During my Fulbright a few years ago, I went to Paris to give a talk. While there, I took a ride on the metro, and a few seats over from me I saw a woman dressed in a niqab. Fear consumed me upon seeing her, sitting in her seat as the train sped along the tracks. When the fear hit me, I immediately knew … Read More The Politics of Fear
+ american history, fascism, history, nora krug, on tyranny twenty lessons for the twentieth century, politics, timothy snyder
During our trip to Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Timothy Snyder and Nora Krug’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. The book is part history book, as the “lessons from the twentieth century” indicates, a part guide to how to work to preserve democracy when confronted with fascism or totalitarianism. Multiple things stand out to … Read More Why we “read books”
“We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” — Frederick Douglass What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852) The proposed Senate Bill 377 serves as nothing more than a coded bill aimed at limiting the dissemination of information to students, faculty, and staff, and to the stifling of educational inquiry in the … Read More Open Letter to Georgia Senators on SB 377
Last post, I began writing about “Christian” bands who address political and social issues in their music. They go against, in many ways, the Contemporary Christian Music which wants squeaky clean songs that don’t challenge the status-quo. Squad Five-O’s “Our State Flag” and Five Iron Frenzy’s “Zen and the Art of Xenophobia” challenge the church’s positions. Today, I want to continue this discussion by … Read More Politics in “Christian” Songs II
Interminable Rambling 