Morning Comrades.
I am just coming off an 11 hour shift making food plus a few hours doing housework so bear with me if today’s email might, actually, it probably will, contain a few swear words and potentially spelling mistakes. Whilst I make every effort to treat these dispatches with the utmost respect my concentration and energy is a little low.
We are going to talk about two events today that whilst, on the surface may appear entirely unconnected, are, to some degree. Three, technically, but the last item on today’s shit list is only connected to the above in the sense that it is a result of narcissism writ large, a wonderful personality side effect caused by the extensive brain rot that is capitalism. First, the UK’s biggest rail strikes in 30 years, the election in Colombia and yeah, NFT’s, specifically, a deep dive into the Bored Ape Yacht thing or whatever it is called.
First up though, some eye candy, some brand new spanking art that I enjoyed making and have no idea what to do with.
Strikes
So, Rail Strikes in the UK. If you are not from the UK and reading this, pay attention because in principle this affects us all, secondly a lot of you readers are from the UK, so it’s doubly relevant. If you haven’t caught up to the news yet, click the below image to get a relatively “neutral” overview about what is going on.
The National Rail Network in the UK has been utterly gutted, privatized to hell and back and is a total shit show in regards to efficiency, pricing and dare I say comfort. Starting with the takeover of the Conservatives under Thatcher but definitely continued under Capitalism’s Golden and War Criminal Blair, the nationalized British Rail was sold off and privatized which in short just means that it was sold off, run to the ground, monetized to hell and is now in total shambles, leaving the public hand to invest a fuck tonne of money to bring it back to a functioning level, leaving the public purse emptier than before and allowing a few fat cats to have more yachts. Privatization is the quintessential neo-liberal con that is capitalism. After decades of being run into the ground, the RMT aka The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers decided to strike for and because of the below.
Of course, the establishment, from the political parties and yes, that includes the English Labour Party under Keith Starmer to the press and irrelevant political talking hacks are all frothing at the mouth at the reality of an organized labour strike. By all means, ignore all of them and all you need to know and do is wholeheartedly support this, and frankly, any and all labour strikes because the jig is up. 40 years of neo-liberal policy have utterly ruined, truthfully, everything and the ultimate power we workers have is the withholding of our labour. This is what happening here and and all the power to them. Why is this relevant to you, even if you don’t live in the UK? If you have been paying attention, strikes are back and rightfully so, all across the world and the iron is hot to strike. Not only is it our job to support these strikes but it is now time to get in on the action. Figure out if you can join a Union, if not, start one, and start lighting the literal fire under these bastards arses. Enough is enough.
Colombia
I am more than certain that most of you have heard about last weekend’s earthquake election in Colombia, if not, hit the article below to get a quick refreshers course.
Essentially, in a highly contested - read: the U.S. government actually sent mercenaries down to Colombia to have the above to people intimidated at the very least- election, Colombia has elected a former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro as president, making him the South American country’s first leftist head of state. This is not one, a huge deal for the country itself, having been firmly in the hands of the both the U.S. and their Narco co-conspirators for decades, but additionally also huge news for the entire continent with the most recent red-tide, that is firmly and quickly establishing an autonomous, and self-determining course unimpressed by the U.S. State Department. I don’t have time to go into a history lesson here but if anyone is interested, click this link.
Petro’s election marks a tidal shift for Colombia, a country that has never before had a leftist president, and follows similar victories for the left in Peru, Chile and Honduras. Petro’s journey from a fighter in the M-19 guerrilla army in the 80s to president also saw him become a senator and the mayor of the capital, Bogotá. He has a reputation for meandering speeches and high-handedness. Petro’s vice-president will be Francia Márquez – a prize-winning defender of human and environmental rights – marking the first time that a black woman fills the post.
Two points I wanted to a make about this. I realize that election results to the majority of us in the Global North West matter little, predominately because no matter who we vote here, nothing changes, the capitalists stay in charge and we will continue onwards in our downward spiral of ecological collapse for one more yacht and fascism for the sake of promising consumption. This is not the same reality in the Global South, where the difference between a U.S. sanctioned puppet like Rodolfo Hernández, or Bolsonaro for example and a Petro is a question of life and death, especially if you are on the side of humanism in all its shapes and forms there. I make no exaggeration, again, by all means open a history book if you want to find out what it means to stand with the people when a U.S. puppet has been in control of any Latin American country. This is why this election was and remains important, unlike here, that seemingly subtle change in politics will mean a massive positive change for the lives of many, and thus is absolutely worthy of our support.
On that note, my second point - as much as I support, was and to a certain degree am still a part of collectives like Crimethink etc - the holier than though stance disregarding these electoral changes on the premise that said victors cannot and will not satisfy all the “western revolutionary” ideals is not only shameful, juvenile and quite frankly pointless, it is also counter-productive, entirely missing the above point. Again, I often side with collectives such as Crimethinc etc but their, and many other armchair Western self-proclaimed revolutionaries most recent shit takes for internet brownie points will no longer be tolerated.
Bored Ape Nazi Club?
I don’t want to talk, let alone invest any time on the subject of NFT’s etc but seeing this scam that is ultimately going to leave a lot of white dudes broke and open to radicalization, which I am sure it already has at this point, I am just going to share this video with you. Watch it. Be aware of the underlying current within this nonsense, and lastly, if you want to support an artist, send them a case of a beer, wine and / or maybe even buy an actual product of theirs. End of.
With that, I bid you all a grand Wednesday. I will be back here tomorrow for the patreons of this newsletter with a deeper look at strikes and specifically, the concept of Sabotage - something anyone with half a heart going forward should look into it. Shit isn’t going to change for the better unless we do it.
Until then, I remain yours, without compromise,
V.