fart simpson posted:

does anyone have the old op’s reading list still? that was a good list and i was slowly working through some of it

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Y1F0euiOlqIJ:[url posted:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php%3Fthreadid%3D3760900+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us[/url]]
Mary had a little lamb


IF YOU'RE ANGRY ABOUT CHEETO HITLER, GO ORGANIZE AND GET ACTIVE!

http://www.pslweb.org/join
http://www.workers.org/wwp/join/
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/new_site/volunteer.php
http://www.newsds.org/p/get-involved.html


FOR THE EARTH TO LIVE, CAPITALISM MUST END

Global warming, environmental racism polluting our neighborhoods, acidified and depleted oceans, fracking, critical drought, plastics choking the seas, nuclear weapons and waste ­­ it is clear that capitalism and production for profit are destroying the planet and threatening all life. Harnessing the earth's renewable resources of sea, wind and solar power to create sustainable energy, seizing the oil and coal companies to stop their fossil­ fuel pollution, stopping nuclear weapons production, organizing production of food and goods to meet people's needs rather than the bottom line of corporations who produce regardless of the cost to the environment ­­ these are the most urgent steps needed to reverse climate change. But this requires making people's right to survive above the rights of the capitalists to make a profit.

Karl Barks posted:
if you're not feeling canvassing or those types of outreach(which honestly we all post on a internet comedy forum so...), DONATE MONEY. seriously, anything to help these organizations grow is really important.


reading list from McCaine, reposted from C-SPAM's favorite tankie:

McCaine, by way of Homework Explainer posted:
this isn't the complete list (found here). i removed most of the non-essentials and some of the essentials, too. because sadly, we can't all be academics.

i'll put a next to the really really important stuff so you know what's a Top Pick from your old pal, the homework explainer

as far as "what should be read first," i would start with the basics i.e. marx and engels. go for the manifesto then maybe socialism utopian or scientific, then have at whatever. i started closer readings of marxist texts on the subjects most interesting to me, namely film, theater and literature and have since moved into histories and revolutionary theory. there isn't a "right path" for reading or texts and nobody but the most vulgar of dorks will look down on you for not having read something, because no one and i mean no one has read all this stuff.



A Very Personal Communist Bibliography

Works by Marx and Engels
The Condition of the Working Class in England (Friedrich Engels) – Classic of Engels; early political economy, lively description of, well, the condition of the working class in Manchester and elsewhere in 1844.
The German Ideology & Theses on Feuerbach (Marx/Engels) – Don't originally belong together but are often combined. First "Marxist" book, programmatic statement of historical materialism.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx/ Engels) – Needs no introduction.
Preface to a Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy (Karl Marx) – Very brief, abstract, but famous summary of historical materialism. Only half a page.
Capital (3 vols) (Karl Marx) – Get the Penguin editions. Marx's critique of political economy.
Socialism: Utopian or Scientific? (Friedrich Engels) – A summary of the Anti-Dühring, classic statement of the significance of scientific socialism.
The Civil War in France (Karl Marx) – Marx's interpretation of the Paris Commune.
Critique of the Gotha Programme (Karl Marx) – Programmatic statement of the differences between Marx and Engels' views and those of state-oriented (left) social-democrats.
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Karl Marx) – Not as essential perhaps, but a classic of Marx's own history-writing, and thereby an example of what he and Engels considered good political history. Many memorable quotes.
The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (Friedrich Engels) – An anthropological, historical materialist view of the early societies and the origins of the various structures of oppression and exploitation out of them. Perhaps the first feminist ideas in Marxism also.
Grundrisse (Karl Marx) – Again, get the Penguin edition. Marx's drafts, notes, and outtakes for Capital, as well as various musings on technology, political economy, labour, and so forth. Essential for the deeper level grounding.
Political Works by major Marxist politicians and secondary literature on the thought of major Marxist politicians
The Essential Works of Lenin (Lenin; ed. Henry Christman) – Cheap Dover edition of Lenin's main works in their standard English translations. Includes "The Development of Capitalism in Russia;" "What is to be Done?;" "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism;" "State and Revolution." These are Lenin's canonically major theoretical publications on political topics in his own lifetime.
On Practice and Contradiction (Mao Zedong; ed. Slavoj Zizek) – Mao's two main early texts on his theory of contradictions and their resolution in political practice. See also "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" and Combat Liberalism. and here's a Homework Explainer Top Tip: don't read zizek's introduction to the texts if you opt for this edition. it'll gently caress up your understanding of mao big time!
Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Antonio Gramsci) – Selection of Gramsci's ideas on hegemony, ideological struggle, politics, etc.
The Black Panthers Speak (ed. Philip Foner) – Collection of the major texts of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. (note: revolutionary suicide is also cool.)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm Little; ed. Alex Haley) – Major political autobiography by a great American revolutionary.
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (Lenin) – Lengthy polemic, in the form of a series of thematic essays, by Lenin. Aimed against his Left Communist opponents, in particular in Germany and the Netherlands.
On Guerrilla Warfare (Mao Tse-Tung) – Mao on waging people's war. Rather abstracted and probably not of great use for most First Worlders, but still.
Thomas Sankara Speaks (Thomas Sankara; ed. Michael Prairie) – Collection of the (few) speeches and statements by Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, on anti-imperialism and the like.
it's not on the original list, but i'd also recommend "on the opposition" and "anarchism or socialism?" by one j.v. stalin.
Marxist (and other useful) political economy, history of economics, and the like
The Limits to Capital (David Harvey) – Lengthy analysis of the nature of capital and capitalism based on Marx's "Capital," with a particular focus on uneven development and geographical distribution.
A Companion to Marx's Capital (David Harvey) – Based on his YouTube lectures, a guide to the reading of Capital, mainly vol. 1. Strong on the conceptual structure of the book and the contradictions inherent in capitalist accumulation, including money and finance, but not as good a guide on value theory.
Debt: The First 5000 Years (David Graeber) – Anarchist anthropologist Graeber's magnum opus on debt, money, obligation, and the history of economic institutions. Rewards a careful and critical reading. Not a Marxist text and by no means wholly reliable, but very stimulating and original, destined to be a classic.
Reclaiming Marx's Capital (Andrew Kliman) – Important, if technical, work on Marx's value theory. Refutes 99% of all the objections to it you'll ever hear or read.
History, historiography, etc., except of topics specified elsewhere
Late Victorian Holocausts (Mike Davis) – A provocative title, but don't let that put you off. Brilliantly puts the liberal political economy of 19th and early 20th century imperialism and colonialism in context, shows its murderous implications many times worse than the "monsters" of communism, and relates all this to the emerging science of systems theory besides. Will make you hate economic liberalism, however nice sounding, forever.
Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat (J. Sakai) – Essential classic of Third Worldist theory and the Marxist theory of settlerism. Not reliable on every detail, but a revolutionary work in every sense of the word.
Labour Aristocracy: Mass Base of Social-Democracy (H.W. Edwards) – Another major text of the Third Worldist viewpoint. Makes the crucial argument for the origins and nature of social-democracy as arising out of imperialist rent.
Age of Revolution 1789-1848, Age of Capital 1848-1875, Age of Empire 1875-1914 and Age of Extremes 1914-1989 (Eric Hobsbawm) – Perhaps the authoritative Marxist history of the modern age in four successive parts. An essential reference point for debates in Marxist interpretation of the recent past.
Open Veins of Latin America (Eduardo Galeano) – Essential reading on the colonization and underdevelopment of Latin America.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Ilan Pappé) – Not Marxist per se, but a standard work on the origins and nature of the settler state Israel and their oppression and exclusion of the Palestinians, with of course major repercussions in global politics.
King Leopold's Ghost (Adam Hochschild) – Popular anti-imperialist history of Belgian colonialism and the colonial debates.
Philosophy and Theory
Aesthetics and Politics (Adorno, Benjamin, Bloch, Brecht, and Lukács) - Great Verso collection of the debates between these major Marxist philosophers before the war on aesthetic and political topics.
The Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer) - Fundamental text of the Frankfurter Schule: reflections on fascism, liberalism, and technology in the wake of the Holocaust.
The Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord) – Perhaps the central text of the Situationist movement and in some ways the most serious theoretical reflection on the worldview of 1968 (it was written in 1967). See also Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, though this is not as interesting.
Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism (Edward Said) – Not at all Marxist, but obligatory classics on understanding Eurocentrism and orientalism in culture and ideology at a conceptual level.
Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Fredric Jameson) – Difficult, but rewarding classic on postmodern culture from a Marxist viewpoint.
Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings (Jean-Paul Sartre; ed. Stephen Priest) – The father of Marxist existentialism on freedom, art, politics, etc.
Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (Louis Althusser) – Can't stand him personally (note: smdh), but by many Althusser is considered a major figure in postwar Marxist history and philosophy.
Liberalism: A Counter-History (Domenico Losurdo) - Excellent historical analysis of liberal thought from a Marxist perspective, showing its essence, strengths, and limitations.
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (Walter Benjamin; ed. Hannah Arendt) – Selection from the best essays by the great messianic Marxist thinker Benjamin, including his essential pieces “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and “Theses on the Philosophy of History." Top Tip: you only really need to read the two named essays, which i . namaste.
The Wretched of the Earth (Frantz Fanon) – Classic statement of anti-colonial Marxism, on the need for revolutionary violence against colonialism, etc. See also "A Dying Colonialism."
Black Skin, White Masks (Frantz Fanon) – Fanon on racism and the psychology of colonialism.
On the USSR
Farm to Factory (Robert C. Allen) – Brilliant work by a major liberal economic historian demonstrating the enormous superiority of the Soviet planning policies of the 1920s and 1930s, up to Khrushchev's time, compared to any realistic alternative. Will shock your worldview if you're used to the Western portrayal of Soviet economic policy as hopeless from the start.
Ten Days That Shook the World (John Reed) – The canonical novelization of the experience of the Russian Revolution.
not on the original list, but "is the red flag flying?" and "human rights in the ussr" by al szymanski and "socialism betrayed" by roger keeran and thomas kenny are also what i'd consider essentials.
On China and Korea
The Transformation of Chinese Socialism (Lin Chun) – Great book on the attempts to build socialism, development, and national unity in the Maoist period, and the changed aims and methods in how these are dealt with in the Deng period and since.
The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy (Li Minqi) – Marxisant world systems analysis of the rise of capitalist China and how this not only reorients the world system towards Asia, but also further contributes to the decline in the rate of profit and thereby forces capitalism to the limits of its ability to expand.
Fanshen and Shenfan (William Hinton) – In-depth, personal chronicle of the transformation of a Chinese village during the Maoist period and after.
Race to the Swift (Jung-En Woo) – On Korean development, and why it had everything to do with planning and imperialism and little with miracles of the market.
The Korean War (Bruce Cumings) – Progressive standard work on the forgotten war.
Red Star Over China (Edgar Snow) – Popular and readable narrative of the Communist struggle in China against the KMT, landlordism, and the Japanese in the 1930s.
Mayor Dave has issued a correction as of 03:14 on Nov 11, 2016

# ? Jan 20, 2016 08:51 Profile Post History Rap Sheet Quote

Fortaleza posted:

The word is just used as a weapon against bad mods with thin skin and piss poor reading comprehension. If they were to not touch this thread and gently caress off it would trickle to nothing. You ever see it used agains gradenko or brutalistmacdonalds or tiler kiwi? They come correct and back their poo poo up and are good posters.

Just give this thread an IK and let them handle things and gently caress off already.

weast posted:

you say co-opted but it always was exactly that

gradenko_2000 posted:

tokin opposition posted:

Didn't read any of the posts itt, smoked weed instead.

Truga posted:

the funniest thing about european racism to me is how everyone in europ is pink

Truga posted:

yeah i live here, it's a joke op

gradenko_2000 posted:

Richard "laying" Pipes

Dreddout posted:

Wtf are you talking about the CPUSA was influential enough in the 20s and 30s to scare the bourgeois into the new deal.

Your reasoning is so patently false I'd recommend you read a history book on the American labor movement.

Dreddout posted:

If you're an American leftist you absolutely should read about what didn't work in the past in your country. Otherwise you're just going to repeat their mistakes to worse results.

Suffice to say


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbD1XDhKr8U

Top City Homo posted:

https://bookshop.org/books/hammer-and-hoe-alabama-communists-during-the-great-depression/9781469625485

quote:

...county leadership adopted many of the strategies and tactics used by the unemployed councils during the early 1930s. Local alliance organizers confronted the Department of Water and Power when individual workers faced utilities shutoffs, created committees to settle problems with relief officials, and tried to deal directly with local WPA authorities regarding working conditions, wages, and pay schedules.l4 But because the Party's support for the New Deal had been consolidated, especially during 1938, Communist leadership now discouraged wildcat strikes and walkouts on WPA projects. Moreover, the Workers Alliance at the national level devel- oped a narrower approach to activism than the Party had originally con- ceived, evolving into essentially a "trade union for the WPAworkers." Such an approach proved largely ineffective because, as a government relief agency, the WPA did not depend on profits and a continuous flow of labor for its survival. Alliance members were still subject to the whims and caprices of local administrators. As one Bessemer woman put it, local authorities continued to "resort to all sorts of excuse and pretxts [sic] for denying relief or for dropping Negroes from the releifs [sic] rol~s."

https://www.cpusa.org/party_voices/the-youth-vote-and-the-socialist-moment/ posted:

Let’s be clear: even a centrist Biden presidency could prevent further setbacks for civil rights, women’s reproductive rights, immigrant rights, and labor rights provided there is mass pressure from below. Thus, we must be sure that the working-class define this struggle instead of the Democratic Party machine. Also, Sanders may be the face of the “socialist moment,” but it is the youth that will carry on his legacy and continue to build the movement long after Sanders, Biden, and Trump are dead and in the ground.
So, let’s ask ourselves: if it does come down to Biden vs. Trump, who would be more likely to forgive student debt, expand healthcare, protect immigrant families, and take actions to mitigate the climate crisis? Who are we more likely to convince to shift their decisions in a more progressive direction? Who would our Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan comrades prefer to see in the White House, considering the U.S. imperialist blockade loosened up during the Obama administration? Our short-term tactics and strategy are not limited to voting for the “lesser of two evils,” since, at the end of the day, we are building a mass movement for socialism and that means we must continue to push for unity, organization, and radicalization around the issues and not around bourgeois politicians. The youth must play an essential role in this struggle so that the socialist movement will continue to live on. We will define the struggle and the socialist moment. We shall overcome!

indigi posted:

it doesn’t say that though, it says it characterized left thought throughout the 20th century. where did it rise to, super-characterization? meta-characterization?

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

The perfect Trotsky is Timothée Chalamet.

Larry Parrish posted:

if they were down with eugenics they were not Marxists because it's an inherently anti-egalitarian practice that basically postulates that most people are worthless. kind of the extreme opposite of marxism

https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1921/prostitution.htm posted:

At a joint meeting of the department of maternity protection and the women’s department, Professor Kol’tsov spoke about eugenics, the science of maintaining and improving the health of humanity. Prostitution is closely connected with this problem, since it is one of the main ways in which infections are spread. The theses of the interdepartmental commission on the struggle against prostitution point out that the development of special measures to fight venereal diseases is an urgent task. Steps must of course be taken to deal with all sources of the diseases, and not solely with prostitution in the way that hypocritical bourgeois society does. But although the diseases are spread to some extent by everyday circumstances, it is nevertheless essential to give everyone a clear idea of the role prostitution plays.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1921/theses-morality.htm posted:

In the transitional period, relations between men and women must. in order to meet the interests of the workers’ collective, he based on the following considerations.

(1) All sexual relationships must be based on mutual inclination, love. infatuation or passion, and in no case on financial or material motivations. All calculation in relationships must be subject to merciless condemnation.
(2) The form and length of the relationship are not regulated, but the hygiene of the race, and communist morality require that relationships be based not on the sexual act alone, and that it should not be accompanied by any excesses that threaten health.
(3) Those with illnesses etc. that might be inherited should not have children.
(4) A jealous and proprietary attitude to the person loved must be replaced by a comradely understanding of the other and an acceptance of his or her freedom. jealousy is a destructive force of which communist morality cannot approve.
(5) The bonds between the members of the collective must he strengthened. The encouragement of the intellectual, and political interests of the younger generation assists the development of healthy and bright emotions in love.

quote:

Science has discovered that when a woman has relationships with many men at one time, her ability to have children is impaired; and relationships with a number of women drain the main and affect the health of his children negatively. Since the workers’ collective needs strong and healthy men and women. such arrangements of sexual life are not in its interests.

John Charity Spring posted:

Speaking as someone who flirted with Trotskyism for a short while about 10 years ago, Trotskyism is an easy fit for any western liberal who's radicalising but doesn't want to confront a lot of anti-communist propaganda directed at states like the USSR or China. It lets you position yourself firmly at Real Communism Hasn't Been Tried. Also a basic grasp of 'permanent revolution' is appealing because of its urgency and call-to-action; even though no action has ever followed from it, it gives a compelling extra 'socialist' dimension to add on to the anti-communist critiques of Stalin etc; that they didn't do enough to spread the revolution. Also a lot of Trotskyist arguments and positions are very similar to those advanced by 'democratic socialists' like George Orwell who I was also into for a bit in my early twenties. It's a kind of left-wing viewpoint that doesn't challenge too much liberal orthodoxy; much like anarchism, it's attractive in places like the UK and USA for that reason.

I don't want to universalise my own experience but I've talked to quite a few Former Trots or other people who found it compelling at first and their experiences lined up with my own pretty closely. Once I started learning more about the history of socialist states and the actual events rather than reheated Robert Conquest pablum, as well as trying to develop a genuine internationalism rather than one that was mainly based on Well I Could Have Done It Better And Purer, the appeal of Trotskyism fell away pretty fast.

Crusader posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/1430156807889203208?s=12

https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-4-brandon-lee-campaign posted:

Our beloved friend, Brandon Lee was shot on August 6th, 2019 at his home in Lagawe, Ifugao. He sustained multiple gunshot wounds. He has undergone operation and is in very critical condition.

Brandon is a staunch advocate for human rights and has been a volunteer paralegal with Cordillera Human Rights Alliance. Prior to moving to the Philippines, he was active with both the Filipino and Chinese community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We are saddened, angry, outraged, and worried that Brandon has been targeted by what we believe are agents of the Philippine military to silence critics of the current Duterte Administration and people like Brandon who are raising awareness about the human rights abuses in the Philippines. Prior to the incident on August 6, he experienced intense harassment and surveillance.

Friends, please help Brandon and his family (wife and daughter) get through this difficult time. We ask that you please consider donating for long term medical care and other expenses that may accrue.

For updates in the Philippines please follow:

CHRA KARAPATAN on FaceBook. If you don’t have Facebook, feel free to leave your email address and we can include you on our updates.

Let’s do this for Brandon y’all!

Thank you so much for your donation which is critical at this time for the immediate and long term medical costs for Brandon.

For Venmo donations, please put #Justice4Brandon and send your donation to either of the following people:

Aaron @Aaron_Y_Lee
@SFCHRP

We accept checks. Please contact us for payee.

We also encourage you to continue to post poems, songs, personal stories of Brandon on social media and please include #SaveBrandonLee #Justice4BrandonLee #StopTheAttacks #FriendsofBrandon

Post here:
Friends of Brandon Lee Facebook Page

Other ways to get involved:

+ Share this fundraiser

+ Join us in hosting fundraising activities!

+ Legislative advocacy:
We will continue to pressure our legislative representatives to urge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional representatives to support the Philippines Human Rights Act. The US must suspend military aid to the Philippine government until human rights abuses end and the perpetrators against all victims of Duterte's regime are brought to justice.

For legislative updates, visit San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.

quote:

Bayan USA - https://bayanusa.org

Philippine Human Rights Act - https://humanrightsph.org

Human Rights Defenders Fund - https://ichrpus.square.site/hr-defenders-fund

Investigate PH - https://www.investigate.ph

V. Illych L. posted:

we should all aspire to be lenin but he was not a graceful loser. he also deliberately refused to allow himself to be moved by art so he could be a more perfect communist and that is not a normal thing to do

quote:

“We should dream!” I wrote these words and became alarmed. I imagined myself sitting at a “unity conference” and opposite me were the Rabocheye Dyelo editors and contributors. Comrade Martynov rises and, turning to me, says sternly: “Permit me to ask you, has an autonomous editorial board the right to dream without first soliciting the opinion of the Party committees?” He is followed by Comrade Krichevsky; who (philosophically deepening Comrade Martynov, who long ago rendered Comrade Plekhanov more profound) continues even more sternly: “I go further. I ask, has a Marxist any right at all to dream, knowing that according to Marx, mankind always sets itself the tasks it can solve and that tactics is a process of the growth of Party tasks which grow together with the Party?”

The very thought of these stern questions sends a cold shiver down my spine and makes me wish for nothing but a place to hide in. I shall try to hide behind the back of Pisarev.

“There are rifts and rifts,” wrote Pisarev of the rift between dreams and reality. “My dream may run ahead of the natural march of events or may fly off at a tangent in a direction in which no natural march of events will ever proceed. In the first case my dream will not cause any harm; it may even support and augment the energy of the working men.... There is nothing in such dreams that would distort or paralyse labour-power. On the contrary, if man were completely deprived of the ability to dream in this way, if he could not from time to time run ahead and mentally conceive, in an entire and completed picture, the product to which his hands are only just beginning to lend shape, then I cannot at all imagine what stimulus there would be to induce man to undertake and complete extensive and strenuous work in the sphere of art, science, and practical endeavour.... The rift between dreams and reality causes no harm if only the person dreaming believes seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life, compares his observations with his castles in the air, and if, generally speaking, he works conscientiously for the achievement of his fantasies. If there is some connection between dreams and life then all is well.”[17]

Of this kind of dreaming there is unfortunately too little in our movement. And the people most responsible for this are those who boast of their sober views, their “closeness” to the “concrete”, the representatives of legal criticism and of illegal “tail-ism”.

Centrist Committee posted:

PSL just did a new series that I’ve heard good things about. I haven’t listened to it though. https://liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

indigi posted:

against the recall in total or against recalling Newsom specifically? I read that the recall election is gonna cost like a quarter billion dollars which seems like a pretty good reason to be against it, but agitating on behalf of Newsom winning seems braindead

Gorman Thomas posted:

PSL aren't a trotskyist org iirc, a proper reduction of their views is probably closer to Stalinist but they aren't Stalinists either lok. My local chapter is anti-revisionist and pretty sympathetic towards the the modern CPC. I think they're the only left org in my area that view China as a legitimate socialist project