Morning Comrades.
I had the pleasure of spending most of my weekend with several comrades discussing all kinds of realities, struggles, hopes, fears and frustrations in our common work building a better tomorrow. I hugely enjoy talking with them and being able to offer help especially to those comrades still actively working on the ground against the numerous types of oppressions here. It’s an occasionally odd feeling having been involved in this work for the past 30 years and being put, consensually, in a position of teaching as I often forget my own age and experience. I have heaps to learn still and will never stop from trying to do so but the reality is that I have made more mistakes over these past 30 years than most and have luckily been able to walk away from most of them, even more luckier to still be around to tell the tales and offer advice on what not to do. To kick off this week let’s have a motivational chat of sorts.
For now, let’s dig into some new tunes.
This is a damn fine week of new and old tunes from the archives. Like every year I get into Twin Peaks as soon as October comes around and a certain Lynchian vibes has made itself known in this weeks playlist, add a number of banging drum n’bass tracks, some angry af post-punk, blues and more jazz, this one floats beautifully. Click the above banner to get into it.
Lessons Learned
The most common feedback from friends that are still actively involved in the outer-parliamentary struggle against all things Capitalist is the ever-present feeling of frustration and I can more than relate. Much of our resistance work here in the “west” is based around protests, squatting and the such, tactics passed down from generations that before us took to the streets to pressure our respective governments to do the bare minimum when it came to protecting and supporting the working classes from the fangs of our feudal overlords. That worked in the 19th & 20th Century because not only masses unheard of today were mobilized, mostly thanks to the infrastructures created by Labour Unions, but also, and historically this fact often if not always omits this fact for all the obvious reasons, a considerable amount of violence was used to get shit done.
The state and their bosses have learned from this and have militarized their police forces, given them a carte blanche in terms of violence to use without any repercussions, created a surveillance apparatus that is being used to squelch any and all blossoming revolutionary work and more, you get the picture if you don’t know it first hand already. I still firmly believe that protests and other forms of direct action are not only essential in our lifetime but times have changed and with that a few words.
Protests these days are what they are, they follow an orchestrated play where everyone knows their roles mostly because there is no real plan to actually seize power. That’s ok, because truthfully, even if we were to seize actual power in a violent revolution here in the “west”1 the power structures that created this hierarchical, patriarchal system of capitalistic oppression would still be there and without a revolutionary care revolution having transformed the realities of our co-existence we would, granted achieve a temporal material betterment, but only a temporal one. The forces of capital and accumulation would not have been defeated and would immediately fight back. Much of the above mentioned frustration by said comrades comes from that realization. Yes, the fight is important but shit isn't changing.
Here is the good part, it is, massively so, in the areas that aren’t necessarily visible at first glance and aren’t necessarily part of the century old play of direct action. If I look back at my early days of this work in the late 80s and early 90s any and all anti-capitalist work was massively founded upon the societal structures of the time, our parents and their parents. Whilst on the surface the fight for freedom and self-determination in a capitalist system was probably a little more violent than today, they were mostly reactionary movements to create space that once created, laid bare the underlying problems in any given society that are created by capitalism. Division of all sexes and genders, male-dominated hierarchies that replicated the core of capitalism: violence and inequality. So whilst houses, or even entire streets were squatted, alternative spaces and relations were created the underlying problems inherent in our world were replicated. The radical communist, feminist approach to revolutionary care work existed but certainly had not made its way into the minds of those that were doing the fighting. In my experience, this was and remains the core problem of most anti-capitalist groups I have been a part of - and to be absolutely clear, I was as much at fault here as everyone else.
What has changed, drastically, in my lifetime, is that this problem has been raised been thousands of brave people working within these structures to a level of awareness and for what it is worth, I am seeing the changes absolutely necessary for genuine change take place. I often observe the people active in the various groups I work with and marvel at their seemingly inherent understanding of patriarchal structures and how they affect their behaviour, and more importantly, not repeat the same mistake I and we made. It is hard to not overstate how vital this change is, and yes, I fully understand that whilst said people are knee deep in actual direct action they are not as aware of these changes than I am but they are there. The radical act of care, the destruction of the inherent patriarchal structures that capitalism depends on are happening and a major part of our work here, in the heart of the empire is that.
I know, we are all angry and in need of an outlet. Protests, Direct Action against the oppressing classes are perfect for that, there is no doubt about it and I am not eschewing them, on the contrary. If anything I wanted to point out that so much revolutionary work has and is continuing to take place behind closed doors, in ourselves, our friend groups, homes, relationships and so on2 and whilst I don't want to see to add more work on anyone's shoulders, this here is key. Understanding that capitalism relies on the engineered acceptance of hierarchical, patriarchal social relations and that can and need to change these. There are heaps of studies, ideas and texts by scores of brilliant feminists out there and I may not be the best person to suggest them, as I am also still learning and very much at the beginning of this journey.
With that, we got this. I know it all seems incredibly tough these days, but if I may so, after 30 years in this, I am extremely hopeful.
Yours, ignoring all bodily aches and hopefully still finding enough youthful energy,
V.
For the revolution.
To be absolutely clear, when I say “violent” revolution I mean precisely that. An armed uprising of the working people that results in everyone who was in power being “unseated”.
We urgently need to take this into the work place as this is the most undemocratic, repressive part of our life’s to date