David Kessler
Finished ~ March 31st, 2022
- Avoiding grief
- Something goes out of alignment when we try to avoid sadness and grief.
- Life gives us pain. Our job is to experience it when it gets handed to us. Avoidance of loss has a cost.
Category Archives: Non-Fiction
Towards Collective Liberation – Chris Crass
By Chris Crass
Excellent book on organizing and anarchism. Very practical and relatable examples.
- Organizing / leadership
- Supporting people to come together and overcome isolation and feelings of inadequacy is one of the key tasks of organizers, and we can do this by developing a systematic understanding of the problems we face, nurturing relationships of solidarity and respect, building up collective power through action, and working for social change in ways that also help us grow and live our values in the here and now.
Emergent Strategy – adrienne maree brown
2/8/18
Really incredible book. Highly recommend for anyone doing social justice work.
all that you touch
you change
all that you change
changes you
the only lasting truth
is change
god is change
- What is Emergent strategy?
- Emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies.
Lucy Parsons: An American Revolutionary
12/1/2017
- Capitalism
- As capital concentrated, it seized the means of productions from the hands of the artisans, forcing them into factories and shops owned and run by capitalists… They became utterly dependent upon the capitalists for a livelihood; they had to sell their labor from day to day to make a living.
Wasáse – Taiaiake Alfred
10/10/17
Powerful book on indigenous resistance. Though very dense. I did not read the whole book but I learned a lot.
- Government / Settler Culture
- European philosophies have always been much less concerned about the search for truth than with providing intellectual covers for the exercises of brute power by white rulers.
Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile – Ramor Ryan
9/12/17
- Mayday
- Mayday is a ritual that has been, throughout history accompanied by bonfires. As the flames engulf the abandoned riot van, the people dance around like a band of festive Celts of old. Here we are, history dancing with us, the heathens of the ages resisting the suppression of our day of leisure, our day of carnival, our merry-making.
The Big Strike – Mike Quin
5/5/17
- The first step toward changing the situation occurred in the latter part of 1032 when a small mimeographed publication, the Waterfront Worker, began to appear on the docks and in places where longshoremen congregated. Humble in format and clumsily turned out, it hardly gave the impression of a powerful influence.
Work – CrimethInc
Great analysis of capitalism. It dissects it piece by piece. Easy to read and understand.
A little bit lighter on the solutions than I hoped though.
3/23/17
- Capitalism
- If more people go hungry during a recession, it’s not because there has been any material change in our productive capacities, but simply one more example of how irrationally our society always distributes resources.
Reinventing Organizations – Frederic Laloux
Illustrated Version
3/10/17
- Self Management
- For self-management to work, it’s not enough take hierarchy out. we need to grow a system of distributed authority.
- Coaches / support positions that have no power over the teams
- from a teal perspective, it’s almost insulting to believe that someone will work hard just because you dangle a carrot in from of their face.
This is an Uprising – Mark and Paul Engler
Great book. Highly recommend for anyone doing any kind of social justice work. Especially people trying to build up a movement.
1/4/17
- Uprising can be a craft, and that this craft can change our world. Those who practice it tell us that outbreaks of widespread disruption, although commonly misunderstood, are neither flukes nor fleeting failures.