What are you reading?

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blindpig
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What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 29, 2017 2:50 pm

This, a continuation: http://www.thebellforum.net/Bell2/www.t ... ml?t=53113

I have been re-reading Joe Bageant's 'Deer Hunting with Jesus', dunno why. A decade past and there've been a lot of changes, internally and externally. Internally my politics have 'evolved'(as they say), clarified(I hope). Externally the Democratic Party has gone in exactly the opposite direction that Joe had hoped to persuade them to with this book. It was a fool's errand but I guess he had to try, and he had to sell books too. In reality he knew better, he came around(PI I think) and said as much. He didn't hang around long, even then we were a bit too radical for many, but I remember him warmly.

And here we are in the Age of Trump, which I don't think would surprise Joe, indeed he pretty much predicted it, if not Trump then something like him. While we know that Trump's win was largely propelled by the petty booj he did get a significant majority of that 'white working class vote', those that bothered to vote at all, that is. But enough to win. They are making excuses for him now, but that can only go on for so long.

The best think about this book is the brutal honesty with which Joe portrayed his people(Winchester Va though certainly Pauline SC too), and I suspect the libs just couldn't take it, an affront to their perceived dignity and superiority. They just can't 'lower themselves' to join with the working class, ever the white portion, much less those of color. In retrospect it is futile to try to talk to them, their perceived class position, their mad lifestyle individualism makes them like stubborn, vicious children. Joe might have spent his last years doing something else but I don't know that would have financed his last year in that beach shack in Belize, modest as that was. RIP
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:47 pm

Here's links to PDFs of four works by Hobsbawm that I oughta read. I hate protracted reading on screen but at least I know what dog-earred copies to look for.

https://bibliotecadaluta.wordpress.com/ ... -extremes/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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kidoftheblackhole
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Tue Aug 22, 2017 5:36 pm

I happened to get an e-copy of a book called Marx's Inferno that links Capital to Dante's Inferno stylistically and thematically (because of the heavy religious/moral overtones in pre-Marxian socialism which Marx was trying to rectify). I came on it by chance and I am still not entirely sure what to make of it tbh

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Re: What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 24, 2017 3:58 pm

I have heard of he idea but that's all. I'm a bit put off by the idea cause I gotta hear that 'Marxism is just like Abrahamic religion' jive.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:18 pm

I've just started 'The Diary of Che Guevara', Che's diary from his campaign in Bolivia. It was first printed in US in Ramparts, 1967 and has a great introduction by Fidel Castro. This is a Bantam 1968 paperback which has been on my shelf forever and the only reason that I hadn't gotten around to it sooner is that I somehow thought that it was about the Jack Palance movie.

Sometimes I get shit really wrong.
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:35 pm

Just finished an interesting read & I suspect a rare or at least obscure book, 'Josef Stain (Man of Steel)', by David M Cole, Rich&Cowan, 1942, England. Before ya get started this got nothing to do with the recent hatchet job of the same title and recent publication. Never heard of it and judging from the paucity of presence on the internet not many others have either.

This slim volume(as they say), 136pp, is entirely anti-revisionist, in fact it might be truly called 'Stalinist". As much history as biography, it briefly cover's Stalin's family & youth but concerns itself primarily with his political work up to the counter offensive of 1942. It describes Stalin as we know him, a tireless worker for the revolution whose decisions and policies are in every case motivated towards the long term success of the revolution. There are many interesting details and a few sidebars such as tales of the exploits of one of Stalin's early associates in Georgia, Kamo. I must admit I suspect some of the credit given Stalin in this book in relation to the Civil War seems a bit padded but that might be my ignorance showing.(how old is Grover Furr anyways?) The treatment of Trotsky is brutal, ya almost feel sorry for the traitorous geek. but not quite. Lenin is accorded his just due and the militancy of the Bolsheviks is given more prominence than in Trotsky's history. Also, a guy named Krassin is given much credit for Party financing and arms acquisition prior to the revolution. The treatment of the purges is straightforward and unapologetic, excesses and treasons in that regard are also taken into account.

A lucky find, I was trolling Amazon looking to burn some gift card credit, the pig found a truffle.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Dhalgren
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Dhalgren » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:42 pm

Sounds great, might have to go lookin myself
" If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism." Lenin, 1916

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Re: What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:54 pm

Dhalgren wrote:
Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:42 pm
Sounds great, might have to go lookin myself
good luck on that, mine is 1st print & I suspect there weren't any more as the Cold War ensued. I gotta look into it, ask around. Hardly mentioned on net, shows up in a few bibliographies and there's a one line review in a 1943 Foreign Policy and I think another in a contemporary Financial Times(I think) behind a paywall. If it is as i suspect I might have to copy the whole damn thing for Posterity, whoever that is.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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kidoftheblackhole
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:45 pm

I've been working on the new Lenin book from Tariq Ali, Blood in My Eye by George Jackson (its about..fascism), a book on Shakespeare from an old GDR scholar I first read on MLToday (highly connected to the Reformation), sloooowly going through a Monthly Review title called The Hollow Colossus by John Smith (seriously).

This is a big year --100th anniversary of the October Revolution, 500th birthday of the Reformation.

I only have Blood in my Eye as a pdf on my computer so its taking longer since

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Re: What are you reading?

Post by blindpig » Wed Nov 08, 2017 12:59 pm

My new book on Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Nazi Germany and fascist Japan is now available!
worker | November 7, 2017 | 8:16 pm | Announcements
Dear colleagues and friends:

I’m happy to announce that my new book on Leon Trotsky’s conspiracy with Nazi Germany and fascist Japan is now *available for pre-publication orders at a savings of $5 off the retail price.*

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*Trotsky’s Conspiracies of the 1930s, Volume Two*

My publisher will have copies on November 8.

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If you would like a signed copy, email me! (Mom, this means you!)

In solidarity,

Grover Furr

Montclair State University
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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