD removed a democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, and installed monarch Mohammed Reza Pahlavi after Mossadegh nationalized Iranian oil in 1953.

AD and JFD's employment with Sullivan & Cromwell allied their interests with United Fruit Company who owned most of the farmable land in Guatemala. The Guatemalan people toppled the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico and elected Juan Joes Arevalo who reformed land ownership in Guatemala and nationalized land that United Fruit was not using. AD deposed Juan Jose Arevalo by arming, funding, and training a force to install military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas, who banned opposition parties, imprisoned and tortured political opponents, and reversed the social reforms of Arevalo. AD also used propaganda from Mariano Rossell y Arellano, the Catholic Archbishop of Guatemala, to aid Castillo Armas' forces. Diego Rivera's "Glorious Victory" (see photo) critiques the American coup in Guatemala.

Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles were the instrument of American business interests as they used the Cold War to build states friendly to their bottom lines. To understand how the world sees America, you must know the Dulles brothers.

One of the primary reasons I read is to answer the question "How could life be different?" Stross (@cstross) answers this question with the kind of depth and world building that I appreciate.

In music, an accelerando is a slow increase in the tempo. Stross' Accelerando explores the impact of Moore's Law[1] on human society as it reaches the singularity[2]. Skipping from the simple, computer tools humans use to speed their thinking to uploading human of minds, and finally to massive Matrioshka brains[3] that gave birth to a new post-human organism. Stross explores human culture's growth through the harnessing of power on the Kardashev scale[4], growth in capitalist economics in Capitalism 2.0, and growth in legal structures as humans try to understand the legal rights of an uploaded mind. Delightfully satirical, several of Stross' characters generate corporations and then enslave themselves to their own corporations. Still further, corporations become sentient algorithms.

Stross' scope, depth, and satire in Accelerando make this book (free) worth your time: www.accelerando.org/2005/06/28/

For a more complete analysis, read this: www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=450

[1]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
[2]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
[3]www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP44EPBMb8A
[4]www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFK5_Nx9xY

7 days ago I asked myself "Why is Mayday?" Of course, many things have happened on May 1st over the years. However, if you are talking about labor solidarity in America, you mean the Haymarket Affair, something I knew nothing about.

I found an episode of the Most Notorious! podcast by @Erik_Rivenes that covered #DeathintheHaymarket by the late historian and labor activist #JamesGreen.

#DeathintheHaymarket uncovers the history of Chicago labor organizing around the 8-hour-day in the Gilded Age, its fall after Haymarket, and its legacy. In particular, Green covers the court that convicted and hung Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, and August Spies for their ideas without proving a link to the Haymarket bomber.

Green's historical exposition and analysis reflects his labor activism. However, he uses a great number of primary sources from the perspectives of capital, police, and labor while covering the Affair.

If you don't truly understand what people are celebrating on May Day and Labor Day, this book is worth your time.

I have long thought that the racial discrimination found in all parts of the US was a simple tradition of racism based in white supremacy. @IsabelWilkerson has disabused my of my simplistic understanding with #Caste.

The US, like the 3rd Reich and India, is bound by a caste system that predicts more about the specifics of American discrimination than simple racism. Caste explains why low and middle-income White voters seem to vote against their own interests and support the Republican party whose policies benefit the wealthiest people in America. Low and middle income White voters have more to gain through the Republican party's reinforcement of racial hierarchy than they do from their policies as America's demographics shift away from a White majority.

Caste is antithetical to the American myths of individual independence, equity, and opportunity, a fact that those occupying lower castes of American society have always been aware of. Members of upper American castes like myself that maintain egalitarian sentiments would understand more about America if they observed through the caste lens. If you would like a more egalitarian society, you should read Caste: slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/5257052980

If we can act, White people will start to choose democracy over supremacy.