The Audacity of Hope

 The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
2007
Weight: 9.6 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

If I had not already been a fan of Barack Obama, I would have become one after reading his memoirs.  I cannot begin to tell you how much I miss having a competent, collected, savvy leader.  I know there are many people out there that can empathize.  His memoirs were great.  They were interesting and inspiring. He showed you some flaws, many of his strengths, his passion for helping people, and his sense of community.  The love story of Barack and Michelle was fun to read about.  He had a perfect past to set him up for leadership.  He had spent ample time in other countries, which broadened his mind, no doubt, but he had a clear love for America and was an established American (since that was such a big issue to the birthers, like Trump himself).  His work as a community organizer, his upbringing, his family, his being young and doing what young people do--all of it made him a real person that so many of us could connect with/see ourselves reflected in for so many different reasons and in different ways.

Obama really did give me hope and made me expect more and want better.  I did not feel like the things I had heard growing up about politicians held true anymore, not to me.  I was able to break out of the mindset that "all politicians are corrupt" and that "both parties are the same."  The idea that the government does not exist for the people.  I began to really think about just how hard of a job it would be to be the President of the United States of America.  I can tell you, even if it were on the table, I would turn that job down!  It takes a special person, and Obama was uniquely special.

I would not have wanted him to serve more than 8 years because I appreciate our democracy and the rules that are in place to stop us from having a dictatorship.  That being said, it is hard to imagine how different 2020 would have looked with a leader like Obama.  It is painful anyway, because the last four years have been so trying and overwhelming.  I wake up every morning expecting there to be another massive news event or emergency and, most of the time, there is.  I think of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, and I see it happening all around me.  It is terrifying.  

We are really in a mess now and, while I am grateful to Biden for stepping up, I do not envy him.  Can you imagine being the leader of this ship?  

To this day, I am soothed by Obama's words when he speaks publicly.  His voice is reassuring and his composure helps me regain mine.  I dream of having another leader like him.  What a difference we could make in America.  Also, and I never quite realized how much this meant to me before Trump, what are all the great American things that we could preserve.  This has been a scary time for our democracy, and I am worried about how much damage has been done, though I hope this is just the chaos of old ideas dying off.  The rallying cry of people who no longer have a footing in a new, more progressive world.  I want to hope that we are on the precipice of something we can all be proud of creating, even as it looks like we are losing ourselves to global warming, violence, and individualism.  Thank you, Obama, for helping me know that dreaming big is not being unrealistic.  It is important and necessary.  We have to dream big to make big changes, and the changes we make (for better or worse) will be felt for generations to come.

No is Not Enough

 No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein
2017
Weight: 14 oz
Method of Disposal: Mailing to Someone

Do not let the current climate wear you down.  

It is incredibly hard.  

I do not always know that I can do it.  It is challenging to dedicate your life to your work and family, and then have anything left over to help change the current tide of politics, but we all have a part to play in this community.  This book was written before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and in it Klein warns about what will happen once it hits.  Only, she did not know what "it" was.  She writes, 

"So far Trump's unending atmosphere of of crisis has been sustained largely through his own over-the-top rhetoric--declaring cities "crime infested" sites of "carnage" when in fact the violent crime rate had been declining nationwide for decades; hammering away at a manufactured narrative about an immigrant crime wave; and generally insisting Obama destroyed the country.  Soon enough, however, Trump could well have some crises to exploit that are distinctly more real, since crisis is the logical conclusion of his politics on every front." 

So here we are, and I am exhausted.  I remember a time when there was not BIG news every. single. day.  Sometimes, multiple times a day.  He is still on the offensive and all over the board, even as Covid-19 rages.  Remember the early days of the pandemic when there were news stories coming out of California saying that ICE was still conducting raids even as there was talk of releasing people from prison due to not being able to keep them safe.  At least it made the news back then, I suppose, so we would know and could be outraged.  We have unmarked security forces patrolling protests.  Do you remember when people dying in a protest in America had become shocking?  Now, it is hard to keep up with who is getting killed and where.  Meanwhile, the "President" chuckles about staying in office past his term.  

Klein writes, "People can develop responses to sequential or gradual change.  But if dozens of changes come from all directions at once, the hope is that populations will rapidly become exhausted and over-whelmed, and will ultimately swallow their bitter medicine."  She had already laid all of this out for us in her powerful book, The Shock Doctrine.  In No is Not Enough she writes about how some populations who have been through a shock previously are less susceptible to fascism.  They see it, and they rise up and refuse it.  She writes about the inverse of the "Shock Doctrine."  A "People's Shock" rising up from below.  She seems to have, somehow, maintained some hope that globally we can rise up and ask for more, save our planet from global warming, implement a culture of caring, do the opposite of what Trump proposes in the Art of the Deal.  My optimism was waning as I read, and I found it hard to envision, but I do not want us to stop trying.

She says it is important to have a Utopia to strive for and work for.  The one she describes seems worth a good fight.

Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People

Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture
An Examination of the Practice of Torture in Three Democracies by John Conroy
Weight: 6.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating or giving away. If I were you I would take this book from me.

I am currently reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism with rapt attention. I feel like I cannot put it down, though it is taking me forever to finish it. It is so difficult to read, but it is impossible to ignore. It makes me feel overwhelmed and powerless, but it also inspires me to resist. I will write about it again when I am done with it, but if you have not read it you should and if you have you should talk to me about it, even if you disagree with it-- particularly if you disagree with it. I am about 100 pages away from the end.
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In the mean time, I am getting rid of a different book. Unspeakable Acts was handed down to me with several other books that were equally grim. I did not read it right away, but the day I picked it up I did not want to put it down. Or I did, but again felt like I shouldn’t. If torture is something we, as a nation, will be taking part in we should have at least a vague understanding of it. Conroy examines torture that took place in the United States (Chicago) and in Northern Ireland (by the British). He also describes Palestinians being tortured by the Israeli Army. He explores who tortures and how they rationalize what they are doing, the effects on those being tortured, and the faultiness of the information gained through torture.

Conroy writes that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process." This is so scary and yet so obvious to me now. There was a time in the past where I would have doubted it, but now I feel like I have seen people become numb to so many things first hand. I can envision the people I am surrounded with doing what they feel like they have to do for the greater good. I can see how the greater good becomes convoluted. I have read about the psychological experiments, the deplorable histories of the oppressed, the news.

I think you should read this book and, right now, you have the chance to get your own copy, free. Take it. Maybe if we all read about torture we will be less likely to take part in torture. If nothing else, we will have a better understanding of ourselves and others.