Ironicwarcriminal posted:blinkandwheeze posted:what is really "kinda fucked up imo" is capitalist roaders perpetually slandering the historic legacy of the highest stage of the proletarian revolution thus far.
hey blink i've heard about how the cultural revolution informed say the panthers and the students in Paris in 68 and such, do you know any material that goes deeper into the global effect of the cultural revolution?
Malcolm Gladwell’s Year in Reading:
I am, first and foremost, a fan of thrillers and airport literature, which means the number of books that I read this year that reach the literary level of the typical New Yorker reader is small. Best “literary” I read all year? Tom Rachman’s “The Imperfectionists.” After that is mostly work of a lower brow. Stephen Hunter’s “I, Sniper,” brings back one of the great characters in modern thrillerdom, Bob Lee Swagger, everyone’s favorite lethal, dour Southerner. I kind of want Swagger to meet up with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher one day, in a contest to see who could say the least while doing the most damage. Speaking of Child, his latest Reacher effort—“61 Hours“—I would rate a B-plus, keeping in mind that Child’s B-pluses are everyone else’s A-pluses. I was trapped in an airport, on a ground delay this fall, and read Vince Flynn’s “American Assassin.” It wasn’t bad! But then I went back and read another of his books, and it was so dreadful that I simply stopped reading, somewhere on Kansas City, and sat in silence until we landed at Newark. Don’t go there. A far better bet is to go back and read the wonderful oeuvre of Olen Steinhauer—principally “The Tourist,” but also this years excellent “The Nearest Exit.” Milo Weaver, Steinhauer’s hero, is the opposite of Swagger and Reacher—he is conflicted and neurotic and hopelessly sentimental—but no less entertaining. One final gripe. Why no new thriller from David Ignatius this year? Argh!
Enquiry proves that Socialism is founded upon a triple rock, historical, ethical and economic. It gives, to those who make it, a great hope - a hope which, once it finds entrance into the heart of man, stays in to soften life and sweeten death.
Socialism is one of those myriad movements of which everyone in the world has heard repeatedly and yet never really understood in even the smallest way. So, it was with interest that I began this book; eight essays by seven different authors, among them such soon to be luminaries as Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. Surely, after this, socialism will be easy to explicate.
And it certainly is; socialism, it seems, is communism with all the bite taken out. It is, equal with communism, a brilliant theory that fails to work at all in practice. Again and again through this book, the drum is beaten to indicate that socialism is on the horizon. Thus it is of interest to read the new forwards to each new edition; George Bernard Shaw has the last word, writing a forward for the sixtieth anniversary edition of the book. He’s well over ninety and he seems just as passionate about socialism, if less idealistic and somewhat cynical and chagrined, more to the pity.
The great revolution never really happened, as we can all attest. Capitalism still reigns supreme on the world market. Certainly capitalism comes in for its fair share of lumps, all of them very much deserved. But would socialism truly work better? The book fails to convince me.
At bottom, it’s a philosophical break; to my way of thinking, every economic structure tried has failed to create utopia. It has rarely been the structure’s fault; the simple fact is that human nature tends toward greed, venality, corruption. Communism would work, as would socialism, as would capitalism, as would all models, if only men were angels and not men. But we are men; we are not angels. Thus all the flaws, the exploitations, the injustices, that are found in capitalism would certainly equally apply under socialism, a fact Shaw reluctantly begins to own up to in his final forward.
It’s an oddity, really. On the one hand, there is deep cynicism: the Fabian society believes that capitalism is corrupt through and through and that nothing can restore dignity to mankind but a complete scrapping of all this industry and the building of an entirely new model. Thus, the perspective of the Fabians is quite a dark one, quite a bleak one. However, when talking of socialism, the new model, things take a turn into the relentlessly sunny and cheery; the Fabians begin to believe that all men are basically philanthropists, that no one is lazy, that no one is greedy, that socialism could never be corrupted because mankind will rise to the occasion. One tries to think of a time when mankind rose to the occasion. One is baffled and a little sad.
Thus the deep schizophrenia of the book can be summed up quite easily. Capitalism has failed because man corrupted it. Socialism will stand because man will choose not to corrupt it. At once, man is the villain and the savior, the devil and the messiah. Quite a moving proposition; quite a utopia to live in. Quite a castle in the air.
2 ½ out of 5 stars.
discipline posted:the new jacobin takedown of the baffler is pretty weird and kinda sad
it's like: oh, well, our communism ends up in the washington post and new yorker. what does the baffler have to show for it?? we all got book deals and the mainstream loves us because we write about the onion in a real high-falutin fashion
That article also praised gawker for their edgy, class consciousness writing. Also the baffler had an article that was supposed to be a contrarian takedown of Jon Stewart but praised South Park for being brave and edgy.
discipline posted:d4ky posted:this is interesting stuff cleanhands. if you don't get a chance to expand upon the sandusky bit, or if you want more ideas, hollywood would be another good place to look. corey feldman said right before he died that hollywood's number one problem is pedophilia.
The "little" women in Charlie Chaplin's Hollywood career established his reputation as a chicken hawk. The first nymphet was blonde little Mildred Harris, ho was fourteen when she and Charlie met at a blanket party on Santa Monica beach. She was just sixteen when Charlie asked her to marry him. He has been informed of her pregnancy and it seemed the sporting thing to do.
Then there was the original of that most legendary of nymphets: Lolita. Who was Lolita? She was born in Hollywood of a Mexican mother and an Irish-American father on April 15, 1908. Chaplin first laid eyes on Lolita when she was seven years old. The year was 1915, the place a popular tearoom frequented by the movie folk, Kitty's Come-On Inn, where Lolita's mother worked as a waitress. Little Lolita caught Charlie's eye and she just simpered and stared. Charlie saw a flimsily-dressed little nuggins with bold eyes.
Before long, Lolita was working as a child extra. Chaplin was helpful, placing Lolita in walk-on parts. With the pay checks coming in for her little girl, her mother could quit her job waiting on tables and devote herself full time to the "education" of her daughter. Lolita at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen - and chicken-hawk Charlie never far away, mistily watching the bud unfold.
Long story short, 35 yr old Charlie Chaplin marries 16 yr old pregnant Lolita and divorces her 2 years later haha cool father of American cinema yall
rhizzanthology idea: showbiz paedophilia thru the ages, we can prob get verso to advance on it
discipline posted:or do you mean like, famous writers or something? I'm pretty bad with name dropping
I thought you meant people we actually associate with
thats because you are actually involved lol
discipline posted:jools posted:if you want to be a Writer or are a Writer, shoot yourself to save us the trouble
thanks, friend
tpaine posted:cleanhands posted:The first nymphet was blonde little Mildred Harris, ho was fourteen when she and Charlie met at a blanket party on Santa Monica beach
lmao
*stalks back and forth around post like a def comedy jam comic*
ho was fourteen. HO WAS FO'TEEN
discipline posted:jools posted:i bet we could all name ten or twenty people who do nothing but just write about and write on the activity and organisation of other people, but would find it a challenge to do the same for people who actually do things
it's the inverse for me
write about ur cool activist comrades + give a voice 2 the voiceless
CHARLIE CHAPLIN YOU DONE LOST. YO DAMN. MIND!
Edited by angelbutt_dollface ()
also reading Badiou's Rebirth of History
angelbutt_dollface posted:*leans forward towards audience and gesticulates wildly with the mic and free hand*
CHARLIE CHAPLIN YOU DONE LOST. YO DAMN. MIND!
this is probably my most controversial post of all time
a couple dudes were like haha that's funny and then some other dude came along like a day later and was just like "naw, dont do this" and like half a day after that someone else was like i too must downvote this post and then some other person happens across the post zeroed out like damn how does this awesome post not have any upvotes? but just a surely as they upvote it, another person was like "oh no u dont" and downvoted it again and that's where we stand now. a stalemate. a single post, caught between worlds