M-L-M Mayhem!

Trump's victory is not an anachronism. USAmerica has always been a settler-colony par excellence , more muscular in its colonialism and white supremacy than Canada and even the late British Empire, and so the emergence of a fascist figurehead is in fact a consummation of what that country has always been. Trump represents a certain apex of what this national project's essence, though stripped of its liberal pretensions. The fact that a rich rapist who was successful only insofar as his dad loaned him money––who pretends to be a self-made man despite having weathered bankruptcy because of his inheritance––and because he was a media spectacle, and yet at the same time could pretend he was the accomplishment of the American Dream demonstrates that this dream is not only vacuous but that it is in fact based on the reality of Founding Fathers: wealthy, slave-owning, settler aristocrats who liked to proclaim their colony's "greatness" while pursuing the most egregious a...

NOTE: I found this review in my drafts bin. It was written months ago when I read the book in question  and missing only a conclusion but, because of work/organizing/childcare, I must have forgotten about it. Indeed I only have a vague memory of writing it! In any case, I think some of the substance of this review has found its way into other things I've written but it's still worth putting out in full. It's worth reading this kind of critical scholarship in light of the *The Continent* controversy or, more productively, for writing the kind of politically charged literature that the left sorely needs. I recently finished Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous People's History of the United States  and was not at all surprised by its quality and content. It is pretty much what I expected it to be, but I would be shocked if Dunbar-Ortiz had failed to live up to the expectations that she set in her previous work. While there is not a lot of new material that she ...

As some of my long time readers might recall, two years ago I reviewed the Gabriel Kuhn edited book Turning Money Into Rebellion  about the so-called "Blekingegade Group". One of the main actors in this Group was Torkil Lauesen and now his more recent book, The Global Perspective , is up for translation and publication with Kersplebedeb . Whatever one might think about the political perspective of Lauesen and is comrades it is necessary to recognize that they were consummate anti-imperialists who were trying to find creative ways to manifest revolutionary internationalism. Moreover, they were also political prisoners because they were punished for their internationalism. The fact that Lauesen remains a consummate anti-imperialist after his incarceration, and has written a book that reflects his perspective, is worthy of investigation. But since a decent translation costs and Kersplebedeb is a small press, it will be rather difficult to get Lauesen's book translated ...