Welcome! Newsletter number 37.
The year started off with a short, but marvellous, visit to Berlin, connected to one of the year’s most exciting projects, which will be revealed soon. (You gotta keep your audience on its toes, PR 101.)
It continued with a skiing trip, always a highlight (perhaps not smart to make the year’s second week a highlight, but there is little choice). After that, it was back to the union office. What can I say? Whoever told you that all preparation for the revolution was fun lied to you.
No new review this month, but there were no less than three last month, so no reason to complain! Plus, we have an old review in a new language. The good folks at Black Mosquito translated the review of Peter Gelderloos’s The Solutions Are Already Here from this blog into German. Selflessly? Perhaps not, as they are the translators of the book’s German edition soon to be released, but I’m not picky when it comes to translations.
This also applies to Esperanto, despite me once having translated an article titled “Don’t Learn Esperanto!” for the Gustav Landauer collection Revolution and Other Writings. Right or wrong, I got a kick out of Z-Net now offering a few of my texts in the language once believed by many to enable worlwide socialism.
The biggest news in terms of translations, however, is the release of the Spanish edition of Sober Living: Harcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics. The title? Una vida sobria para la revolución. I don’t speak Spanish, but it sounds fabulous.
Sticking with the straight edge theme for a moment, I can’t stress enough how valuable the yearly list of straight edge releases on DIY Conspiracy is, especially for an elderly gentleman like myself, unable to keep up with everything that’s happening online. And, boy, who would have thought that there will be a day when one of the politically most interesting straight edge bands comes out of Norwich, England?! If you have time for only one release on this list, try Hour of Reprisal.
I miss writing about sports for junge Welt, but there are reasons for it, which were revealed in an earlier newsletter. Luckily, I can still get in some sports writing for other outlets. analyse & kritik published an interview with Austrian skier and climate activist Julian Schütter. Great chap!
I didn’t only ask questions last month, I also answered some. Tasos Sagris from the Void Network interviewed me about Life Under the Jolly Roger, since there is also a Greek edition. I believe the interview is available in Greek as well, but I wouldn’t know how to find it.
In the Netherlands, a study circle of the socialist youth organization ROOD‘s Groningen chapter added Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety to their spring’s reading list. Sweet.
Ready for study circles is also our Swedish book Frihetens fönster: om kamp i Latinamerika och exil i Sverige. Despite low sales (what else is new?), it was decided (by whom, I don’t know) that all public libraries in Sweden shall carry it. Give it up for the education of the people! Some of the better Swedish welfare state traditions aren’t entirely lost yet, despite of the country boasting one of Europe’s currently worst governments.
Needless to say, you don’t have to read things I wrote in study circles. How about the Liberation Support Movement pamphlet published by Just Seeds? It’s incomprehensible to me that I only found out about it now, but better late than never, I suppose. I hear that a new edition is being prepared. These folks were very close to the Blekingegade Group featured in Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story of Denmark’s Revolutionary Bank Robbers.
I was touched in different ways when hearing about the passing of three particular individuals within just a few days in mid-January. Pat Lauderdale was the Native American professor who, in the early 1990s, brought me to Arizona. In many ways, that move was life-changing, more so than Pat would have ever been aware of. He’ll be deeply missed. Also in Arizona, the Native musician and activist Klee Benally died. We met a few times. Most memorable were the shows of his band Blackfire, in which he played alongside his siblings. And despite of not agreeing with the man’s politics or liking his music (although I did like this song), the passing of Torsun made me ponder a thing or two. This is my generation of German leftists.
I’ll end with a note on sports. Not only did the Tyrol win the Australian Open (okay, a fellow called Jannik Sinner from South Tyrol won the men’s competition, but let’s not get caught up in details here), but Elohim Prandi of France also scored one of the most mind-blowing goals in handball history at the recent European Championships (as a consequence, eliminating Sweden of all teams, but, emotionally, Sweden’s got nothing on the Tyrol for us at LeftTwoThree, so it was only a light blow).
More next month. Stay safe!