Why Not Socialism? (G.A. Cohen)

This book is the perfect size; so little and cute and easy to hold. A mere 82 pages it's a nice light read and a perfect little explanation of modern day socialism. G.A. Cohen tackles socialism through a camping trip metaphor, suggesting that the dilemma modern socialists encounter is the task of discovering how to transfer the collective ideals and principles that occur during a camping trip to other areas of life. I thoroughly I enjoyed it. 

Prison of Grass: Canada from the native point of view (Howard Adams) (1975)

Prison of Grass is a very personal look at the issues and history of First Nations and Métis peoples in Canada. Published in 1975 and written by Métis Howard Adams, the book likens the treatment of First Nations peoples in Canada to colonialism.

Adams traces the history of Canada to the 1600s, blaming the mistreatment and racism towards First Nations on capitalism, the blossoming fur trade and the need for cheap labour. He describes how the Church assisted--perhaps unknowingly--in the suppression and domination of First Nations and Métis. They have been misrepresented in the media, dehumanized and robbed of a claim to a history and national identity.

Adams goes on the offer his own perspectives on Louis Riel and the "rebellions" of 1870 and 1885, proposing that in the latter "rebellion," Riel was simply scapegoat for Ottawa to blame the "rebellion" on. He theorizes that with the money Ottawa spent on suppressing the rebellion, they could have given each "Métis man, woman and child" a thousand dollars each. Instead  much of the money went to companies which provided supplies and transportation to the troops sent to fight. The rebellion, Adams suggests, was not caused by a deep seeded hatred for Canada, but rather a reaction to being denied the means needed to live.

Adams explains how the takeover of culture has occurred through political, economic and cultural channels.
In closing, Adams makes a bold claim, linking First Nations issues to class conflict and suggesting that a "radical nationalism of the native people" was "in the infant stage." For change to happen and for liberation, "we have to learn for ourselves through experience, rather than being dependent on the teaching and information of so-called specialists and experts." In his final line, Adams calls for a "state of revolution."

This book is an explanation, but also a call to action for some. It is a culturally important book and its legacy has lasted into this very decade. Unfortunately many of the issues Adams discusses have changed very little since 1975. For these reasons it is an important read for any Canadian trying to better understand that country around them.

The Protest Singer: An intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger (Alec Wilkinson)

The Romantic in me was drawn into this book from the first page as Alec Wilkinson described Pete Seeger hopping on a bicycle and taking off near the end of his second year of university, trading watercolour paintings for meals and playing music with those he met along the way. 

I heard my first Pete Seeger song in elementary school, but it was years before I realized that what I'd heard had been a Pete Seeger song. Last fall, I followed the rabbit hole on YouTube from Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings songs to Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger. I'd been meaning to read up Seeger for a while, so when I stumbled across this book, I picked it up. 

Not far into the book, Wilkinson says it's something that's meant to be read in one sitting. I did that. (Although I did get up from my chair once or twice for more tea). A mere 152 pages long, I managed to get through it in about an hour and a half.  I know that Pete Seeger died in January, so I can only speculate from the snapshots of his life this book provided that Seeger must have been a beautiful person. 

His philosophy on music interests me. I have long felt a disconnect between music and real life. A dilemma exists. If we simply sing, or listen to songs about issues, how are we helping anyone, or changing anything? Pete Seeger had an answer for this dilemma. He believed that "songs can make someone feel powerful when he isn't by any measure except his own determination." Seeger would play for anyone who would listen and saw music as a collective experience and process, rather than as an individual act.  Music empowers when it is experienced collectively. 

The Protest Singer has left me with much food for thought. I shall probably mull over the content for weeks to come, as I read and experience more. 

The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I desired some light reading this afternoon, so I pulled The Scarlet Letter from my shelf. I picked it up over Christmas in a bookshop south of the border. Unfortunately, I'm more impressed with the binding of the book than with its contents. I've heard a lot of good things about Nathaniel Hawthorne's book and I'm well aware of its status as a thought-provoking classic, but after reading it, I don't see the value in it.

Of course I sympathized with Hester Prynne, a young mother forced to wear a scarlet "A" on the bosom of her dress because she had sex with a man who wasn't her husband and refused to divulge the name of the man, but I find it hard to believe that Hester's husband would appear in the town and cozy up to Hester's ex-secret lover just to seek revenge. Hester's daughter, Pearl, seemed to lack the facets of a normal little girl, although I suppose that was the point. It's not that I disliked the characters or couldn't stomach them. I found myself indifferent to the characters. 

Additionally, the intro to the book was long-winded and boring. I found myself skimming through parts of "Custom House" in order to get to "Chapter One" and the main story. Perhaps this flaw was not so much the author's fault, but the fault of literary styles in the time the book was written.

Ordinarily, I love so-called-classics, but I didn't see the draw in this one. I'll file it with other classics I've disliked. The Great Gatsby, for instance. Although, The Scarlet Letter was slightly better than that book. 

The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Astra Taylor)

I doubt I will ever think about internet use the same way as I did before I read The People’s Platform. Astra Taylor’s book is a well-researched critique of the way the internet is viewed as an “open” and “democratic” stage. While she admits that the internet is a communal place, she also points out that it is a capitalistic place. The internet has not freed us from the gatekeepers of media, but rather given the gatekeepers more gateways to keep.

Taylor explores modern media and the increased content control which the internet has provided to corporations. She discusses the “winner-take-all pattern of the web,” suggesting that it is not the masses who decide what is important on the web, but rather the corporations and the search engines who decide which links appear first in our browsers when we search a term. Tailored search engines like Google determine what we do and do not see based on what the search engine believes we, as consumers, will want to consume. “There may be more stuff out there than ever,” Taylor notes, “but there’s a chance we’re seeing less of it.”

Taylor also laments the decline of journalism, referring to the new form of “reporting” as “churnalism.” More news is really less news, repurposed and summarized to be churned out at an alarmingly fast rate with little fact checking. News stories are not based on what is important, but rather on what will gather the most views and therefore the higher ad revenue. This interpretation of modern journalism, I agree with. I’ve seen one too many “fluff” stories on online news sites and noticed that each article seems to simply regurgitate what every other source has already said.

The internet, as it currently exists, Taylor says, does not create a democratic place, hospitable to the fostering of culture, but rather a “free market” in which those with the money market “culture” to us and determine what we read, hear and view. A disconnect exists, in which the process of consuming culture is seen as more important than the creation of it.

Although I don’t agree with every last argument of The People’s Platform, the book is an eye opener and an important piece of the current discourse involving the purpose and function of internet in our society and in the creation of culture

Something Red by Jennifer Gilmore

As I started to read Something Red I was reminded of the Bellamy Brothers song “Old Hippie,” the first of a series of songs about an aging man who must decided how to handle the new era. Jennifer Gilmore's book, set in 1979 and 1980, focuses on a family of somewhat radical Americans who are trying to adjust to life after the 1960s. The children in the family, a teenage daughter and a son who has just entered college, try to reconcile their parents’ activist past with their own post-sixties world.

I was impressed by how much Jennifer Gilmore drew on historical events to drive the narrative. A key event in the story is the Olympic boycott and the freeze of grain sales to the Soviet Union and many of the discussions in the book are about cold-war politics, food prices, and trade. 

At times, the story was a little hard to follow, as the author switched from character to character with numerous flashbacks to events long before the start of the book. This didn't matter though because the characters were so good that chronological events and the absence of clarity at times was irrelevant to my overall enjoyment. I can’t remember that last time I read a book and felt connected to so many characters all at once. 

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

When I saw this book on the shelf at the bookstore, even though I'd promised myself I was only browsing, I couldn't walk away without it. A 1968 classic recounting the adventures of a drugged-up, spaced-out and tuned-in group calling themselves the "Pranksters" and traveling around the continent on a psychedelically painted bus is a little too hard to resist.

The 1960's is an attractive decade to read about, both politically and culturally (and what's not to love about the fashions?). Books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test are such satisfying reads not because they offer grand insight into politics, but because books like this one serve as folklore. This book is like a mirror into the way some people experiencing the 60's saw the 60's.

In the midst of the drugs, parties and wandering minds, there is revealed a philosophy towards life in which we are actors creating our own scripts and filming our own "movies." We perceive things as we wish to perceive them. If we perceive them differently, then they are different.

At one point we are told that "Art is not eternal," a bold statement in a culture that wishes to preserve.

At another point we are told that "Sometimes we don't even realize what we really care about, because we get so distracted by the symbols," as when we feel pride in a flag. I was struck by how true this is. When we stand up for the national anthem at an event, what exactly are we standing up for? A symbol? Do we understand what the symbol means to us, personally?

As Wolfe writes near the beginning, "Everyone is picking up on the most minute incidents as if they are metaphors for life itself." The whole book, in the midst of the nonsense, is steeped with metaphors.

When I picked up this book, I expected a wild, yet intellectually satisfying ride. I got what I asked for. The 1960s were truly a wonderful time for writing.