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reading tofu

tofuwabohu@wyrms.de

Joined 4 years, 4 months ago

German and English reading, commenting in the book's language

He/Er

Avatar is the planet Annarres from Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossessed", drawn by Markus Weber

Also on Mastodon at @tofuwabohu@subversive.zone and some more places.

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reading tofu's books

To Read (View all 38)

Peter Kropotkin: Gegenseitige Hilfe in der Tier- und Menschenwelt. (Paperback, German language, 1999, Trotzdem Verlag)
Mariame Kaba, Kelly Hayes: Let This Radicalize You (Paperback, 2023, Haymarket Books)
Helge Döhring: Schwarze Scharen (Paperback, German language, 2011, Edition AV)

Currently Reading

A. E. Marling: Missing Mermaid (EBook, A. E. Marling)
Markus Keller, Edith Gätjen: Vegane Ernährung: Schwangerschaft, Stillzeit und Beikost (Hardcover, German language, 2017, Ulmer)

Read (View all 86)

Ryka Aoki: Light From Uncommon Stars (Hardcover, 2021, Tor Books)
Merlin Sheldrake: Verwobenes Leben (Paperback, German language, 2021, Ullstein Verlag)
Thomas Harms: Keine Angst vor Babytränen (Paperback, Psychosozial-Verlag)

2025 Reading Goal

Success! reading tofu has read 34 of 25 books.

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reviewed Anarchist Papers by Dimitrios Roussopoulos

Dimitrios Roussopoulos: Anarchist Papers (Paperback, 2001, Black Rose Books)

Good, but dated in parts

The library listing for this said that it included an assessment of Germany's Green Party, but I didn't realise until I got it home that they meant the West German Green Party, circa 1984 :) The book collects articles that were published in the 'Our Generation' journal, mostly in the mid-eighties. J. Frank Harrison is good on the foibles of the Canadian state, though it's contemporaneous with the onset of neoliberalism and the creation of CSIS. Chomsky is, as usual, great at eviscerating the US state, and there's a couple of good essays on Emma Goldman. Something that brought a smile to my lips were the listings of other books by the same publisher at the back of the book, with favourable reviews from the Kingston Whig Standard and Ottawa Citizen. I can only assume this is pre-Postmedia, as I can't imagine such reviews today...

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quoted Dune by Frank Herbert(duplicate) (Dune #1)

Frank Herbert(duplicate): Dune (Paperback, 1978, New English Library)

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, …

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

— Dune by  (Dune #1)

This quote from the Reverend Mother in the very first scene is... prescient.

And it's interesting as a re-read because I didn't remember the general backstory to the oddly low-tech elements of Dune being explicit. I guess when I read it the first time they weren't the parts that made an impression. Not sure how much that reflects how young I was or how long ago it was in terms of tech progression.

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commented on Kriminalität by Peter Gelderloos

Peter Gelderloos: Kriminalität (Paperback, German language, 2021, Anarchistische Gruppe Dortmund) No rating

Obwohl die Beispiele sehr spezifisch für den US-amerikanischen Kontext sind, zeigt Peter Gelderloos mit einer …

📗️ Neuerwerbung der Gustav-Landauer-Bibliothek Witten:

Peter Gelderloos:

Kriminalität

Beispiele für Gesellschaften ohne Polizei

Obwohl die Beispiele sehr spezifisch für den US-amerikanischen Kontext sind, zeigt Peter Gelderloos mit einer leicht verständlichen Sprache, anhand von vielen lebendigen Beispielen, auch für den deutschsprachigen Kontext wie Gerechtigkeit und Frieden gerade ohne den Staat hergestellt werden kann.

Empfehlenswert für alle die sich mit Strafe, Gefängnissen und transformativer Gerechtigkeit beschäftigen.

openlibrary.org/books/OL35284736M

inventaire.io/entity/inv:0d61b3ac0481ecb9626eb42ea7477b6c

ildb.nadir.org/278180.html

📚🏴️👮️🚔️ @PeterGelderloos@mastodon.online

finished reading Meine Zwei Jahre In Russland by Emma Goldman

No cover

Emma Goldman: Meine Zwei Jahre In Russland (German language, 2020, V. Lenzer Verlagskollektiv)

 No rating

Neuübersetzung (retranslation)

Im Nachhinein hätte ich lieber die Originalversion gelesen, die Übersetzung war zwar ok, die ebook-Version aber ziemlich zerschossen. Dazu kamen teilweise nervige/unnötige Kommentare der Übersetzer•innen, deren Vorwort würde ich überspringen und erst im Nachhinein als Kommentar lesen. Die Fußnoten wirkten gut recherchiert und informativ, waren aber durch die kaputte Formatierung während des Lesens nicht wirklich zugänglich und standen dadurch quasi als eigenes Kapitel für sich. (Bezieht sich auf die deutsche Version die in der Anarchist Library verfügbar ist)

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quoted German Rule, African Subjects by Jürgen Zimmerer

Jürgen Zimmerer, Anthony Mellor-Stapelberg: German Rule, African Subjects (2020, Berghahn Books) No rating

Although it lasted only thirty years, German colonial rule dramatically transformed South West Africa. The …

For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, the task of subjecting the colonial legacy to reappraisal has even been adopted as an element of government policy: the programme of the fourth Merkel government states that ‘it is part of the fundamental democratic consensus in Germany that the Nazi reign of terror, the SED dictatorship and Germany’s colonial history need to be reappraised and come to terms with’.

Despite this, the debate is concentrated on a narrow range of topics: for example, war crimes and genocide, and whether particular objects in museums were legally acquired. That colonialism in itself was structurally criminal gets lost sight of. For it is indeed the case that not merely were crimes committed under colonialism, as is generally conceded, but rather that colonialism itself is criminal. There is a distinct lack of awareness of this.

A favourite method of approaching the issue is to draw up a balance sheet: aspects of colonialism that are considered to have been positive – the ‘civilizatory achievements’ – are set off against the excessively violent episodes. In this way, war crimes are transformed into exceptional events: the genocide committed against the Herero and Nama, for example, is above all laid at the door of the commanding general, Lothar von Trotha. This is alarmingly reminiscent of the strategy with which German colonial offcials sought to justify particularly brutal events in German South West Africa, as is depicted in my book. The blame always lay only with individuals; nobody called the racist colonial system itself into question. Pointing the finger at individuals who bore a particular degree of blame serves to push the structurally racist and structurally criminal nature of colonialism into the background.

— German Rule, African Subjects by ,

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reviewed Abolish Work by prole.info

prole.info: Abolish Work (2014)

Available for the first time in a single volume, the two influential and well-circulated pamphlets …

As a hospitality industry worker

I wasn't expecting to be so mindblowned by it. I've learnt many things and understood better many others. This is a short and necessary reading for everyone. And for you in particular. Yes, you.