Left Hand Red
Red Books Day, Raymond Williams, Tunes and
Morning Comrades!
A little later than usual today and if you are in our Telegram Group you would have gotten a heads up, ahem, but here we are. I do think that I am going to move the publishing time of Monday’s email back to lunch, only so that I can have the Sunday off. Granted, I worked yesterday but took the evening off, which was surprisingly nice.
In any case, before we get started this week, your new playlist!
Week 2 on Tidal and I have to say, the jury is still out on Tidal. The playlist is fun, it’s random as fuck mostly thanks to the Tidal algorithm still trying to figure me out and it still trying to make me listen to German Pop Rap - but yeah. Hate to say it, I am still struggling with the usability of Tidal, especially when using it through the Sonos app, which is how I listen to music at home but that’s besides the point. This playlist goes through experimental rap to yacht rock, indie, punk to grunge and back again. Weird weeks make for interesting playlists. Enjoy!
Red Books Day!
I had several topics to tackle today only to realize that today is Red Books Day! So, rather than getting angry about a bunch of fuckery deserving our collective anger lets kick off this week with some inspiration.
To those yet unaware of what Red Books Day is: Today marks the day that The Communist Manifesto was first published, February 21st 1848, a day that would forever change the world. Initially published anonymously by the Workers' Educational Association at Bishopsgate in the City of London, this seminal work that you can download for free here sets the day for the International Red Books Day, and we are here to celebrate it!
The actual website for the global event is linked above and you can register your own events with them, maybe a little short notice today but keep it bookmarked for next year. As a side note, organizing reading groups is one of the greatest act of organizing you can do, reading alone, especially these types of works tends to be difficult work and the point of them isn’t to be “smarter” but to utilize their ideas to change the world. Talking about how to do so in a group works wonders, take my word for it.
This leads me to my main point.
As I am sure you have gathered here, I love reading. No need to get overly emotional about it all but the printed word is one of the greatest inventions this species has come up with so far, no questions asked. However, I do often feel that on the one hand reading by yourself can not only lead to confusion - especially in regards to political & social philosophy - aka you’ll finish Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and will go: “ok, wtf, now what do I do?” - this coming from personal experience and without discussion of these works, even guidance occasionally ( you do have to be careful with that though ), understanding the historical context and collectively figuring out IF and IF SO, HOW these records of brilliance can apply to your own and your communities material needs.
That’s the entire point of what the Communist Manifest kickstarted in 1848. Not to sell you a book or a new Con / Cult to give all of your labour and savings to but to rather give the reader tools to understand their reality and furthermore, tools to change the oppression that we all, globally, suffer under. Reading, learning and sharing the information, lessons, both philosophical and practical are the tools of the working classes to overcome exploitation and oppression. That’s you and me, not some "group” we can work with, no, all of us. It’s beyond time to think any differently or to believe that this system actually benefits anyone other than the bastards at the top.
Karl Marx penned these words as a set of notes for a later work with co-author Friedrich Engels. Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach” may have focused on the work of Ludwig Feuerbach, but it reflected a broader dissatisfaction with intellectual trends common to the other Young Hegelians of their day. The meat of Marx’s notes on this work are the second, third, and eighth theses, in which he reveals a thoroughly practical perspective on social life and thought on which the role of thought, and thus of philosophy, is to inform and transform activity. These theses, and the perspective they abbreviate, are why the above quote (the 11th and final thesis) serves as a mic drop.
As to the second quote, or rather the opening quote of today’s email:
This is from Raymond Williams. He was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contributed to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. Some 750,000 copies of his books were sold in UK editions alone, and there are many translations available. His work laid foundations for the field of cultural studies and cultural materialism. A wonderful writer and even more brilliant ideas that leads me to my final point today, that being, my own selection of books for the Red Books Day.
It is desperately missing Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, that is on loan to someone else who needs it more than I do, but to be sure, that is very much part of this list.
( These books are: Lenin, Collected Works, Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels: Collected Works, Lenin: State and Revolution, Marx / Engels: The Communist Manifest, Chairman Mao: Selected Works )
These texts not only serve as my own personal groundwork in my understanding of world that I exist in, but especially in context of the above quote, serve as ever lasting inspiration and hope that a different existence is indeed possible. As much as I enjoy, spend time on calling out the crimes against humanity and the planet by the bastards on top, a balance in hope is hugely important for any “radical” - I use that word with a smile on my face only because I don’t believe anything I want to achieve is radical, on the contrary, it’s inanely logical and as Bertolt Brecht said:
Der Kommunismus ist das Mittlere!
or, Communism is the middle ground. More on that later this week, but that’s the actual reality once you remove yourself from the mental colonization of capitalism. The call for self-determination, democracy and owning the fruits of your labour are anything but radical, but here we are. Again, the above books serve hope and inspiration for me. They don’t make me angry or violent or anything silly like that, case in point last Friday - and here comes a rare personal insight: Had a little too much to drink with some friends, and I became that Lenin Meme:
Absolutely hilarious in reality, and within 20 minutes I had the entire bar listening, clapping and laughing because none of “this”, none of what is to be done is, again, radical. It’s common sense, it is making sense of the violent absurdity we call “Freedom” - and it should be. Anti-Communist propaganda has over decades stereotyped it as this broody, angry old man bullshit when it truly is nothing but inspiring, fun and important. Giving more than you have taken from it all by changing the world is the whole point.
Onto you know, flood social media with the hastag #redbooksday2022 - post your pictures, share ideas, connect with comrades around the world, to push back the darkness of capitalism, censorship and the fascist bastards who once again, are banning books.
Much love to you all, until Wednesday I remain as always, yours, without compromise,
V
Hey, I subscribed to Tidal for a month's free trial specifically to listen to your playlists, but honestly I can't get into it :/ Any chance you could somehow post a list of the tracks so I can hunt them down & listen? Grateful for your writing!