I visited the commie bookstore in town today and I picked up a copy of Manufacturing Consent because it seemed appropriate for the current times. I also got a copy of Motorcycle Diaries.
On the way home I also passed a Falun Gong stand. They were doing some dance.
What are you reading?
I finished Palo Alto and found it to be really well written and interesting. Currently reading Vulture Capitalism, it’s a recently published book too like Palo Alto and I’m roughly 1/3 through it. I think after this I want to dig into some Michael Hudson books, either Killing the Host or Destiny of Civilizations.
The Will to Change by bell hooks. I’m bringing it to a book club.
“the east is still red” by carlos martinez
Slowly going through das kapital with the theory reading group
I’m in the middle of Against Empire by Parenti. It’s good, but I enjoyed Blackshirts and Reds more. Parenti is a great writer, and he is easy to understand, so I will continue to read his stuff. As for novels, I ordered 2001: A Space Odyssey not too long ago and will try to read it sometimes. I have manufacturing consent sitting on my bookshelf, plus some others from Chomsky I haven’t read yet. I bought them during a short anarchist phase I had and grew out of very quickly after reading Lenin’s stuff. Often, I buy books and end up never reading them. Uhh I should stop doing that and download them illegally instead.
Marx for Cats by Leigh Claire La Berge
I saw that at the store as well. It’s on my list now.
Interesting… I guess I should read this.
I have finally gotten around to reading Settlers and I’ve also slowly working through Losurdo’s Liberalism and Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. I find Fanon particularly hard to read which makes getting through it quite slow.
I also like easier to read fiction, especially when my head is too full or cloudy for theory. Recently finished Decoded by Mai Jia and am about halfway through Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko, both of which are enjoyable.
Reading “Sexed Up” by Julia Serano. I’m halfway through it and it’s a great read about sexualization and trans struggles.
For serious stuff I’m currently rereading Super Imperialism by Michael Hudson cause my brain hates remembering stuff now. Also started a bit of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter by Vijay Prashad.
Also finally gotten back into reading fiction and have polished off about seven Sarah J Maas books in the past couple months, guilty pleasure
Just now getting to Blackshirts and Reds, got to Chapter 6 today. His criticisms of the Soviet Union are making me believe that China and Deng Xiaoping were correct, so perhaps I need to read some Deng next, lol.
It’s a good book. His examples of this ga that went wrong have been really helpful in conversations for me.
Yes actually, it’s a sobering reminder that communism isn’t a utopia, and that there’s a lot more to people’s needs after the basics have been covered.
I do think he might have been a little too harsh on Stalin though, the man tried to quit four times (and they wouldn’t let him! some dictator lol) and was at the head of a socialist state that was constantly under siege from capitalist and reactionary forces in and out. Mistakes were made but that’s just cause nothing is perfect, if the USSR really had a major flaw it was that it was unable to understand the needs of the people and learn from their mistakes.
That’s funny… in both the book and at the end of “Friendly Feudalism”, his essay on Tibet, Parenti bashed China for being a hair too capitalist-roaded for his liking.
Yeah he said China was “sliding” down the path of free market reform but the book was written in the late 90s so there’s a bit of outdated information there.
Nearly all western leftists coming up in the 70s and 80s got it wrong on China, or didn’t understand the strategy, probably because there was a dearth of translated materials. Parenti and Sakai for example.
Karl Marx’s letter to Vera Zasulich, there are several drafts. In the letter, Marx is discussing the conditions of Russian peasants, specifically their communities - and the potential of said communities to transform into a more modern, communist mode while skipping the pain and misery of capitalist stage - that is, destruction of the peasant communities.
Looking back, it’s frankly frightening how near prophetic his writings ended up being. Specifically, Marx writes that should the transition to communist mode fail, the small minority of peasants will be turned into private landowners, while the majority will be made into proletariat. Which is exactly what ended up happening
Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad.
It’s good but I’m surprised that he attributes Japan’s surrender in WWII to the nuclear bomb.
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. I’m a new ML so I’m still reading the fundamentals.
I find it to be my favorite of the fundamentals! Super applicable to modern day
I’m reading the English translation of 三体. I wanted to wait until my Chinese literacy was good enough to read the original, but now that there’s a Netflix version out I had to give up that goal to avoid spoilers.
I started this a couple of months ago but ended up re-reading Settlers (as I’d only skimmed it prior) before diving in further. https://archive.org/details/MarxismAndNativeAmericans
Been reading “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu again.
