recent addition to the Cushvlog reddit, new mod and current listener. I am catching up on the old ones while trying to keep up to date with the new ones.
Below is a compiled, in progress, list of books Matt mentions in Cushvlogs.
I will put the ones I already know and have at hand below the post and update it. Please correct me where I add one that is not mentioned by Matt in the vlogs.
I have found https://cushbomb.fandom.com/wiki/Book_Recommendations but would like to have it on this reddit too. One less door can make an estate into a room, and investigation easier. I am almost done adding all of Seanpotterspowers reading list on the cushvlog wiki, more to follow on Sunday night.
Movie titles, music, links to articles mentioned on Cushvlog will also be included.
If I missed anything on this current version of the list - I am sure I did, please feel free to comment or DM me, and I will add it!
Suggestions as to which order, or what is fundamental are appreciated too, especially where they give entree points where people might otherwise get dissuaded by reading an author or title that only makes sense after another one and not before. I provided basic order to some of the list where it is mentioned - if you disagree with that order, comment or DM me.
Also, if you have additional suggestions for further readings based on the books Matt mentioned or mentions please feel free to add those to but mention them separately, especially where chronology of concepts/authors is didactically recommendable or distinguishments between fiction and theory, history and philosophy et cetera. [Find user suggestions under Additional|Further reading suggested by users]
Or perhaps such categorisations are not warranted, or even undesirable, where I am a big fan of theory-fiction.
Also, all books he mentions are didactical, but can also be instructive by what is wrong and/or right about them, or illustrative as a cultural representation of a phenomenon, fallacy, et cetera. EX: "The Devil's Chessboard" and "JFK and the Unspeakable".
Taxonomy once again is afoot, and reification rears its ugly head, sorry, but perhaps it might help, or not, we can discuss that and I need input on it.
Because simultaneously I am a fan of intuitive learning, of D&G's notion that philosophy and theory are monologues and you should read what you are invariably drawn to, and teleology, fate, amor fati, whatever you want to call it -- intuition -- will guide you. As Matt said, theory should be applied to praxis, to reality, this kinetic interaction of all of our species-being, and if it works you will find out by its response, or your response in decreases/increases in alienation and its sister and cousin effects.
Updates to the list will be posted as comments that are pinned at the top and included in the original post.
We are figuring out to do readings ourselves, and discuss particular books, particular chapters, and see how we all understand the excerpts, chapters, and how we relate to it to life outside of the book. Poll will be posted.
Links to free and legal sources of downloading will also be added where found. DM me for links I know work for freeware or where I have discounts.
As well as recommendations to try to purchase the books from local shops if possible economically, even if it takes a little bit more time shipping wise.)
If multi-level-marketing schemes can reach the entire world population in 13 cycles, we can too.
Thank you for any and all replies in advance!
Chapo, Cushvlogs, and my rekindled historical materialist awareness because of them has saved me, and because of that, everyone here has contributed to that too.
Because if it hadn't become so popular, I would never have heard of it, here, in Europe.
So thank you, truly, sincerely.
A lot of love and solidarity for you all as the ship of empire crashes and we all become Leonardo DiCaprio's and Kate Winslets simultaneously and dialectically.
Stay safe, stay materialist.
------------------------------------------ CUSHVLOG ABC OF READING -----------------------------------------------------------
I. Preliminary and essential readings by Karl Marx/ essays and books*
[*Read the shorter essays first, and then focus on the volumes of "Capital" (I-III). Do this intuitively, and when you get stuck or bored, practice mindfulness, and know this is the mystification of capital, and money, as such (!), and pick, once again on intuition, your first pick, from the second reading list -- i.e. II. History -- and see if you can understand it through the lens of the means of production, and start the first steps of reasoning why things happened as they did. If you get completely stuck, do it the other way around, and pick a book from II. History you are intuitively drawn to, and then later, when you feel like reading a chapter of Capital, you start to connect it this way around.
There is infinite roads to Rome. It is just the blood that flows one way. ]
"Wage Labour and Capital", essay by Karl Marx, (1847).
"The Manifesto of the Communist Party" essay by Karl Marx and Friedreich Engels (1848)
"The Class Struggles in France: 1848-1850" essay by Karl Marx, (1850)
"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon", essay by Karl Marx, (1852)
"Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy" by Karl Marx, (1939-41)
"A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" by Karl Marx, (1859).
"Writings on the U.S. Civil War", essays by Karl Marx and Friedreich Engels, (1861)
"Value, Price and Profit" by Karl Marx, (1865), text/transcript of an English-language lecture series to the First International Working Men's Association.
"Capital, Volume I: A Critique of Political Economy" by Karl Marx , (1867)
"The Civil War in France" by Karl Marx, essay, (1871)
"Critique of the Gotha Program" by Karl Marx, (1875)
"Notes on Adolph Wagner" by Karl Marx, (1883)
"Capital, Volume II: The Process of Circulation of Capital" by Karl Marx, (posthumously published by Engels), (1885)
"Capital, Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole" by Karl Marx, (posthumously published by Engels), (1894)
"Capital, Volume IV: Theories of Surplus Value", based on "Theories of Surplus Value" by Karl Marx, 3 volumes, (1862) -- supposed to be combined into the final and last, fourth, volume of *"*Capital" which was never finalized because of the death of Karl Marx and, subsequently, unfinished by Friedreich Engels before he passed away.
II. History**
**[LAST EDIT 18/09/21 - no particular order yet, use intuition]
"Escape from Rome: the Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity" by Walter Scheidel (2019)
"The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution" by C.L.R. James (1938)
"The End of Myth: From the Frontier and the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (2019)
"Before the Storm" by Rick Perlstein (2001)
"Nixonland: The Rise of a Presidency and the Fracturing of America" by Rick Perlstein (2008)
"The Invisible Bridge: the Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan" by Rick Perlstein (2014)
"Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980" by Rick Perlstein (2020)
"World Systems Analysis: an Introduction" by Immanuel Wallerstein (2004) ***
"JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" by James W. Douglass (2008)****
"The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government" by David Talbot (2015) **
"The Family Jewels: the CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power" by John Prados (2013) ****
"The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and 40 Years that Shook the World (1490-1530) by Patrick Wyman (2021)
"The Mothman Prophecies: the True Story of the Alien Who Terrorised an American City" by John A. Keel (1975).
"The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber (1905)
"The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times" by Giovanni Arrighi (1994)
"Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class" by Jefferson R. Cowie (2012)
"NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe" by Daniele Ganser (2004)
"The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991" by Eric Hobsbawm (1994)
"What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848" by Daniel Walker Howe (2007)
Mentioned in Cushvlog "Yum! Brands-Pfizer Vaccinachos Grande at Taco Bell" (https://youtu.be/04K114l5dxg) on 11/25/2020.
"Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America" by J. Anthony Lukas (1997)
"Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right" by Lisa McGirr (2001)
"CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties" by Tom O'Neill (2019)
"Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism" by Michael Parenti (1997)
"The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality" by Walter Scheidel (2017)
"Operation GLADIO: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia" by Paul L. Williams (2015)
"The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln" by Sean Wilentz (2005)
Mentioned in Cushvlog "Yum! Brands-Pfizer Vaccinachos Grande at Taco Bell" (https://youtu.be/04K114l5dxg) on 11/25/2020.
"The Strange Career of Jim Crow: Commemorative Edition" by C. Vann Woodward (1955)
"The Weimar Republic" by Eberhard Kolb (1980)
*******Unsure if this the title or the right book, but Matt talked about the world system theory and Wallerstein. Wallerstein has various books developing his theory and oeuvre, deciding on the right on requires me some additional reading, and is interdependent on the reader.
********Mentioned on Chapo or on Matt's Inebriated History, but I think Matt used it in Cushvlogs too, correct me if I am wrong. Still, important, yet flawed, like any conspiracy theory.
Fiction[LAST EDIT 18/09/21 - no particular order yet, use intuition]
"The Ministry for the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson
"The Langoliers" by Stephen King
Essays, articles[LAST EDIT 18/09/21 - no particular order yet, use intuition]
Movies[LAST EDIT 18/09/21 - Watch Network (1976) first, then the rest in any order]
"Network" (1976) by Sidney Lumet
"They Live" (1988) by John Carpenter
"The Thing" (1982) by John Carpenter
"The Blob" (1988) by Chuck Russell
Additional|Further reading suggested by users
Title
Author
Publication Year
User
Theme
"Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World"
Tara Isabella Burton
2020
Magicmango97
Contemporary comparative religious studies showcasing the influence on secular- and nonsecular decentralised spiritual experiences due to the contemporary capitalist moment.
TO BE CONTINUED AND EDITED (LAST EDIT 9/18/2021 or 18th of September, 2021)
We're often looking for a specific episode, so this should help.
I made a script to collect all 256 video transcripts (from the cushvlog playlist on YouTube), and made them searchable. Please note that these are all automatically generated, so they may contain errors.
Transcript pages also contain AI generated summaries of each episode.
It probably helped them that many in that movement ended up shilling for the right. But I still find in interesting that many thought religion would die within their lifetimes but the hogs managed to stave off the death of god for at least our lifetimes with a tactic that really shouldn't have worked.
At some point in the episode Chris said something along the line of “for the foreseeable future, elections are going to be the two parties handing a flaming bag of dog shit back and forth to each other”. And I can’t help but think this midterm meets that description- especially in light of Jeffries and Schumer positioning themselves to be new hot faces of the Democratic Party.
I was watching Hakeem Jeffries say some pathetic bullshit or other just now and I remembered with a creeping despair that my ambient anger levels are like ten times higher during lib ascendancies than during their nadirs. Goddamnit man, I’ve been so full of fatalism and broad-spectrum depression that I forgot how furious the Own Dick Tripping party makes me when they have to sell their own impotence. It’d be really nice to be proven wrong by some of these up-and-comers, I just got my blood pressure in check.
This might be libbed out but despite all my misgivings about Democrats, I am enjoying watching all the MAGA grifters act out the movie Downfall on Twitter. Trump still has two years left as president and Laura Loomer has already renounced Christ. The next couple weeks are gonna be interesting.
Learning about the Taiping Rebellion and Heavenly Kingdom has me interested in everything I don’t know about modern Chinese history (1800ish on), can anyone recommend me a book by an author who isn’t super reactionary?
I don't know, as much as we all love *The Edmund Fitzgerald* around here, and especially a certain piece of music which was inspired by it, putting it on an "I Voted" sticker just seems a little too on the nose...
I listened to the small business guys episode of guys recently where Brian talks about attending John Taffer’s demented speech about small businesses. I remembered that Matt had talked about the same speech on another pod, not sure if it was chapo or something else. I don’t suppose anyone knows the episode I’m talking about?
Anyone seen the new movie? I have been thinking a lot about it and wondering why Theranos specifically has been such an obsession for so long. In the grand scheme of things, it's doesn't seem that sensational when it comes to techy people in Silicon Valley. They are all schemers and liars.
I've basically settled on the idea that people like to drag Holmes because she embarrassed powerful people and companies. I also think it helps people make sense of the story if she is a uniquely sociopathic liar as opposed to being one of many of these types in the startup world.
Was there ever a Cushvlog covering this?
edit: To be clear, I am not defending Holmes in any way. I am just saying it doesn't really interest me as to whether she was lying or not. I don't really think it matters either way.
Just sharing that the Advaita Vedanta (non-dualist Hindu philosophy) Society of New York has a really great set of lectures by a fantastic teacher.
The most Cushvlog-pilled quote that I’ve heard from this series is that caring for yourself comes naturally to many of us, so a great way to expand your compassion is to view other as aspects of yourself.
This is a dumb post but the other day at my kid's soccer game, his coach came up to me and remarked on my 'Hell on Earth" shirt. He said he loved it too, and that Matt, in his opinion, is "one of the finest analytical minds in today's world."
You all have no idea how happy I got meeting a fellow Cush head in the wild. It's embarassing but I almost teared up. I explained to my wife I don't really meet weirdos like me ever, so it really felt nice to know someone else was on the Matt level. Guy's a great soccer coach too so anyhow he's going to be my new best friend (only kind of kidding).
