We Are The Future
Polish Proverbs, Teaser, A Plan To Save The Planet, Cuba & Platform Socialism
Morning Comrades!
In the continuing effort for this project to become less reactionary and more actionable, today’s email will include a personal anecdote and a few plans for us all to get involved with, take heart from and hopefully be inspired by to continue in our collective struggle for a better tomorrow.
A quick heads up that this weekend’s mutual aid drop is now live for you to preview by clicking the banner below. The links will go out to everyone with Friday’s Email and the paying comrades to this project will get their early bird links as well as their discount codes with their email on Thursday.
A not so well known personal fact is that I spent my youth in post-cold war Warsaw, Poland, from age 13 to 18, starting back in 1992. Quite frankly, and despite some of the wildest and sometimes scary events, I look back at those years as some of the most valuable times of my life. Experiencing the old Soviet Union just after its break-up as a relative care free teenager without adult supervision was incredible. There are heaps of stories and I am going to focus on one today, as I came across a similar story about this proverb on Tiktok earlier. For anyone that unfortunately hasn’t been exposed to Polish culture, there’s a salty ass proverb for pretty much everything. This one specifically deals with anxiety, times being what they are, this is more than apt. Paraphrasing this story here: Back in the Ice Ages, literally everything in nature was out to kill you. The cold, the lack of food, shelter, frozen lakes and the damn animals. As a species we have learned “fear” from these facts as impeding danger makes us anxious and thus more receptive with our survival reflexes at full speed. Healthy for short period of time but as we all know now, extend that period, say for example, 3 years of a bloody pandemic, this all becomes incredibly unhealthy. Back in the early 80s, when Poland was put under martial law by the Soviets, so the story goes, many Unionists would get this line: Nie Ma Zadnego Tygrysa! tattooed, often on their hands as a daily reminder, that whilst times were tough, there weren’t any tigers out in the dark trying to eat you. Similar to the Western European “and this, too, shall pass” proverb. For all the obvious reasons the Polish version has stuck with me and I greatly enjoy it. In a broader sense, it reaffirms my believe that whatever material shortages that stress me out are real, it’s not a damn tiger trying to eat me. It reminds me that all that exists is a social construct and thus can be changed to benefit all, myself included. Or as Graeber called it: “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.” Consider that a personal offering for your mental well-being for today.
We Will Build the Future: A Plan to Save the Planet
With all that is going on in the world, with everything that has been shared in here for the last two years, all our personal and communal struggles, it is sometimes hard to fathom how to get out of this misery. We have certainly tried here and will continue to do so, yet with the increasing awareness that it is truly a global struggle thats exist and not just here in the heart of the empire, we have often enough called for voices from the Global South to be heard. I have written often enough about what our role in this global struggle is and has to be, but now it is time to hear from our friends and comrades, and what a plan they have come up with!
I am truly excited to share this with you as I have seldomly come across such an ambitious and thorough plan and I implore you all to read it, share it and get involved - something that is wanted. I came across this from the ever increasing, personally, important Tricontinental in India, mostly because of Viyay Prashad, a project I additionally urge you to get into.
The document: A Plan To Save The Planet comes from twenty-six research institutes from around the world. It began to meet and discuss the production of a draft programme to address the current crisis. Under the leadership of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), our meetings produced a document called A Plan to Save the Planet. The Network is as follows:
Network of Research Institutes
The Network of Research Institutes is a collective brought together by ALBA-TCP, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, and Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among People. The text above is part of a process initiated by this group.
América Latina en movimiento, ALAI (Quito, Ecuador)
Centre for Research on the Congo (Kinshasa, DR Congo)
Centro de Investigaciones de la Economía Mundial (CIEM) (Cuba)
Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional (CIPI) (Cuba)
Centro per la Riforma dello Stato (Roma, Italy)
Chris Hani Institute (South Africa)
Consultation and Research Institute (Beirut, Lebanon)
Dominica Association of Industry & Commerce (Roseau, Dominica)
Dominica State College (Roseau, Dominica)
Foundation for Education in Social Transformation and Progress (Kenya)
The Centre for International Gramscian Studies (GramsciLab), University of Cagliari (Italy)
Instituto Simón Bolívar for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples (Venezuela)
Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR (Berlin, Germany)
Institute of Employment Rights (London, UK)
Marx Memorial Library (London, UK)
Instituto Internacional de Investigación ‘Andrés Bello’ (Bolivia)
Instituto Patria (Argentina)
Instituto Patria Grande (Bolivia)
Instituto Samuel Robinson (Venezuela)
Observatorio del Sur Global, Argentina
Research Group of the Popular Education Initiative (Accra, Ghana)
Sam Moyo African Institute of Agrarian Studies (Harare, Zimbabwe)
Society for Social and Economic Research (Delhi, India)
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Instituto Tricontinental de Investigación Social (Argentina)
Instituto Tricontinental de Pesquisa Social (Brazil)
Tricontinental Research Services (India)
Tricontinental South Africa
University of the West Indies Open Campus (Roseau, Dominica)
Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society Research Institute (Vadakara, Kerala)
As you can tell, it is a large group of well-organized heavy hitters, both intellectually and on the ground and again, this is an aspect of reality in the Global South that we have to learn from.
The dossier is a scathing attack on Capitalism with a reality coming out of the Global South that is hard to fathom for anyone here in the west. Tackling the pillars of Marxist and Humanist ambition, Food, Shelter, Care and Self-Determination this work brilliantly, materially and clearly identifies the problems and affects of Capitalism on the Global South and more importantly, lays out the foundation of how to change this. I have linked this work in all of the three pictures. Get to it. Get involved. This is the best shot I have seen in a long time. None of the plans laid out here are pipe-dreams, this shall become a reality if we so chose it to be.
In addition to the inspiring project above, in this hour long documentary, Dr Helen Yaffe goes to Cuba to find out about ‘Tarea Vida’ (Life Task), a long-term state plan to protect the population, environment and the economy from climate change. The Cuban approach combines environmental science, natural solutions and community participation in strategies for adaptation and mitigation. There are lessons here for the world.
We have talked about this book last week, and I am eagerly awaiting it’s launch and to coincide with it, James Muldon will be joined by guests Rahel Süss and Roberta Fischli in this streamed and free to attend event to discuss the book's central arguments, followed by plenty of space for audience discussion. If you are interested in tech, ownership and the future this is not to be missed.
That is all for today, if you have any questions or recommendations for this week’s Hot Shots Audio Essay, please, drop me a line, comment etc and until then, I remain yours, as always, without compromise,
V.