The days grow colder, and the piles grow larger. This week, the piles bring mass protests, big dinosaurs, God mascots, and the debut of a new pile: movies!

Books

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution
By Vincent Bevins
Public Affairs, 2023

Between 2010 and 2020, history saw “the biggest protests” on the scale of attendees. These demonstrations brought more people into the streets than ever before, and the mass demonstrations were streamed online. Yet afterward, something strange happened: repressive, right-wing governments came to power. Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in America, and Johnson in Britain are just three. How could both these things happen in sequence? Citizens rejected their governments and elected even worse, more repressive governments.

Bevins’ new book seeks the answer. He considers mass protests in the decade and interviews the people who planned and participated in them. While the US and Britain are mentioned, most of the analysis is on countries in the “Global South.” Bevins was a reporter in Brazil, so the story is centered around Brazil, considering the red tide, the election of Lula, and the subsequent rejection and election of Bolsonaro.

The book’s analysis considers the “Arab Spring” protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya and the vastly different protest outcomes in these countries. The 2018 Hong Kong protests and its cooptation by the Trump State Department to sew anti-Chinese sentiment. Ukraine’s history leads to a critical view of the current conflict; after the fall of the U.S.S.R., right-wing military groups co-opted protest energy and won governmental power. For Ukrainian nationalists, armed conflict against Russia has always been the goal. The limits of representational democracy are also considered with Boric and Chile. Bevins’ first book, The Jakarta Method (2020), considers coups throughout the 20th century; If We Burn considers evidence of US State Department intervention in Libya, Syria, and Bahrain.

Considering these examples, Bevins draws conclusions for more effective political actions (ch.20). Power does not exist in a vacuum; when one system is displaced, another system finds its place. Organization is the key to winning power. The rightwing groups in Ukraine were already organized, meaning they had systems for electing leaders, a defined message, and they identified local leaders. This allowed them to win state elections. The book proscribes justice activists to organize into democratic structures. One might call this Leninism (but Marx said to do this too). He even suggests in a vague, general sense that the 2010s were protests against our phones, protests against the violence we saw captured on digital video. Who showed us those videos?

This is essential reading for international politics, political activism, and history. It’s out of the book’s scope, but I felt the analysis has made society fully reckoned with the role of billionaires in this decade, specifically in these mass protests. The narrative alludes to oligarchs who take advantage of the crisis and get richer, lurking in the background like vampires. Last month, I wrote about The Bill Gates Problem (2023) and how Gates uses international “aid” foundations to influence foreign and domestic policy for African countries. Surely, he could benefit from capitalizing on discontent. The Chaos Machine (2022) considers the technical role that social media, particularly Facebook, played in some of these mass protests. My point: billionaire capitalism might imply billionaires hold more influence than entire state governments. I’m sure we’ll continue to see the wealthy feud and consolidate wealth throughout the 2020s.

If We Burn is on my shortlist for favorite books of 2023.

More Better Deals
By Joe R. Lansdale
Mullholand Books, 2020

A smoldering tale of love, murder, and racial passing set in 1960s Texas. Ed Edwards is a used car salesman. He’s White passing, in a racist town, and breaks local law when he sells cars to Black people. His life is bleak until he goes to repossess a Cadillac owned by Nancy, the sultry drive-in theater owner. Well, really, her husband owns it, and he’s a deadbeat, so they hatch a scheme to kill him and cash in the life insurance policy! There’s gore, a ransom, jealousy, passion, and an unhappy ending. A treat for fans Joe R. and James M.

Comics

Of Thunder & Lightning
By Kimberly Wang
Silver Sprocket, 2023

A debut comic about battling God mascots with incredible artwork. A fight between the Kabbahlah’s Sefirot tree versus the Norse Yggdrasil.

Wang’s fight choreography reminds me of Astro Boy, FLCL, Akira, and Dragon Ball Z, with dynamic paneling and page layouts and the use of white space that makes the scale seem bigger. 

The characters remind me of Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), cute, emotive and elastic. And the colors! Two-toned fans rejoice because the red deepens the landscape and heightens the characters’ emotions.

Admittedly, the plot is confusing, so I appreciated it when the characters turn chibi and explain what’s happening. Perfect for rereading. Here’s a link to buy it!

Movies

Godzilla Minus Zero (2023) is a remake of Godzilla (1954) that directly confronts Japan’s fate after World War II. A kamikaze pilot fights Godzilla. This is the perfect premise for a Godzilla remake, and it’s fully realized. The empathic portrait of our cowardly hero and the firebombed rubble of Tokyo build into the perfect motivation to kill Godzilla. And my favorite character, Godzilla, looks incredible. She’s present for the entire movie with highly detailed rendered models that harken back to the 50s and 60s designs. Glorious!

So, what does Godzilla really mean in this context? In the 1954 film, she seems to be an ancient consequence of using nuclear weapons. Her “atomic breath” is the literalization of dropping an atomic bomb, and Godzilla destroys Japan in the same way the Allies did. Yet in Godzilla Minus One, the monster is awake before the dropping of the atomic bomb. Perhaps the tests seen in Oppenheimer (2023) woke her up? A soldier claims Odo natives knew of Godzilla for centuries. Its presence kills deep-water fish. Of course, Japan does present itself as a victim of WWII when the historical truth is the country was an aggressor that tried to colonize China. Is Godzilla a reaction to colonialism? Does he come out of the ocean and eat colonizers? I hope so. One of the best Godzilla movies ever and a personal favorite of 2023.

Pile of the Week

This week’s pile goes to the books I got at Bart’s Books in Ojai, CA. Definitely my favorite outside bookstore. Some Wall Street mafia connections, 80s cyberpunk shorts, the next volume of a manga I’m reading, and a strange book about a criminal’s corpse that I intend to write about.

Io Saturnalia to you and yours!