One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.
Replies
As said well by El-P via Run The Jewels in “walking in the snow”
mar 29, 2025, 9:26 pm • 47 4 • view
I love the version they did of that during the Holy Calamavote concert. Whole song applicable to this moment. RIP Gangster Boo
mar 30, 2025, 2:14 am • 0 0 • view
If you need a moment away from some of this important but dark and serious stuff, there's a strange little cover that should bring you joy. It shouldn't work at all, but it works /really/ well. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFm...
mar 30, 2025, 12:23 am • 2 0 • view
This book is a sobering read. But its even worse now. The recent jailing of students who spoke out against the killing in Gaza is having the desired effect The silence around the current Israeli atrocities is deafening.
mar 30, 2025, 1:22 am • 20 2 • view
These people have been #kidnapped. We need to #resist using soft #MAGAt #language and replace it #harsh, #accurate language. The people who control the language control the #narrative.
mar 30, 2025, 2:11 am • 16 3 • view
I agree!
mar 30, 2025, 4:06 am • 3 0 • view
Thank you. Just found it on Audible and will start listening tomorrow
mar 29, 2025, 9:50 pm • 9 1 • view
You’re most welcome!
mar 29, 2025, 9:54 pm • 4 0 • view
Great post, thank you.
mar 31, 2025, 6:28 am • 0 0 • view
#JohnTrudell #TheGreatLie #Civilization #TheMachineSystem #FossilFuel #MiningOurMinds #Indigenous youtu.be/6GgUyZ4F7CU?...
apr 29, 2025, 8:21 pm • 0 0 • view
Just ordered it, it sounds like one of the most compelling books in recent memory.
mar 29, 2025, 9:48 pm • 7 1 • view
I cannot think of a more timely and important book.
mar 29, 2025, 9:49 pm • 5 1 • view
#Gaza #WarCrimes Sponsored by #USA Committed by #Israel terrorists
mar 30, 2025, 1:56 pm • 1 1 • view
Yes.
mar 29, 2025, 10:48 pm • 1 0 • view
It did..
mar 30, 2025, 12:38 am • 0 0 • view
"You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience" Damn.
mar 30, 2025, 4:29 pm • 11 3 • view
I need this book
mar 30, 2025, 4:22 am • 0 0 • view
We are here.
mar 30, 2025, 11:21 am • 1 1 • view
I'm waiting for this book at my library!
mar 29, 2025, 10:06 pm • 9 1 • view
Another reason why we should all support our local libraries!
mar 29, 2025, 10:09 pm • 14 2 • view
@aadl.org is a five star library. They are one of my favorite places in Ann Arbor!
mar 29, 2025, 10:13 pm • 9 0 • view
Oh, thank you for reminding me that I can order it at my library!
mar 30, 2025, 3:46 pm • 1 0 • view
This article answers many questions about trump’s foreign policy- including a focus on war with China: www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
mar 30, 2025, 12:25 am • 4 3 • view
📌
mar 30, 2025, 6:24 am • 0 0 • view
Afghanistan
mar 30, 2025, 4:08 am • 0 0 • view
I wish reporters would ask Mike Johnson questions about the theft of his soul. I wish someone would say, how much of your soul do you give up every time you repeat one of Trumps false and childish catchphrases as if it were intelligent and true?
mar 30, 2025, 4:23 pm • 13 1 • view
Provided there is a soul there!
mar 30, 2025, 7:36 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm sure there was at some point, but he sold it a long time ago.
mar 30, 2025, 11:37 pm • 2 0 • view
'Perhaps one of the most jarring moments of the interviews, however, is when D’Antonio asks Trump to reflect on the meaning of life. Trump responds by saying, “No, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see.”' ...
mar 31, 2025, 9:57 am • 2 0 • view
This was from 2014. 1/2 the country voted for a man afraid of self reflection...
mar 31, 2025, 10:00 am • 2 0 • view
Reading it now. It’d make your heart bleed with rage
mar 30, 2025, 8:49 am • 6 1 • view
I'm afraid some people have embraced selfishness and hate and are happily going along with this all sh*tshow. They are failing their humanity test, and failing all of humanity in the process.
mar 30, 2025, 12:51 pm • 19 1 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 11:50 pm • 3 0 • view
Strikes hard.
apr 30, 2025, 6:02 am • 0 0 • view
The only thing to note is that the composition of one man's soul doesn't necessarily match another's. Otherwise people like Trump would be nowhere or, alternatively, everywhere.
mar 30, 2025, 7:24 pm • 2 0 • view
A final passage from “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” that continues to haunt me.
apr 8, 2025, 11:27 pm • 51 9 • view
I’ve referenced that last sentence at least a dozen times since I first read it. It’s such an apt and deeply depressing insight about polite, liberal American society.
apr 30, 2025, 4:02 am • 1 0 • view
“Some things are complicated. Some things have been complicated.” The manipulation of language enables violence. One of many important insights from Omar El Akkad’s powerful prose.
mar 31, 2025, 12:04 am • 76 17 • view
I won't ever forget this book. It's been one of the important reads of my life - and one of the most harrowing.
mar 29, 2025, 10:21 pm • 27 1 • view
The vast majority will never care unless and until they are personally harmed. They don't care if others are harmed. Just World Fallacy has them convinced that those people deserved it, but they are Good People™, and therefore the Bad Thing won't happen to them.
mar 30, 2025, 5:49 am • 6 0 • view
Man, his book American War was just fantastic. Still wonder how it hasn’t made it to the big screen.
mar 30, 2025, 7:22 pm • 1 0 • view
📌
apr 29, 2025, 4:59 am • 1 0 • view
Fuck
mar 29, 2025, 9:41 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes, fucking yes!
mar 29, 2025, 11:38 pm • 0 0 • view
📌
mar 30, 2025, 10:25 am • 3 0 • view
This is sadly very true. I wish it weren't.
mar 29, 2025, 10:42 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh wow, putting that in my tbr right now
mar 29, 2025, 9:32 pm • 1 0 • view
Thank you for posting this. Clarifying.
mar 29, 2025, 10:58 pm • 1 0 • view
@ianmastersmedia.bsky.social did a great interview with Omar El Akkad recently that is well worth listening to soundcloud.com/user-8304426...
mar 29, 2025, 10:01 pm • 2 0 • view
For another brilliant conversation with Omar El Akkad, check out this Bulaq podcast episode: lnk.to/CncTyx
mar 29, 2025, 10:03 pm • 5 2 • view
📌
apr 29, 2025, 7:45 am • 0 0 • view
“…at least fight against the death of your soul.” This says it all.
mar 30, 2025, 7:25 pm • 1 1 • view
This argument is similar to the one Frederick Douglass makes in his autobiography where he states that slavery is also destructive to the slaveholder who loses their own humanity when they own other humans.
mar 29, 2025, 10:37 pm • 49 1 • view
Yeah. You don't have to have sympathy for them, but it's important to understand that oppressors are made not born and part of the destruction of a human being that turns someone in to that is self inflicted.
mar 29, 2025, 10:51 pm • 25 0 • view
See also: They Thought They Were Free. The shame in a moment like this is not the novelty of it, but rather how often humanity seems to repeat its cruelest moments.
mar 30, 2025, 2:16 am • 8 1 • view
My heart, my soul…
mar 30, 2025, 7:41 am • 5 0 • view
Thanks for this share. Powerful.
mar 30, 2025, 11:38 am • 2 0 • view
Thank you for the book recommendation. In addition, I believe this would be an excellent gift for my Aunt, so you helped with my Christmas Shopping list too!
mar 30, 2025, 11:25 am • 1 0 • view
Will we ever learn? Sigh.
apr 29, 2025, 4:57 am • 0 0 • view
Thanks for sharing this. It's so meaningful to the entire world right now if we'd only stop and think first.
mar 29, 2025, 9:31 pm • 1 0 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 9:40 pm • 1 0 • view
Those who philosophically, politically, & electorally support the Trump Crime Syndicate occupying the White House have no humanity left to lose.
apr 29, 2025, 4:58 am • 2 0 • view
📌
mar 30, 2025, 9:15 pm • 3 0 • view
It is exactly how I feel. I am being asked to let part of myself die, and I feel like I have to cut it off or else it will drag me down into a pit that consumes the whole of me.
mar 29, 2025, 10:27 pm • 4 0 • view
Correct. Self interest is to protect yourself, even if you give up your humanity little by little. It's only later once it's much too late you realize that you gave everything away for nothing in return.
mar 29, 2025, 9:21 pm • 46 6 • view
E Pluribus Unum Universe emanating from singularity Truth is the meteor triggering the next evolutionary divide Unity is our heritage and destiny Don’t listen to the braying fools who, having cratered their own souls, insist we follow them into the dark
mar 30, 2025, 5:33 pm • 5 0 • view
Just heard about this book today, in conversation with my public librarian
mar 29, 2025, 9:54 pm • 30 0 • view
Another reason why we should listen to librarians.
mar 29, 2025, 10:00 pm • 50 2 • view
as the average german would say: "digga..."
mar 30, 2025, 3:32 pm • 3 0 • view
Even spiritual people advise you to not think about all the horrific occurrences in the world for the sake of your mental health. The Great Turning Away as Pink Floyd said. It is not something that I can do but it DOES affect my emotional state.
mar 29, 2025, 9:33 pm • 6 1 • view
Wow, it does
mar 30, 2025, 2:09 am • 3 0 • view
Cried many times whilst reading this book. Bitter tears of sorrow and frustration at my own weak efforts to make our political leaders and general public waken up to what is going on, all done with our tacit consent.
mar 30, 2025, 4:39 pm • 2 0 • view
It did stop me in my tracks, because for a moment I thought it was about animal agriculture.
mar 30, 2025, 7:50 am • 5 1 • view
Wow !!!
mar 30, 2025, 2:34 am • 3 0 • view
It's beautiful writing and a beautiful sentiment. But it assumes these folks didn't already give up their souls long ago. They did.
apr 29, 2025, 11:43 am • 2 0 • view
Thank you for sharing this author!
mar 30, 2025, 2:05 am • 3 0 • view
Thanks - I needed this reminder.
mar 30, 2025, 4:31 am • 3 0 • view
i agree with all of this but what do we do about it
mar 29, 2025, 9:53 pm • 4 0 • view
📌
mar 30, 2025, 8:01 am • 3 0 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 11:31 pm • 2 0 • view
Sheesh. Nails it. Seems like this is something I should read
mar 30, 2025, 1:05 am • 0 0 • view
This! This is what I’ve been saying. Thank you for sharing this beautifully written truth.
mar 30, 2025, 4:02 am • 1 0 • view
Exactly how I feel about these situations where those not aware or negligently blind continue with insanity. There is no other word for this cruelty.
mar 29, 2025, 11:10 pm • 3 0 • view
Thank you for adding alt text!
mar 30, 2025, 6:58 pm • 5 0 • view
Wow.
mar 30, 2025, 6:18 am • 4 0 • view
Hard disagree. There are a lot of self interested people in the world. If you say "climate change will kill millions of people, especially the poorest people in the global south" they think "so I'll be OK." We absolutely need to point out how bad policies are bad for everyone.
mar 29, 2025, 10:34 pm • 7 0 • view
I think we do--we just can't expect it will drive everyone to action, because there will always be people who always believe they'll be safe, and are really just fine with other people not being safe.
mar 29, 2025, 10:46 pm • 7 0 • view
To be clear, I'm not saying appeal to self interest should be the only argument ever deployed. I'm say, if you are dealing with fascism or climate change "There is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future" is an entirely unpersuasive lie.
mar 31, 2025, 11:20 am • 0 0 • view
This book is such a great read
mar 30, 2025, 4:48 pm • 3 0 • view
What soul?
mar 30, 2025, 2:40 pm • 3 0 • view
Infuriating to find some counterfeit version on Amazon. (I've reported it.)
mar 30, 2025, 12:13 am • 3 0 • view
Amen!
mar 29, 2025, 9:32 pm • 3 0 • view
A litmus test I am pleased to say I passed. Excoriating!
mar 30, 2025, 12:08 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm a revolutionary for a lot of reasons. But I think the deepest one is that I refuse to live in a system that demands a slave class. They can put whatever shit they want on TV or run whatever political campaign they like. They will never make me accept this horror show that they call freedom.
mar 29, 2025, 9:32 pm • 18 1 • view
SOMEBODY back in the day of quill and ink said: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we’ll all hang separately.”
mar 31, 2025, 2:35 am • 8 0 • view
Good ol' Ben Franklin
mar 31, 2025, 8:28 am • 0 0 • view
How do I apply/appeal to my congressman? From his media and town hall appearances, I believe this man has a lying in your face/getting away with it kink. When the control is what they are motivated by, getting off on power over others, how do you reason with a soul-level primal motive/perversion?
mar 30, 2025, 10:37 am • 4 1 • view
Read it aloud for all who are there. Don’t ask questions, just let all of them hear it.
mar 30, 2025, 7:22 pm • 1 0 • view
His mind is not the one you have to change. He's already a lost cause, thriving on his lies. Try to get him to show what he is in front of others. Disillusion his voters using simple truths that resonate with their values -- and where his words and actions wouldn't. Make him look foolish. It's hard!
mar 30, 2025, 12:33 pm • 3 0 • view
This would not be an effective strategy. Most of us wouldn't get the reference, and you want to make him look kooky, not you. Art and costume are good, but think about the difference between therapeutic actions that make you feel better and effective actions that get a message across, change minds.
mar 30, 2025, 12:36 pm • 1 0 • view
I know. But I do want to solve this mystery of how you engage with someone who enjoys gaslighting. He reminds me of that guy who rubs his semi up on a stranger and then laughs and acts all surprised that they would think it could possibly have been on purpose. He's in the media doing GOP spin a lot.
mar 30, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
🤣😂🤣!
mar 30, 2025, 1:39 pm • 1 0 • view
Going out on a limb and predicting your rep calls himself a 'Christian conservative'. 'Christian conservatives' are the most likely to have rejected the actual teachings of Christ, but throwing a few Bible verses at these hypocrites is what Jesus would tell these Pharisees and money worshippers.
mar 31, 2025, 10:20 am • 1 0 • view
I am currently reading this book. If the image on the cover alone doesn’t make you pause, the contents certainly will. A must-read for anyone willing to confront hard truths.
mar 29, 2025, 9:34 pm • 6 0 • view
American War is one of my favorite novels.
apr 29, 2025, 4:56 am • 3 0 • view
claaa, sabias palabras! de que sirve un declamado compromiso con el mundo cuando no se puede ni resolver las contradicciones mas inmediatas? el mundo es lo q esta al alcance de la propia accion
apr 29, 2025, 6:37 pm • 3 0 • view
📌
mar 30, 2025, 12:18 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes I’m reading this right now
mar 30, 2025, 12:36 am • 0 0 • view
We are born deep into it. It isn't something we can prevent from happening because in some form or another it has been happening since before we were born. It is truly horrific to wake up to this fact and to realize the best we can hope for is to help stop it. Stop it from getting worse. Stop it all
apr 29, 2025, 6:15 am • 0 0 • view
Every action we take to stop it helps. We can't be immobilized by the size and weight of it. We have to work to stop it. Together.
apr 29, 2025, 6:17 am • 0 0 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 9:30 pm • 3 0 • view
When the Dem Party first failed the people, back 50 years ago when it was known that neither party honored what the people wanted, but just kept catering, like whores, to the oligarchs $, lying for votes. Then did whatever they were paid to do by the Corporations. That is when this started.
mar 30, 2025, 5:42 pm • 5 2 • view
50 years is weird timeframe for this, you mean the nomination of Carter was 'failing the people'? He was perhaps the most populist Dem president, just retconned when there was trouble
mar 30, 2025, 7:20 pm • 5 0 • view
And we let them do it. We stood by and watched. We didn't speak clearly, because someone would think it anger, or inappropriate. We just watched. And went about our business.
mar 30, 2025, 5:51 pm • 6 2 • view
continually floored by this book. Excerpt-picking is nearly impossible.
mar 29, 2025, 9:26 pm • 6 0 • view
This is the first time I've heard about this book. Thanks for the recommendation. I just ordered a hard copy from bookshop.org and purchased the audio book, too.
mar 30, 2025, 8:27 am • 3 0 • view
Ummmm, just count me out.
mar 29, 2025, 11:22 pm • 3 0 • view
Moving and true - where it’s true. One of my principles as an organizer was: “Walk on all the legs you’ve got.” For people with empathy, you don’t need self-interest. If s-i works with those who won’t or can’t feel for “others” I’m ok w/ appealing to it.
mar 30, 2025, 12:10 pm • 10 0 • view
It's not self interest in the sense that being in a cult isn't really in one's self interest. Lots of MAGA will die for Trump. I think that's why these appeals to self interest (you might lose your job or SS or Medicare) aren't as foolproof as one might think. The truth is scarier. ...
mar 31, 2025, 10:14 am • 2 0 • view
Many MAGA souls crave revenge. They love it when Trump calls the rest of us vermin and enemies of the state. Mass schadenfreude.
mar 31, 2025, 10:14 am • 2 0 • view
Absolutely true. Another important organizing principle is that you can’t reach everybody, but you can reach some people. Different approaches work with diff ppl, with some, nothing will work. Don’t waste time, target strategically. If you’re lucky, you’ll reach enough.
mar 31, 2025, 10:33 am • 2 0 • view
If only Americans had the courage to take these words to heart. You see people actually doing something about their problems in Georgia (the country), Serbia, and Turkey to name a few, so there's no reason why they can't do the same across the pond.
mar 30, 2025, 8:39 am • 6 1 • view
People are doing something. All over the country, people are doing things. Openly and in secret. Constantly calling our officials. Demanding town halls. Demonstrations. Boycotts. That's not getting into the illegal activities. We are fighting - not enough of us yet, but we are.
mar 30, 2025, 3:50 pm • 5 0 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 10:36 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s an extraordinary book with so many moments like this. Reading it now and I’m awe of Omar El Akkad’s insightful and profound ideas, wrapped in gorgeous writing.
mar 30, 2025, 2:29 pm • 3 0 • view
mar 29, 2025, 11:11 pm • 3 0 • view
www.cbc.ca/books/one-da...
mar 31, 2025, 1:54 pm • 4 0 • view
The 2003 US invasion of Iraq enjoyed as high as 79% approval in May of that year. Good luck finding any of those people today. Be fascinating to watch the knots people tie themselves into to one day forgive themselves for all this. web.archive.org/web/20241205...
mar 29, 2025, 10:11 pm • 20 0 • view
I was one of the people originally enraged by 9/11 because I was living in Queens and working in midtown Manhattan when it happened. I remember watching tower one fall from a bridge. Back then I wanted all Muslims to die. It took several good friends to make me realize my anger was misplaced.
mar 30, 2025, 9:45 am • 1 0 • view
Same way everyone today pretends they'd totally support MLK if they were alive back then
apr 29, 2025, 7:28 am • 0 0 • view
Remember Aaron Bushnell
mar 30, 2025, 3:00 am • 5 0 • view
This only needs be understood once, and it becomes ingrained.
mar 30, 2025, 1:42 pm • 4 0 • view
Remember the victims of the holocaust, the trail of tears, the slave trade, and other genocides often. And weep afresh.
mar 30, 2025, 6:42 pm • 2 0 • view
yes. yessss. YES. your. soul.
mar 30, 2025, 3:38 pm • 4 0 • view
I am astonished at how eloquently perfect this is.
apr 29, 2025, 9:37 am • 1 0 • view
Keep the receipts people!! Remember who said what and WHEN. Remember who DID what and when. Remember their names. A reckoning is coming.
mar 30, 2025, 3:32 pm • 9 2 • view
This snippet is so good! Captures why I’ve found it so troubling that people keep citing/memeing the “first they came for” me poem. I need to read El Akkad’s book.
mar 29, 2025, 8:43 pm • 80 2 • view
It is tremendous.
mar 29, 2025, 8:46 pm • 18 1 • view
Fundamentally incorrect against the people who never learned empathy.
apr 29, 2025, 6:14 am • 1 0 • view
In short, if a tragedy can happen to someone else, it can happen to you. Your social status cannot perpetually protect you from reality.
mar 31, 2025, 4:21 am • 5 0 • view
Finished this book yesterday. I highly recommend it.
mar 29, 2025, 9:45 pm • 4 0 • view
First, require ICE agents to wear identifying markings, including a personnel number, if not a name. They think they have qualified immunity at this point, but at this point, it's just their opinion.
apr 29, 2025, 7:14 am • 4 0 • view
Thank you for posting.
mar 30, 2025, 1:33 am • 2 0 • view
📌
apr 29, 2025, 10:10 am • 2 0 • view
Damn it I have too many books to read Added to my #thread list
mar 29, 2025, 11:16 pm • 3 0 • view
That was supposed to be my #toread list but apparently my autocorrect chimed in Ordered, still waiting to read
may 5, 2025, 11:58 pm • 0 0 • view
Many Americans don't understand empathy, and don't care about injustice. They will look the other way until it's happening to them.
mar 30, 2025, 4:34 am • 4 0 • view
mar 30, 2025, 9:48 am • 4 0 • view
I couldn't have articulated this better myself. Totally spot on!
mar 29, 2025, 9:40 pm • 1 0 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 11:29 pm • 3 0 • view
📌
mar 30, 2025, 12:14 am • 3 0 • view
Cuts deep
mar 30, 2025, 12:42 am • 1 0 • view
Thank you
mar 29, 2025, 9:10 pm • 2 0 • view
📌
mar 29, 2025, 10:18 pm • 0 0 • view
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mar 29, 2025, 10:54 pm • 1 0 • view
There is no peace in appeasement. Those who surrender ahead of time come to regret it sooner rather than later. The easy fork is the rougher road.
mar 30, 2025, 4:02 am • 5 0 • view
Oh, wow. I often think of American War these days, with the shit happening.
mar 29, 2025, 10:13 pm • 4 0 • view
Omar discusses “American War” in this new book and the different responses inspired by it in the U.S. and in the Middle East. Worth reading!
mar 29, 2025, 10:14 pm • 7 0 • view
Definitely going to read it.
mar 29, 2025, 10:15 pm • 1 0 • view
Even the horror learned to whisper. Until one day, it screamed in perfect grammar.
apr 4, 2025, 4:49 pm • 4 0 • view
Wow
mar 29, 2025, 10:28 pm • 3 0 • view
Exceptional writing!
mar 30, 2025, 12:05 am • 3 0 • view
📌
apr 29, 2025, 5:18 am • 0 0 • view
I'm going to send this to all the people I know who constantly parrot Netanyahu's propaganda machine
mar 30, 2025, 12:49 am • 9 0 • view
Wow. That feels like a Must Read.
mar 29, 2025, 11:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Thank you for sharing this!!
mar 30, 2025, 2:39 am • 3 0 • view
Do magas have souls?
mar 29, 2025, 11:05 pm • 2 0 • view
That is brutally true as prose and rhetoric, but in reality the people who don't respond to the first exhortation (eventually they'll come for you) won't understand the second (by agreeing to work with them you're destroying part of your soul).
mar 30, 2025, 3:18 am • 2 0 • view
American War and What Strange Paradise were sooo good. Looking forward to this one too
mar 30, 2025, 2:01 pm • 4 0 • view
Oh my…. 😞
mar 29, 2025, 10:08 pm • 0 0 • view