Friday’s Reading List
By Taylor Marvin
Grafia S.A.I.I.G, Abruzzo travel poster, 1920. Via Wikimedia.
What I read this week:
In what is sure to be controversial, a New York Times op-ed asks whether Iran and Israel are exchanging theocracy. While I think it is important to remember that US policy in support of Israel is not primarily driven by American Jews, and Iran is far from a democracy, Abbas Milani and Israel Waismel-Manor’s argument is a provocative one.
The “Cuban Twitter” fiasco risks USAID’s ability to present itself as an aid agency (via IR/PS).
Qatari construction for the 2022 FIFA World Cup will likely kill thousands of migrant workers. Danny Hirschel-Burns ask whether this makes FIFA a mass killer.
Why isn’t Brazil taking a harsher line on Mercosur partner Venezuela’s repression? And what’s behind Brazil’s “uncritical” take on international development?
Capital in the 21st Century seems an interesting book, though Kevin Drum has a few criticisms.
Michelle Goldberg sees #CancelColbert, a Twitter push spearheaded by Asian American activist Suey Park, as symptomatic of “left-wing anti-liberalism” and activism that has become “less about winning converts and changing the world and more about creating protected enclaves and policing speech.” Brittney Cooper counters that activism is not about censorship or dividing progressivism, but instead “forcing an acknowledgment that racism is painful, harmful and unacceptable.” (Via
Aura Bogado and šīrīn šəfī.)
More linkage on conflict at the blog Political Violence at a Glance.
Smoke & Stir 
.jpg){kind=link}