Morning Comrades.
Rosa Luxemburg’s work and ideas, especially in conjunction with Gramsci’s, have been at the forefront of my thinking again these past few days. Especially this incredibly important line:
"What presents itself to us as bourgeois legality is nothing but the violence of the ruling class, a violence raised to an obligatory norm from the outset…"
It carries profound implications when analyzed within the context of war and capitalism in the 21st century West, and more so, our existence and forthcoming tactics in response to the continuing crackdown on official government dissidence. Additionally, this line and her work at large needs be one of the major underlying concepts, strategically, going forward. The urgency is clear, whatever illusions anyone may have reserved about “freedom” here in the West should have been demolished by now. Fuck fighting for crumbs, I want the bakery.
As always, to answer the question of why anyone should bother with understanding these theories, what help could they possibly offer in our total disillusionment and frustration: without a plan, there is nothing but destruction that creates a vacuum and a vacuum will always be filled - in our case, by someone that already has a plan, and if you think today is bad, well, shit. This is why we work to understand these stories, ideas and theories. Not only did comrades such as Luxemburg get down and dirty but their truth applies dialectically to us. This why this is important.
Specifically, considering the events of the last week we all need to accept the fact that the moral high ground of the Western World, the Rules Based Order, International Law - all laws to be clear - are meaningless when the only and real power belongs to the bourgeois political and the capitalist class. Their “morality” and “legality” can and will be immediately abandoned when it suits them and the implied security net offered to us of “we are all equal before the law” needs to disregard, in totality. Not only in their “international politics” but here at home, when all public interest is ignored for the sake of profit for the few by finely tuned propaganda and violence machinery, we need to be absolutely clear what we are dealing with here. There is no reforming a system that operates as it is supposed to. When we know and understand this, we can act accordingly and offer a future that actually has meaning.
This is why we are taking a little dip into Luxemburg’s work sp that we can better understand the fuckery of the ruling class and act accordingly.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Black Lodges to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.