Best products from r/ChapoTrapHouse

I don't have time to make sure it's comprehensive and everything but I can throw some stuff together real quick:


Knives

You really only need 2, a chef's knife and serrated knife. A pairing knife is occasionally useful but rarely necessary. If you really like sharp knives, buy a whetstone and learn to sharpen, cheap knives can get just as sharp as expensive ones.

• https://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Fibrox-Chefs-Knife-8-Inch/dp/B008M5U1C2
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Update-International-KP-05-German-Offset/dp/B0029SMITC/
  
• If you want a pairing knife, just buy an ultra cheap one, it's not something that really needs to be sharp
  
• Here's a cheap and decent whetstone if you want to learn to sharpen knives. Def recommend doing that, there's a million Youtube vids about it, not that hard really https://www.amazon.com/Sharpening-Whetstone-Non-Slip-Sharpener-Waterstone/dp/B074YJRL7T
  
  ​
  
  Pots and Pans
  
  You need four or five things here. I'd say your mainly looking for a large saute pan, a stock pot, and a sauce pan. If you cook eggs you can grab a non-stick saute pan too. Don't use non stick pans for things that don't stick to pans. They wear out fast and they're garbage when they lose their coating. Oh and a sheet pan.
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Finish-Aluminum-Frying-Commercial/dp/B002AGY7OW/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=aluminum+saute+pan&qid=1563996953&s=home-garden&sr=1-3
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Cooks-Standard-12-Quart-Stainless-Stockpot/dp/B01M7RNBZA/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-719-16-Classic-Stainless-Saucepan/dp/B00008CM69/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=sauce+pot&qid=1563997129&s=home-garden&sr=1-3
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Cooks-Standard-02569-Nonstick-Anodized/dp/B079ZLDG14/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/New-Star-Foodservice-36831-Commercial/dp/B009LA10OA/
  
  ​
  
  Other Shit
  
  
• Possibly the most useful cooking thing ever https://www.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-Commercial-Products-FG1962000000-Silicone/dp/B0000CFO2S
  
• Cheese grater, garlic press, zester all in one https://www.amazon.com/Microplane-40020-Classic-Zester-Grater/dp/B00004S7V8
  
• A wooden spoon, like any wooden spoon
  
• A spoon with holes in it, you probably have one already
  
• A sturdy metal spatula, like this https://www.amazon.com/Winco-TN719-Hamburger-Turner-6-Inch/dp/B001VZAKGM (fucking lol at calling that a "harmburger turner")
  
• Any type of cutting board is fine as it long as it's not glass or marble or something (those are probably the best example of conning rich people with an actively horrible product)
  
• This is better than any colander out there and has other uses too https://www.amazon.com/New-Star-Foodservice-34127-Perforations/dp/B009LLIJCA
  
• Some kitchen scissors, any are fine but these are nice https://www.amazon.com/Joyce-Chen-51-0621-Unlimited-6-25-Inch/dp/B0009XYW9
  
• Any knife steel, a cheap one like this is fine https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-Knife-Sharpening-Rod/dp/B07J1TZ4DK/
  
• A ladle and a whisk, you probably already have them
  
• A cheap immersion blender is a great alternative to ridiculously expensive food processors/blenders
  
  ​
  
  This is just suggestions if you don't have the stuff already, I think the real bottom line is that the stuff you already have is likely fine, and being a good cook is about knowledge and technique and putting effort into tasty food for people you care about, not gear.

All Scandinavian countries have been in the process of decentrilization for the last 4-5 decades. Its been a slow transition from nationalized industries and companies to privatized markets with strong welfare programs. The changes in the tone of the red greens from revolutionary to just a left-wing party with regards to Danish politics, is not only a clear sign of this phenomenon, but also indicative of the fact that not only are they not revolutionary, but they're moving further and further away from it. This goes for all the other parties in Denmark, and most of Scandinavia. There is nobody who wants to de-privatize the entire market and turn it into stateless communes, nothing even close. They're all toying with different versions of welfare states, in which the grand majority of the nation's GDP will be private and allocated on free-market systems.


This has been the story of the Scandinavians over the past 40-50 years. They were always close leaders of Marx and other revolutionaries, and had been applying their ideas for a long time. I'm from Canada, and our early labour movements in the late 1800s and early 1900s benefitted from Fins migrating to Canada, who were already very radical communists. Nonetheless, over the years, with advancements in the social sciences, sciences and technology, they started to notice that Marx's criticism of capitalism was spot on! However, his solution wasn't as well formed as we thought. The path to prosperity, they learned was, letting the markets do their jobs because their way better at allocating goods and services, and then taxing the living crap out of the wealthy (and middle class), so that we see literally no homelessness or poverty (which they virtually don't when compared to their OECD counterparts). I mean, its not the craziest thing to believe that some old philosophers of revolutionaries from the 1800s might not know how to properly protect the proletariat in a world run by computers, automated machines, jets and planes that fly across the world in a few hours, wireless communication and algorithms shaping our decisions in a world 8x bigger than their's. Also, Marx was actually a fan of capitalism and read Adam Smith carefully. He himself didn't even offer a clear solution, because he believed it was a deterministic process (historical materialism) and that communism was an inevitability, not something that was necessarily going to be forced through activism. The means of production will advance and become so productive that we will have to allocate resources top-down, rather than some invisible hand. But along the path, he did believe, communist societies actually wouldn't be ideal.


I think this inkling that you have, that there is a strong revolutionary spirit among working classes across the West to bring about full-fledged communism or socialism, I think you have it overblown. There are young college educated kids who's lives are in good condition who tend to want that, but most super poor people in the West will look at you funny if you go, "Hey, what if we took every owner, took the company away from them, and made ourselves the owners!" They would look at you funny. Most people you're talking about within these parties simply have different views on how a welfare-state should be run, but they all deeply believe in markets. You can be anti-capitalist and still believe in markets, they're not mutually inclusive. There's nothing wrong with trading things, its about which types of trading/exchange/economic system leads to suffering and oppression for the working class. I think the Scandinavians found they still had a lot of hunger and oppression under nationalist/communist societies they evolved out from. They saw welfare states actually bring the goods in more effectively. And the red greens, along with most Danish parties that have been around for decades, have completely changed their tone on communism and revolution.

I would recommend you read this book, its a staple on the history of the Nordic Model, it outlines in details how the parties (and other Scandinavian ones) have evolved over the past century, - https://www.amazon.ca/Nordic-Model-Welfare-Historical-Reappraisal/dp/8763503417


And this is a good paper that condenses this books info - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20004508.2018.1429768

Side-note, this is an interesting passage -

>in a thought-provoking essay, Terry Eagleton, a visiting professor at Lancaster University, in England; the National University of Ireland; and the University of Notre Dame, explains that Marx's view of capitalism was more nuanced than simple hatred. He writes:

>"This is not to suggest for a moment that Marx considered capitalism as simply a Bad Thing, like admiring Sarah Palin or blowing tobacco smoke in your children's faces. On the contrary, he was extravagant in his praise for the class that created it, a fact that both his critics and his disciples have conveniently suppressed. No other social system in history, he wrote, had proved so revolutionary. In a mere handful of centuries, the capitalist middle classes had erased almost every trace of their feudal foes from the face of the earth. They had piled up cultural and material treasures, invented human rights, emancipated slaves, toppled autocrats, dismantled empires, fought and died for human freedom, and laid the basis for a truly global civilization. No document lavishes such florid compliments on this mighty historical achievement as The Communist Manifesto, not even The Wall Street Journal."

Thanks so much!

As for what to read, it really depends on what you're interested in but I always recommend the classics when it comes to anything to do with the left first.

However, if you'd like something more modern and lighter here are some of my recent favorites:

• Why Marx Was Right - Terry Eagleton is a fantastic author and this book has sold more than one friend of mine on the concept of Marxism. A great resource to learn more about the socialist left and hear the other side of the story if you've been sold the mainstream narrative on Marx.
  
  
• A Cure for Capitalism - An elegant roadmap for ethically dismantling capitalism by the most prominant Marxist economist alive today, Richard D. Wolff. Very utility-based and pretty ideologically pure to Marx while still taking into account modern economic circumstances.
  
  
• No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy - this one is a great take-down of how modern NGO organizations (especially the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) are the premium outlet for soft imperialism for the US.
  
  
• Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair - added this because it was a very impactful, recent read for me. A lot of left-of-republican people support some kind of prison reform but we usually view it through the lens of helping "non-violent offenders". This book digs into that distinction and how we, as a society, can't seriously try to broach meaningful prison reform before we confront the notion of helping those who have done violent things in their past.
  
  
• [Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women] (https://www.amazon.com/Backlash-Undeclared-Against-American-Women/dp/0307345424/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550926471&sr=1-4&keywords=backlash) - probably my favorite book on modern feminism and why it is, in fact, not obsolete and how saying/believing as much is key to the ideology behind the attacks from the patriarchal ruling class. Can't recommend it enough if you're on the fence about feminism.
  
  
• How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic - Written in the 70's by a couple of Marxists during the communist purge in Chile, this book does a fantastic job of unwrapping how ideology baked into pop culture can very effectively influence the masses. Though I can only recommend this one if you're already hard sold on Socialism because you might not even agree with some of the core premises if you're on the fence and will likely get little out of it.
  
  
• Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? - Mark Fisher's seminal work deconstructing how capitalism infects everything in modern life. He killed himself a few years after publishing it. My most recommended book, probably.

Although this comic doesn't really talk about it, Oklahoma used to be the American hotbed for socialism. At its height, the Socialist Party of Oklahoma controlled about 20% of the state assembly. They were the biggest socialist party in the U.S. by membership, even bigger than New York or Illinois.

>The Socialist Party of Oklahoma took its biggest steps forward in size and influence as the first decade of the 20th Century came to a close, with the decline of the Farmers' Union opened the door for the Socialists organizationally. In 1908 the party for the first time attempted to mobilize tenant farmers through inclusion of "land planks" in the electoral platform.

>The Oklahoma effort was aided by Julius Wayland and his widely circulated weekly, The Appeal to Reason, which published a special Oklahoma edition in 1908. The party's effort were rewarded, with Socialist candidates in the poorest cotton-growing areas of the state garnering the party's highest level of voter support. In certain counties the Socialist Presidential ticket of Eugene V. Debs and Ben Hanford drew a quarter of the votes cast. Statewide, the Debs-Hanford ticket won 21,425 votes — just short of 8.5% of the total ballots cast. The final departure of the People's Party from the political scene after the 1908 election further broadened Socialist horizons.

> At the time of the 1908 campaign an astonishing 375 locals of the Socialist Party were scattered across the state of Oklahoma, working in support of candidates in 5 Congressional Districts, 12 State Senatorial Districts, and 35 Assembly Districts. The SPO maintained a corps of 15 traveling organizers in the field, with no fewer than 4 of these on tour at any one time. A movement was begun for the establishment of a Socialist daily newspaper in Oklahoma City.

There's a really great book on it called "Agrarian Socialism in America: Marx, Jefferson, and Jesus in the Oklahoma Countryside, 1904–1920" by a historian named Jim Bissett. It's a good read, and it's hard not to feel like there's lessons to be learned from it in how to package and sell left-wing economic reform to people now-a-days.

There's two books off the beaten path I recommend for insight that are outside the norm and provide good perspective on this:

American Made, which discusses the end of Hoover's administration in GREAT detail in the best of ways for the first couple of chapters and focuses how people on the ground interpreted it as well as explaining just how big a deal the WPA/CCC were. This book is GREAT for context. If you've heard chapo talk about the Bonus army, the book really helps put it in perspective among other things.

and

The Great Depression by David Shannon which is only about 180 pages or so, but is absolutely perfectly constructed. It's a combination of op eds and articles from DURING the great depression as well as context over what each article talks about. The combination of context along with a primary source is invaluable imo. You'll see things like the NYT trying to downplay the intense effects of the period, approaching on downright denial, the Great Depression in the midwest and West coast which often gets ignored, and articles on related issues like agricultural changes and such.

I second this. Actually, even now, I think most of what I know about theory I must have picked up via osmosis from reading K-Punk a lot back in the late 00s. There's a few more of his lectures here btw. Along similar lines, a friend of Mark Fisher's, Jeremy Gilbert, has some [podcasts] (https://culturepowerpolitics.org/podcasts/) which introduce several key concepts and thinkers from theory and cultural studies. I haven't listened to all of them, but the first one where he gives an overview of Gramsci, hegemony and neoliberalism could be useful for those who liked Capitalist Realism.

If you're interested in Marx, [this] (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Marx-Right-Terry-Eagleton/dp/0300181531/) goes over most of the important stuff. I hesitate to say it's the best introduction to Marx available because I haven't read many but I found it pretty clear and to the point. And David Harvey's lectures on Capital on youtube are invaluable if you ever want to read Marx himself.

You know what we should do? We should take a page out of Australia's book and call their territories "countries." It is already how they talk about their lands themselves, and it is kinda BS to think they did not have countries when Europeans invaded. I asked myself the question, "but what are their names?" only to find a treasure trove in the form of about ~100 countries in what is now Canada. From Plains Crees' nêhiyaw-aski to Inuit's Nunangat to Mi'kmaq's Mi'kma'ki to Tlingit's Lingít Aaní to Métis' mitchif piyii and more

imho the Crown dealing with Denendeh seems a lot easier than the Crown dealing with Deh Cho, Dane-zaa, Tlicho, Denesuline, Dün, Dän, Gwich'in and all the other Dene and their sub-bands. While Denendeh and other countries may not be particularly centralised, they certainly are unified. They have always had respected boundaries, though they may shift and are flexible, why not just Canada blanket call out that every square centimetre is part of one or more Indigenous countries and negotiations and dealings from here on out will be done Crown–Country to circumvent the strangulation of the Indian Act with an eye to dismantle it and rekindle proper Canada–Indigenous relations?

i became a socialist after reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/China-Shakes-World-Jack-Belden/dp/0853451591 but it refers to the revolutionary society created within Chiang Kai Shek's decaying country. I don't know much about post-1949 China, but having lived there for a while (in 2003 and off-and-on till 2010) - all I can say is that people are mostly mixed on Mao. My English teacher, now quite rich, grew up in the cultural revolution and liked it. At around the same time, the parents of someone I knew well fled China by swimming with guards looking to shoot them, since they felt they'd get more food in Macao.

I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Agrarian-Socialism-America-Jefferson-Countryside/dp/0806134275