The summer of changing everything: Weekend reads for June 22, 2024
Some reading worth your time this first summer weekend
Happy summer, readers!
We’re just past the longest day of the year (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere), and officially into the summer season. Whether or not you invest the occasion with any sort of spiritual significance, summer does bring with it a sense of possibility — and that holds for those who think of change in personal or political rather than mystical terms.
This week’s readings — the links we collect each weekend for our paid subscribers — look at the possibility of change, and the seriousness of the challenges that confront us. These pieces look at ways to address the climate crisis, how to make sense of the economy, what we can do to preserve our humanity in the face of corporate power, and more. We hope they inspire, entertain, and remind everyone that the goals ahead are possible, though much work remains to be done.
In case you missed it
We talked to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who had some blunt advice for Joe Biden about how he and the Democratic Party must change to win in November.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stepped up his call for increased regulation of social media use by children and teens, proposing warning labels for online platforms akin to those used for alcohol and tobacco.
And we’ve made the full audio of our interview with Dr. Murthy available to paid subscribers. This conversation, from April, provides some insight into the thinking behind his social media proposal and also touches on public health issues like the crisis facing men and boys, the American epidemic of loneliness, and how the nature of work in our economy pushes parents to their limits.
From the archives
Reading the surgeon general’s essay this week, we’re looking back on our conversation with Senator Chris Murphy, who sees in the regulation of the algorithm a way to speak to American parents in a way Democrats have ignored at their peril.
So I want to ban the algorithm, but I also want to have parental consent for any kid who wants to get on social media under 18, and I think we need to be really loud about that because parents are feeling a certain way, and a child tax credit is not the answer to solve the emotional crisis that they’re in. It’s part of the answer, because part of the crisis they’re in is a feeling of economic powerlessness, but they want actual tools that give them more decisions over their kids’ lives. Republicans have been offering them, and by and large Democrats have not.
Rep. Jayapal argues that the Democratic Party must embrace a progressive agenda to win elections and deliver real benefits for Americans, and we look back at our conversation with journalist Dave Cullen about what progressives can learn about winning ideological and practical victories from right-wing groups — like the NRA.
The will of huge majorities thwarted for decades. It’s easy and natural to get demoralized, but like most shitty situations, there’s also great insight hiding in plain sight there. The NRA’s staggering success is the strongest demonstration I’ve ever seen of the power you can wield in democracy, if you work hard as hell with laser focus and discipline. And patience.
And in a season of change, it’s worth revisiting one of our central concerns here at The Ink: the way in which, as a society, we haven’t been successful at managing change — and the absolute necessity of getting it right if we want to build the country we want to live our futures in.
Yet this, to me, is the central undertaking for a pro-democracy movement in this country, if we are to have one worthy of the name: to be deeply, persistently engaged in the psychological process through which millions of Americans are trying to figure out these changes, figure out the era, find new identities in a changing country, and ultimately come to see themselves in a way they like to see on the far side of change.
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Two-stepping the state to fight for climate justice
Whether to march in the streets with Extinction Rebellion, phonebank for candidates with the Sunrise Movement, or blow up pipelines, as Andreas Malm proposes, is a tactical question. But the strategic imperative must be clear: nothing less than the total defeat of the organized political interests of oil, gas, and coal producers is necessary to make any other climate justice goals even a remote possibility. In what follows, I’ll defend a twenty-first-century version of “two-step” politics: first dethrone fossil capital; then transform the world. [Boston Review]
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