(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best radical political thought books

• The Creature from Jekyll Island
  
• Righteous Indignation
  
• No Go Zones
  
  Thanks for these recommendations. No Go Zones sounds interesting due to the title alone, I'll be looking into that one. The Amazon reviews sound promising, as well. The others sound like they're worth reading too, I'll add them to my list. Thanks!

>No one did this, except Muslims in those areas wanting others to not feel welcome, like the guys who went around in Tower Hamlets accosting drinkers.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-no-go-zones-muslim-sharia-law-third-poll-hope-not-hate-far-right-economic-inequality-a8588226.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Go-Zones-Sharia-Neighborhood/dp/1621576809

What

No, it's a sub for fans of this book

Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It, by Leon Trotsky.

Here are several books written by mass murderers. Here's one by a rapist. All are routinely taught in university courses. All are available for ready purchase at bookstores throughout the world. Does this bother you? Should their purchase be banned?

Psychiatry isn't a pseudoscience, but a lot of the stuff done in its name ("suppressed memories," classical Freudian and Jungian analysis, lobotomies, etc) is.

> No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You Hardcover – August 14, 2017

> [Author: Soon There’ll Be No-Go Zones in the US]
(https://clarionproject.org/author-soon-therell-be-no-go-zones-in-the-us/)

Hell, even the monthly CAIR publications, offer "shari'a compliant Home Loans" If they didn't have Shari'a courts setup, then why would they publish/advertise Shari'a compliant Home Loans?

> About half of them fit perfectly within your philosophy.

"About half"? That's supposed to mean anything? All political movements are going to share some attributes, including liberal ones, simply by virtue of them being political movements intent on taking power. Don't be dumb.

>You literally deny history, the deaths of millions, the murder of cultures, my own FAMILY being brutally killed.

I'm actually a very careful student of history, who is interested in parsing out what the Nazis genuinely believed and what they just put out in their propaganda. Instead of listening to some ghoulish Social-Darwinist hack rant into a lecture hall for 2 hours about Nazism, how about looking into a genuine work of academic analysis like Paxton or Griffin? Both would tell you that the pillars of fascism are collectivist nationalism, ethnic purity, and an obsession with domination. Collectivism is the only fundamental thing it shares in common with socialist and progressive thought.

It's a shame that most Peterson fans are basically academic illiterates. His "reading list" is literally just a bunch of high school stuff.

>Frankly, this thread is really fascinating and I'm looking forward to discussing it.

No you aren't, you literally abandoned every single line of substantive argument you had with me, then proceeded to Godwin the thread when it became clear you were losing. Your beliefs simply cannot stand up to rational scrutiny, and you know it.

No, sadly you remember wrong. Fascism is far-right on the political spectrum. Here's some material if you want to read up:

https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Fascism-Roger-Griffin/dp/0312071329

https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-Reader-Routledge-Readers-History/dp/0415243599

Ye, I just heard it.

Worth noting: he says this as a way of describing how Antifa (and other anti-fascists) possibly think about tackling fascism in all its guises. It’s an observation more than anything.

“Nipping in the bud” doesn’t have to entail violence; offensive or otherwise. There are clearly anti-fascist activists who disagree with this but there are many who don’t. We’re obviously talking bad actors now.

I’m anti-fascist but I am not a member of what had come to be perceived as Antifa. I’m also ex-Army so was once but a microscopic cog in the imperial war machine, since you bring up the American war of independence.

These are worth a read whether you agree with their sentiment or not.

Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1612197035/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RFcvCbRXKP7VF

Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0873481062/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_MGcvCbQSYF4PP

How Fascism Works https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0525511830/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gIcvCb93V46W7

They all differ on certain issues.

Peace, have a good weekend!

> You have the wrong definition of fascism. This is another huge problem. I’m not getting anything mixed up...see below.

You are incorrect. You're using a bad definition from a bad source. You couldn't even use the baseline definitions outlined on regular wikipedia, you had to go to the more obscure simplified wikipedia? Which is, well, simplified? Quite literally intended for kids, and people who are still learning English and so can't understand wikipedia proper yet? And quite often bad, due to being fringe enough that community quality control doesn't hold up. And on top of that, this article in particular can easily be found to have quite a bit of controversy on both the talk page and in the edits, including frequent and outright misleading edits. Simplified wikipedia is a bad source for anything (unlike standard english wikipedia, which is fairly good), and even more so when it comes to political topics.

If you look at, say, the standard wikipedia article on fascism, here's the corresponding initial paragraph (my bolding):

> Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of radical right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries. Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum.

The traits and ideologies typically placed on the left of the traditional left-right spectrum are inherently opposed to the traits of fascism; anti-nationalism and marxism most notably. Now, there's certainly been ideologies that use left-wing rhetoric without actually using left-wing ideology or theory; fascists are one of those groups, as are right-wing populists in general. They often use the hardships the working class faces as a means to show that the ruling classes don't care about the working class, but then they twist that by changing what the ruling classes actually mean.

Look at Donald Trump, as a very clear and modern example. He wielded the plight of the rural working poor, saying that "you're losing your jobs and your farms and the elite doesn't care about you". So far that is correct - but then comes the twist: The elite aren't the ruling classes, but, from Trump's propaganda machine, certain specific politicians and "liberals" (in that weird and vague US sense of the word). He uses that to propel himself into presidency, despite being part of that ruling class that doesn't care about the coal miners or farmers. The same tactic has been used by plenty of right-wing populists, from Hitler to UKIP.

For more indepth analyses of fascism, I recommend cultural theorist Umberto Eco's essay Ur-Fascism and even more so historian Roger Griffin's book The Nature of Fascism.

If you haven't seen it, then you haven't been looking at all. It's a ridiculously common thing they say along with videos of conservative correspondents going to those areas.

Here is a guy who specializes in ONLY this talking point it seems-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pochreLwrQs

Books on it-

https://www.amazon.com/No-Go-Zones-Sharia-Neighborhood/dp/1621576809/

Right-wing news articles-

http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/22/four-signs-your-neighborhood-is-turning-into-a-no-go-zone/

Again, by all means criticize them but be intellectually honest about it.

>We had a post in /r/Canada that got brigaded, a picture of a refugee and his host, a woman.

Because the voting didn't go the way you'd like it was "brigaded"? This is a weak argument.


>Want to bet on if the responses were limited to saying "certain neighbourhoods" and "similar things"?

The typical argument made about Europe being a "war zone" is either terrorist attacks or no-go neighborhoods. Of course if you expand the discussion to general issues with Islam or immigration otherwise you'll get other responses but those are by far their biggest talking points on Europe being under siege or whatever.

This is such a stupid waste of time, but whatever, I'm having fun.

>Irrelevant since the Deep State runs the United States foreign policy cadre with no democratic input thus making US claims about "democracy" and "human rights" absolute bullshit.

This pretty much proves exactly the point I made about the failure of CCP-advocates to dissagregate societies. The two options aren't "universal societal support for a position" and "conspiratorial shadow government manipulating society." It's also possible that "the vast majority of Americans have never heard of Crimea and don't particularly care about it, so it's not a hotly debated issues in America." Now please tell me about the wide diversity of Chinese opinion on the Catalonian Indepencdence movement.

​

>Tibet independence is as irrelevant as Vermont independence and both have negligible search results.

I don't recall the American government sending the military into Vermont to conquer a land ruled by local Vermontans for thousands of years. Nor is there a Vermontan government in exile urging the restoration of its independent state. (And I don't even like Tibetan government.)

But just for the hell of it, I googled, "the case for Vermont Independence," and holy shit, it has its own wikipedia page and book and everything. Here ya go, some light reading -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vermont_Republic

https://www.amazon.com/Most-Likely-Secede-Independence-Reclaiming/dp/1603585028

Now please show me the Baidu results for any domestic Chinese independence movement. Any at all.

> You believe in a convenient version of mainstream history whereby you ignore incidents like what happened at Benghazi

I'm curious: what do you think happened at Benghazi? What are your sources for information about this? I'm especially interested because you renounced the GOP. Does that mean you also renounce the GOP talking points and sources on Benghazi?

> and the collective effect of "blow back".

I said nothing about blow back, but the reason I was one of the few Americans opposing the Iraq invasion in 2002 and 2003 is because it was obvious that the invasion would be a disaster and lead to dramatic blowback harming America. Just like previous foreign policy blunders led to 9/11.

> I will never vote for a Republican as long as I live

I'm just curious: Have you voted for Republicans in the past? And who are you voting for if not Republicans? It sounds like you hate Democrats, too.

> Let's pretend you are right about Gaddafi, what right do we as The United States of America have to aid in the overthrow of an African dictator in Libya?

Basically none. I think you could justify US intervention for humanitarian purposes - like, to stop a genocide. And you could justify some US intervention if it TRULY was necessary for US security. But 95% of US foreign policy over the last 60 years cannot be justified and has been disastrous for the US and the world.

> This policy of mass interventionism causes the bulk of the world to hate us and encourages them to attack us.

You could not be more right. It's an absolute disaster.

> Do you support terrorism?

When you were probably still in diapers I was reading this book.

thanks for the thoughtful reply.

"It seems like you're transitioning away from logical thinking because logic has failed you." Correct.

"Did you finally run up against nihilism, realize the futility of making those arguments, and decide to simply follow the plan nature gave you?" thats one way to lok at it. I have spent the past decade as a wilderness guide, and have found meaning and happiness for myself in engaging with wildness. I have also discovered that putting very sick and unhappy humans in a wilderness context with a few other humans is incredibly healing and meaningful for them as well, and I am simply interested in why that is so. I am not saying that this is the case for everyone or that everyone should do likewise, I am just exploring my own experiences with wildness by using various philosophical methods and approaches to explore this dynamic.

"Because of this, no one is wrong in that visceral, evil, disgusting way we tend to cast things. " I totally agree. While I will spend my life fighting against destructive ideas and the people who carry them out, I never delude myself that I am right and they are wrong. As a therapist (and as someone who had a really fucked up childhood), I am intimately familiar with the conditions that create what one might characterize as "evil actions." These people are simply passing on what they've been taught, they are playing out their trauma in the world around them. Why did I chose to take my trauma and turn it towards resisting civilization while others use it to reinforce civilization? I have no idea, I just know what I love and gives me meaning. Obviously, a cop does his job because it gives him meaning, as well. It gives me meaning to resist the cop and everything he stands for, i see no need for morality here.

"I think your views here are coming from the idea that what humans do is somehow different from nature." Not exactly. I understand civilization to be the biotic community (Life) experimenting with self-consciousness. Every manifestation of life on this planet can be seen as an outgrowth or experiment that is taking lace within the larger body of Life. I experience this self-consciousness to be a destructive and anti-Life adaptation, and I am consciously choosing to oppose it, out of my awareness of and relationship to the rest of the biotic community. If one was trying to create a moral framework out of my project, they could feasibly make civilization/domestication the Bad and wildness/chaos as the Good, but thats really not how I look at it and I try very hard to break-up this reductionist narrative in my essays.

"There's no escaping nature. No matter what you do, you're a wild animal." I totally agree, and reading some of my other essays would give you some context for this. I dont think that humans have separated themselves from nature at all... if I thought that, there would be no base for my rewilding project. Rewilding is predicated on the fact that we are wild animals who have been domesticated, which explains why we do the things that we do , and why we feel the way that we feel.

"I don't think you were right in saying social movements stem from thinking in abstract, objective terms. The people who join a social movement are the ones who have been wronged." I would say that social movements tap into a very real sense of injustice and then co-opt that feeling into fueling a movement which has nothing to do with their initial sense. When someone exploits, coerces, or uses violence on me, instead of immediately confronting them or the situation, I am encouraged to think about structures and ideas, which are valid, but they have nothing to do with my actual situation. Another way of saying this is that "racism" doesn't exist, but individual acts of racialized aggression do exist. I am attempting to de-reify these concepts which Leftism has erected, is order to return agency to oppresed people.

"the pacifism of MLK and the other activists in the 60's was actually very calculated. They wanted to put the brutality of their oppressors on display." yes, I adress this at length in the actual book, but this essay was a critique of the book. It sounds like you might actualy apreciate the book, you can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Resistance-Violence-Nonviolence-State/dp/0991313623/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452381042&sr=8-2&keywords=jeriah

"I think by understanding people for what they are you can learn to manipulate the world more effectively - and this is the niche humans have filled." I completely agree, I just dont feel like participating in it anymore. I find more meaning in authenticity and relationship.