Morning Comrades! Each and every day I spend a good portion of my waking day thinking about what is going on in the world and how to make sense of it all. More so, a good portion of the day then goes into how those thoughts are, if at all relevant and then how to translate all that into some sort coherent structure to share with you all. Admittedly, this has become increasingly difficult, not for a lack of topics or ideas but because the ever apparent failure of the “west” in tackling this pandemic. Two years in and even the most resilient of us, myself included, are struggling.
There is a little housekeeping that I want to share with you before I get into that though. As you will have noticed, or hopefully will notice, I have stopped including my so-called hot shots from the web here as well as my other channels. A regular criticism of our collective behaviour and my own is the reactionary nature of our oppositional existence. At this point we have to realize and I believe we have, that the forces in direct opposition to a collective, equal future determine not only the narrative but also reality, having outlawed, criminalized and punished any and all actual resistance, let alone the building of alternative futures, leaving nothing but reaction for us as a psychological vent of sort. The problem with that is that reactionary behaviour, especially, online ( aka venting on twitter etc ) achieves absolutely nothing. Even more insidious is the reality that these platforms sell this ability to “vent” as some sort of modern democratic process when the truth is, this venting, this user generated content, does nothing but increase the platforms ability to sell more advertising and more importantly, is harmful for everyone, mentally at first, alienating us from reality and our comrades and secondly, translating into real world violence. We have spoken about this enough times, no need to get into details here.
The fact remains, however, that ruthless criticism and the dissemination of said results is an important part of building an alternative future. The methods for this need changing, on my part and hence the exclusion of uncommented hot shots in these emails and my other channels. On Monday I wrote that I would be starting a podcast of sorts and I am going to start testing that out on Wednesday. Especially, with Covid being rampant once again and me not particularly being interested in the traditional format of recording fireside, or in my case, drunken kitchen discussion for you to listen to, I am going to approach this tool a little differently. Truthfully, I have no real idea what I am doing here, especially on the technical side of this work but here is to old dogs learning new tricks. Long story short, the hot shots will remain a part of this work, but just presented and talked about differently than before.
Back to the original train of thought for this email. I am unsure what the Covid situations are in your countries but I have a rough enough idea that it is similar to what is going on here in Germany and thus I will generalise a little, something I hope you can live with, even if it is just for the sake of brevity. Initially, I was planning on breaking up today’s email into several interesting topics for you all but truly, with all that is going on in regards to Covid it seemed a little fraudulent to not, and once again, address this massive fuck off white horse of the apocalypse.
As with every discussion and analysis of the structural harm done to us, I have to point out that this criticism has nothing to do with the conspiracy-antivax-anti mask-radicalized fash pipeline. On the contrary, it’s the exact opposite. I do find noteworthy to say that “we” have utterly failed in presenting actionable alternatives to both the criminal actions of our respective governments and the opposition to the above mentioned. This is the result of the western “leftist” failure in recognizing post-modern identity politics amateur online discourses for what they are, a distraction from the much needed materialist approach to power, responsibility and equality. I am sure to expand on that notion but for now, let’s leave it at that.
Fact is, the post-Delta Omicron variant wave is running rampant here, especially in my hometown of Hamburg and despite my circles having been extremely careful in their actions over the past two years, the hits of positive cases are coming closer by the day. That’s certainly having an added effect on the good ol’ mental health at this end, that after two years of doing what was necessary, isolation, vaccinations, reassessing everything, it doesn’t seem to have been enough. Therein lies the problem: The massive bullshit lie and gaslighting campaign from our governments that puts the responsibility of collective health on individual shoulders.
This is not how that works, especially not, in societies, organised the way ours are.
Cue Civics Class 101, a brief one. In theory, our western democratic societies are organised so that we all agree to give up some ( ambivalent and menacing as that is ) individual power and autonomy to elected representatives whose job is to build, maintain and improve an infrastructure that helps everyone. Fact is, large groups of people will create problems that small groups, let alone individuals, cannot solve. That is the entire point of a democracy, utilising a method of representation to tackle problems and improve the reality of all. Civics lesson over.
Now, obviously, and even before Covid, we all knew that we are further removed from that reality than space exploration. Our so-called democracies are nothing but a smoke screen to give us peasants the notion of control whilst the Capitalists continue their business under a new guise. Again, no need to get into that one in detail here, we all know the deal. Fact remains though, that this is the first viral pandemic on a global scale that affects us all in or lifetime, not just minorities as in during the initial AIDS pandemic for example ( and we dare remember how inhumane that was dealt with by the powers that be - on that note, fuck both Reagans for that feat alone, always and forever ) and for once, post World War 2, our governments, the bastions of democracy and freedom are faced with actually having to do their jobs, protecting us.
That hasn’t happened and at this stage, unless we get in on the subject, it will not happen. On the contrary, despite all scientific reasoning and plans available, the only thing our governments have done so far is, enrich themselves through corruption, ignored all the science and enforced rules that punish the working ( and yes, that includes all of us, no matter what you think you are ) classes through even more financial insecurity, personal repressions all the while forcing us to continuously go to work, exposing us all to an airborne virus in public transports, schools and so on. The answer to solving this pandemic has always been there and is insanely simple yet we are ultimately faced with the reality that our lives are only valued as long as we produce profit for those that can protect themselves from Covid, because we work for them.
The answer has always been and will remain a collective, non-capitalistic one. That reality is so utterly opposed to the current-imposed world order that, aside being forced, through unregulated, un-supervised and unwanted violence, and the populace being the only “state” that can authorise violence in a democracy, we are being brainwashed by the world’s most effective propaganda machines the world has ever seen to believe this responsibility is an individual one.
To be perfectly clear, it is not, it cannot be and the only way out is together. Ironically, this pandemic enforces a level of individualism for safety reasons that makes that claim even harder to swallow but here we are. Historically, this is how Council Communism started back in the 1920s and it is more than time to take that idea into the 21st Century. Council Communism is a topic worth exploring and I shall give that some thought.
Ending on the note of propaganda though and not wanting to leave you just with the above, this notion of individualism vs. collectivism has been hotly fought over for over a hundred years. The US particularly perfected this propaganda into anti-communist work starting as early as the 1930s and I wanted to point you to a book that examines this process in a most brilliant way. If you are going to read one book this month, make it this one. It is absolutely vital for all of us to learn the history that has shaped our current malevolent philosophy, narrative and world view and thus becoming able to unlearn the western capitalistic pattern of thought and action. This book will help you.
That’s it for now comrades. There is much to think about and even more to do and that’s ok, there will not be a brighter future without work and work we can do. Once we have addressed the reality of who benefits from our labour nothing is impossible.
Until then, I remain yours, without compromise,
V.