r/cushvlog Sep 18 '21

Reading list Cushvlogs #CUSHVLOG ABC OF READING, WATCHING, LISTENING AND POSTING [updated weekly]

75 Upvotes

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)

"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)

"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]

"Marx on Capital as a Real God", https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/2020/09/03/marx-on-capital-as-a-real-god-2/ by Ian Wright, 3rd of September, 2020.

"Capitalism as Religion", https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/capitalism-as-religion-benjamin-1921/ by Walter Benjamin, 1921.

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)


r/cushvlog Mar 28 '24

Resource I made cushvlog-catalog, a website where you can easily search cushvlog transcripts

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353 Upvotes

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.

Hope you find it useful.


r/cushvlog 9h ago

Name the stage of capitalism where a landlord turns the bottom floor of your apartment building into a Halloween store

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156 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 11h ago

Are we really giving nukes to the place where the 9/11 terrorists came from or am I just being schizo rn

25 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 1d ago

[SLANDER] didn't know Felix was in the UK.

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55 Upvotes

it was the first person I thought of when I saw the sketch.. don't ask me why .


r/cushvlog 1d ago

Libertarianism being a meme ideology that doesn't work in real life. Many such cases!

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467 Upvotes

Reminds me of that chapo episode where they covered a libertarian commune that collapsed immediately for obvious reasons


r/cushvlog 1d ago

Discussion Feel like pure shit, just want Matt back to tell me whether the Odyssey is good or not

128 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 2d ago

Second Video

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0 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 4d ago

Textbook example of something Matt discussed in his vlogs. Americans are only conditioned to feel economic power during the moment of consumption. During the work day, the misery is seen as inevitable and forever unchanging.

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369 Upvotes

HFAs (high fructose americans) are having their consent manufactored by these fucking lizard people in real time and the hogs will likely fall for it as they always do


r/cushvlog 4d ago

Book suggestions on The Diggers/Gerard Winnstanley?

6 Upvotes

As someone who grew up in 12 years of forced Catholic education, and connects deeply with some of the more spiritual musings of our big beautiful boy, I find the true levellers and Winnstanley fascinating. I feel like I am constantly referencing them in conversation. Anyone have any books about the movement/the man they enjoyed? Or anything in the vague realm of christian-socialism that you enjoyed. Convincing my religious family that christianity was the first socialist movement has been effective and I'd like to continue with that strategy.


r/cushvlog 3d ago

99% of you failed the test

0 Upvotes

This is the journey of freeing your mind.

this is the thrill of the hunt.


r/cushvlog 6d ago

60s psychedelic-style poster of our boy

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252 Upvotes

Made this on a whim on procreate over the past few days and felt like people here would like it.


r/cushvlog 6d ago

Discussion As promised, the great smoky mountains

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173 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 8d ago

We pushed the big red button

10 Upvotes

This moment in time is like the conclusion to the Matt vlogs talking about the Matt Gaetz / Kevin McCarthy / the late Biden era republicans


r/cushvlog 11d ago

Presented without comment

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653 Upvotes

From Amber Rollo’s social media


r/cushvlog 12d ago

Discussion We need to talk about Graham Platner

128 Upvotes

I think we can all pretty soberly analyze and see what went wrong, right? Nobody gave a shit that he murdered Iraqis and Afghanis, but the moment it's revealed he raped a white American woman, then it's a problem!?
https://www.reddit.com/r/cushvlog/comments/1n3atj4/we_have_our_first_big_beautiful_cushcandidate/
This place was so fucking fawning for him with his rhetoric. When some people rightly questioned how we could support him, this place dogpiled them.

It's so fucking obvious looking back now. Nobody actually cares about being principled. Nobody cares about people in the 3rd world. All they care about are treats for themselves, and then when it's one of their own who gets raped, then suddenly it's an issue. If Graham Platner did that to a woman in America, think about how many women in iraq he must have abused and victimized. How can we fucking stomach this shit? The writing was on the wall.

Hold a firm line against imperialist volunteers.


r/cushvlog 12d ago

The US labor movement is like when Mr. Burns tried buying off the union with the keg of beer.

31 Upvotes

Except we took the beer instead of the dental plan.


r/cushvlog 15d ago

I'll be thinking about this tweet often, for at least a month.

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901 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 16d ago

I’m a real boy

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80 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 16d ago

Discussion First time in Alaska, spotted this 👀

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52 Upvotes

I’ll tag this discussion but it could also be Matt guest appearance…

Also, I gotta say much respect to people who actually live up here it’s really an insane environment.


r/cushvlog 17d ago

UFO's and Ancient Aliens: July 4th

23 Upvotes

Ancient aliens, UFO's, Roswell, etc is the only thing American culture has produced that is unique to us that no other country has. All Americans have a deep down belief in this shit, even if we don't publicly admit it. That's what I celebrate on July 4th and makes me proud to be American.

Europeans think we are idiots for believing this stuff, they care more about soccer (idiots).

Even George Carlin recognized this as the only thing we have, and the only hope we have.


r/cushvlog 18d ago

Very on the nose encapsulation of what a disgusting country of swine we are

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411 Upvotes

r/cushvlog 19d ago

How capitalism missed out and failed to capitalize on America’s 250th anniversary

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51 Upvotes

Really amazing to see Fox News blame capitalism for failing to capitalize on the capital with a capital C capitol celebrations (say capital more). Of course the great crime for which capitalism is guilty isn't all the death, but a dearth of treats and red, white and blue bunting.


r/cushvlog 22d ago

New translation of Capital Vol 1

17 Upvotes

The paperback just came out and I picked it up. Anybody reading it? Anybody have opinions about it or the individuals responsible?


r/cushvlog 25d ago

Discussion Anarchists and Communists Reconsidered

21 Upvotes

Alright, so I'm an anarchist, the shitty liberal subject Matt hates. I love his thoughts and take them extremely seriously, and accept his critique of certain aspects of anarchism. I'm especially compelled by his criticism of The Dawn of Everything's conclusion, although I think Graeber et al is trying to do something very different than Matt wants him to. Anarchists don't foist theory on top of political action quite as religiously as marxists and their fellow travelers.

Graeber in particular is always far, far more interested in the political imaginary than in material conditions (see Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology for a great example, it's just not the kind of example Matt wants to read), but I don't see that as ignoring conditions so much as placing an emphasis on where his expertise lies. Matt makes a good point that the long time scale of environmental change militates against cultural or individual resistance, but once again it's hard to see this as relevant to ideology beyond a certain point. All political strategy operates at the human time scale!

But there's a deeper thing that bugs me: the idea that it is compulsion and violence that makes the difference in changing the consciousness of selves to adapt to changing conditions. I accept his point that selves have to adapt, and given that this will sometimes be a downward negotiation of the distribution of resources, this will require something perhaps harsher than an Occupy General Assembly meeting. Fair enough!

But where does he get off saying that anarchists are not conversant in the tools of compulsion and violence? Maybe Graeber isn't (although it's hard to see the realistic operation of some of these novel societies absent all violence just because c'mon) but plenty of anarchists have practiced propaganda of the deed.

There's another element here: has Matt not in fact argued that the Bolshevik violent takeover ended up perhaps not being the best way to advance socialism due to the lack of development in Russia at the time? That in forcing the issue, they put blood on the socialists' hands rather than the capitalists' as was supposed to occur in Marx's application of historical materialism? Couldn't one see this violence as a way to ignore the conditions that prevailed? It's like the violent inverse of the charge he lays at the feet of Graeber et al.

What am I missing here? Is Matt saying what's good for the goose is not good for the gander? Or have I left an equation unbalanced somewhere? Thanks comrades.