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Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt
The 2008 financial crisis crystallized for people around the country the fact that something was wrong. Americans had already been losing faith in elites who had failed to protect them from crisis after crisis and disaster after disaster. After the collapse, we expected someone to have a solution but were inevitably disappointed. Instead, we got high and rising unemployment, foreclosures spiraling out of control, and, as the protest chant went, "banks got bailed out, we got sold out." The spark was slow to start, but it has grown since. Tea Partiers challenged conservative politicians to keep their promises; Walmart and fast-food workers went on strike for a raise; Wall Street found itself Occupied; the deaths of unarmed young men touched off a twenty-first-century black freedom struggle. The movements swelled, intersected, and spread around the country, helped along by social media. At their core, they were all challenges to who wields power in the US, regardless of political allegiance. Necessary Trouble offers listeners an understanding of today's new radicals-the troublemakers of all stripes who refuse to sit any longer on the sidelines and wait for things to improve.
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First published August 23, 2016
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September 14, 2017
Necessary Trouble is one of the most essential books of the year -- an extensive, vivid overview of "trouble-making" organizers and movements from the 2008 financial crisis until, if not quite today, then the moment the book went to press. Each chapter not only covers a movement or group of campaigns, but also provides a concise but nuanced historical summary of the issues at hand.
It's a book that feels "necessary" indeed, almost overdue. Whether we realized it or not, we have been in need of a book that traces the connections between the Wisconsin Capitol occupation and the campaigns waged by Walmart and fast-food workers, that looks honestly at what the Tea Party has had both in common and in conflict with protesters at Occupy Wall Street and in Ferguson, and that gives due credit to Moral Mondays and Black Lives Matter.
And we have been in need of someone like Jaffe to do it, someone who understands intersectionality and class struggle, who resists simplistic narratives and avoids backseat organizing or condescending lectures about strategy, instead largely letting the people who made these movements happen tell their own stories.
(Take from the intro to my interview with Sarah Jaffe, which you can read here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item...)
It's a book that feels "necessary" indeed, almost overdue. Whether we realized it or not, we have been in need of a book that traces the connections between the Wisconsin Capitol occupation and the campaigns waged by Walmart and fast-food workers, that looks honestly at what the Tea Party has had both in common and in conflict with protesters at Occupy Wall Street and in Ferguson, and that gives due credit to Moral Mondays and Black Lives Matter.
And we have been in need of someone like Jaffe to do it, someone who understands intersectionality and class struggle, who resists simplistic narratives and avoids backseat organizing or condescending lectures about strategy, instead largely letting the people who made these movements happen tell their own stories.
(Take from the intro to my interview with Sarah Jaffe, which you can read here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item...)
Read
May 23, 2017One of those contemporary social history books you can read most of and get the juice from or that you can skip around and pull what it is you're looking for. Good, readable, albeit for me, a little longer than necessary and at times repetitive. A look at the ways that the people in the US have been demanding more from/of their governments and society as a whole and how the movements -- Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Anti-Austerity -- have similar goals and intentions and motions behind them. Jaffe's goal is to highlight the power of and necessity of intersectionality and she does a pretty good job at it. This would be an especially good read for those budding feminists and social justice folks still grappling with what intersectionality means.
It was nice to see a whole chapter about the Wisconsin anti-austerity movement (aka, prop 10), since that is criminally under discussed in social movements.
It was nice to see a whole chapter about the Wisconsin anti-austerity movement (aka, prop 10), since that is criminally under discussed in social movements.
September 30, 2020
A crucial ray of optimism in these bleak times
August 7, 2017
"You must get in good trouble, necessary trouble. You must help change America, you must help change the world." - Congressman John Lewis, June 16, 2013
In 2008 the world economy came crashing down around us. This catastrophic event gave rise to two protest groups: the Tea Party and Occupy. The Tea Party focused on electoral success, taking the House in 2010, chasing out moderate Republicans. But they have been plagued by subtle (and occasionally not so subtle) racism in the ranks. This book starts with Occupy Wall Street, and shows how it has organically evolved in to, and reached out to many of the social progress protests that have occurred in the last 8 years. The book goes in to, and gives the history of the conflicts for Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Homes, the public sector fights in Wisconsin and elsewhere, the Walmart Organizers and the Fight for $15, Moral Mondays, Black Lives Matter, and environmental causes. Necessary Trouble shows that all these causes, income inequality, labor movements, and racist, sexist, and environmental causes are all connected. If you’ve ever had an issue understanding what people mean when they talk about intersectionality, this is the book you should read.
This book went to press in the spring of 2016, so the hopeful tone is a little harder to take with the rise of the demagogue-elect. But it is an important, educational, and inspiring read. I knew the basic history of many of these movements, but had not tied them together. It was interesting to see how the rise of social media has enabled these protests of the people to amplify their voices and organize. This shows the possible impact and the importance of protesting the dangerous policies to come. A good manual for the years to come and the fight ahead.
"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." - Commander Adama, Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)
In 2008 the world economy came crashing down around us. This catastrophic event gave rise to two protest groups: the Tea Party and Occupy. The Tea Party focused on electoral success, taking the House in 2010, chasing out moderate Republicans. But they have been plagued by subtle (and occasionally not so subtle) racism in the ranks. This book starts with Occupy Wall Street, and shows how it has organically evolved in to, and reached out to many of the social progress protests that have occurred in the last 8 years. The book goes in to, and gives the history of the conflicts for Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Homes, the public sector fights in Wisconsin and elsewhere, the Walmart Organizers and the Fight for $15, Moral Mondays, Black Lives Matter, and environmental causes. Necessary Trouble shows that all these causes, income inequality, labor movements, and racist, sexist, and environmental causes are all connected. If you’ve ever had an issue understanding what people mean when they talk about intersectionality, this is the book you should read.
This book went to press in the spring of 2016, so the hopeful tone is a little harder to take with the rise of the demagogue-elect. But it is an important, educational, and inspiring read. I knew the basic history of many of these movements, but had not tied them together. It was interesting to see how the rise of social media has enabled these protests of the people to amplify their voices and organize. This shows the possible impact and the importance of protesting the dangerous policies to come. A good manual for the years to come and the fight ahead.
"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." - Commander Adama, Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)
September 8, 2016
This is terrific. An overview of protest, activism and radicalism in the years since the financial crisis, weaving together a strong argument from threads like Black Lives Matter, the Tea Party, fast food and retail worker organizing and Occupy. Serious, wide-ranging and well-researched, but manages to be a brief, fast read - lots of elegantly-put truth bombs. She puts the activists she talks with in historical and economic context and illustrates how systems like the housing industry, student loans, police and courts work to distribute power upward. I like especially that this is not just disaster porn, the opening chapter to some dystopian novel - Jaffe is angry about important things but an optimist too, and she spends her time talking to the people who are fighting and winning some concrete victories. Highly recommend.
April 9, 2018
Sarah Jaffe published this book in the dim twilight of 2016, when things seemed like they were at a breaking point, but to a productive end. We all know what happened in the meanwhile.
An inability to see the writing on the wall notwithstanding, Jaffe was chronicling the revival of leftist unrest in this country, using Occupy and groups like BLM and Our Walmart to highlight the discontent that various race, class, and working groups feel in an increasingly plutocratic and alienating regime.
She does a good job, and she relates inspiring tales of struggle and uplift. But a lot of this book feels like she was recapping why things were so bad in the first place. Then when she gets to the "Necessary Trouble" piece--the part about resisting, undermining the empowered, using bold new strategies to assert primacy and personhood--it tends to be brief and clinical in her appraisal.
I guess I wanted more of the tactics and the theory, and less of the narrative. My book selections over the next weeks and months will probably reflect that.
An inability to see the writing on the wall notwithstanding, Jaffe was chronicling the revival of leftist unrest in this country, using Occupy and groups like BLM and Our Walmart to highlight the discontent that various race, class, and working groups feel in an increasingly plutocratic and alienating regime.
She does a good job, and she relates inspiring tales of struggle and uplift. But a lot of this book feels like she was recapping why things were so bad in the first place. Then when she gets to the "Necessary Trouble" piece--the part about resisting, undermining the empowered, using bold new strategies to assert primacy and personhood--it tends to be brief and clinical in her appraisal.
I guess I wanted more of the tactics and the theory, and less of the narrative. My book selections over the next weeks and months will probably reflect that.
March 13, 2017
The little asides about the 2016 election really killed this for me. In general the book is a nuanced, intersectional look at the Left post-economic crash with these occasional comments dropped in about how Bernie is great at Hillary is establishment. I don't know if these were added to make the book more timely or what but they were all like lead balloons. To have a whole chapter about BLM and then brush aside Bernie's persistent failure to garner African American votes with statements like "After the initial stumble at Netroots..." was really frustrating. This book starts with the premise that electoral politics offer a mediocre choices and deeper activism is needed to address deep inequality, which is a thesis I generally agree with, but Jaffe's unexamined waving of the Bernie flag against this backdrop was very distracting.
November 4, 2016
To me, this book really solidified right in the final pages during the conclusion, when Jaffe points to the larger project of intersectional-movement-building as class-consciousness-building. The book provides a really great birds' eye view of many of the different movements that have erupted since the financial crisis of 2008, drawing connections at the personal and systemic level. Highly recommend, especially for folks looking to get a good recap of the last 8 years of movement history.
(Also, this book almost made me tear up on the bus when I read about the Million Student March and seeing something that I had a hand in organizing make it into the pages of history. It was a small moment, but a profound one for me.)
(Also, this book almost made me tear up on the bus when I read about the Million Student March and seeing something that I had a hand in organizing make it into the pages of history. It was a small moment, but a profound one for me.)
March 5, 2017
I think this book has been a turning point in my political thinking. While several movements have been covered, the emphasis was certainly on the intersectionality and I think that's powerful stuff. Can't recommend it enough!!
March 3, 2017
This is a good book looking at various popular protest movements that have sprung up in this country since the 2008 economic collapse. The main point is expressed in the title - people are properly raising cain because the system is set up to scream them over, and they know it. Near the end of the book, author Jaffe (no relation) notes that the 1960s New Left discredited the old order, but didn't help create a new one. The current protests will hopefully avoid that mistake. One key theme of this book is intersectionality - as various local and particular movements look to tie their cause to something broad, to some of the other movements going on.
For my part, while I found the book well-written, at times I wondered if the book wasn't overstating things. Is this really the beginning of a new massive surge in something, or is it just howling into the wind? I guess time will tell, but I had flashbacks to a mid-1980s version of Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States." In that, Zinn focused heavily on leftist protests, ultimately predicting that the 1984 presidential election would result in a political sea-change to the left in America. Instead, Reagan won 49 out of 50 states.
Going through, Jaffe's starting point is the 2008 economic crash. The financial sector made up 40% of all corporate profits in the early 2000s. The rich needed investment and the poor needed credit, and this led to shady practices. When it all came crashing down, the banks got their bailouts and everyone else was stuck holding the bag. The Tea Party started out as anti-bail out. The outrage was stronger on the right than on the left early on, as the left hoped that Obama would help out more than he did. The Tea Party came to a producerist populism, looking at America as productive citizens versus freeloaders. They were pro-free market, and felt the government wasn't working for the people. This fed into a market populism where business leaders were the real producers and others (like workers) the parasites. This is where the notion of Mitt Romney's 47% comes from. Flipping it around, Occupy Wall Street created the slogan, "We are the 99%" which caused people to identify with those lower down economically. Obama refused to use his grassroots movement.
An Occupy Homes movement began as foreclosures went on. The foreclosure crisis lingered on for years. $192,600,000,000 was lost in foreclosures was lost in 2012, well after the supposed recovery kicked in. The best estimate is that 5.6 million lost homes from September 2008 to February 2015. Subprime mortgages had exploded from 6-8% to 25% in the run up to the crash. Home equity loans had made up for stagnant income. No one at banks were punished for their fraud. They payed fines, but little of that money went to the decimated home owners. Government did little to influence the banks after the bailouts. The lack of real reform embolded the banks to get back to it. Students loans began in 1958 in response to Sputnik. In the 1970s/80, a person's class status was de-moored from economics and became more about identity. It became a new producerist class that wanted lower taxes. The middle class shrank by 6-14% from 1980 to the 2000s. Median income fell by $4,500 from 2007-13. In real dollars, it was lower than it was in 1989. 60% used to ID as middle class, now it's 50%. The young are especially hard hit, with a 19.2% unemployment rate in 2009. In 2012, 44% of recent college graduates were unemployed. People use education to solve a labor-market problem, but a college degree is 3000% more expensive than in 1972. Mind you, faculty salaries are down with the rise of adjuncts, but administrative salaries are up. By 2012, student loan debt hit $1,000,000,000,000. In 2015, the average college graduate had $35,000 in debt. And this can't be discharged by bankruptcy. There's no statute of limitations. Debt collecting, meanwhile, is very lucrative. Things that began in for-profit colleges are likely to sweep all academia. People getting rich off of greed are destroying other's trust in education.
The jobs most rapidly growing don't pay. It's called a knowledge economy, but it's really more a service economy. Computerized schedules are hell on workers, making it hard to have a second job or arrange for childcare. Wal-Mart benefits from government programs as their employees get $13.5 billion in food stamps. Retail is no more foreordained to have low paying jobs than auto assembly lines. Walmart has their own brand of populism: low prices. They shut down a store in Canada that unionized. Workers began an Our Walmart group that linked store workers with the supply chain. I didn't fully understand how Our Walmart worked, despite Jaffe's depiction of it.
The next chapter is on unions. It goes to Wisconsin to look at protests at Scott Walker. The chapter argues that Walker wants to state broke in order to justify cuts in spending. The most unionized state workers are mostly female, giving a gender element to the story. The Tea Party had a difference between activists and donor class, and the former whacked Eric Cantor. Democrats aren't offering workers much at all. Then they were caught flat-footed by both the recession and the Tea Party's rise. Obama tabled the Employee Free Choice Act, which would've eased the union election process. This act was the main reason unions supported him in the first place. Wisconsin awakened unions. The 2012 Chicago teachers strike happened. 90% of teachers voted to strike, and they had the support of many in the city (67% of parents, by one poll). They won, but then Rahm closed 54 schools in revenege, most of them in black neighborhoods. Rahm won reelection, but there's a what-if: what-if his challenger hadn't gotten brain cancer.
As the book went on, I started skimming more. A chapter on race looks at racial attacks on Obama, protests on stop/frisk, and the killing of Trayvon Martin. Producerist ideas get nastier as the economy goes down. 2008 wiped out half of black wealth, mostly in houging. They had more subprime loans. Activism kicked up after Zimmerman was found not guilty. BLM organized networks of chapters - 26 of them by 2015.
Moral Monday protests began in North Carolina to protest the supposed moderate Gov. McCrory. He said he'd just focus on jobs, but didn't. Moral Mondays were designed to challenge the narrative that religious = conservative. Abortion and gay rights are only recently big issues for the religious. In the 1960s/70s, rights movements shifted from moral arguments to legal ones. Politicians who spoke of family values also promoted economic policies that destabilized families. Post-2008 movements were more open-ended structures, not about hierarchy. They see electoral politics as part of the problem, not the solution. They are more about shifting consciousness, and not about legislation. Moral Mondays spread to other states. Some argue they are starting a Third Reconstruction.
Socialists call for a $15/hour wage. Young voters are better predisposed to socialism. For them, the dirty word is often capitalism. They was a push to organize fast food workers. There is SO MUCH ANGER - and that plays to outsiders. Post-millenials might be the real anti-capitalists, though. The left is trying to mainstream ideas once just on the fringe.
The police have become militarized. There are the denial of rights and medical treatment. It's happened to minorities for a long time, but now we see it happening to white activists as well. Ferguson had cops use armored vehicles with weapons aimed at the people. The national guard called protesters "adversaries" and "enemies" and lumps them with the KKK. "Hands up, don't shoot" became a thing. Cops wore no badge and no nametags in Ferguson. They are more like an occupation force. Some Oath Keepers were angered by this. Jaffe talks to one who went to Ferguson. However the organization as a whole refused to side with protesters (causing the guy Jaffe spoke to leaving the group). I mean, on the face of it, Ferguson is the Oath Keeper's nightmare made real. The Oathkeepers were split between cops (who supported the Ferguson police) and vets (who were more troubled by it). This began in the Drug War and worsened with the War on Terrorism. We've only begun trying to gauge how many people cops kill a year. Police are often used as a revenue center. Pro-police whites call some protesters "terrorists." Different groups organize and in Ferguson it's just called the Movement. There is a desire not to get back to normal, but to seek a new normal. One protester said, it's not yet 1964, it's just 1954.
Poor relief efforts in NYC after Hurricane Sandy sparked more local activism. Bloomberg worried only about the upscale parts of town. (The book doesn't mention it, but I remember he wanted the marathon to go on despite all the devastation, and was really ticked when popular protest forced him to cancel it). de Blasio picked up on demands from Occupy protesters. There was a desire to create an organized community. Environmental problems are up when inequality rises.
The Occupy movement (in)famously made no demands. But it didn't get people involved and brought people together. You need to see how power operates in order to make changes, and it began a look at economic class. Intersectionality will be key, and it will be a struggle to maintain coalitions.
It's a good book and does a nice job looking at left-wing activism since 2008. We'll just have to see what it ends up amounting to.
For my part, while I found the book well-written, at times I wondered if the book wasn't overstating things. Is this really the beginning of a new massive surge in something, or is it just howling into the wind? I guess time will tell, but I had flashbacks to a mid-1980s version of Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States." In that, Zinn focused heavily on leftist protests, ultimately predicting that the 1984 presidential election would result in a political sea-change to the left in America. Instead, Reagan won 49 out of 50 states.
Going through, Jaffe's starting point is the 2008 economic crash. The financial sector made up 40% of all corporate profits in the early 2000s. The rich needed investment and the poor needed credit, and this led to shady practices. When it all came crashing down, the banks got their bailouts and everyone else was stuck holding the bag. The Tea Party started out as anti-bail out. The outrage was stronger on the right than on the left early on, as the left hoped that Obama would help out more than he did. The Tea Party came to a producerist populism, looking at America as productive citizens versus freeloaders. They were pro-free market, and felt the government wasn't working for the people. This fed into a market populism where business leaders were the real producers and others (like workers) the parasites. This is where the notion of Mitt Romney's 47% comes from. Flipping it around, Occupy Wall Street created the slogan, "We are the 99%" which caused people to identify with those lower down economically. Obama refused to use his grassroots movement.
An Occupy Homes movement began as foreclosures went on. The foreclosure crisis lingered on for years. $192,600,000,000 was lost in foreclosures was lost in 2012, well after the supposed recovery kicked in. The best estimate is that 5.6 million lost homes from September 2008 to February 2015. Subprime mortgages had exploded from 6-8% to 25% in the run up to the crash. Home equity loans had made up for stagnant income. No one at banks were punished for their fraud. They payed fines, but little of that money went to the decimated home owners. Government did little to influence the banks after the bailouts. The lack of real reform embolded the banks to get back to it. Students loans began in 1958 in response to Sputnik. In the 1970s/80, a person's class status was de-moored from economics and became more about identity. It became a new producerist class that wanted lower taxes. The middle class shrank by 6-14% from 1980 to the 2000s. Median income fell by $4,500 from 2007-13. In real dollars, it was lower than it was in 1989. 60% used to ID as middle class, now it's 50%. The young are especially hard hit, with a 19.2% unemployment rate in 2009. In 2012, 44% of recent college graduates were unemployed. People use education to solve a labor-market problem, but a college degree is 3000% more expensive than in 1972. Mind you, faculty salaries are down with the rise of adjuncts, but administrative salaries are up. By 2012, student loan debt hit $1,000,000,000,000. In 2015, the average college graduate had $35,000 in debt. And this can't be discharged by bankruptcy. There's no statute of limitations. Debt collecting, meanwhile, is very lucrative. Things that began in for-profit colleges are likely to sweep all academia. People getting rich off of greed are destroying other's trust in education.
The jobs most rapidly growing don't pay. It's called a knowledge economy, but it's really more a service economy. Computerized schedules are hell on workers, making it hard to have a second job or arrange for childcare. Wal-Mart benefits from government programs as their employees get $13.5 billion in food stamps. Retail is no more foreordained to have low paying jobs than auto assembly lines. Walmart has their own brand of populism: low prices. They shut down a store in Canada that unionized. Workers began an Our Walmart group that linked store workers with the supply chain. I didn't fully understand how Our Walmart worked, despite Jaffe's depiction of it.
The next chapter is on unions. It goes to Wisconsin to look at protests at Scott Walker. The chapter argues that Walker wants to state broke in order to justify cuts in spending. The most unionized state workers are mostly female, giving a gender element to the story. The Tea Party had a difference between activists and donor class, and the former whacked Eric Cantor. Democrats aren't offering workers much at all. Then they were caught flat-footed by both the recession and the Tea Party's rise. Obama tabled the Employee Free Choice Act, which would've eased the union election process. This act was the main reason unions supported him in the first place. Wisconsin awakened unions. The 2012 Chicago teachers strike happened. 90% of teachers voted to strike, and they had the support of many in the city (67% of parents, by one poll). They won, but then Rahm closed 54 schools in revenege, most of them in black neighborhoods. Rahm won reelection, but there's a what-if: what-if his challenger hadn't gotten brain cancer.
As the book went on, I started skimming more. A chapter on race looks at racial attacks on Obama, protests on stop/frisk, and the killing of Trayvon Martin. Producerist ideas get nastier as the economy goes down. 2008 wiped out half of black wealth, mostly in houging. They had more subprime loans. Activism kicked up after Zimmerman was found not guilty. BLM organized networks of chapters - 26 of them by 2015.
Moral Monday protests began in North Carolina to protest the supposed moderate Gov. McCrory. He said he'd just focus on jobs, but didn't. Moral Mondays were designed to challenge the narrative that religious = conservative. Abortion and gay rights are only recently big issues for the religious. In the 1960s/70s, rights movements shifted from moral arguments to legal ones. Politicians who spoke of family values also promoted economic policies that destabilized families. Post-2008 movements were more open-ended structures, not about hierarchy. They see electoral politics as part of the problem, not the solution. They are more about shifting consciousness, and not about legislation. Moral Mondays spread to other states. Some argue they are starting a Third Reconstruction.
Socialists call for a $15/hour wage. Young voters are better predisposed to socialism. For them, the dirty word is often capitalism. They was a push to organize fast food workers. There is SO MUCH ANGER - and that plays to outsiders. Post-millenials might be the real anti-capitalists, though. The left is trying to mainstream ideas once just on the fringe.
The police have become militarized. There are the denial of rights and medical treatment. It's happened to minorities for a long time, but now we see it happening to white activists as well. Ferguson had cops use armored vehicles with weapons aimed at the people. The national guard called protesters "adversaries" and "enemies" and lumps them with the KKK. "Hands up, don't shoot" became a thing. Cops wore no badge and no nametags in Ferguson. They are more like an occupation force. Some Oath Keepers were angered by this. Jaffe talks to one who went to Ferguson. However the organization as a whole refused to side with protesters (causing the guy Jaffe spoke to leaving the group). I mean, on the face of it, Ferguson is the Oath Keeper's nightmare made real. The Oathkeepers were split between cops (who supported the Ferguson police) and vets (who were more troubled by it). This began in the Drug War and worsened with the War on Terrorism. We've only begun trying to gauge how many people cops kill a year. Police are often used as a revenue center. Pro-police whites call some protesters "terrorists." Different groups organize and in Ferguson it's just called the Movement. There is a desire not to get back to normal, but to seek a new normal. One protester said, it's not yet 1964, it's just 1954.
Poor relief efforts in NYC after Hurricane Sandy sparked more local activism. Bloomberg worried only about the upscale parts of town. (The book doesn't mention it, but I remember he wanted the marathon to go on despite all the devastation, and was really ticked when popular protest forced him to cancel it). de Blasio picked up on demands from Occupy protesters. There was a desire to create an organized community. Environmental problems are up when inequality rises.
The Occupy movement (in)famously made no demands. But it didn't get people involved and brought people together. You need to see how power operates in order to make changes, and it began a look at economic class. Intersectionality will be key, and it will be a struggle to maintain coalitions.
It's a good book and does a nice job looking at left-wing activism since 2008. We'll just have to see what it ends up amounting to.
October 15, 2024
Jaffe is rapidly becoming one of my favorite nonfiction authors. Here she covers the social movements of the back half of the 2010s and actually goes out of her way to coverall the various intersecting reasons for them and how they got started, usually by focusing on one person as our way in to understanding. Definitely worth your time.
October 18, 2017
Inspiring to read about all of the groups of people trying to make things better. If the news has got you down, this is a source of comfort. It is not sugar-coated false comfort. It doesn't say that everything will be alright. It just shows you where to look for the good in the world. And inspires you to get involved.
January 16, 2020
Great retelling of numerous movements in recent times. I was happy to be reminded of some as well as see a thread woven between them. If anyone wants to feel hopeful and remember how resilient people are read this book.
October 13, 2017
Necessary reading!
April 12, 2021
Thin where it needed details and dense where it could be concise. Still worth the read although at the end of it it seems to just drag on. Some parts were engrossing and informative, some were a little ahistorical or a little reductionist.
March 15, 2021
All the important, recent political movements explored: Occupy, BLM, etc. An important read that sets up her next book about what to do about it and how.
December 21, 2016
After the election, I decided to start a book club.
The first meeting is in January, well before inauguration. For our first book, we picked Sarah Jaffe's Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt.
Necessary Trouble covers a bunch of the different protest/activist movements that have arisen in the U.S. since the financial crisis hit in 2008: Starting with the Tea Party, it moves on chapter by chapter to cover Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Our Homes, the Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, Moral Mondays, and a number of climate actions. The section on climate actions, mostly the anti-fracking movement, are kept for the end of the book so that it ends on a maximally apocalyptic note: These are the people fighting government's attempts to literally burn the earth and poison people to make a buck.
Jaffe contextualizes each movement in terms of the events and policies that led up to it being born, often giving recap that go far back into the history of capitalism and of the United States. She ties that in with the stories of activists within each movement, providing in-depth interviews about how and why they got involved and what the movement means to them.
A couple key themes continually emerge. One is that many of these crises have been a long time coming and will not be easily solved. Another is a theme among the activists that so many of them found themselves ashamed of being in the sorts of situations that instigated these movements--of losing their jobs or retirement savings in the financial crash, of being foreclosed on, of holding student debt. Americans really, really want to be hard-working and self-sufficient, and this is part of what's allowed things to get as bad as they have: People will tell themselves that they should individually work harder to overcome whatever's being thrown at them instead of insisting upon being treated fairly, which we tend to believe sounds like petulant whining--that if someone's treating you unfairly, you should be awesome enough to make them treat you fairly, instead of complaining that they're not. The result of this is that the powers that be have been able to tilt the playing field ENORMOUSLY in their own favor before folks who see themselves as average hardworking Americans are willing to admit that they haven't been able to overcome the enormous structural disadvantages they've been put at and maybe you fuckers should just stop stacking the deck. Americans are highly prone to believing that there is still shame in losing even if the other guy was cheating, because you should have been awesome enough to stop the other guy from cheating you.
The book is very hopeful--hopeful that Americans are willing to learn and to organize and to come together in solidarity to get into "good trouble" and demand change. But it also warns of the temptations of the dark side of populism, the scapegoating, tribalist kind illustrated by Trump, who had not yet been, to our eternal shame and possibly to the end of our democracy, barely elected on a technicality with some help via cheating. (And yeah, in true American fashion, I'm pretty ashamed that the Clinton campaign couldn't still beat him even with the cheating, because he's the worst con man ever.) The hopefulness is alternately infectious--Americans have been organizing and fighting; we'll be able to do it more--and depressing. Frankly, the emotional whiplash is a little hard to take.
I learned a lot, though, even as someone who tried to follow these movements relatively closely on social media when they first happened. (For example, I didn't know that Lehman Brothers had gotten its start selling security bonds on slaves--honestly, and this is probably stupid of me, I hadn't realized you could create any sort of financial instruments with slaves as collateral, even though now that I think about it that's precisely what the "chattel" designation means. And I hadn't realized how much of what some of these banks got up to in the mortgage crisis was actually fraud--as in, already illegal--rather than just goddamn stupid.) And the book is so well-written that even though its subject matter is so heavy, it'll make you want to get out into the streets and crash your Congresscritter's next town hall. (My Congressman doesn't have a Town Hall scheduled so I called his office and asked him to have one. Le sigh.)
Highly recommended reading for the resistance. I can't wait to discuss it at book club.
The first meeting is in January, well before inauguration. For our first book, we picked Sarah Jaffe's Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt.
Necessary Trouble covers a bunch of the different protest/activist movements that have arisen in the U.S. since the financial crisis hit in 2008: Starting with the Tea Party, it moves on chapter by chapter to cover Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Our Homes, the Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, Moral Mondays, and a number of climate actions. The section on climate actions, mostly the anti-fracking movement, are kept for the end of the book so that it ends on a maximally apocalyptic note: These are the people fighting government's attempts to literally burn the earth and poison people to make a buck.
Jaffe contextualizes each movement in terms of the events and policies that led up to it being born, often giving recap that go far back into the history of capitalism and of the United States. She ties that in with the stories of activists within each movement, providing in-depth interviews about how and why they got involved and what the movement means to them.
A couple key themes continually emerge. One is that many of these crises have been a long time coming and will not be easily solved. Another is a theme among the activists that so many of them found themselves ashamed of being in the sorts of situations that instigated these movements--of losing their jobs or retirement savings in the financial crash, of being foreclosed on, of holding student debt. Americans really, really want to be hard-working and self-sufficient, and this is part of what's allowed things to get as bad as they have: People will tell themselves that they should individually work harder to overcome whatever's being thrown at them instead of insisting upon being treated fairly, which we tend to believe sounds like petulant whining--that if someone's treating you unfairly, you should be awesome enough to make them treat you fairly, instead of complaining that they're not. The result of this is that the powers that be have been able to tilt the playing field ENORMOUSLY in their own favor before folks who see themselves as average hardworking Americans are willing to admit that they haven't been able to overcome the enormous structural disadvantages they've been put at and maybe you fuckers should just stop stacking the deck. Americans are highly prone to believing that there is still shame in losing even if the other guy was cheating, because you should have been awesome enough to stop the other guy from cheating you.
The book is very hopeful--hopeful that Americans are willing to learn and to organize and to come together in solidarity to get into "good trouble" and demand change. But it also warns of the temptations of the dark side of populism, the scapegoating, tribalist kind illustrated by Trump, who had not yet been, to our eternal shame and possibly to the end of our democracy, barely elected on a technicality with some help via cheating. (And yeah, in true American fashion, I'm pretty ashamed that the Clinton campaign couldn't still beat him even with the cheating, because he's the worst con man ever.) The hopefulness is alternately infectious--Americans have been organizing and fighting; we'll be able to do it more--and depressing. Frankly, the emotional whiplash is a little hard to take.
I learned a lot, though, even as someone who tried to follow these movements relatively closely on social media when they first happened. (For example, I didn't know that Lehman Brothers had gotten its start selling security bonds on slaves--honestly, and this is probably stupid of me, I hadn't realized you could create any sort of financial instruments with slaves as collateral, even though now that I think about it that's precisely what the "chattel" designation means. And I hadn't realized how much of what some of these banks got up to in the mortgage crisis was actually fraud--as in, already illegal--rather than just goddamn stupid.) And the book is so well-written that even though its subject matter is so heavy, it'll make you want to get out into the streets and crash your Congresscritter's next town hall. (My Congressman doesn't have a Town Hall scheduled so I called his office and asked him to have one. Le sigh.)
Highly recommended reading for the resistance. I can't wait to discuss it at book club.
December 30, 2016
I finally finished Sarah Jaffe’s Necessary Trouble. I started reading it in mid October; but the election happened and I put it down. I didn’t feel like reading about anything political anymore. Everything I saw on TV, social media, and was reading in blogs, just made me feel worse and worse. Everything felt (and still feels) horrible and bleak. Necessary Trouble highlights all of these different movements, and prior to the election, I was reading this book to learn more about what was going on around the country, and how these movements had originally tied in to actions that first began years and years ago. But now, here we are: the election happened, and everything suddenly seemed impossible.
I picked the book back up again in late November, after the shock wore off. But I noticed that as I was reading, the important work of those who were pushing back on a local level began to stand out more and more. Yes, at a state level, and federal level, everything may be a complete dumpster fire, but that’s no reason to shun your community and what may be going on in your backyard. That’s where you can go out and work to make an impact, and that’s where you can work to see change. Some of the campaigns that Jaffe illustrates, may have seen some setbacks, but the fact is that the people are out there are doing the work, and are continuing to push back, and that’s just was what I needed to read this November.
If you’re feeling like everything is impossible, I definitely recommend you read this book. Jaffe’s interviews with local fighters and the work that they’re doing made me feel like the impossible was possible, and within reach. We just have to keep fighting.
I picked the book back up again in late November, after the shock wore off. But I noticed that as I was reading, the important work of those who were pushing back on a local level began to stand out more and more. Yes, at a state level, and federal level, everything may be a complete dumpster fire, but that’s no reason to shun your community and what may be going on in your backyard. That’s where you can go out and work to make an impact, and that’s where you can work to see change. Some of the campaigns that Jaffe illustrates, may have seen some setbacks, but the fact is that the people are out there are doing the work, and are continuing to push back, and that’s just was what I needed to read this November.
If you’re feeling like everything is impossible, I definitely recommend you read this book. Jaffe’s interviews with local fighters and the work that they’re doing made me feel like the impossible was possible, and within reach. We just have to keep fighting.
February 8, 2018
Part journalism, part history, Necessary Trouble is wide-reaching and informative. In this book, Sarah Jaffe details public resistance against racism, authoritarianism, economic exploitation, and environmental collapse. To this end, she interviews people on the front lines of these progressive struggles; then she contextualizes the interviews with a broad history of each relevant issue. Finally, Jaffe convincingly argues for a movement that will combine these sometimes disparate interest groups and make "necessary trouble" so as to disrupt oppressive power structures.
June 26, 2016
Sarah does a great job touring our new culture of protest, detailing a handful of important fights and how people power is leading to tangible victories. Americans - and people around the world - are dissatisfied by the status quo and have lost faith that the normal machinery of electoral politics will provide the solutions they need. They are moving political participation into the streets. This is an important book tracking that trend.
Want to read
December 8, 2017Necessary Trouble is an engaging and insightful guide to the new American radicalism that erupted in the wake of the Great Recession. Jaffe deftly exposes the roots of anti-establishment activism across the political spectrum, from the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Fight for $15. A must read... ~ Ruth Milkman, President, American Sociological Association, and author of On Gender, Labor and Inequality
Necessary Trouble is the definitive book on the movements that are poised to permanently remake American politics. We are witnessing a moment of unprecedented political turmoil and social activism. Over the last few years we’ve seen the growth of the Tea Party, a twenty-first-century black freedom struggle with BlackLivesMatter, Occupy Wall Street, and the grassroots networks supporting presidential candidates in defiance of the traditional party elites.
In Necessary Trouble, journalist Sarah Jaffe leads readers into the heart of these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans become activists. As Jaffe argues, the financial crisis in 2008 was the spark, the moment that crystallized that something was wrong. For years, Jaffe crisscrossed the country, asking people what they were angry about, and what they were doing to take power back. She attended a people’s assembly in a church gymnasium in Ferguson, Missouri; walked a picket line at an Atlanta Burger King; rode a bus from New York to Ohio with student organizers; and went door-to-door in Queens days after Hurricane Sandy.
From the successful fight for a $15 minimum wage in Seattle and New York to the halting of Shell’s Arctic Drilling Program, Americans are discovering the effectiveness of making good, necessary trouble. Regardless of political alignment, they are boldly challenging who wields power in this country.
Necessary Trouble is the definitive book on the movements that are poised to permanently remake American politics. We are witnessing a moment of unprecedented political turmoil and social activism. Over the last few years we’ve seen the growth of the Tea Party, a twenty-first-century black freedom struggle with BlackLivesMatter, Occupy Wall Street, and the grassroots networks supporting presidential candidates in defiance of the traditional party elites.
In Necessary Trouble, journalist Sarah Jaffe leads readers into the heart of these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans become activists. As Jaffe argues, the financial crisis in 2008 was the spark, the moment that crystallized that something was wrong. For years, Jaffe crisscrossed the country, asking people what they were angry about, and what they were doing to take power back. She attended a people’s assembly in a church gymnasium in Ferguson, Missouri; walked a picket line at an Atlanta Burger King; rode a bus from New York to Ohio with student organizers; and went door-to-door in Queens days after Hurricane Sandy.
From the successful fight for a $15 minimum wage in Seattle and New York to the halting of Shell’s Arctic Drilling Program, Americans are discovering the effectiveness of making good, necessary trouble. Regardless of political alignment, they are boldly challenging who wields power in this country.
August 6, 2021
I am *fascinated* by this book on a couple of levels, and I honestly don't even know where to start. First of all, I loved the in-depth look at many political movements I feel like I grew up tangentially aware of but - at the time - was not politically active enough to make any note of. These are the political groups and movements still moving and shaking our world today, and I specifically read this book to further my understanding of the more current moment as I start to move away from books set back in the forever ago. If that is also a mission you are on, I recommend this engaging book as an add to your TBR.
HOWEVER. The last line of the blurb says "Regardless of political alignment, they are boldly challenging who wields power in this country" and it mentions the Tea Party among its discussions. The latter is true, briefly, but the entire conclusion of this book makes it clear that the author is a firm believer in modern-day socialism (which you can guess earlier, but the conclusion makes clear). This is a bit frustrating to me because the prologue tries to set the author up as a reporter attempting to simply tell a story, but by the last few chapters, she appears to be more of an actor with her own political agenda. I take a bit of an issue with any author that tries to tells me they are impartial and then ... isn't. Just tell me you're on an agenda upfront so I can judge accordingly.
Finally, don't listen to the audiobook. The book I would recommend, but the structure is difficult to follow in audiobook form, even though I listened to the entire thing in just a few sittings because I was so enthralled. The narrator also mispronounces way more words than I've ever heard in any other audiobook and it drove me nuts.
HOWEVER. The last line of the blurb says "Regardless of political alignment, they are boldly challenging who wields power in this country" and it mentions the Tea Party among its discussions. The latter is true, briefly, but the entire conclusion of this book makes it clear that the author is a firm believer in modern-day socialism (which you can guess earlier, but the conclusion makes clear). This is a bit frustrating to me because the prologue tries to set the author up as a reporter attempting to simply tell a story, but by the last few chapters, she appears to be more of an actor with her own political agenda. I take a bit of an issue with any author that tries to tells me they are impartial and then ... isn't. Just tell me you're on an agenda upfront so I can judge accordingly.
Finally, don't listen to the audiobook. The book I would recommend, but the structure is difficult to follow in audiobook form, even though I listened to the entire thing in just a few sittings because I was so enthralled. The narrator also mispronounces way more words than I've ever heard in any other audiobook and it drove me nuts.
April 8, 2020
The best compliment I can pay to this book is that it explained the importance of the “Occupy” movement, especially in light of a lack of actual “accomplishments”. Having been very skeptical of this movement I was happy to see Jaffe put it into the context of the larger protest movements that erupted in the 2010s, from the Tea Party, to Black Lives Matter to many smaller ones. The whole premise of the book then is to chronicle these movements, both in terms of the big picture as well as the small individual victories that went unnoticed, and to connect them to successful protest movements of the past such as the Civil Rights. With this connection in mind Jaffe highlights the communities, now sometimes virtual, that grew out of small actions as well as the long time that these movements took to achieve “concrete” results. It is also prescient that already in the autumn of 2015 she was highlighting the danger of these movements falling for the escapist populism of figures like Donald Trump. All in all, even if you disagree with the obvious praise that Jaffe expressed for these movements this book gave the reader a framework through which to look at the ebullience of mass protests that seems emblematic of the 2010s.
May 7, 2017
A great read for anybody who thinks the protests and marches going on right now have no effect. I suggest the audio version for my FB friend whose main complaint about the "crybaby" protesters is that he doesn't want to be stuck in traffic after a long day at work. (wait, who is calling who a crybaby...?) The following quotes aren't from the book, but I think they are fitting.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
-Frederick Douglass
“…Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”
-Donald Trump
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
-Frederick Douglass
“…Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”
-Donald Trump
May 25, 2017
Released in the final months of the 2016 election cycle, Jaffe provides an excellent overview of recent social movements, dissent, and protest in the United States. With a commanding expertise on the subject won through seemingly constant travel and first hand experience the stories of people who are fed up doing something about it inform the reader from an unapologetically class based perspective.
Groups and movements including Black Lives Matter, the Fight for $15, Occupy Wall Street, Moral Mondays, and their conservative counterparts such as 3%ers and the Tea Party are examined within the context of rising economic disparity in the USA.
Most interestingly common causes linking these movements are clearly outlined. In examining opposing viewpoints like those held by Occupy and the Tea Party, Jaffe does not simply condemn one while praising the other like so many authors and journalists have. Instead she draws analogy between the two, offering commonalities that activists on both sides would do well to consider.
Groups and movements including Black Lives Matter, the Fight for $15, Occupy Wall Street, Moral Mondays, and their conservative counterparts such as 3%ers and the Tea Party are examined within the context of rising economic disparity in the USA.
Most interestingly common causes linking these movements are clearly outlined. In examining opposing viewpoints like those held by Occupy and the Tea Party, Jaffe does not simply condemn one while praising the other like so many authors and journalists have. Instead she draws analogy between the two, offering commonalities that activists on both sides would do well to consider.
March 12, 2017
It's a good read for anyone who's interested in sort of social justice and the intersections between social justice and politics, especially if you don't know much of the history. It's definitely written for a public general audience, so if you're pretty well-read in the matter, you may not learn much, and it will feel more like a comprehensive review, or even "preaching to the choir". I already knew most of the things mentioned in the book, and I don't consider myself a particularly well-read person when it comes to this stuff, but you'll recognize a lot if you've been an engaged citizen and keep up with news/current events for a few years. If you're new to this whole world (possibly stirred into interest from the 2016 election) and looking for something that is readable and not too niche, this is for you! It's not boring or overly repetitive at all, so if you're on the fence, I say go ahead and give it a try.
July 19, 2018
Oh, wow. I really appreciate this book. It is an excellent exploration of the American rebellions that have started to take place since the Occupy Movement back in '11. Jaffe could have started much further back, but her logic is solid here, and she does a good job explaining the connections between Occupy and many of the movements that are currently fighting for social justice in America today.
I was particularly appreciative of her exploration of the Christian perspective on social justice, and her refusal to dismiss the Christian community from the conversation and the work being done to achieve both economic and social justice. It would have been easy for her to ignore Moral Mondays, and similar movements, to focus on less religious actors. However, that story would have incomplete (IMHO) because the work of the "alternative" Christian community has been, and will be, central to the struggle for justice in this country.
A great book.
I was particularly appreciative of her exploration of the Christian perspective on social justice, and her refusal to dismiss the Christian community from the conversation and the work being done to achieve both economic and social justice. It would have been easy for her to ignore Moral Mondays, and similar movements, to focus on less religious actors. However, that story would have incomplete (IMHO) because the work of the "alternative" Christian community has been, and will be, central to the struggle for justice in this country.
A great book.
August 16, 2017
Beyond being a book about recent protest movements, the author presents an interesting thesis of "intersectionality" of how groups of people are confronting marginalization based on a multitude of factors, that makes oversimplification of greviances miss the point. Nevertheless, all these issues point to a perverse power relationship that has been exacerbated in the last few decades. Modern day Capitalism is deemed the culprit, and groups such as Occupy and the Tea Party, are surprisingly similar in many of their core beliefs, although they have diverged widely in execution.
While Jaffe does not explicity press the reader to adopt any particular political stance, she does push for people to start envisioning the kind of society they would like to live in and the steps that it would take to get there.
While Jaffe does not explicity press the reader to adopt any particular political stance, she does push for people to start envisioning the kind of society they would like to live in and the steps that it would take to get there.
Read
July 3, 2022DNF--I should have read the whole book back in 2016, not just some of it. Actually, that was probably in 2017. By the time I started reading this book, Neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville. Shortly after the 216 election, I purchased numerous books on nonviolent action and the like, and I read some of them--even incorporated some activism into a novel. Too bad I couldn't pile all those books on me and learn from osmosis (Garfield the cat joke).
This book talks about the Tea Party, something repellent I didn't especially want to remember. By the time I started reading this book, Neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, and fascists generally came out of the closet thanks to the rapist neo-Nazi narcissistic sociopath dictator-wannabe who was squatting in the White House at the time.
This book talks about the Tea Party, something repellent I didn't especially want to remember. By the time I started reading this book, Neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, and fascists generally came out of the closet thanks to the rapist neo-Nazi narcissistic sociopath dictator-wannabe who was squatting in the White House at the time.
July 1, 2018
Necessary reading! This explains so much about the recent history of social movements working to challenge entrenched power, including the power residing in both political parties. The media doesn't tend to cover these movements in depth, but Jaffe puts together struggles for economic, racial, and environmental justice, with an eye towards history and a broad, inspiring vision. Wish it had been published after the 2016 election in order to see how she might re-examine the story of the period since 2008, when the story of the book basically begins.
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