Good Morning Comrades.
First and foremost, thank you to everyone that got involved in this past weekends mutual aid drop, by either buying and / or sharing the information far and wide. It worked and I am happy to say that collectively we have raised just over 2`500€ that are now on their way to Mission Lifeline. That is a significant amount of money that will be exclusively used to get refugees out of the Ukraine and to whatever relative safety we can provide here in Europe. This help also includes food & shelter and this is a good start. My thanks to you, what a wonderful way to ring in a break from making product by helping those that need it. Thank you.
Also, I hope everyone here is ok with me sending out the Monday email later than the usual 6am, it’s really helped me relax on Sunday and thats been nice these last two weeks.
Let’s kick off this week with a new playlist. I have to admit, I am still trying to figure out how to best work Tidal to get it to the point where Spotify was for me. Using it through the Sonos app is a bloody nightmare and accessing Sonos through the app is a little cumbersome but, good news is that their algorithm is increasingly working better for me. This weeks playlist is a heavy return to the more fuzzed out psychedelic garage punk meets english post-punk with some classics thrown in for good measure, and no one should be surprised by that. Whenever the world gets a little too much, or rather, my investment in it, I fly back to what floats my boat without having to think about it too much. That is not to say this isn’t a good playlist, on the contrary, it’s really bloody nice and thick just don’t come looking for surprises. As per usual, hitting shuffle will greatly enhance you listening experience here. I will add the track listing at the end of this email and upload it into our telegram channel.
Obviously, the evolving situation in Ukraine weighs heavy on my mind, how can it not. There are so many angles and interpretations at play, even just in my mind and I’d be lying if I was positive about any of them. Come Saturday, post a few demonstrations here, my mind was wondering about how long this war and the subsequent human suffering would be of interest. Macabre, I know but a reality when the majority narrative is formed by media companies that require a constant source of shock and awe to sell advertising. As pessimistic as it may sound, I do not see this war being over in time for the media companies to be able to continue selling advertising for, meaning public interest will end long before this war is over - similar to the invasion of Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s occupation by NATO lasted 20 years. Do I see that happening in Ukraine? Honestly, I don’t know, probably not, but the level of attention given to it currently is the same that we were force fed about Afghanistan and then Iraq post 9/11. The media companies soon switched back to an oil-painting Bush Jr., once their advertisers were put off by constant reporting on the horrors of war.
It is something to keep in mind, that the constant dehumanization applied through these capitalist shock doctrines are at play and that we should never be “used” to war, even if it does no longer play a role in our media consumption. At worst, Hollywood will make awful CIA propaganda in shape of “heroic” films and bad Netflix shows, idolizing untruths to keep pushing for the maintenance of Imperialism.
What also interests me is the seemingly gross, short term solutions on offer by the capitalist classes in the West, resorting to sanctions and a whole lot of performative liberal bullshit that whilst possibly impressing polling statistics hugely ignores their own corruption and business ties to the Putin regime and genuinely only punishes those people most similar to us, working class comrades surviving hand to mouth, and more realistically, at least so far, strengthened the ties between Putin and China. Whilst the “western” media seems to wholly engrossed in a disgusting pact of an orgy level wargasm, no one wants war here, yet I am a worried about how the ruling classes, similar to the build up to WW1, are so wholly detached from a public consensus and caught in a spiralling death trap between their ego, media and the interests of their capitalist bosses.
Historically, the similarities are increasingly visible and that is not something I am excited about. I say so because there is an increasing accelerationist tendency among “leftist” that push for this conflict to gain more momentum. I say so with sarcasm as those people aren’t committed to peace as any serious person should be. Accelerationism, a favoured theory of social change by the neo-marxist post modernism school, whilst still hugely in play, is mostly debunked as utter insanity and genuinely only leads to fascism, hence it being the play book of the Mercer / Bannon / Thiel / Zuckerberg school of cultural warfare for the past 20 year. Something we should all try and avoid. The point here being, is to at the one hand being aware of the death spiral the current ruling classes are increasingly finding themselves in as well as the need for us, everyone, to be in total solidarity with our comrades on all sides.
Hence this mutual aid drop having been so important to me this past weekend. No poor bastard, no matter what “side” they’re on, wants to die in a war, become a refugee and have their homes destroyed for our new age kings. Those days are over and we all need to act accordingly. I know I keep coming back to the piece by Alexandra Kollontai that I referenced last week but only because it is one the best ones on the subject.
These past two weeks have been confusing, I have never witnessed a war fought so plainly on so many fronts, especially in the information level that is affecting us who read this in relative safety more than anything else and for what it is worth, what has helped me retain a level of sanity, motivation and clarity is knowing that irrespective of what our rulers want, their hypocrisy, corruption and disdain for us has now culminated, leaving us no choice but to accept it and move past a need for them.
Protests against this war on all sides, from St. Petersburg, Hamburg, London and Paris ( have there been any in the US? ) have all been met with a similar level of violence from the state and smearing from their press. Only this weekend there were well over 5000 arrests in Moscow and St. Petersburg during anti-war protests. Anti-fascist and anarchist groups fighting in Ukraine are not only being shelled by Putin’s army but are also being killed/hunted/executed by the Ukrainian fascist Azov Battalion. Protests in the UK warrant up to 10 years in prison these days, especially worrisome considering how deep the entire English ruling class is in the pocket of Putin’s regime. Another aspect to pay attention to is how these constant crisis’ are inherent in capitalism and used as an engineered tool to further increase profiteering as well as further restrict whatever liberties that remain. I am sure that I have recommended Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” before, if not, make it a priority to read if you are interested in that mechanism.
The jig is up and it is time to seriously reconsider power, what it is and whom we give it to. As I was talking about all these seemingly conflicting but related thoughts with a dear comrade of mine last night we both thought about a scene from Monty Pyhton’s “Holy Grail” that leaves this discussion on a brilliantly humorous and equally important note, and one with which I want you to start your week with.
As always, thanks for your time and attention, this will return on Wednesday and until then I remain yours, without compromise,
V.
Track List for this week’s playlist: