It's just incredible how consistent views are under the western propaganda umbrella. Yeah, we're pretty consistent too, but it's weird seeing it from the outside. There's no critique, there's no self-reflection, there's often no logic or perspective of any kind. They keep yelling "sovereignty" like it's a magic word and they think it means something.
Unfortunately it's also really boring. The same people with the same childish understanding and incurious diet of media saying the same things over and over and over and over. I wish more of our team would disengage. I'm certainly not getting any wiser going through these conversations on repeat and I don't think anyone else is, either.
I’m incredibly grateful to my comrades in the posting pits. I’ve read so many beautifully written informative posts, and my reading backlog has expanded considerably with all the book recommendations. So even if those nerds aren’t responsive, those posts aren’t just dumped into a void.
I don’t enjoy debating myself, I love watching y’all engage. The real time implosion of lib brains is gold
Ooooh, could you post some of those book recommendations? My reading backlog is hungry for more
Yeah!
What Is Antiracism?: And Why It Means Anticapitalism by Arun Kundnani
Thinking in Systems: International Bestseller by Donella H. Meadows
Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Updated and Expanded by David Graeber
Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo
I have a post it note at home with some more, but these are the ones I’ve acquired already
Thanks, those all look pretty interesting, I'll check them out!
Thinking in Systems is very good. If you're interested in that stuff, I'd also strongly recommend Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell. It's a great introduction to the topic that doesn't presuppose much background.
Thanks! I haven’t started Thinking in Systems yet, should I start with Complexity since I most definitely don’t have the background?
They're different, but complementary. Mitchell will give you a bit more of the science fundamentals if you're interested in that stuff. You'd be ok starting in either place, though.
I keep a text file of book recommendations I come across here. It would be a lot longer, but I lost my old version and had to start a new one all over again.
This includes some commentary, that isn't mine, it's just part of what I copy-pasted from the comments of other comrades. Credit goes to them, but so does any blame for misspellings or bad takes.
Michael Hudson - Killing the Host (2015)
The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich.jpg
Breaking Things At Work was a solid read and it’s short
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kristen-r-ghodsee/why-women-have-better-sex-under-socialism/9781645036364/?lens=bold-type-books
via www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/why-women-had-better-sex-under-socialism.html
That author also has a whole podcast dedicated to the works of Alexandra Kollontai and socialist feminism called AK-47
The Capital Order yet, but Mattei’s thesis is that austerity isn’t about “tradeoffs” or cutting expenses. It’s about enforcing capital’s dominance of labor.
I get it’s a meme, but Gerald Horne’s The Counter-Revolution of 1776 is all the best parts of Settlers and none of the worst.
want a crash course on Yugoslavia? To Kill a Nation by Parenti
A new book by David Michael Smith, "Endless Holocausts: Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire," estimates that the US empire is responsible, or shares the responsibility, for close to 300 million deaths -- making it the most murderous empire ever. (use this when a hundred gorrillion.)
Orcas have incredible social behaviors and trans generational culture. They have been subjected not only to hunting but kidnappings and the pollution of their environments and they know that humans are responsible.
This is not a startling new behavior, this is a revolution.
I mean this sincerely.
Edit: if you like this post, read Undrowned by Alexis Gumbs from AK press
Sartre’s preface to Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth goes pretty hard
We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire by Suzanna Reiss
Sacred and Terrible Air (book written to be in same universe as Disco Elysium - only recently translated to English)
recommend that anyone who hasn't read Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin (a leftist) do so. It does an excellent job of documenting the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy in, and leading up to, the 1930s, including how less reactionary liberals were instrumental in giving the fascist liberals* power, and including clear evidence of how the left could and should have used direct action to crush the fascist movement before the fascists crushed them.
I would also recommend "the economy and class structure of german fascism" while you're at it to understand the role of liberals in enabling fascism.
You might enjoy The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.
I hope that is useful.
Also tagging @charlie@hexbear.net in case you're interested. Your list is now added to my text file too, so thanks comrade.
Thank you comrade, more books!
Wow, this is great! Thanks
Adding it to my hexbearist file, thanks.