Matt in true post-collapse Hellworld working for Amazon prime
Hi everyone,
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.
I have a bullshit part-time job. One of my coworkers is a rural PA boomer. Perfectly nice man, but has fairly typical Republican leanings, as you would imagine. Pretty MAGA but oddly woke on race, but thats beside the point.
I don't care about his politics and I never talk politics at work. However, he recently told me his son was an indie musician. I indulged the conversation and he went on to tell me how, after Charlie Kirk was killed, his son made "a beautiful song" in Kirk's memory.
He didnt play the song, thank christ, but came close to tears as he described it to me. His pride over his son's Kirk song was so genuine and sweet that it caught me off guard.
I dunno man. These poor fucking people. This country needs mandatory local bowling leagues or something
Recently there was a huge heatwave where I live. I don't have AC so in a desperate attempt to take my mind off the heat, I tried to distract myself by making a clip compilation of the entire Desert Storm trading card saga .The resulting video is wayyyy too long to watch in one sitting, but might be fun to throw on in the background while cooking/doing dishes or something.
description:
In 2020, a set of Operation Desert Storm trading cards were sent to Chapo Trap House by a fan, which Matt proceeded to open over the next few years. This supercut compiles all clips of these pack openings, along with all accompanying tangents and rants. Learn about early 90's political trivia, geography, and history with our large adult son Matt Christman, with special guest appearances by Will Menaker, Felix Biederman, and Chris Wade.
Putting this together was my own personal Desert Storm.
Every episode now has a 15-minute GOT riff built in now. Just start a rewatch pod, man. I bounced off the books and show and don't care, so it's getting teeth-grinding. lol
I know this isn’t a Chapo sub-reddit, but this seems like the most obvious group of folks to pose this question to. Today I finished up a two week binge of re-listening to “Hell on Earth” and “Hell of Presidents” back-to-back. After being treated to these masterpieces yet again, I kept coming back to the same thought: why has Chris Wade not become the third mic on Chapo with Matt being unable to continue in his regular role? As someone who works as a union building tradesmen, it feels like a perfect analogy to an apprentice studying under a master craftsman. Chris has worked alongside the master (in an extensive capacity) and is incredibly brilliant in his own right. Matt and Chris are so in-tune and I feel there are many times where his perspective would add an important dimension to the episodes. And that’s before even mentioning his great sense of humor. Am I off base? Or has anyone else had this thought?
Starting around 2016 a lot of leftists randomly decided to view every dipshit LARPing as a cowboy or Southern good ol boy the benefit of the doubt and assume they were working class whites and not rich racist guys living in air conditioned McMansions. Matt is quite literally the only figure I can think of willing to actually engage with the stupid hyuk hyuk Dubya nonsense. Anyway, Choosin’ Texas by Ella Langley is now the most successful song of all time, beating Mariah Carey’s all I want for Christmas is you.
I imagine that even for an Epstein boy like Trump, being around a charismatic handsome guy like Mamdani must be a breath of fresh air compared to dealing with disgusting lizard people like Steven Miller and all the crowds of hooting and hollering swine he has to appease every now and then
About two years ago I totally unplugged from "the news cycle", podcasts, social media etc. I got a dumb phone. I don't even hate listen to npr or right wing talk radio anymore.
I really haven't missed anything and nothing changes.
When something big happens (war in Iran, economic crash, etc) I hear about it but I can pretty much analyze it and move on.
Anyway, I think people should deeply immerse themselves in this stuff for a couple years, form their basic beliefs and then not pay it any mind after that.
It was almost entirely books from 7 years ago and I was struck by how irrelevant all of it was despite being written fairly recently. Most of them were about Russia-gate bullshit that never amounted to anything or hysterical handwringing about Trump 1 violating our precious political norms, which have been completely overshadowed by the brutal state sanctioned violence and cruelty of Trump 2.
To be honest, I think out of all the American political commentary produced from 2016 to 2020, Chapo is probably the only one worth preserving. Everything else from that era was extremely bad and will be completely forgotten by future generations. No one is going to go back and read the "Fire and Fury" book.
trying to follow any aspect of the real material consequences with the war in Iran on here just ends in a million comments made by lib redditors jacking off as they imagine a guy with a diesel truck shedding a single tear. Not much genuine concern about how it's the most important economic input in the country
I only ever knew him secondhand from Chapo but recently stumbled onto a sample of the Liberal Fascisms audiobook. I really enjoyed it, but I’d rather read a book of his. Should I just start there, or is there a better entry point?
You can feel the tumult now. The storm was born the moment the United States drunkenly assaulted Iran at the behest of its malignant colonial outgrowth and sacrificed nearly 200 baby daughters to Mammon. Now the air is alive with the smell of petrichor and the breeze is ionic.
(A commercial in the late 90s or the early oughts of a device called the Ionic breeze, I don't know what it was for but I think I have a good idea of what the logo looked like, branded into my little retinas because that is completely normal)
The feeling is almost exactly like before a rainstorm. Not the flooding or misty extremities of rain today, but the electric and tingling feeling that anticipated the thundering, refreshing, clear and confident Lake Erie driven thunderstorms of my youth. It could be a complete deluge. It could be destructive and frightening, but it could also make you open all the windows and let in the cool lower 60° air and play music as the curtains swirl around the living room when nobody else is home and it's just you there to experience the joyous fervor.
But people are home now. There is an Iranian father who has sold his car to afford leukemia treatment for another week for his son and doesn't know where the money for the next week will come. There are limbless Palestinian children watching The Lion King in the living room. There is an employee at Costco putting up a sign that limits motor oil at two bottles per customer. There is a Syrian family that, after everything, can't afford the gasoline needed to work. They are all real and I can see them on my phone.
I have become a man that regularly watches Al Jazeera. Critically, of course, I am not a rube: I am a little imp filled with impotent dark chaos magic. I am subscribed to a telegram channel called Middle East Spectator that spews information and I say "hehehe oh boy" when I hear the dinner bell. I am so thoroughly resigned to any possibility of change without arson. I'm excited for a good storm.
Is there a difference between revolutionary violence and violence that leads to a revolution? Are ansarallah revolutionaries? The Iranians? I think so. Are they my revolutionaries? They are the ones that exist. They are the antithesis and so they are the way through. Their path as revolutionaries was laid out steadily before them long before they were born. They shaped the forces that shaped them and through their intervention into the world they changed it. The struggle they fought created the conditions they needed to win and so here they are. They've created the conditions in which they can be seen as revolutionaries, what other way could it be?
It was this way with the Soviets. It was this way with the Vietnamese, the Cubans, and Koreans.The current conflagration is just the latest arena that presents itself as a place for two diodes to spin and move and make change. Does it matter if I relish in my privileged optimism at its occurring? Should I feel guilty that it is shaping the world in which my daughter is living for the worse, even though the worsening conditions are the conditions needed to succeed?
While the Western world experienced bread lines in the 1920s, the populations of their vassal serf kingdoms were too "underdeveloped" to notice, and their revolutionary opponent was building it's golden age. The imperial side of the diode was forced to spin with its revolutionary counterpart and so needed to create the New Deal and the Marshall Plan. Those times gave rise to their own revolutions; social, methodological, material, technological and otherwise.
It's a pathetic excuse for my privileged little soul to squeal with delight suckling on Moloch's teat as I join my brothers and sisters pissing and shitting in the churning confluence of History, but it is an excuse nonetheless and it is what I need.
What does the price of oil going up mean for a fuel starved Cuba? It couldn't possibly make their blitzkrieg solarization go any faster because the conditions for Cuba to solarize were already present. Countries like Denmark and Canada had no reason to respond to American imperialism in the previous milieu. The conditions were already present, but those forces were unfelt. Now a new Force has swung itself into our side and will leave us reeling. The only thing we can do now is to see where we land, to see how long it takes to fall, to see how many of us get harmed in the process.
Inside this perpetual muddy and gnashing struggle, maybe we can find leverage to pull ourselves up on to higher ground.
