Books

I have just finished reading washington bullets by vijay prashad, have read some articles by ulrike meinhof and have just today started fanons wretched of the earth.

So far, I have the feeling that the theme becomes very clear. After reading black shirts and reds, multiple works by stalin, multiple works by lenin and marx, the common denominator is abundanly clear. We are subject to a psy-op by the owner class of unprecedented size. There is no place where you dont meet drones that are completely devoid of all empathy towards the oppressed, some are ignorant, but most just dont care.

The most interesting part is that the people you actually see and hear are the abundandly privileged as the others work their lives away in factories and logistics centers. The privileged still have to deal with rising debt and rent but they can manage, albeit barely. But the situation is dire, dire indeed.

Of course we need to keep revolutionary optimism and need to accept that there is a time for revolution and that is when sufficient parts of the working class have developed class consciousness which currently is not the case, at least where I live.

So much from me and my update.

I'm currently rereading Stalin: A History and Critique. I feel like the text is a lot more clear after familiarizing yourself with the history and reading Lenin, Stalin and Marx. I have also read class struggle and Western Marxism by Losurdo recently

I’m reading Capitalism in the Anthropocene from John Bellamy Foster. Finished with Part 1, and man is this shit grim.

He’s pretty much going on about how climate change is just 1 of many planetary boundaries we should be wary of crossing. The book also goes into how capitalism and the growth initiative are 100% contradictory to active steps to avoid a climate catastrophe. Anything other than a complete revolution of the mode of production or a miracle breakthrough in some ground-breaking technology spells the end of humanity in less than 100 years. Easy to fall into doomerism, but honestly this book is making the ounus of organizing and politically agitating more urgent.

Started reading Adoratsky's Dialectical Materialism now that it has been added to Comrade's Library. So far so good! It's a candidate for Rev 3 of my intro ML reading list, which will trim some sections and add a few more, as well as clean up the reading order.

I just finished Metal From Heaven and started The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. It has been on my list for a while and was named in the acknowledgements of Metal From Heaven so I figured I'd read it next.

Almost done with Constance Markievicz Irish Revolutionary by Anne Haverty.

Seamus O'Connor, a Sinn Féiner wrote that the AOH supporters kept up a barrage of shouting and throwing stones, potatoes and eggs (which they were buying at sixpence each) at the speakers'. He described how the Countess Markievicz, in a trench coat, having been hit several times with potatoes and eggs exclaimed, 'in what to me was her peculiar accent, "I care no more for your stones than I cared for the bullets of Easter Week."'

What an interesting life some people get to live.

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I'm starting to read Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant, which goes into how sometimes what we desire are obstacles against our own success. The American Dream is an example, which is unobtainable to most, but nonetheless they try, and end up in a constant state of crisis while trying to achieve it. Also Berlant argues in this process people don't attach to ideological underpinnings as much as they attach to the emotional quality of these desires and the relationships we form around them. And also, when our fantasies erode and fail around us and we don't see an alternative, this is a turning point to overcome. So far it's a dense read, i'm almost done with chapter 1, but I may have taken on too much!

Read Seven Recipes for Revolution a couple days ago and loved it. About half way through Priory if the Orange Tree now, it's quite good.

This week is exam week for me so no reading theory. Relatedly, however, I’ve found this interesting phenomenon among mainstream economists arriving back at Marxist understandings of the economy when faced with the reality that mainstream economics is no better than astrology.

Fiction: the entire Star Wars legends New Jedi Order series.

'Non'-fiction: Walden by Thoreau. I bought it in English but it's a pain in the ass really. And now someone coincedentally gifted me a Dutch copy and it's easier to get through. Kinda interesting. Especially his parts on civil disobedience. Though not communist, probably more anarchist leaning.