Recommended Reading: Autocracy Means Plunder and Open Season on Scholars of Race
This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Don Moynihan, Sian Norris, Joshua Hill, and Anthea Butler
Contribute to the sustainable future of Radical Reports by taking advantage of this 25% discount on both annual and month paid subscriptions:
This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack:
Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes that “plunder is a useful concept to discuss the intentions of autocrats and the tragic outcomes of their actions. Plunder covers the strongman's obsessive drive to control and exploit bodies, territory, and wealth. Since the avaricious autocrat sees everything and everyone in terms of possession, plunder is key to understanding the organization of autocracy.”
writes that “the game plan is simple. Selectively target scholars who study race, who will be primarily scholars of color. Launch an anonymous accusation. Then report on this as newsworthy in right wing media, hoping the mainstream media will pick it up.” writes that “trad culture is not a new social media trend, it is not about frilly dresses, and it’s not about exhausted women wistfully looking at stay-at-home-motherhood (as if being a mum is not exhausting in itself). It is a subculture with its roots firmly in the far right - a subculture built on white baby challenges, natalism, and the normalisation of male superiority, with violent consequences.” writes that he doesn’t “have many answers, just one or two. I know my life would be richer and more intertwined with the people around me if work didn't take so much of my time. And I know we need to start now, that we can't wait for that future to come to us, we need to go after it.” writes that “we face clear choices this cycle about who we are as a nation, as people, and as what we want the nations’s future to be. The choices are stark, clear, and unmistakable. Dictatorship, fascism, racism, theocracy and xenophobia, or freedom of religion, freedom of choice, freedom to be educated, freedom to exist, and freedom to love.”