Morning Comrades!
Over the course of the weekend Hamburg saw a number of protests against the forces of Capitalism and the resulting climate crisis organized by the Ende Gelände umbrella from which a number of conversations were had that I wanted to share with you. It is without a doubt the ever increasing destruction of our climate and ecology due to the core nature of capitalism ( growth ) is the most pressing and increasingly violently oppressed fight in our times. Judging from the state’s response from the number of protests this past week, we’re in for some increasing troubling and dangerous times. Nevertheless, the conversations I had were inspiring despite the dire realities we are in.
First, as always, a brand playlist for your week.
This might as well be the best playlist to tune into and out to for the end of the summer that is upon us. 3hrs of tunes I for the most part had never hard before and each and every one of them has had me dancing for days. I snuck in a little metal only because Russian Circles released another new song that is regularly melting my mind but that’s just about it. Hot damn working class dancing music. Enjoy.
The Sins of Capitalism
There is absolutely no way to write about everything here, just in regards of space and attention span, but I will try and tap into a few things that stuck out over the weekend, offer a little analysis and leave you with a few resources that I have found and continue to find valuable.
It is without a doubt in my mind that fight against capitalism in light of the climate change movement is the fight of the coming years. The direct and threatening realities caused by the capitalist class in their exploitation and destruction of our planet, solely to increase their, and no one else’s wealth are the grand scheme of things the most pressing matter. Of course, like all truths, all fights against oppression matter and of course, all of these fights are interconnected. Capitalism and its Class can and do only exist due to oppression, moralized through legality, brute force and cultural manipulation. All injustices apparent are due to the insanity of this economic cult, yet, in my gut I feel that the misery that is being caused on a material level around the world as a direct result of climate change is what’s going to take centre stage: food & water shortages, droughts, migration and its subsequent racist and violent response to it by the NATO empire and the subsequent breakdown of everything.
I found the state’s response here over the weekend telling in that regard. Not since G20 state organized violence ( click this link if you want to know where I was last arrested ) have I witnessed such barbaric violence against protests. Yet, this is where Ende Gelände does it right, rather than a performative dance around town, they organize to shut down the railways, factories and supply lines of our very own machineries of climate destruction. Attack the Capitalists materially and the State will throw all available force against you, and moralize it afterwards through their news outlets. This is what happened here, and despite the violence brought on to several comrades the results were right. This movement will only grow as everyone is realizing that the last 30 years of performative dances with the state have achieved nothing and what matters now, is direct action.
In light of the fact that ALL scientist that work on the IPCC reports are now publicly saying ( that’s some 200 of the worlds smartest people ) that nothing but a radical system change in regards to our relationship with the planet is what will change the guaranteed end of life as we know it, now, is truly all you need to know. The fact that Climate Scientist are locking themselves to Fossil Fuel Company HQ’s like Shell and are getting beat to pulp by local police forces is also all you need to know.
As a kick off point and the periodic reminder for your own mental health, the following:
Stop Blaming Humankind For The Sins Of Capitalism
We aren’t mass polluting the environment. We are cutting down forests. We aren’t poisoning our food. We aren’t causing starvation in a time of plenty. We aren’t enslaving people and exploiting for their labour. We aren’t terrorizing the Global South.
Capitalists and their pawns are.
So where can we start?
As Jonathan Franzen in The New Yorker brilliantly asked: “What if we stopped pretending?”
He points out the fundamental deceptiveness of the UN and NGOs when they talk about “our last chance to avert catastrophe and save the planet.” No, the catastrophe is already underway. The question is how we can best limit the damage and adapt to a changing climate.
For this, each country in the world would need to “completely retool its economy,” as Franzen points out. But he doesn’t think this is possible. He blames this on “human nature”:
Call me a pessimist or call me a humanist, but I don’t see human nature fundamentally changing anytime soon. I can run ten thousand scenarios through my model, and in not one of them do I see the two-degree target being met.
What is this “human nature” that supposedly cannot change? Homo sapiens evolved around 200,000 years ago. Civilization based on agriculture has existed for at least 10,000 years. Yet humans did not change the atmosphere for almost all of our history.
The economic forces driving climate change—reckless competition, endless growth and zero concern for sustainability—might seem “natural.” But in reality, they are just a few hundred years old. Franzen is referring to the nature of capitalism. And in a sense he is right: It is obvious that capitalism cannot change. But all of human history shows that we can live in very different forms of societies, and display very different natures.
Franzen displays the failure of the liberal imagination: He simply cannot imagine a society that is different from this relatively young system. He cannot picture that humanity could work together to provide for the needs of everyone. This is partly because it has been decades since we have seen a revolution—or even a profound revolutionary process—against capitalism. That dulls our imaginations.
Thus, Franzen succumbs to despair. His proposal is for individuals to make “ethical choices” to “reduce emissions.” Since he admits this won’t have any effect on the catastrophe, this is just supposed to make the end feel a bit better—kind of like rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Climate despair is like any other kind of depression: It starts with a real problem, but a psychological illness blows the problem way out of proportion and prevents the sufferer from taking meaningful action to solve it.
Climate change represents the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. Why does it seem that we cannot do anything about it? Because the productive forces we created are totally outside our rational control.
A tiny minority of capitalists control our economy, and their only concern is maximizing their wealth. But the billions of working people around the earth can take control of the economy and subject the productive forces to democratic control. If we lived in a rationally organized economy, we could immediately start fighting climate change. Just to name a few examples: We could phase out fossil fuels in a few short years. We could eliminate private cars and replace them with free public transit. We could build new cities for populations forced to leave coastal areas. Scientists who are now forced to work for corporations would be free to use their work for the benefit of all humanity. Instead of competing states, we would have democratic and collaborative self-government for all humanity. Climate change would be a difficult but manageable challenge.
The only thing preventing us from taking steps against climate change is the rule of capital. A revolution is now more urgent than ever. Disasters won’t necessarily lead to rightward shifts. They could just as easily lead to a form of “disaster communism” (a term coined by Ashley Dawson, reversing the idea of “disaster capitalism” invented by Naomi Klein), in which working people get rid of the capitalists and begin to reconstruct society along collaborative lines. While proponents of a Green New Deal think capitalist states can be pressured to solve the climate crisis, it’s really only a Green Planned Economy that can mobilize all of humanity’s resources to confront the difficult times ahead.
Our situation is dire, but only because we allow it to be. Jeff Bezos doesn’t have superpowers; he and his ilk hold the reins because we all give tacit consent to the economic order that permits them to. We could collectively decide to change that by demanding communism. And we desperately need to, soon. And by soon, I mean now. And by now, I mean yesterday.
Below is an exhaustive reading list of books and essays that I find and found helpful and inspiring. Give it a click and see where it takes you.
As always, thank you for your time, attention and support.
Yours, without compromise,
V.