Books on watch this space!

Books on watch this space! https://andrewfordlyons.net/categories/books/ en Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:49:26 +0100 https://andrewfordlyons.net/2026/04/04/so-much-of-our-past.html Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:49:26 +0100 http://drew3000.micro.blog/2026/04/04/so-much-of-our-past.html <blockquote> <p>“So much of our past has been shaped by this petty proceduralism. You could draw a straight line between an amendment in Brussels and a mass grave in Kazakhstan.” — <strong>Molly Crabapple,</strong> <em>‘Here Where We Live is Our Country’</em></p> </blockquote> <p>A lot of banging great lines in this book!</p> <p><img src="https://andrewfordlyons.net/uploads/2026/2de94ab43a.jpg" width="600" height="599" alt="A red mug filled with a dark beverage is next to a book titled Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple on a wooden surface."><img src="https://andrewfordlyons.net/uploads/2026/82bf5cca58.jpg" width="600" height="480" alt="MEETINGS&10;&10;Scholars have analyzed the minutes of the second congress at length but it's hard for me to do justice to the tendentious hellscape of those weeks. I could lay out every motion or objection, but that wouldn't evoke the misery of a leftist meeting, a torment you must live through to grasp. When I read the minutes, I am there. In Brussels, yes. But also in New York, at the monthly meeting for a socialist group held in an airless library basement, where I watch two graduate students wrangle over the creation of bylaws no one bothers to read. It's hour three. The air is hot. "Stack!" Comrade A. screams. His Adam's apple bobs with fury "Point of order!" hisses Comrade B. I want to squeeze through the walls and escape into the clean sunlight. Time is the only thing we can't re- place, and I feel each second slip away. I can't count how many hours I've spent like this, convinced that this was how we build an organization and from there a future. It's a conviction I still hold. So much of our past has been shaped by this petty proceduralism. You could draw a straight line between an amendment in Brussels and a mass grave in Kazakh- stan. But I'm getting ahead of myself."></p>