Morning Comrades.
It’s late over here at the time of writing and I have been working in a friends food truck all day/evening so today’s email is going to be a little shorter than usual and whilst I’ll try my best to refrain from the obvious spelling mistakes here tonight, bear with me. The whole adage of writing drunk(ish) and editing sober kind of goes out the window when you start writing at 10pm.
Like every week let’s start this with a new playlist and I have to say you are all in a for a treat this week as summer at these ends continues to do its annual magic, mood wise in any case. Weekly Jams 140 continues to float in between raging bangers from old school rave tracks, punk, electronica and 80s classics to remixes of old popular tunes, psych-ed out waves of goodness to eclectic industrial and drum n’bass. Sitting at another 3hrs of tunes that floated my boat this past week, I hope you’ll find this one as enjoyable as I have.
To start: this is not a topic about the continual reality of racially charged murders in the U.S., despite the story from this weekend, once again, coming from the U.S.. To be perfectly clear, this is a reality all throughout the West. Whilst I am sure this hasn’t made the international news cycle, just this week we had a case here in Germany where a young man, radically racist and violent, was stopped before going on what can only be envisioned as a Columbine-Style murderous killing spree, having declared his intentions in a number of extremely clear and well-articulated manifestos prior to the event. The way the authorities and media reported on yet another radicalized white man echos the same story across the west, a lone wolf, confused, radicalized by the internet, of low intelligence and the usual bullshit that follows these incredibly sad events. The fact that the powers that be continuously refuse to acknowledge the systemic reality of white, male, radical and violent racism / fascism and their well-documented, researched reasons ( how to spell alienation under 21st Century Capitalism ) should, at this point in our timeline come as no surprise to anyone but has to be, again, noted, loudly and clearly.
By now I am certain that every person reading this email is aware of the fact that another racially motivated killing spree at the hands of a white man took place in the US, Buffalo, NY to be precise, again and yet again the reality of it all is being incredibly obfuscated. It’s horrible enough that these events take place, the world over, but what has made me angry, once again, is just how wilfully “protective” the powers that be deal and talk about them. I am in no shape to explain the root causes of this insanity once again, but we all know what I mean here. The system that allows this, protects this and utilizes this terror protects its own and yet again we are faced with another tragedy, life’s lost and pain caused.
As far as I am concerned, white hate, racism and violence are a direct result of this material reality we find ourselves in and those in power we have entrusted with our money and power to change this - the ways and means to do so are incredibly well-researched, proven to work and doable, today - will not, because this terror is part of their endgame, and it makes me incredibly angry, as if the reality of their oppression isn’t enough already, no, the terror they push, finance and protect is just “part” of it all. Not that this is new, no, this reality has always been part of the patriarchal, white capitalist system and yet each and every time we have to witness it, the shock of it all remains the same. The deliberate “mistake” by the our so-called leaders is to push the narrative that white supremacists are poor, white trash, uneducated with no hopes in life but hate, when the exact opposite is true. White Supremacy is a coherent, if absolutely baseless, ideology with deliberate tactics. What happened in Buffalo was predictable, preventable and will happen again. If you were to read the actual “manifesto” of this murderer you will find a very cogent, articulate document full of fascist hate that is directly linked to the the fairly mainstream far right reality taken place throughout the “West”, and yes, banning CRT and Holocaust History in the public realm is part of this reality. Similar to every such preventable murder in the West, the only answer our politicians offer is “more cops”, or “we need to further control the internet, there is too much violence” when all that needs to be acknowledged is that our capitalists refuse to deal with white supremacy and until we make them, people will keep dying. Again, the ways to actively solve this insanity exist, we don’t need studies, thoughts and prayers, but we need to desperately put the solutions in place, now, and stop giving the perpetrators in charge our consent in their refusal to do the bare minimum. Unfortunately, the ideology of white supremacy is not a fringe idea but the foundational core belief system supporting capitalism as invented here in Europe, 600 years ago.
Initially, I had planned to write an essay about accelerationism and its the absolute insanity ( that’s still happening this week ) and tie this story into it, because it is and has been part of the culture war proposed by the Bannon’s of this world, yet words fail me this evening. The term “accelerationism” refers to the post-Marxist idea that because of capitalism's internal contradictions and instabilities, the abolition of the capitalist system and its class structures could be brought about by its acceleration. Deeply rooted in the Frankfurt Schools Post-Modernism it not only is wrong in every regard but needs to be actively fought against as the only road that idea leads down to is Fascism. Various ideas, including French critical theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's idea of deterritorialization, as well as aspects of the theoretical systems and processes developed by alt-right English commentator Nick Land, are crucial influences on accelerationism, which aims to analyze and subsequently promote the social, economic, cultural, and libidinal forces that constitute the process of acceleration. Again, that essay will follow.
For the time being, let’s be absolutely clear: This push towards accelerationism, the idea that the destruction of everything, the dehumanization under capitalism will somehow unite enough people towards revolution is false. At best, it will frighten a critical mass to allow a century of neo-feudal, theocratic fascism to exist. What will bring about the revolution to end this insanity are robust networks of care that build up collective capacities that we have to create for ourselves.
It is five past midnight and our shifts have started. Time to get this done.
Yours, as always, without compromise,
V.