Honestly I’m tempted to do it. But maybe not in two weeks lol, I would need at least a few months, and that’s a lot of time to put into a pet peeve project.

I will say however that certainly there might be tidbits of information that one learns for the first time in this book. Like some examples of Adorno being in bed with the CIA, or some of the stuff Zizek has said in the past. I just don’t think it’s very representative of anything broader, and that most readers are still at least vaguely familiar with the points he exemplifies. Maybe they won’t know that Zizek called for the bombing of his own country, but they will know that he’s a clown. As someone else said here they tried to explain diamat/philosophy with this book and found that it was just so superficial that their friend was not convinced.

I suspect as I get deeper into it (I posted part 2 yesterday) it will become clear that when he attacks western marxism he really just means to attack us, the portion that is not a ‘western marxist’ as per his loose definition but also not a patsoc. Because western marxists, as per his own definition, don’t care that their idols were CIA – they like the CIA – and they also don’t care about the Statesian war of independence. He wants us, principled MLs, to feel repulsed being associated with ‘western marxism’ and offers patsocism as the savior. Well, I’ll know when/if I ever get to it lol.

Carlos has published two other books through MWM and is set to publish two more next year, making it a total of five, and I just feel like they’re getting him to write books because first of all he makes money off this of course, and secondly because it cements them as a serious ‘institute’.

It’s kinda very online examples tbh. Someone else said reddit post and yeah, it fits.

I might write one for my blog one of these days for sure. But I don’t know if I can top that lol

That’s so strange. Because Colin is now firmly placed as an anti-patsoc, from what I’ve seen.

He seems quite reachable, he has a presence on most social media. Also left PCB to form his own party recently. Just need to write him in Portuguese because I’ve never heard him speak English, but I imagine they got the translator first and they were able to contact him. If the Portuguese edition ever makes it to pdf I will try to find his preface and read it because I’m kinda curious what he says about it.

Since the question has been answered, I will lock this thread. There’s no need to rehash this hexbear struggle session infinitely.

Exactly, the book doesn’t really give one the tools to apply its thesis. It seems more like a whole justification for patsocism aimed at patsocs.

This book is a pale attempt to rewrite his perfect essay and patsocize it. It’s worrying that he’d get caught up in this nonsense and makes me question where his priorities lie.

Let’s look at some Amazon reviews too!

Explains roots of Americanism, their betrayal, and the need and time to re-radicalize them is now, in reality, not academia or sloganeering…

But the book is precisely doing academia and sloganeering.

Garrido’s book is a must-read for any Marxist in the west, especially in the US. It is philosophically rich and yet very accessible. It is only around 100 pages, the sort of book you could finish in a day or two.

Maybe I’m just a bad reader but nothing about this says “very accessible” to me.

This book perfectly addresses the shortcomings of Western Marxists. It’s a must read! Carlos is a great writer.

It reads more like a second draft that hasn’t gone through an editor.

Great read, really incisive against purity fetishists in the western “Marxist” tradition (see the latest Losurdo translation edited by Gabriel Rockhill for an even better analysis). I also love the parts on China. My only gripe is that the author gets into weird “patriotic socialism”-adjacent territory at one point and makes a show of praising Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution as some sort of progressive revolution. …

No comment.

Garrido offers a succinct critique of the modern left with the intention of helping the left overcome its many contradictions. The book covers complex philosophical topics in an easy to understand succinct manner that left me with an enhanced knowledge of the historical development of philosophy. …

Nothing in the book ‘helps’ the modern left overcome its many contradictions. Unless you mean the part where he starts promoting patsocism.

This book can change the western left. If we engage with Garrido’s ideas, and treat them as the innovation of American Marxism that they are, they can act as a guide for creating change in the real world, overcoming the problems the left has, and winning a future.

Alright settle down he’s not the second coming of Marx.

Oh you’re right he did get it, I think what he didn’t have though is “natural born” status meaning he can’t run for President

Is it alright that he’s not a US citizen for such an appointment?

And creating jobs at home I would say too

Does someone have that map of British rail built from the mine to the coast

I’m sorry WHAT does the picture caption say?? And they’re just going to gloss over that?

14yos who think andrew tate is too mainstream for them. This is not a joke talk to some patsocs and ask them, a lot of them are 14-16.

One can hope that once their metamorphosis is complete they will stop poisoning the word communist.

With federation you can easily deploy an instance and have it federate only with hexbear and lemmygrad. Then turn off registrations on the instance, and that way only lemmygrad and hexbear can ever interact with it.

Was it worth it, brave briton?

Because people don’t trust the pharmaceutical industry. Whether they’re right to is a different conversation but the starting point is that they just don’t.

edit: I’m more awake now and can make a full point lol. Basically the way we combat homeopathy and other unscientific medical practices is not solely through education but with trust and access. People need to be able to trust pharma. Education means knowing that the pharma pill you’re taking is going to fix your arteries. Trust is that you know it’s going to do only that and you’re not gonna suffer from a stroke in 5 years because of that one time you had to take it.

The second component is access. Homeopathic remedies might not be the cheapest out there (depends where you get them) but they also promise to fix everything with no side effects (obviously since they don’t contain any medication). It’s kind of a good deal then.

People look at the pill bottle and they don’t think “I need this to survive” they think “oh shit here we go again”. When they look at the homeopathic pill they think “nice, I get to take this”. But I don’t think it’s a psychological thing as much as it’s simply the pharma industry destroying its own reputation in the chase of profits. You can’t really trust anything Bayer says after they knowingly distributed HIV-infected blood bags. Even if they invented panacea nobody would trust them.