Very interesting, starts off well, goes a bit weird at the end. Leaves me wanting more, but still wishing that it had answered at least some of the questions it brought up.

I love that it goes back to the superman of the 30s—the champion of the oppressed, beating up bosses to protect the downtrodden. At least for the first couple of issues.

Fun, exciting adventures, and far more imaginative than most of the Doctor Who stories on the TV at the moment.

Hilarious and astute political observations and an excellent introduction to Marxist theory for anyone who wants to change the world.

Marcel van der Linden's broad but terribly shallow catalogue of "Western Marxist" theories of the nature of the Soviet Union is thoroughly pointless book.

He is clearly far more interested in collecting theories by obscure academics which never had an impact on the world than he is in actually providing any insight into the theories he is surveying. There is no attempt to understand the way in which the changes in the material reality in Russia and the Eastern block, and the class struggles going on there and in the West, affected the development of the theories. He provides no information about the different political currents which took up any of the theories or the way in which those theories shaped the class struggle.

He has split the history of the Soviet Union into time periods, and at the start of each provides a brief overview of that time period, but the level of the overview is always in terms of Big P politics, rather than class struggle.

There is not even any attempt to provide factual information to allow the reader to ascertain the veracity of any claim made by any of the theories. It is clear that the way that van der Linden sees the world is purely idealistic--the contest between two theories is carried out by two academics writing at each other, not by checking to see if one or the other theory can actually explain the material world.

It is clear that while van der Linden is mostly interested in making a butterfly collection of obscure academic theories, he is also politically motivated. He pays much more attention to, and is far less critical of, theories of bureaucratic collectivism, while being dismissive of Cliff's theory of state capitalism, and providing large swathes of criticism of that theory. He is, however, too cowardly to ever spell out exactly what his own political analysis of the Soviet Union is, hiding behind a facade of dispassionate academia.

It's a shame, because a work which actually carried out the task this work purports to would actually be an extremely interesting and useful reference.

We live in extremely troubling times. Small Nazi groups are marching in the street in Australia. Much larger Nazi and far-right groups are marching in the US and the UK. There are mass demonstrations of Nazis in Europe, and actual Nazi parties are in government in Germany and several other European countries. Nazis and Klansmen are running for state positions in the US.

We need to understand what fascism and Nazism are, where they come from, and most importantly of all, how to defeat Nazism before they are able to completely take power.

More than any other book, Donny Gluckstein’s ‘Nazis, Capitalism and the Working Class’ is able to provide that understanding.

I would recommend that literally everyone read this book, take its lessons to heart, and then act on them.

Excellent. My fave bit is when the runaways see two kids spraying graffiti and the other runaways want to confront them and she’s like “you’re going to beat up kids like you’re fascist cops?” And I’m like, that’s how I feel every time I read literally any other comic. Big mood.

I love this book. I love the way it is written, I love the unique point of view, I love the creativity of the world it presents, and I love the engaging characters. However, despite this book being touted as part of a new wave of political science fiction and fantasy, and despite the political manoeuvrings of gods and kings in the story, I honestly can't figure out what it is trying to say. I must be missing something.

The more Pratchett I read, the more I understand why people love him. While his earliest works were quite broad comedy making fun of fantasy and Dungeons and Dragons tropes, and then some of the slightly less early work tended to feel forced and a bit dry, by this point his work is really developing a beautiful balance of his unique voice, humour and heart. A truly enjoyable read.

Absolutely essential reading. Especially today with the hysterical right-wing assault on Jeremy Corbyn and the left of the British Labour Party--for his support for Palestine and for his left-wing activism in general--it is vitally important that the truth about the myths discussed herein by Pappe are more widely known.

Even more left-leaning corporate media propagates some of these myths, conflating Judaism and Zionism, praising the Oslo Peace Process, and pushing for a two-state solution. The latter is the most pernicious myth of them all--a 'solution' of a Jewish apartheid ethno-state side by side with a Palestinian state is no solution at all.

This book is a must-read for anyone opposed to sexual violence and looking for a solution to how to end it. While it only talks about the US, and the ways in which the US state imposes it will on other nations through globalisation and imperialism, its arguments are all true for Australia as well.

The Guardian has just published an investigation into Black deaths in custody in Australia, revealing that since 2008, more than 400 Indigenous people, men, women, and children, have died, or have been actively murdered, in police or prison custody.

Obviously, a huge part of this is racism--a continuation of the genocide of Aboriginal people that began with the continent being invaded by the British, massacres to clear land for farming, and 'remote communities' being evicted to make way for mines.

But part of what has allowed the rates of Black deaths in custody to continue is the high rates of Aboriginal people in custody. And part of what has allowed for these high rates of Aboriginal people in custody is the increased powers of police, laws to stop people being granted bail, laws to stop people being released from prison early, longer prison sentences being handed down by judges, more cops and more prisons, and a vast array of other 'law and order' measures.

These measures, while they disproportionally affect Indigenous people, affect anyone drawn into the net of the Australian police state. Because of these factors, the prison population in Australia, including those who have yet to be found guilty of anything, are booming far out of proportion with the growth in the general population.

And, unfortunately, the mainstream of the campaign against sexual violence has only helped boost the powers of the police state.

In particular, the prison population in Victoria rose to record levels following the public outcry in response to the assault and murder of Jill Meagher in Melbourne in 2012, along with a similar response to street violence in NSW.

Earlier in the 2000s, a racist anti-Lebanese police squad was set up to racially profile and target so-called 'Lebanese gangs', following two gang rapes. The racist mania whipped up be the government and the media not only led to state oppression of Arab and Asian migrants, but also to the Cronulla riot/pogrom in 2006 where men and women 'of Lebanese appearance' were violently assaulted.

In 2006, the Australian army invaded and occupied remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory in response to completely fabricated accounts of child abuse in these communities. This las led to children being malnourished as parents can no longer access food to feed them, and then to these children being stolen from their families and placed in foster care.

The Australian government also participated in the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, justifying these war crimes largely on the basis of standing up for the rights of women in these countries. The resulting mass slaughter of civilians and destruction of infrastructure has definitely not improved the lives of women in these countries.

As these examples show, the state uses its supposed opposition to sexual violence as a cover for increased repression and state violence.

While Bumiller's book does not offer a complete worked out theory of the capitalist state, the evidence and argument it presents fits in with a Marxist analysis. Marx understood that the state, far from being a neutral arbiter of conflicting interests within society, is a tool of class oppression--under capitalism, this means the oppression of the proletariat (the majority of the Earth's population, who do all the work) by the bourgeoisie (the ruling class, who do nothing and live off the profits stolen off the workers). The proletariat can not use the capitalist state to advance its interests.

It is not in the interest of the state to truly combat sexual violence. For example: The state has recently privatised a Rape and Domestic Violence hotline, meaning a company is profiting off rape. New private womens' prisons are opening up, so a company is profiting off the incarceration of vulnerable, mostly poor, and likely disproportionately Black women, who will be violently and forcefully strip-searched by guards.

But mostly, it is because sexual violence is a product of capitalism, and the capitalist state would have to work towards its own overthrow to truly challenge sexual violence, which it will not do. Sexism is necessary to capitalism. Women provide the free labour of birthing and rearing each new generation of workers who's labour is exploited by the bosses. The gender pay-gap is essential to the profits made by those same bosses. Sexualised imagery is used ubiquitously throughout advertising, making more money for bosses. Without sexism, this exploitation would not be tolerated.

The violence of the system of capitalism, where, for example, police attack pickets of striking workers and soldiers are lauded for invading other nations, leads to a generalised culture of violence.

The alienation of people under capitalism, where workers are forced to compete with their peers for jobs they don't want, making money for bosses, just to feed and house themselves, leads to a climate where people feel antagonistic towards each other, and see each other as less than human.

It is the role of the state to protect the system which exploits workers to make profits for bosses, and this system is what creates the conditions for sexual violence to occur, which is why the state can never be used to abolish it.

This book does a fantastic job of arguing against looking to the state to fight against sexual violence, and instead looking to grassroots organising.