*The Great U75 Politics Reading List Thread.

[brasicritique]

Care to say why what, mr cook?

 

[redsquirrel]

Er why Malcolm X is good.
Mr Cook?

 

[brasicritique]

why is Malcom X good? i'm sorry but i cant explain. partly because i dont have the volcabulary but more importantly because sometimes when somthing works on so many levels to try to put it into words would not be doing it justice [ i dont mean that in the usuall WMCKXS pc sense]

NO

over the years i have read a lot of the books posted on this thread, some are tools, some are self indulgent and some sadly are arguably idealogically obsolete in the sense that as time technology and society move on new challenges present themselves and followers of said ideologies as demonstrated by the state of so called radical reactionary revolutionary political parties in this country become out of touch, insular, unable to adapt, lack vision and end up arguing while the system marches on grinding the havenots down even more, as such any book that demonsatrates the triumph of humanity over inhumanity is i belive very important. Which is probably why not many people on these boards have read it or some did but maybe didnt get it.

If however Redsquiral you meant care to say why as in from a racial political gender type perspective then sorry if the above disapoints you. and as for the Mr cook thing well i saw your name redsquiral and for some a reason an image of robin cook poped into my head he had an affair an i thought you know how sometimes stupid lovers give each other nick names i had an image of robin cook on his mobile ringing his mistress saying in that voice of his 'its your red squiral... and i want to share my nuts with you'

No offence meant Redsquiral thats just the way my mind works

 

[redsquirrel]

for some a reason an image of robin cook poped into my head he had an affair an i thought you know how sometimes stupid lovers give each other nick names i had an image of robin cook on his mobile ringing his mistress saying in that voice of his 'its your red squiral... and i want to share my nuts with you'

No offence meant Redsquiral thats just the way my mind works

Thats a frightening image

 

[Gumbert]

so, is not malcolm x good? redsquirrel.

explain yourself man....

 

[catch]

Listen Marxist!, Murray Bookchin

Written in 1971 in the USA, so needs to be read with that in mind, but anyone who calls themself a Marxist should read it. As should anyone who argues with Marxists on a regular basis.

Lots of Bookchin available on-line:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/Bookchinarchive.html


http://anarchism.jesusradicals.com/library/bookchin.php

http://www.social-ecology.org/staticpages/index.php?page=library&topic=online_library

 

[Samson]

The Republic by Plato

Noticed a lot of books on this thread about Nazism, communism and the rest of recent history, but surely there is a lot more to politics than that.
The Republic is tens of hundreds of years old and still the basis of modern society, what other excuse do you need to read it.

 

[The Black Hand]

Here's some really great stuff about Foxhunting, landownership and the Countryside Alliance

"The Rich at Play" edited by Mark Metcalf, published by RPM in 2002.
http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/rpm/rpm.html

"Racism and the Countryside Alliance" by Trevor Bark;
http://www.labouranimalwelfaresociety.org/gary/New articles/Racism and the Countryside Alliance.htm

"Foxhunting and the Landed Class" by Mark Metcalf and Trevor Bark;
Morning Star, Tuesday October 12th 2004, page 7.

 

[Pickman's model]

Here's some really great stuff about Foxhunting, landownership and the Countryside Alliance

"The Rich at Play" edited by Mark Metcalf, published by RPM in 2002.
http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/rpm/rpm.html

hmmm...

d'you know where i could get hold of a signed copy?

 

[The Black Hand]

hmmm...

d'you know where i could get hold of a signed copy?

I'd have to ask.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'd have to ask.

 

[The Black Hand]

Keep your pecker up

 

[Pickman's model]

Keep your pecker up

eh?

if y'r concerned about that, perhaps you should take a trip to knobbing, sobbing and dobbing.

 

[The Black Hand]

eh?

if y'r concerned about that, perhaps you should take a trip to knobbing, sobbing and dobbing.

Well I don't understand what you've just put... but anyway I fear it was mistaken anyway... where I come from 'keep your pecker up' as I used it means 'keep your chin up'... You posted you were 'sad'... Oh well, just shows you can't trust this damn internet

 

[gawkrodger]

i've recently been reading the Harry Potter books. not the most political books around, but still, they're pretty decent!

 

[rednblack]

started reading malatesta life and ideas, edited by vernon richards, it's hard going but i'm doing it

 

[butchersapron]

Ta for reminding me to update mine:

States Of Emergnecy: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968-78 by Robert Lumley. Very informative book that covers the whole period from the Hot Autumn of 69 to the autnomists of 77 - chapters on the students protests, Red Brigades, Factory Workers, autonomia, operaismo etc - ideal to read with Storming Heaven: Class composition and struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism by Steve Wright and A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943-1988 by Paul Ginsborg.

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici - stunning book that comes from the same line as Linebaugh/rediker etc - an investigation into 'the capitalist rationalisation of social reproduction' - but with emphasis on the effects of this on women, and on the consequent womens struggles as part of the class struggle, not as 'womens stuff' - from the enclosures, to the great heresies, the witch hunts and the New World. Recommended. (In a similar vein see Women, Development and Labour of Reproduction - Struggles and Movements - ed. by Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Giovanni E. Dalla Costa).

Re-enchanting Humanity - Murray Bookchin vicious book length polemic against the mistanthropic nature of primitivism, new age mysticism, anti-humanism and personal withdrawl that seems to have afflicted large segments of the radical milieu by the grumpy old man of social anarchism. Hits every target.

 

[The Black Hand]

Dunno if anybodys put this up already but;
T[B]he Friends of Durruti Group 1937-1939 [/B] by Agustin Guillamon, pub. AK Press

Is a fascinating history of class war anarchists 'on a move' during the Spanish cIvil war...

The Long affray: The poaching wars in britain by Hopkins, H. Papermac. 1986.

Great social history of the central role of poaching in the survival stragegies of the poor and as a means of protest and resistance to the enclosures...

 

[soulfish]

Blood in my eye is the best read I know of.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Places to Intervene in a System

So one day I was sitting in a meeting about the new global trade regime, NAFTA and GATT and the World Trade Organization. The more I listened, the more I began to simmer inside. "This is a HUGE NEW SYSTEM people are inventing!" I said to myself. "They haven't the slightest idea how it will behave," myself said back to me. "It's cranking the system in the wrong direction, growth, growth at any price!! And the control measures these nice folks are talking about, small parameter adjustments, weak negative feedback loops, are puny!" Suddenly, without quite knowing what was happening, I got up, marched to the flip chart, tossed over a clean page, and wrote: " Places to Intervene in a System ," followed by nine items:

9. Numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).
8. Material stocks and flows.
7. Regulating negative feedback loops.
6. Driving positive feedback loops.
5. Information flows.
4. The rules of the system (incentives, punishment, constraints).
3. The power of self-organization.
2. The goals of the system.
1. The mindset or paradigm out of which the goals, rules, feedback structure arise.

 

[The Black Hand]

Places to Intervene in a System

I is sorry Bernie, but i don't apreciate this writing... it could be ok, but it is far from great,,,

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I is sorry Bernie, but i don't apreciate this writing... it could be ok, but it is far from great,,,

Hey no problem. I don't claim that she's a good writer, but it is a very accessible intro to systems thinking.

If you want the real stuff it's here but the difference in effort required is about like that between Marx for Dummies and Capital.

It just occured to me that it'd be interesting to drop some systems thinking into a discussion of politics, because I do think it's pretty relevant to intervening in a big complex system like global capitalism, assuming that's what you want to do.

 

[The Black Hand]

Hey no problem. I don't claim that she's a good writer, but it is a very accessible intro to systems thinking.

If you want the real stuff it's here but the difference in effort required is about like that between Marx for Dummies and Capital.

It just occured to me that it'd be interesting to drop some systems thinking into a discussion of politics, because I do think it's pretty relevant to intervening in a big complex system like global capitalism, assuming that's what you want to do.

Fair enough. I have my own pet subjects too, which I'll share for the persistent among us

Try The art of War by Sun Tzu, and if you have read that (which is just possible), Try A Book of five Rings: The classic guide to strategy by Miyamoto Mushshi, or even The Lost art of War, the companion to the previous book by Sun Tzu [and read at Sandhurst] Martial arts and fighting philosophy should have greater purchase within the class struggle movement, for a number of reasons, and not only for fighting/military praxis...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I'm familiar with both of those, especially Musashi (I did a lot of Ju Jitsu)

Have you seen this?

36 Strategies

 

[The Black Hand]

Ohhhh a soulmate

I'm familiar with both of those, especially Musashi (I did a lot of Ju Jitsu)

Have you seen this?

36 Strategies

Thanks for the tip, and no I wasn't familiar with it... have you seen the Journal of Martial arts? It's American but I did see it in Chinatown (London).
I've got some other stuff too I'll have to dig out - some of the stuff advertised in the old magazine, Fighting Arts, that Terry O'neill used to put together, was very interesting...

 

[Ozymandias]

Alan Clark interviewed.

This reminds me of a books from the other side:

Alan Clark's Diaries.

Shows just what sexist bigotted hatefilled scumbags inhabit the rich and powerful

Alan Clarke is a vegetarian who cares about animal rights but is strangely indifferent to the plight of PEOPLE, especially those killed by bombs dropped by british aircraft sold to indonesia.

http://multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke2.ram

See also http://multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke1.ram

What a nice guy.

 

[Ozymandias]

The links appear to have been cut short.

http: and it goes like this //multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke2.ram

and http: and then this //multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke1.ram



Or just go to http://pilger.carlton.com/timor/film and select the appropriate thingies there.

 

[butchersapron]

He's also dead.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Thanks for the tip, and no I wasn't familiar with it... have you seen the Journal of Martial arts? It's American but I did see it in Chinatown (London).
I've got some other stuff too I'll have to dig out - some of the stuff advertised in the old magazine, Fighting Arts, that Terry O'neill used to put together, was very interesting...

Terry O'Neill's magazine was great I'm not quite sure what its political implications were though.

The Gary Spiers articles in Fighting Arts are classics. May he rest in peace.

edited to add: I found most of the interviews online and linked them here

 

[The Black Hand]

Terry O'Neill's magazine was great I'm not quite sure what its political implications were though.

The Gary Spiers articles in Fighting Arts are classics. May he rest in peace.

edited to add: I found most of the interviews online and linked them here

Politically it was all over the place, and Terry seemed to forward a survivalist line, not disimilar in places to some right wing stuff coming out of the states.
BUT, we can of course use stuff and impose our own ends... Karate in theory has no first strike... Yeah, right....