The above quote, or citation rather, is from Karl Marx in a letter to Wilhelm Bracke, himself a German publicist, publisher and Social Democrat, who was one of the core founders of the German SDAP, the forerunner to today’s SDP - Germany’s Social Democratic Party.
Just for context, today’s SDP would give most Labour and Democratic Parties in the UK and the USA respectively a communist heart attack, yet, here in Germany they have been an enemy of anyone with a genuine left leaning heart since the Spartacus Uprising in 1919. That little bit of information is necessary to understand the tone Marx uses in the original German, which in my humble opinion does get lost in the English translation. Whilst a professional courtesy existed between the two, Marx was well aware of the danger posed by a Union-Labor Social Democratic party whose main point was to make capitalism more humane.
I chose this quote from the letters between those two - again, highly recommended reading that you can find here - because it illustrates the symbiosis between theory and direct action. A major point of contention I have with the European Left since the late 70s is inherent conservative stance in regards to direct action whose relationship with progressive theory is totally out of whack. Specifically, direct action in Europe predominately serves to protect a romanticised idea of the past, for example the Social Welfare State of the 70s and 80s, fighting against a brutally modern and progressive capitalistic system. It sounds contradictory to call a hyper-capitalistic, anti-humanistic system progressive but it is. Capitalism determines what the future will be and the left’s answer has been to defend the status quo- unsuccessfully at that. Another illustration as to why the concept of the political spectrum is nothing but a basic tool of the ruling classes to divide, confuse and own us. Again, different subject, one that I will tackle later on this or next week.
Fact is, our strategies and tactics in direct action need to be seriously brought up to speed and be realigned with the current state of political theory. Building direct action around ideas of our own future rather than as a pre-determined theatre play in response to capitalism continuous erosion of freedom, privacy and joy we will continue to lose. Not only lose but create precisely the imaginary enemy capitalism and it’s tools of power- politics and the police - require to sway large parts of the public against us. Granted, it is important to discuss societies ills, of course, however, the genuine planning as to what we want, and let’s demand everything, needs to be moved into the foreground. As and when we know what we want we can move towards making that happen and not waste all our energy playing the enemies game.
One aspect of this newsletter going forward that I wanted to bring up is that I envision this to be communal. Whilst I have entire books to write about on here I would very like for you readers to bring news, developments and ideas to me to discuss on here. Always feel free to comment on these postings or reply to my emails with what you have to say. I never felt the interactions on IG to be that constructive purely based on how the platform works but here I hope to find more time to go through your ideas and work them into this newsletter. Cool?
This is from my friend John Yates - aka stealworks over on IG, which he has recently joined. John Yates is a, if not THE veteran of subversive, radical artwork, certainly of my generation and I can only implore you to get into his work, support him, drop him a line. Some of you might remember the shirts I made with him 13-14 years ago for Burton Snowboards but his catalogue is so deep it continues to inspire me.
I don’t listen to podcasts, not on principle I simply cannot concentrate on other people talking when I am not there in person. The one podcast I do listen to though and thus highly recommend you subscribe to is “Gaslit Nation” by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa . They are both incredibly well-versed in authoritarianism and called much of what Trump and the Republican Party have pulled well ahead of it’s time. Their work is a great, easily accessible resource in understanding what is actually going on.
This ties into the recommendation of the above podcast-protest, a constitutional right in the US last time I checked, and then you get this. This is what you fascism, no need to mince words here and it’s happening right under your nose. Factually, this level of fuckery has been happening in our timeline since the Patriot Act so this isn’t necessarily surprising, but noteworthy nonetheless. Noteworthy in the sense it would be a real shame if everyone would show up at his house with something to say. In case you need it, this is where Bill Lee lives.
In case you missed it yesterday, here is this weeks new playlist. It’s another 3 hour journey through whatever floated my boat last week, which leaned heavily on a lot of yoga related tunes which I have a long complicated history with - yoga, not the music.
In regards to your subscriptions, as you may have noticed you have the option of a free subscription and a paid subscription on here. For this first month I am not going to differentiate content wise between the two of them. Predominately, I want everyone to have access to all of this to see where I am going here. At the end of September I will publish two separate newsletters. The paid-for version will resemble this type of length and content, with a lot more "essays” thrown in, wheres the free version will focus on tweets and talking points, product launches and playlists. Thank you for your interest and I’ll back tomorrow.