Jacob 🇵🇸

I’ve read History and Class Consciousness twice in a row this month #Lukacsmaxxing

They’re calling it the Year of the Horse because all our cars are about to stop working

I’m officially joining the pile on against Timothee Chalamet

I’ve been told- very reliably- that if we attack Persia, we will destroy a great empire

Robert Duvall Stalin vs Richard Burton Trotsky

RIP to Robert Duvall, the greatest of the American Stalins

Just read “The Castle” for the first time. I’d forgotten how funny Kafka is. He’s somehow developed a reputation for being dark and obscure, but there’s a vein of wicked comedy running through all his work, making the bitterness easier to swallow.

Just started reading Hardt & Negri’s “Empire”. It’s interesting to me, as a post-9/11 kid, how many left intellectuals bought into Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis, but from an anti-capitalist perspective. Feels very quaint now. Imperialist competition hasn’t gone anywhere.

Just read Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Wreck of the Deutschland” for the first time... I’ve never heard an English poet convey the feel of Greek lyric so convincingly. “the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps” could have come straight out of a chorus by Aeschylus. Sublime.

@bmgBlackpool Wow!!! He does a great job. Naxos is very reliable.

@murmurations24 That’s my prof. Bernd Glemser playing on this recording.

I’ve been getting really into Lutosławski recently. His Third Symphony is surely one of the greatest examples of the genre from the last 50 years. It’s so visceral, and what a glorious ending!

Only just realised that Jon Favreau the Hollywood guy and Jon Favreau the liberal podcaster are two different guys.

Despite the "ceasefire", the IDF continues to strike Gaza, and Australia continues to supply them with weapons parts. Sanction Israel now!

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges gave a lecture at USyd today. He's reported from warzones in Central America, Bosnia and Iraq, but he says that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is the most devastating the world has witnessed since the Nazi bombing of Stalingrad.

Spotted in Redfern 💔

Thinking about Rock Against Racism’s Victoria Park carnival after last weekend’s huge far right march. London is calling…

The Australian far right draws inspiration from England. The organisers of last month’s March for Australia will be emboldened by Tommy Robinson’s rally. We need to build an antiracist movement in Australia to take on the anti-immigrant politics of Labor and welcome refugees.

@resolutereader I fully recommend it!!

Thanks to Jacob for these kind words. Glad to know the book is getting out there.

@resolutereader’s new book on the German Peasant’s War is a great achievement. He approaches the question of religion and its role in history with sophistication, while maintaining a Marxist analysis, rooted in the contradiction between the forces and relations of production.

I’ve been Trotsky’s “Literature and Revolution” to help me ground my studies in classical literature in historical materialism perspective. It's both a witty example of Marxist criticism, and a powerful polemic against the bureaucracy on the relationship between art and politics.