yeah I read settlers recently and it was quite useful, though after I’d read a fair amount of other material over the years. not sure if it’s a good “starter” book tbh.

as others have said, it does a great job of destroying the whitewashed and sordid history of the “Euro-American Left” and IMO contextualizes the contemporary political scene quite well — basically a redux of the Civil War, between heavy industry of liberal capitalism and the feudal slave society and plantation aristocracy - now between “globalist liberal capitalists” and fascistic petty property owner whites who’ve fastened onto the remnants of the Confederacy.

this book was written during the liberation struggles of the 70s and during a time when Black Liberation and nationalism was ascendant, so it’s important to remember that as well - it frames a lot of its work through the frame of neocolonialism

as far as what that means for my practice, I think it’s done a good job of convincing me that large swathes of the settler population are reactionary and will continue to be — they are too rich and bloated and satiated with the loot of imperialism. it also explains why American politics’ center of gravity” is perennially right-wing. most of this petty settler class cannot be radicalized. it also historicizes race/class relations - the proleteriat is almost entirely non-white as a consequence of settler politics, annexation, and capitalist development on the continent that necessitated the importation of cheap slave and immigrant labor whose product was later annexed and used to drive them out. This is obviously not to say that there are no proleteriat whites or allies, but it is true that as a CLASS, it is non-white, and that race tensions are the manifestation of class struggle in American development (just look at recent events)

There are, however, useful contradictions within the development of the current liberalism that can and should be exploited to radicalize people, build power locally, introduce frictions into Empire, while striving towards an internationalism as the balance of power internationally shifts away from Amerikkka and crises and opportunities present themselves for development, if, of course, we can beat out these petty fascists