Antifa Music, Peru and Weekend Vibes
Morning Comrades! I’ve been meaning to re-release this shirt for a few years now and it’s finally here. All profits are donated to Doctors Without Borders who damn well need every cent for the work that they do. This shirt is available now until Sunday. As always, thank you for your time and consideration.
Again, at the time of writing this, the Peruvian Presidential Election has not been officially called, but outside of a coup instigated by the elitist, conservatives behind Fujimori, it is looking like Peru will soon be run by another popular leftist. Now, I know I have been banging on about this for a week and for good reason. This election and the political and popular organized resistance to well over a century of US imposed colonialism not only has a history in Latin America but is not a singular event. Beginning as early as 2017 and kicking off in 2019, several countries that have suffered have seen uprisings that are ongoing until today. By suffering I mean, everyone other than the 1%’ers, truly has suffered from the looting we in the global north west have allowed our corporations ehmm I meant governments to partake in. Parenti said it best, and I am paraphrasing here, that “we” don’t go to poor countries with our empires, but we go to the richest to steal - ahem, bring freedom and democracy obviously. Latin America, like the African Continent, is a treasure trove of natural resources and that’s why “we” have been there, violently overthrowing and killing everyone that even remotely thinks “hey, this is ours, we want our share”.
2019 has been widely perceived as a year of mass protests. Latin America was certainly no exception to this trend, with major protests shaking a whole series of countries. The most spectacular cases included Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. In Bolivia, in October 2019, contested elections and allegations of electoral fraud provoked mass protests, which culminated, with a little help from the police and the military, in the resignation of president Evo Morales. In the same month, neighboring Chile, the supposed poster child of liberal democracy and political stability, saw the outbreak of a massive “social explosion” sparked by a small increase in the capital’s subway fare. When protests started in Chile in mid-October, Ecuador had just experienced 12 days of social unrest, in this case provoked by the government’s decision to withdraw fuel subsidies in order to comply with an IMF agreement. Finally, in November, hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets of Bogotá and other cities for what would become the largest wave of protest in Colombia’s recent history. These are just the cliff notes on what looks like a major shift in realities across Latin America and Peru is the next country to stand up to their meddling, destabilizing, looting northern neighbour. Not only is this extremely important, none of these movements are singular but they also lay work down at our feet here in the global north west.
It is our job to be the spanner in the works of capitalistic imperialism here at home, in the heart of the monster, first and foremost. The uprisings against our breed of brutally enforced exploitation cannot be won by the incredibly organized and brave fights in the global south alone, but they need our help, here, not there, but here. We need to identify who does the exploiting, get their names and addresses and then take the fight up against our “representatives” who work for these bastards. The revolution will not come from within the empire of capitalism, but from the fringes. Look at the decline of any empire historically and you will know what I mean. The reason why I bang on about these uprisings is because the beginning is near, and I mean this. Capitalism, in its current form is failing, they know, we need to wake up to this reality and do our part within the empire to make sure that we break with the historical reality of what happens next. Fuck Fascism 3.0. Learn from the Global South and their fight, take it home and start gnawing at the beast from within. Especially in light of the reality that the machine will not take these uprisings aimed at removing its exploitation lightly. We need to be aware that the US and its lackeys here in Europe will soon kick off a coordinated PR and subversion campaign to fuck these uprisings up. It happened in the 70s and will happen again but this time we will be ready for it and we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with all our comrades around the world. “Workers of the World Unite” and all that. Comrade Marx knew. We should too. Stay Tuned.
I am sticking to the no fuckening and hot shots posts on the Friday newsletter and once again will happily share videos for you to enjoy over the weekend outside of the techno-fascist propaganda bullshit on offer through our collective streaming services.
Alienation in Marxist theory is one of the key elements in understanding not only the theory but more importantly, your role, your feelings, your tension in this world. This below clip is a wonderful, short introduction to all of this.
The US has always been a constant source of bewilderment for me. Without a doubt, it’s political and cultural impact on me has been vast, as it would be for anyone growing up in the cold war and the dissection thereof has been a steady companion of mine ever since I started going to an American High School back in 93. I can’t say I have it figured out and probably never will but considering the weight, militarily and economically they bring, mostly unwillingly by its recipients, to the table it’s important to learn. This one helped me along that journey.
Continuing with the train of thought, here is an excellent film on the big bad N word, Neoliberalism aka the current hellscape under which everything you hate has been created.
Continuing with my two quite real intellectual crushes, here’s Contrapoints on Men, followed by Philosophy Tube’s take on the same subject. Do watch these and enjoy in the quite brilliant chaos that these two lighten our days with:
Totally different direction but worthy of your time as well. I enjoy listening to Yanis Varoufakis even if I don’t agree with him all of the time. This is good analysis to take away with you.
We are going to finish this week with music, of course, and this 4 part documentary on Reggae is brilliant. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
That’s it for this week comrades, I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. See you all back here on Monday. Smooches.