SKULL.GIF posted:

I've been reading "The Storm Before The Storm" by Mike Duncan and while I'm enjoying the content the actual writing itself is bugging me because it's essentially a transcript of how Duncan talks during his podcasts and it doesn't look like he had an editor go through it because I keep catching missing words or stuff that a good editor would never have let pass muster like overuse of "literally"

an actual dog posted:

I'm reading How To Read Donald Duck which is deeply weird and entertaining. It was published in socialist Chile to counter imperialist messages entering the country through translations of Donald Duck comics. Lots of copies got burned by Pinochet and it was banned in the US. It comes with an introduction that points out all its flaws. I love it so much.

an actual dog posted:

It opens by calling out all it's haters

im on the net me boys posted:

I'm kind of bored of everything I'm reading right now so I might just read A Deepness in the Sky

Algund Eenboom posted:

Does the three body problem get better as it goes on, because the first chapter scans as an absurd stereotype of the culture revolution, complete with Ben Shapiro destroying the emotional communists with logic and reason

quote:

To locate the scandal of the Jesus story at the point of God's liberation of the poor and in opposition to Rudolf Bultmann's emphasis on human self-understanding means that the gospel comes not only as a gift but that the acceptance of the gift of freedom transforms our perception of our social and political existence. The New Testament gospel of liberation turns our priority system upside down and demands that we fight for the freedom of those in captivity. This message of liberation cannot appeal to those who profit from the imprisonment of others but only to slaves who strive against unauthorized power. The gospel of liberation is bad news to all oppressors, because they have defined their "freedom" in terms of the slavery of others. Only the poor and the wretched who have been victims of evil and injustice can understand what Jesus meant when he said: "Come to me, all whose work is hard, whose load is heavy; and I will give you relief. Bend your neck to my yoke, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble-hearted; and your souls will find relief. For my yoke is good to bear, my load is light" (Matt. 11:28—30 NEB).

The gospel will always be an offense to the rich and the powerful, because it is the death of their riches and power. That was why the man from the ruling class could not follow Jesus. The price was too high: "Sell everything you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; and come, follow me" (Luke 18:22 NEB). This man was incapable of separating himself from his commitment to his possessions. There were others who could not follow Jesus because they had priorities higher than the gospel of liberation for the poor. There was the person who wanted to bury his father and another who wanted to say goodbye to the people at home (Luke 9:59f.). They, like the five foolish girls in the parable of Matthew 25: If., did not recognize the urgency of the hour nor the priority inherent in the acceptance of the coming kingdom. Jesus expressed the claim of the Kingdom in radical terms: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot he a disciple of mine" (Luke 14:26 NEB). Because most biblical scholars are the descendants of the advantaged class, it is to be expected that they would minimize Jesus' gospel of liberation for the poor by interpreting poverty as a spiritual condition unrelated to social and political phenomena. But a careful reading of the New Testament shows that the poor of whom Jesus spoke were not primarily (if at all) those who are spiritually poor as suggested in Matthew 5:3. Rather, as the Lucan tradition shows, these people are "those who are really poor, , . those who are really hungry, who really weep and are persecuted."8 The poor are the oppressed and the afflicted, those who cannot defend themselves against the powerful. They are the least and the last, the hungry and the thirsty, the unclothed and the strangers, the sick and the captives. It is for these little ones that the gospel is preached and for whom liberation has come in the words and deeds of Jesus.

It is important to point out that Jesus does not promise to include the poor in the Kingdom along with others who may be rich and learned. His promise is that the Kingdom belongs to the poor alone. This is the significance of his baptism with and life among the poor, and his contention that he "did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners" (Mark 2:17 NEB). The first beatitude has the same emphasis: "How blest are you who are in need; the kingdom of God is yours" (Luke 6:20 NEB). Another dimension of the same theme is stressed in Luke 10:21 (cf. Matt. 11:25 NEB): "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and wise and revealing them to the simple." In the words of Joachim Jeremias, "God does not give his revelation to learned theologians, but to the uneducated...; he opens the basileia (kingdom) to children (Mark 10:14) and to those who can say 'Abba like a child (Matt. 10:3)."9 God's kingdom is for the bad characters, the outcasts, and the weak, but not for the self-designated righteous people. "Publicans and prostitutes will enter the basileia of God, and not you" (Matt. 21:31)10 Here the gospel, by the very definition of its liberating character, excludes those who stand outside the social existence of the poor.

SKULL.GIF posted:

I've been reading "The Storm Before The Storm" by Mike Duncan and while I'm enjoying the content the actual writing itself is bugging me because it's essentially a transcript of how Duncan talks during his podcasts and it doesn't look like he had an editor go through it because I keep catching missing words or stuff that a good editor would never have let pass muster like overuse of "literally"

Epic High Five posted:

The Half Has Never Been Told....basically an actual primary source history of slavery as it relates to how it was the primary driver of both Capitalism and expansionism in the US

Epic High Five posted:

I wonder how many economists there are that assert both that capitalism will always embrace only the most efficient solutions AND that slavery was an inefficient parochial holdover that was destined to be abandoned by capital

Marxalot posted:

Goon Danton posted:

I'm downloading the audio book version of Shattered from my library, because I like being angry. Gonna start listening to it on the commute home.

Goon Danton posted:

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes

Epic High Five posted:

just finished Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson and it was very enjoyable and rigorous overall, but what the gently caress was up with that ending and how long it lingered on it

Christoph posted:

Have you read The Years of Rice and Salt by the same dude? The premise is that the Black Plague killed off Christianity/whitey and history continues as primarily Muslim and Buddhist. The narrative format is great, too, with the two protagonists getting Buddhist-style reincarnated as history progresses. I tried to also read Shaman by Robinson, but it was prehistoric porn about dudes wanting to gently caress dirt. Every page I opened to was a caveman's inner monologue as he laid pipe.

For anyone wanting to know more about economics I'd recommend old-as-gently caress Michael Hudson and his book Killing the Host. If you have read economics books but felt in your bones that you weren't getting the real picture, this is the book for you. He also has a series of books on the economics of the ancient near east that I want to read.

Btw anyone know any good humorous essayists who aren't self-congratulating smug pieces of Boomer poo poo? (David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, and Bill Bryson can go straight to hell)

Christoph posted:

Yeah, Bryson was great in In a Sunburned Country and the first half of A Walk in the Woods. I also liked At Home and his stuff about the English language. The problem is the rest of his work is pretty phoned-in. The Road to Little Dribbling is him being a prick or calling things splendid repeatedly and that's when I got sick of him.

As for David Sedaris, I just don't think he's funny.

Goon Danton posted:

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes

Epic High Five posted:

lol oh yep, that should get ur angry juice flowin

SKULL.GIF posted:

I'm rereading James Howard Kunstler's* World Made by Hand, which I first read in I think 2010-2011, and back then reading that was an interesting thought experiment on what post-collapse living would look like, but nowadays it's just horribly depressing knowing that there's a decent chance I'll actually get to find out what living like that is and I'm having trouble getting through the book.

One thing that stands out to me nowadays that didn't back then is how thoroughly white the cast is. It's set somewhere rural in the Northeast coast only a few years after the collapse but there's not a single person with a dark skin shade to be seen.

* I know Kunstler has plunged deep into crank blogging but I'm in a doomsday mood and he's perfect for that.

SKULL.GIF posted:

One thing that stands out to me nowadays that didn't back then is how thoroughly white the cast is. It's set somewhere rural in the Northeast coast only a few years after the collapse but there's not a single person with a dark skin shade to be seen.

Helsing posted:

This book looks interesting but reading up on the author he seems very big on peak oil theories that were really hot in the mid 2000s but which seem to have been largely discredited now.

Sad to think that nowadays the whole peak whole scenario and the return to localism seems optimistic compared to a scenario where all the fish and insects die and instead of having to eat food grown within a days journey of our homes we all starve to death and the remnants of humanity scrape out a vestigial existence farming cockroaches on the shores of the North American great lakes.

Idia posted:

I would just stick with Octavia E. Butler for that type of genre.

Verso is having a sale on their anti-fash books.

SKULL.GIF posted:

The Parable series looks interesting; any other books of hers that you'd in particular recommend?

SKULL.GIF posted:

Lol it's really something isn't it? This book has brought back a lot of memories of how pessimistic I was about the general global future a decade ago, and how it's only gotten way worse since then, bit by bit.

And yeah Kunstler was a huge, huge critic of American car culture and especially our godawful suburban sprawl and poor urban planning, which is how I originally got into him. I still think "The Geography of Nowhere" is worth reading (while keeping in mind it was written in 1993, right in the middle of the 90s boom). Most of what he has to say nowadays is just crank jeremiads, and peak oil ended up not being a big deal with all the advancements humanity has made in extraction and alternative energy.