“You can and you must fix your own racism, transphobia, et cetera. You must not suppose that this individually noble act will be magically upscaled. It does not all start with you. It’s not all connected in the easy way some might suppose. To believe that your personal purity and great compassion serves anyone so well as you is mystification.”

First, a confession: I’ve enjoyed all of Helen Razer’s books and still have copies of “Three Beers and a Chinese Meal”, “Gas Smells Awful” and her other recent book, “The Helen 100”. I also started reading the Big Issue after discovering her column in the pages, and continued getting copies even after she left the publication, because she said people should keep buying it.

Since today marks 100 years since the communist revolution in Russia, it’s as good enough time as any to recommend her new book, Total Propaganda. This is one of the few books that I’ve found that starts with a straightforward and sensible-sounding take on ‘why Hilary isn’t the president of the United States’ and pretty much proceeds to knock down preconceptions about Marxist thought and why ‘what young people call “woke” is what we old Marxists call “class conscious”’. Naturally, any skeptic of Marxism is going to point out the historical development since the revolution in Russia and some disastrous and tragic events since that time in political history. But there’s definitely something to be said for a good hard kick in head about how capitalism contributes to the socio-political situations we currently face, and how dominant power structures should be questioned and why. Especially if it’s the power that you cannot easily identify. The reminder to unite remains.

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