Lynn I 🗽 🤎

"One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar El Akkad. My rating:5 out of 5 stars, Read from: 06/29/2025 - 06/29/2025. Kindle Edition, 188 pages.

Book description: “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” by Omar El Akkad is a nonfiction work that serves as a deeply personal and scathing critique of the Western world’s moral failures, especially regarding its treatment of marginalized groups and its response to global crises like the war in Gaza. Drawing from his experiences as an immigrant, journalist, and father, El Akkad explores the disillusionment with Western ideals, exposing the hypocrisy, double standards, and systemic injustices that persist in societies claiming to champion freedom and justice. The book is both a “heartsick breakup letter with the West” and a call for accountability, urging readers to confront the gap between professed values and lived realities, and to seek something better than what the West has offered.

This is an extremely revealing read, one which I find myself totally in agreement with. I am also going to read "American War," another book by this author.

#nonfiction #memoir #MiddleEast #politics #books @bookstodon

Jun 30 at 3:58amWeb
Show threadDonald HobernJun 30

@lynnskyi @bookstodon

Still reading it. It is a great, insightful and challenging read.

Edit: Finished the book, and it contains some really important passages that highlight the poverty of our response to this and other genocides. Read this book if you can.

Show threadLynn I 🗽 🤎Jun 30
@dhobern @bookstodon Yes, I found it to be that way. It has made me think more deeply about many aspects of political life. Have you read his novel, "American War?" I do plan to read it, but probably not right away. I'm thinking it will also be very intense.
Show threadDonald HobernJun 30

@lynnskyi @bookstodon

No I haven't, and I've been reading enough books from related perspectives that I think I need to vary my diet a little.

For what it's worth, I can definitely recommend the following, all of which have helped to fill out how I now understand western power's violence against the world, democracy, the poor everywhere, and the environment. It's all built on racist suppression.

Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent

Older book with examples centering on US foreign policy in the 70s, maybe less readable than El Akkad, but really showing how media supports power through preemptively framing the heroes and the villains in every story.

Vincent Bevins: The Jakarta Method

No book has shocked me more, revealing the mid-20th-century vision and optimism that the western powers brutally crushed across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Shashi Taroor: Inglorious Empire

Britain was doing the same thing long ago to India and the rest of its empire.

Sarah Kendzior: They Knew

Even if only half the dots that Kendzior connects are correct, the world is in deep, deep trouble, and it's not obvious which of her links can be ignored.

Michael Harriott: Black AF History

US history rewritten from the perspective of those on the losing side.

Naomi Klein: Doppelganger

Lots of insights into how our society has lost all trust in what is knowable or trustworthy. I particularly appreciated Klein showing how politicians and the rich hide behind the idea that the holocaust was a unique and unrepeatable instance of human evil. This idea is used to minimise all modern genocide and to free Israel from all oversight.

Right now, I'm varying it with a re-reading of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series, but in the end many of Douglas Adams jokes are just satirising the same power dynamics.

Show threadLynn I 🗽 🤎Jun 30

@dhobern @bookstodon Thanks so much for all these recommendations. I will see how many I can get my hands on.

If you haven't read it, I recently read "Abundance" by Ezra Klein. It's somewhat related to the decline of the west, but more specifically to what we need to do in the US to mitigate societal disaster.

And also "The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin. This explores the concept of manifest destiny, the role of immigrants, and to some degree, American exceptionalism. I plan to read more of his books also.

Show threadDonald HobernJun 30

@lynnskyi @bookstodon

Thanks to you too. I'll add these to my reading plan. It sounds like Abundance may join up with another of Naomi Klein's books: No Is Not Enough - also really good

We need a positive social and political vision to share as the antidote to hate and distrust. See also the 5 Non-Negotiables:

https://www.unftr.com/5nn

UNFTR’s 5 Non-Negotiables | Unf*cking The Republic

Explore UNFTR’s 5 Non-Negotiables framework for progressive policies addressing housing, healthcare, jobs, election integrity, and climate to create a just future for all.

Show threadLynn I 🗽 🤎Jun 30
@dhobern @bookstodon Thanks for those suggestions also. I'm pleased that more historians, journalists and others are speaking out about these subjects, though I wish more people would choose to read outside of their comfort zone. I too need to do that more, but in recent years, I've read much more nonfiction, and I think I'm the better for having done so.