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I have a book pairing to suggest if you are interested in anti-authoritarian action and horizontal organizations: A Country of Ghosts by Margaret Killjoy (@magpiekilljoy) and The Democracy Project by David Graeber (@davidgraeber).

A Country of Ghosts, a novel by Margaret Killjoy, employs a journalist protagonist who is required to report back to the Borolian Empire about their recent attempted acquisition: Hron. Like many early European invaders of the American continent, Dimos Horacki finds himself taken from colonialist forces and experiences a better, more interesting and fulfilling life with people practicing direct democracy and horizontal consensus.

Killjoy's plot is full of beautiful fantasy and keeps you engaged and inspired from cover to cover.

A line that just keeps coming back to me from the novel is "freedom is a relationship between people, not an absolute and static state for an individual."

A fictional romp through Hron before diving into the Occupy Movement grounds Killjoy's philosophy into the direct democracy and consensus building that you can start doing around you right now.

Like all of Graeber's work, The Democracy Project is a somewhat disjointed collection of effective arguments. Much of it shows a potential facilitator how to start thinking about running a general assembly. Graeber suggests readers study Starhawk's guide to consensus facilitation: starhawk.org/short-consensus-summary/

A line that I just can stop thinking about is: "the system itself was undemocratic—having been reduced to a system of open institutionalized bribery, backed up by coercive force. We wanted to make that fact evident to everyone, in the United States and elsewhere."

Reading this back-to-back in any order is valuable and worth your time.

Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs provides a rare window into the lives of Berdis Baldwin (mother of James), Alberta King (mother of Martin Luther), and Louise Little (mother of Malcolm). If you are a product of the US public education system in a white dominated area, you were probably taught about Martin Luther King during Black History month. If you had a particularly good English or History teacher, you might have learned about Malcolm X or James Baldwin. You probably had no chance of knowing anything about these men's mothers, which is a shame.

As Tubbs outlines in her book, James, Martin Luther, and Malcolm were raised to be brave, driven, revolutionary men. Tubbs account of Berdis, Alberta, and Louise's lives show proud and unwavering strengths driven by love against white supremacy. The way these women lived their lives is important to all of us to know to face the struggles ahead. Tubbs writing is enhanced by her choice to write it while pregnant with a child of her own. The audiobook is narrated by Tubbs and worth your time.

Neal Stephenson's (@nealstephenson) #TerminationShock is just the fun romp through the psychology of future technologies and problems that we should expect. Stephenson's central question for the work seems to be: when consequences from human alteration of the atmosphere finally catch up with us, how will we deal with it?

Stephenson's answer to that question is interesting. He starts with invasive species (anti-aircraft feral hogs), discusses the wet bulb over 98.6F problem with earth suits, moves to persistent disease (COVID-23 and COVID-27), and addresses the elephant in the room: climate engineering.

Overall, while climate change is at the center if this piece of speculative fiction, the mood is just so absurdist and full of pulpy fun that every page and new idea is interwoven and compelling. If you have been caught in the doom-and-gloom contemporary discourse of climate-induced global collapse, Termination Shock helps you to see a future without reflexively shutting out horrible truths.

Termination Shock is what happens when climate engineering is no longer maintained and climate shifts even more rapidly. However, because an actual termination shock never occurs in the book, I must conclude that Stephenson's title refers the mental shock of the termination of the status quo as neoliberal structures fall and everything becomes weird.

Also, does anyone remember mention of the Zone of Actual Control in #KimStanleyRobinson's #MinistryoftheFuture?

If your first introduction to Satanism was at a metal show or through South Park, you may have made the conclusion that Satanism is a religion that people put on to be edgy or to provoke Christians. Speak of the Devil by Joseph P. Laycock (@joe_laycock) is an overview of the American Satanic movement starting with The Satanic Temple's (@satanic_temple_ | TST) challenge of a 10 Commandments statue on Oklahoma's state capital grounds.

Deftly weaving between different American Satanic traditions, Laycock explains the challenges that TST has made against creeping Christian theocracy in the United States and the benefits that Satanists gain from TST chapters.

At Awaken America, on November 11th, 2021, Michael Flynn said "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.”

It seems that Satanism is needed more than ever. Hail Satan.

[Note] Speak of the Devil is on sale from the TST store and is biased towards TST perspectives.

If you are American and listen to the same antiauthoritarian music that I do, you know that train hopping is a common theme. The romance of a gutter punk jumping a train to get a free ride to a new place is sung from Woody Guthrie to Pat the Bunny (Patrick Schneeweis). After reading The Beast by Óscar Martínez (@CronistaOscar), American train hopping shifts from the romance of Christopher McCandless into the harsh light of day where the romantic veneer peels away to illuminate the horrors within immigrants traveling to El Norte on La Bestia[A].

Óscar Martínez is a phenomenal journalist. To document the trips that immigrants take to the US border through Mexico, he made the trip many times while interviewing migrants, coyotes, police, priests, and members of the Los Zeta cartel. His literary journalism covers the horrors of rape, mutilation, kidnapping, exploitation, solidarity and hope on the migrant's trail.

Photography of migrants on La Bestia: www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2017/dec/13/mexico-central-american-migrants-la-bestia-pictures

[A]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Bestia

I have a book pairing to suggest if you are interested in anti-authoritarian action and horizontal organizations: A Country of Ghosts by Margaret Killjoy (@magpiekilljoy) and The Democracy Project by David Graeber (@davidgraeber).

A Country of Ghosts, a novel by Margaret Killjoy, employs a journalist protagonist who is required to report back to the Borolian Empire about their recent attempted acquisition: Hron. Like many early European invaders of the American continent, Dimos Horacki finds himself taken from colonialist forces and experiences a better, more interesting and fulfilling life with people practicing direct democracy and horizontal consensus.

Killjoy's plot is full of beautiful fantasy and keeps you engaged and inspired from cover to cover.

A line that just keeps coming back to me from the novel is "freedom is a relationship between people, not an absolute and static state for an individual."

A fictional romp through Hron before diving into the Occupy Movement grounds Killjoy's philosophy into the direct democracy and consensus building that you can start doing around you right now.

Like all of Graeber's work, The Democracy Project is a somewhat disjointed collection of effective arguments. Much of it shows a potential facilitator how to start thinking about running a general assembly. Graeber suggests readers study Starhawk's guide to consensus facilitation: starhawk.org/short-consensus-summary/

A line that I just can stop thinking about is: "the system itself was undemocratic—having been reduced to a system of open institutionalized bribery, backed up by coercive force. We wanted to make that fact evident to everyone, in the United States and elsewhere."

Reading this back-to-back in any order is valuable and worth your time.

I must admit I have an obsession. I can't stop listening to Roman Mars' voice. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not sure what kind of 12-step-program exists for my problem.

While listening to the podcast (@99piorg) while doing dishes, I learned that Roman Mars (@romanmars) and Kurt Kohlstedt (@KurtKohlstedt) were taking their research into the design of cities and turning it into a field guide. I opted to listen to the book. When I started the first chapter, I was somehow surprised to hear that Mars was reading it: sweet sweet heroin. I was listening to the final chapters and the discussion of the methodology in creating the book in just a couple days. It was glorious.

On a very cursory level, The 99% Invisible City covers the 99% Invisible podcast episodes that relate to the design of the built environment in cities. However, the book organizes the podcast's wondering focus into chapters covering the large themes of city design. It is also clear that Mars and Kohlstedt took a great deal of time to update and broaden the information originally recorded on the podcast. Unlike most audiobooks, this one contains a score that adds that designed touch you'd expect.

I can't recommend that you partake in my addiction, but if you are already hooked on the 99%, you should really listen to the book.