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

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

jucheguevera is a great handle. That shit was just sitting there I can’t believe I never saw it

Dogs don’t piss on my vegetables