Not books per se but authors: I find both Marx and Fanon very tedious to read. Their prose is awkward and I feel like the text is fighting my brain when I try to read them.

This is not a slight against their ideas, just their writing.

It should also be noted I’ve read neither in their original language, just translations, so it’s I entirely possible this is just the fault of translators. I don’t think it is for Marx though, because even when I read Engels or Lenin and they block-quote Marx the text automatically gets :wtf-am-i-reading:

I think Skinamarink is the scariest flick I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. I think the the sense of worsening dread as the plot develops and savagery and hopelessness ratchet up is pretty unique.

I think you’re right about the depressing :doomjak: feeling too, it stuck around with me for a few days. The fact that they’re so young, and thus haven’t fully developed a consistent set of rules for how the world definitely should be, means they begin adjusting their sense of normal to this heinous scenario that the audience understands to be completely demonic.

Really great, no notes I thought it was perfect. The Hammer and Podcast fellas did a review on it last weekend (these are the guys that used to do film reviews with Breht on Rev Left Radio Back in the day.) Taylor has an interesting interpretation of the spirits as an embodiment of ideology itself - while I wouldn’t phrase it exactly like that, I do think that line of thinking is what made it stand out to me.

If you’re going to try watching it, go to a theatre, don’t watch it on your laptop while scrolling Hexbear, it is made with the expectation you pay attention and allow the horror to sink into you

In prison Ocalan became a theory head, and he synthesized a kind of hodge-podge anarcho-feminist revolutionary theory that Rojava is ostensibly based on. I’m not familiar with the specific quote but in context this is likely about challenging the assumed role of men in society to uplift women’s position.

You can stream it for free from Kanopy if you have a library card

I love Kwame so much. It makes me so :doomjak: to see the left has seemingly lost all its charismatic rhetoriticians. We have no Tures, no Parentis, no Malcolms, no Hamptons left.

Eh, that’s good.

I was going to tell OP to stop bullying but gd I forgot they got banned

You can just not care about Youtubers it’s like so easy you just go live your life it doesn’t change anything

Maoists are cool honestly, I think that in general critiques from the left are principled and should be encouraged if they don’t embrace or strengthen reactionary or counterrevolutionary positions.

This isn’t even a hard determinism argument - it’s genetic determinism. A hard determinist wouldn’t argue that changing an individual’s environment to one that has a support network is pointless, they’d just argue that whether you do or don’t wasn’t really your choice

You’re the problem, my friend, not an example of the solution. You were ready and equipped for rehab. I applaud you. But it is cruel to say dad’s love was the magic sauce. His genes played the main role. The rest is scenery. You impede solutions by hallucinating they exist.

I swear The Selfish Gene by Dawkins did irreparable harm to a huge cohort of smartdumb psychos.

This is the second meta-post today about something that is like barely a thing here

#1 has to be Z (1969) by Costa-Gavras, about the fascist coup in Greece in the 60s. Comrade made, you can just feel the anger of all the people involved. People talk about old movies feeling slow, this movie fucking pops. You can watch the whole thing for free in good quality here, honestly if you’re not all in after the first 5 minutes, or really after the title card that says “any similarity to real person or events is not coincidental; it is intentional” followed by the speech at the fash gathering in a smoke filled room, then you won’t like it.

If you like that, his State of Siege (1972) is also a classic, about when the Tupamaro urban guerrillas in Uruguay abducted US torture specialist Dan Mitrione. Just total :based-department: stuff. Filmed in Allende’s Chile.

I’ll second the people who mentioned Casablanca and The Bicycle Thief.

Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957) and Wages of Fear (1953) are also cool.

Peeps here recommended the :wtyp: episode on Rhodesia, definitely helped me gain some fluency with the whole thing

There’s lots to say here, so I’ll just give a few tips.

Most important individual factor that is relatively easy to adjust is commute time. All time in a car or a crowded bus is really just time subtracted from your life - if you commute for 2 hours a day, that’s like 1/8 of your waking (work day) life and 25% of your life off the clock. It’s a huge god damned time suck. I have prioritized living close to where I work and where my friends live, even if that means we get a lot less living space or pay more that we would otherwise as a result. (Commuting is an insidious hidden cost because it’s basically work time you’re not paid for, so while it costs more sometimes I see it as purchasing back that time). I currently live actually pretty far from my work for me because we got evicted, but I ride my bike there and back (1.5 hours a day) so it doesn’t feel as much like wasted time. That being said we’re talking about moving again to be closer to things.

As for fitness/friends, the manner in which I stay fit is a very social activity that involves spending a lot of time with people - so my fitness has never been in conflict with my friendships but rather strengthens them and also serves as a vehicle to expand my circle. People here always seem to talk about going to the gym and I don’t get that at all. Shit seems pretty boring to me, and I think bodybuilding is lame. I’d much rather be getting fit while hanging out with my friends.

Lastly, when I start to put on a bit of weight (usually around this time of year) I start running. I hate running, I think it’s boring, but it is the most time-effective way to burn calories that I’m aware of. This kind of maintenance is boring and I try to reduce how much time I put into it, hence running. I usually run once a week as far as I can - by the time the weather starts getting good I’m usually up to about 20k, then I stop and start doing more fun activities outside.

This isn’t like my issue or anything, but from afar it does seem frustrating that there are legitimate grievances in the men’s rights community that are interesting and very compatible with feminism, but because the community has so many toxic dildos in it discussing any of those grievances serves as a red flag for being an MRA psycho.

I imagine it is like being a serious academic who happens to have good historical evidence that there was actually only 9 million people who died in the Holocaust, not 12 but you could never actually share your research with anyone because they would just lump you in as a Holocaust denier.

This is great - anyone have the og link? I’d love to share this

Hexbear :solidarity: not understanding basic, commonly enjoyed human behaviour

Concerning Violence: 9 Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defence (2014) is a great documentary. The guys who did the Black Power Mixtape found a bunch of old archival footage from like 7 or 8 different global south independence movements from labour to militance, really interesting footage. Meanwhile Lauryn Hill reads sections of Frantz Fanon’s essay “On Violence”.

In the Year of the Pig (1968) is a great antiwar Vietnam documentary.

The Act of Killing (2012) follows the aging lumpen Indonesian thugs who performed massacres of left in 65 as they recreate their massacres for film. Required viewing for the left, great companion piece to Vincent Bevin’s The Jakarta Method.

Theatres of War (2022) is about the CIA/Pentagon influence of Hollywood scripts and storytelling. It is actually kind of a shit documentary on some ways (like Michael Moore vibes but toned down), but seeing all these FOIAed docs right next to clips that were directly inserted by the military will get you pretty :picard-direct-action:

I Am Not Your Negro (2016) is a cool doc about James Baldwin, Samuel L. Jackson reads one of his unfinished books intercut with footage of Baldwin being cool af.

Sir, No Sir advances the thesis that the reason for the eventual pullout from Vietnam was because of war resistors in the ranks of drafted troops. Turned out so many troops were letting off grenades in their CO’s quarters they had to invent a term for it lol. :boots-riley: and Tom Morello did a song for the soundtrack called Captain Sterling’s Little Problem about icing your CO

ALL of the above films can be streamed for free on Kanopy if you have a library card.

Let the Fire Burn (2013) is a great documentary about the Philly pigs bombing and burning down like an entire residential city block in their attack on the MOVE complex in 85. They have great footage from the committee that investigated it.

If you don’t want something political, Crumb (1994) is probably the best non-political doc I’ve seen, about Robert Crumb.

Also Frederick Wiseman has like 50 great documentaries about the US if you care about the US - there almost all can be streamed for free on Kanopy. I watched Law and Order (1968) recently shit was cool (CW on that clip - pigs assaulting a sex worker)

Edit: I forgot Paris is Burning (1990) is a blassic

I think this really shows how much dead weight Virgil really was. Every time he starts talking the interview kind of grinds to a halt, and he never really advances a position as forcefully as Matt even once