Witzgall
30-01-2005, 03:47
A NEW ERA OF REASON
http://www.raisethefist.com/anarchy.jpg
By Matt Witzgall, with credits going towards CrimethInc.com and other resources.
What is freedom? Freedom is existence without coercion, exploitation, and domination. For some this means to live in a society and community with absolutely no government. For others it means creating a life without both the state and capitalism, in which human affairs are directed by all people equally. Also, As free people we can, should, and will govern ourselves through direct democratic processes in our communities and workplaces. We will organize in both the workplace and community and efforts to bring about social change. We recognize the many different kinds of anarchism and that not everyone believes in the traditional thought of bringing about revolution through violence, but rather favor other strategies for obtaining liberation. Being this, we also favor the non-violent anarchist who participate in militant direct action and disobedience, while simultaneously building non-hierarchical and self-managing organizations that will bring revolution and an end to capitalism from the bottom up rather than the top down.
What is anarchism? Anarchism is the political philosophy of people seeking a society in which all individuals have the greatest choice in the way they live their lives. Therefore, we work towards the creation of a global network of communities formed by voluntary agreements based on co-operation and respect for the freedom of others. We oppose all forms of oppression, including sexism, racism, religious intolerance, discrimination on the basis of sexuality, class structures, the governing of one person by another and any other form of authoritarianism or hierarchy that might happen along. Therefore, we support the empowerment of individuals and communities working towards freedom, we support the genuine resistance to authority. We are not the slightest bit interested in those who merely seek to replace one authoritarian system with another. Some of us like olives, some of us don't.
What is the State? The State is this organized bureaucracy. It is the police department. It is the Army, the Navy. It is the prison system, the courts, and what have you. This is the State -- it is a repressive organization. But the state -- and gee, well, you know, you've got to have the police, because if there were no police, look at what you'd be doing to yourselves -- you'd be killing each other if there were no police! But the reality is the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where it is split between those who have and those who don’t.
It is important in the community that we develop organizations which, while always engaging in educational activities, also develops federations of groups which can begin to replace the current capitalist structures. These groups or collectives might begin with projects like media, alternative schools, libraries, cultural centers, and organic food production. Current examples of this approach are numerous and include Food Not Bombs, Micro-radio stations, and the numerous info shops. Such a reconstructive approach both challenges the existing system even as it brings forth a new.
Usually the word “anarchy” is associated with another word. That word is “chaos.” This is the traditional view of anarchism as a whole by the masses of people who don’t understand the ideas of the true anarchists, the men and women who fight for absolute freedom from oppression and all forms of hatred.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Life is existence when it feels worth waking up for in the morning. Life is written about in epic poetry, love songs, Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets; survival is treated in medical textbooks, urban planning reports, and ergonomics presentations. Life is glorious, heartbreaking, extravagant. Survival, without life, is ridiculous, burdensome, absurd.
Liberty is freedom from sexism, racism, religious persecution, and all ways of hatred and oppression. Liberty is written about in the United States Constitution. Liberty is happiness, a way of life, utopia. Survival, without Liberty, is pointless and suicidal at best.
Happiness is what makes you continue on with your life. It is seeing your family members, your friends. Happiness is written about in almost every novel or book you will come across in your lifetime. Survival, without Happiness, is a state of never-ending depression and let downs.
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The Dead Hand of the Past
Those who cannot forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Remember how differently time passed when you were twelve years old? One summer was a whole lifetime, and each day passed like a month does for you now. For everything was new: each day held experiences and emotions that you had never encountered before, and by the time that summer was over you had become a different person. Perhaps you felt a wild freedom then that has since deserted you: you felt as if anything could happen, as if your life could end up being virtually anything at all. Now, deeper into that life, it doesn't seem so unpredictable. The things that were once new and transforming have long since lost their freshness and danger, and the future ahead of you seems to have already been determined by your past.
It is thus that each of us is dominated by history: the past lies upon us like a dead hand, guiding and controlling as if from the grave. At the same time as it gives the individual a conception of herself, an "identity," it piles weight upon her that she must fight to shake off if she is to remain light and free enough to continue reinventing her life and herself. It is the same for the artist: even the most challenging innovations eventually become crutches and clichs. Once an artist has come up with one good solution for a creative problem, it is hard for her to break free of it to conceive of other possible solutions. That is why most great artists can only offer a few really revolutionary ideas: they become trapped by the very systems they create, just as these systems trap those who come after. It is hard to do something entirely new when one finds oneself up against a thousand years of painting history and tradition. And this is the same for the lover, for the mathematician and the adventurer: for all, the past is an adversary to action in the present, an ever-increasing force of inertia that must be overcome. It is the same for the radical, too.
Conventional wisdom has it that a knowledge of the past is indispensable in the pursuit of freedom and social change. But today's radical thinkers and activists are no closer to changing the world for their knowledge of past philosophies and struggles; on the contrary, they seem mired in ancient methods and arguments, unable to apprehend what is needed in the present to make things happen. Their place in the tradition of struggle has trapped them in a losing battle, defending positions long useless and outmoded; their constant references to the past not only render them incomprehensible to others, but also prevent them from referencing what is going on around them. Let's consider what it is about history that makes it so paralyzing. In the case of world history, it is the exclusive, anti-subjective nature of the thing: History (with a capital "H") is purportedly seen by the objective eye of science, as if "from above;" it demands that the individual value her impressions and experiences less than the official Truth about the past. But it is not just official history that paralyzes us, it is the very idea of the past itself.
Try thinking of the world as including all past and future time as well as present space. An individual can at least hope to have some control over that part of the world which is in the future; but the past only acts on her, she can never act back upon it. If she thinks of the world [whether that "world" consists of her life, or human history] as consisting of mostly future, proportionately speaking, she will see herself as fairly free to choose her own destiny and exert her will upon the world. But if her world-view places most of the world in the past, that puts her in a position of powerlessness: not only is she unable to act upon or create most of world in which she exists, but what future does remain is already largely predetermined by the effects of events past.
Who, then, would want to be a meaningless fleck near the end of the eight thousand year history of human civilization? Conceiving of the world in such a way can only result in feelings of futility and predetermination. We must think of the world differently to escape this trap—we must instead place our selves and our present day existence where they rightfully belong, in the center of our universe, and shake off the dead weight of the past. Time may well extend before and behind us infinitely, but that is not how we experience the world, and that is not how we must visualize it either, if we want to find any meaning in it. If we dare to throw ourselves into the unknown and unpredictable, to continually seek out situations that force us to be in the present moment, we can break free of the feelings of inevitability and inertia that constrain our lives—and, in those instants, step outside of history.
What does it mean to step outside of history? It means, simply, to step into the present, to step into yourself. Time is compressed to the moment, space is concentrated to one point, and the unprecedented density of life is exhilarating. The rupture that occurs when you shake off everything that has come before is not just a break with the past—you are ripping yourself out of the past-future continuum you had built, hurling yourself into a vacuum where anything can happen and you are forced to remake yourself according to a new design. It is a sensation as terrifying as it is liberating, and nothing false or superfluous can survive it. Without such purges, life becomes so choked up with the dead and dry that it is nearly unlivable—as it is for us, today.
None of this is to say that we should condone the deliberate lies of those who would rewrite history, with the intention of trapping us even deeper in ignorance and passivity than we are now. But the solution is not to combat their supposed "objective truths" with more claims to Historical Truth—for it is not more past we need, to weigh upon us, but more attention to today. We must not allow them to make our lives and thoughts revolve only around what has been; instead we must realize that it is up to us to reveal what is true about the present and what is possible from here.
So what can we embrace in place of History? Myth, perhaps. Not the obscurest superstitions and holy lies of religion and capitalism, but the democratic myths of storytellers. Myth makes no claims to false impartiality or objective Truth, it does not purport to offer an exhaustive explanation of the cosmos. Myth belongs to everyone, as it is made and remade by everyone, so it can never be used by one group to lord itself over another. And it does not paralyze—instead of trapping people in the chains of cause and effect, myth makes them conscious of the enormous range of possibilities that their own lives have to offer; instead of making them feel hopelessly small in a vast and uncaring universe, it centers the world again on their own experiences and ambitions as represented by those of others. When we tell tales around the fire at night of heroes and heroines, of other struggles and adventures and societies, we are offering each other examples of just how much living is possible. There may be those who will threaten that the whole world will unravel if we stop concerning ourselves with the past and think only of the present. Let it unravel, then! A lot of good history has done us until now, repeating and repeating itself. Let's break out of it once and for all, before we too tread the circular path that our ancestors have worn so bare. Let's make the leap out of History, and make the moments of our daily lives the world we live in and care about—only then can we make it into a place that has meaning for us. The present belongs to those who are able to seize it, to recognize all that it is and can be!
~Text by Nadia C. of CrimethInc. Site at CrimethInc.com~
Eight Things You Can Do To Get Active
1. Pay attention to where and how you spend your money. Is your money going to support companies that don't care about you? Are they destroying the environment, killing animals, treating your friends who work for them like shit? Are they trying as hard as they can to sell you a product that gives you cancer? Are their advertisements designed to manipulate you, to make you feel insecure or make their product seem like more than it really is? You don't need to give those people your money! For that matter—do you buy many things that you don't need? Soft drinks and junk food at convenience stores, for example? Do you end up spending a lot of money whenever you want to relax and have a good time? There are a thousand things you and your friends can do that are fun, creative, and don't cost anything (having intense discussions, exploring hidden parts of your town, making music—instead of drinking at bars or going to movies and restaurants) just as there a thousand ways you can eat and live more cheaply (Food Not Bombs, building furniture instead of buying it, living in big houses with a bunch of friends). Once you experiment a bit, you'll probably find that you enjoy life a lot more when you're not always shelling out cash for it.
2. Now that you spend less, you can work less, too! Think about how much more time that gives you to do other things. Not only will it be easier to do things that help you spend less, like volunteering at Food Not Bombs (the less you work, the more time you have to make sure you don't need to), you'll also be able to do all the things you never had time for before: you can travel, exercise, spend more time with your friends and lovers. When it's sunny and beautiful outside, you can go out and enjoy it!
3. And you'll have time to do the other things you need to do to take back control of your life and your world. First, start reading. It doesn't really matter what, so long as it makes you think about things and gives you new ideas of your own. Read novels about human beings struggling against their society, like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye or George Orwell's 1984 or Joseph Heller's Catch 22; read the beautiful, dreamers' prose of Jeanette Winterson or Henry Miller. Read history: learn about the Spanish revolution in the 1930's, where whole cities were run by the people who lived in them, rather than by governments; learn about the labor union struggle in the USA, or the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in the 1960's. Read philosophy, read about environmental issues, read vegan cookbooks and underground magazines and comics and everything you can get your hands on. Here's a hint: if there's a university in your town, you can probably get a membership for about $10 a year—and most libraries include videos, too!
4. Reading isn't the only way you can expand your horizons and clarify your ideas. Talk to people about the things that interest you, arguing when you don't agree, so you'll get to know your own beliefs better. Write to the people who are doing the 'zines you like, discuss and debate things with them, ask them for directions to find out more about your interests. Try writing about your own ideas, and sharing that with people, until you feel confident doing this. Travel to different places, try to learn about other cultures and communities, so you'll have more than one perspective on the world and you can start to imagine what the world is like through other people's eyes.
5. Now you'll know what you want, and you can go about getting it. Seek out other people and groups with similar goals, and figure out how to support them or participate in what they're doing. Maybe you can copy fliers and give them out at shows; maybe you can organize benefit shows for organizations you want to support (women's shelters, radical bookshops, local groups protesting against the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal or lobbying for protection of the environment). Maybe there are public protests and demonstrations going on that you want to be part of. Try to help find ways to make these more challenging and fun than just a bunch of people holding signs; everyone's so bored with doing that that there must be a more effective and exciting way to go about it.
6. You can start your own projects, as well, you know. If there's no Food Not Bombs in
your area, get a group of people together and find some local businesses that will donate their leftover food. If there's something fucked up at your high school or college or workplace, try organizing a walkout to force the "authorities" to do something about it... and to show everyone that those "authorities" only have as much power as we let them have. If the main street of your town lacks life and excitement, try organizing an unexpected festival to take place in the middle of it one weekend. Shake up everyone's lives and expectations, shake them out of their apathy and boredom so they'll start thinking about things. Establish networks with other people who are also interested in having an effect on the world around them, so you can help each other do this.
7. Through all of this, don't stop questioning yourself and your assumptions. Try to see through all the social programming you've received throughout your life: consider how gender roles constrain the way you act, how your own relationships with people reproduce the same hierarchical order that your fighting in mainstream society. We're not going to really change anything unless we can create new ways of living and interacting, new values that show themselves in the way we treat each other. Show your friends how much you care about them. Consider doing things you never thought you should or could do: dancing, singing, admitting things that you've been taught to be ashamed of.
8. Now look to the future. How can you stay involved with these things as you get older? How can you construct your life so you will always be free to do what you want to? Talk to people older than you who haven't given up and gone back to the daily grind of eat-work-sleep-watch TV. With a little input from them and a lot of resolve on your part, you can maintain your activities and your lifestyle as long as you want to. Idealism, adventure, and resistance don't have to be reserved for youth alone. History is filled with men and women who refused to compromise or calm down, who went all out from the cradle to the grave. They are the artists, the leaders, the heroes and heroines even people from the mainstream respect. We can all have lives like theirs, if we're brave and idealistic enough.
If all of us demand control over what we do and what goes on around us, if all of us do what we can to make life exciting and fair for everyone, things are bound to change. A lot of people know that we don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but persuade themselves that it's hopeless to try to improve things because they're afraid to commit themselves, to take any risks. But it's that lack of ambition that is the biggest risk of all—for what if you do nothing, and nothing happens, and we lose our chance to make this world the paradise it should be? Don't be shy or timid—there's nothing more exciting than taking an active role in the world around you, and there's nothing more worthwhile!
this message brought to you by the CrimethInc. Special Forces
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What Are You Rambling About?
I expect many of you to not understand this “letter” or “booklet”. But everyone doesn’t understand something once in a while.
Viewed with one disposition, history has so far been a horrible accumulation of oppression and suffering. Viewed with another disposition, however, history has chronicled humans discovering their own finer potentials and together mounting heroic offensives to attain them -- against monarchy, feudalism, slavery, Jim Crow racism, apartheid, sexual subjugation, second class citizenship, sexism, heterosexism, dictatorship, one party rule, capitalism, and coordinatorism -- and seeking, in their place, equity, justice, and freedom.
The “New World Order” as it shall be known may not work, but perhaps it shall. And what if it does? Then peace and prosperity may actually become reality, and not some fairy tale we hear in the ads on television and in magazine.
My history teacher speaks about the Five Cultural Institutions: Government, Religion, Education, Economics, and Family. All of these institutions are necessary to have a culture, a society, that will function.
Anarchy, traditionally speaking, calls for an end of all government. But what if government could function properly, without instating the beliefs of hatred and ethnical oppression on a broad scale? If such was a possibility, society could better.
All things that go for the better eventually go for the worse. Such is a saying used by many. But, is that the truth? Sure, in some cases people screw up and things become tragedies instead of revolutions…but this isn’t everyday life.
“The End of the World”
When the world ends, white dust will fill the air like the curtain at the end of a play. A rain of desperate bodies will fall from the windows of burning buildings, drumming the concrete below. Men with splinters in their eyes will stumble through streets choked with debris; women clutching babies will pick through the rubble and tear out their hair. Our Generation will go to its grave shouting its last words into a cell phone.
Or perhaps it will arrive as a thief in the night, step by invisible step. Factories will disappear overseas and corporations will vanish into thin air, taking jobs and retirement funds with them. Cities dying from the inside out will spread like ringworm, the shrapnel spray of suburbs slicing through forest and field. Wars will reach from continent to continent and neighborhood to neighborhood - the terrorists won’t make peace against the horrorists who enforce it at any price, who keep trying to impose harmony between oppressed and oppressor with fear and firepower. Tides will rise with global warming, acid rains fall with the last of the redwoods, computer systems crash with stocks and stock markets…until one day everyone has cancer.
Or else nothing will happen at all, business will continue as usual: prison guards pace concrete tombs, psychiatrists contemplate madness, demons glare from the eyes of ministers, consumers are bought and sold in the marketplace. It’s after the end of the world, whispers the homeless man on the corner - don’t you know that yet?
Others, mysterious and knowing, who have held themselves aloof from the discussion until now, finally interject: “Which world?”
The Other Side of the Argument
So when states and governments all over the world are finally overthrown in the Great successful Revolution yet to come, people will be able to come together to create a new, free society based on anarchist principles, realising their desires. The rivers will run clear and forests will grow again without the capitalist threat. Grim and anonymous cities will become places we can actually live in. Tedious useless work would become redundant, and room made for play and productive activities we enjoy. Crime could be reduced drastically by a return to living in real communities where people look after each other.
But this is a silly utopia and anarchists are hopeless idealistic dreamers who must be totally miserable when actually confronted with reality. Ah but no. Anarchists certainly have a vision of what life could be like, and we try to live it here and now, in many different ways.
The organization of this society is quite blatantly showing its flaws. Many people here are dissatisfied with the way things are run, from ecological destruction to the misery and monotony of daily life. Sitting in front of a telly in a run-down block of council flats without any inviting green spaces to sit down and maybe finally get to know your neighbor. Many will not embrace the lies anymore and also realize the futility of voting. But a general mood of cynicism, resignation and apathy has been created.
Anarchists want to get past this, encourage to speak of our dreams and desires and provide examples of what life could be. We put our revolutionary ideas into practice in everyday life.
Creating anarchy is helping your neighbors, stealing from your workplace, growing your own food, throwing a brick at a policeman, organizing a stamp-collectors' club, baby-sitting for your friend, talking back, phoning in sick, not being what's expected of you. Anarchy is mutual aid, cooperation and not leaving your life to others to organize it.
We don't see the mythical Revolution as something that will just happen suddenly one great day after we've polished some ideology long enough. Revolution is a process of individuals and collectives gradually reclaiming what's been taken from us.
By the hundreds of thousands, peasants organized in the MST ('Movement of the landless') in Brazil are squatting land to live on and work. In the LA riots a few years ago, the poor revolted, looting and making their communities no-go areas for the police. In 1994, the Zapatistas liberated many villages in Chiapas, Mexico, and their struggle against free trade agreements which had disastrous effects on the large peasant population has become international with the Encuentros, gatherings of groups and individuals from all over the world fighting corporate powers.
But anarchy is about all the small scale resistance as well, about individuals refusing standards, ignoring authority and coming together to improve their lives. Everyday, we can experiment with and learn the ways of dealing with each other without leaders and hierarchical structures and with mutual respect, building the world we want now - in our relationships, our interactions and our resistance.
Closing Statement from Yours Truly
“A sociologist is an authority on crowds like a policeman is an authority on people.”
-Bill Buford, Among the Thugs
You know what anarchy is, I’m sure of it. But do you understand it? Knowing and understanding something are two totally different things. “I know that Germany is a Federal Republic. But what does Federal Republic mean?”
Do you believe that one person has the power to change life as we all know it? To change the structures of beliefs and values we currently possess as a world.
This paper or disk can be mass produced. However, Freedom cannot be mass produced, nor attained by merely an agreement. Freedom has to be forged, person by person, action by action, object by object if it comes to that, putting each one through the fire of reinterpretation and recreation.
We must reform. Watch as fixed facts become negotiable, as new means appear under your hands. Now go out an repeat this process with everything else.
http://www.buendnis-gegen-rechts.ch/Logos/Anarchismus/anarchism.jpg
http://www.raisethefist.com/anarchy.jpg
By Matt Witzgall, with credits going towards CrimethInc.com and other resources.
What is freedom? Freedom is existence without coercion, exploitation, and domination. For some this means to live in a society and community with absolutely no government. For others it means creating a life without both the state and capitalism, in which human affairs are directed by all people equally. Also, As free people we can, should, and will govern ourselves through direct democratic processes in our communities and workplaces. We will organize in both the workplace and community and efforts to bring about social change. We recognize the many different kinds of anarchism and that not everyone believes in the traditional thought of bringing about revolution through violence, but rather favor other strategies for obtaining liberation. Being this, we also favor the non-violent anarchist who participate in militant direct action and disobedience, while simultaneously building non-hierarchical and self-managing organizations that will bring revolution and an end to capitalism from the bottom up rather than the top down.
What is anarchism? Anarchism is the political philosophy of people seeking a society in which all individuals have the greatest choice in the way they live their lives. Therefore, we work towards the creation of a global network of communities formed by voluntary agreements based on co-operation and respect for the freedom of others. We oppose all forms of oppression, including sexism, racism, religious intolerance, discrimination on the basis of sexuality, class structures, the governing of one person by another and any other form of authoritarianism or hierarchy that might happen along. Therefore, we support the empowerment of individuals and communities working towards freedom, we support the genuine resistance to authority. We are not the slightest bit interested in those who merely seek to replace one authoritarian system with another. Some of us like olives, some of us don't.
What is the State? The State is this organized bureaucracy. It is the police department. It is the Army, the Navy. It is the prison system, the courts, and what have you. This is the State -- it is a repressive organization. But the state -- and gee, well, you know, you've got to have the police, because if there were no police, look at what you'd be doing to yourselves -- you'd be killing each other if there were no police! But the reality is the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where it is split between those who have and those who don’t.
It is important in the community that we develop organizations which, while always engaging in educational activities, also develops federations of groups which can begin to replace the current capitalist structures. These groups or collectives might begin with projects like media, alternative schools, libraries, cultural centers, and organic food production. Current examples of this approach are numerous and include Food Not Bombs, Micro-radio stations, and the numerous info shops. Such a reconstructive approach both challenges the existing system even as it brings forth a new.
Usually the word “anarchy” is associated with another word. That word is “chaos.” This is the traditional view of anarchism as a whole by the masses of people who don’t understand the ideas of the true anarchists, the men and women who fight for absolute freedom from oppression and all forms of hatred.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Life is existence when it feels worth waking up for in the morning. Life is written about in epic poetry, love songs, Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets; survival is treated in medical textbooks, urban planning reports, and ergonomics presentations. Life is glorious, heartbreaking, extravagant. Survival, without life, is ridiculous, burdensome, absurd.
Liberty is freedom from sexism, racism, religious persecution, and all ways of hatred and oppression. Liberty is written about in the United States Constitution. Liberty is happiness, a way of life, utopia. Survival, without Liberty, is pointless and suicidal at best.
Happiness is what makes you continue on with your life. It is seeing your family members, your friends. Happiness is written about in almost every novel or book you will come across in your lifetime. Survival, without Happiness, is a state of never-ending depression and let downs.
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The Dead Hand of the Past
Those who cannot forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Remember how differently time passed when you were twelve years old? One summer was a whole lifetime, and each day passed like a month does for you now. For everything was new: each day held experiences and emotions that you had never encountered before, and by the time that summer was over you had become a different person. Perhaps you felt a wild freedom then that has since deserted you: you felt as if anything could happen, as if your life could end up being virtually anything at all. Now, deeper into that life, it doesn't seem so unpredictable. The things that were once new and transforming have long since lost their freshness and danger, and the future ahead of you seems to have already been determined by your past.
It is thus that each of us is dominated by history: the past lies upon us like a dead hand, guiding and controlling as if from the grave. At the same time as it gives the individual a conception of herself, an "identity," it piles weight upon her that she must fight to shake off if she is to remain light and free enough to continue reinventing her life and herself. It is the same for the artist: even the most challenging innovations eventually become crutches and clichs. Once an artist has come up with one good solution for a creative problem, it is hard for her to break free of it to conceive of other possible solutions. That is why most great artists can only offer a few really revolutionary ideas: they become trapped by the very systems they create, just as these systems trap those who come after. It is hard to do something entirely new when one finds oneself up against a thousand years of painting history and tradition. And this is the same for the lover, for the mathematician and the adventurer: for all, the past is an adversary to action in the present, an ever-increasing force of inertia that must be overcome. It is the same for the radical, too.
Conventional wisdom has it that a knowledge of the past is indispensable in the pursuit of freedom and social change. But today's radical thinkers and activists are no closer to changing the world for their knowledge of past philosophies and struggles; on the contrary, they seem mired in ancient methods and arguments, unable to apprehend what is needed in the present to make things happen. Their place in the tradition of struggle has trapped them in a losing battle, defending positions long useless and outmoded; their constant references to the past not only render them incomprehensible to others, but also prevent them from referencing what is going on around them. Let's consider what it is about history that makes it so paralyzing. In the case of world history, it is the exclusive, anti-subjective nature of the thing: History (with a capital "H") is purportedly seen by the objective eye of science, as if "from above;" it demands that the individual value her impressions and experiences less than the official Truth about the past. But it is not just official history that paralyzes us, it is the very idea of the past itself.
Try thinking of the world as including all past and future time as well as present space. An individual can at least hope to have some control over that part of the world which is in the future; but the past only acts on her, she can never act back upon it. If she thinks of the world [whether that "world" consists of her life, or human history] as consisting of mostly future, proportionately speaking, she will see herself as fairly free to choose her own destiny and exert her will upon the world. But if her world-view places most of the world in the past, that puts her in a position of powerlessness: not only is she unable to act upon or create most of world in which she exists, but what future does remain is already largely predetermined by the effects of events past.
Who, then, would want to be a meaningless fleck near the end of the eight thousand year history of human civilization? Conceiving of the world in such a way can only result in feelings of futility and predetermination. We must think of the world differently to escape this trap—we must instead place our selves and our present day existence where they rightfully belong, in the center of our universe, and shake off the dead weight of the past. Time may well extend before and behind us infinitely, but that is not how we experience the world, and that is not how we must visualize it either, if we want to find any meaning in it. If we dare to throw ourselves into the unknown and unpredictable, to continually seek out situations that force us to be in the present moment, we can break free of the feelings of inevitability and inertia that constrain our lives—and, in those instants, step outside of history.
What does it mean to step outside of history? It means, simply, to step into the present, to step into yourself. Time is compressed to the moment, space is concentrated to one point, and the unprecedented density of life is exhilarating. The rupture that occurs when you shake off everything that has come before is not just a break with the past—you are ripping yourself out of the past-future continuum you had built, hurling yourself into a vacuum where anything can happen and you are forced to remake yourself according to a new design. It is a sensation as terrifying as it is liberating, and nothing false or superfluous can survive it. Without such purges, life becomes so choked up with the dead and dry that it is nearly unlivable—as it is for us, today.
None of this is to say that we should condone the deliberate lies of those who would rewrite history, with the intention of trapping us even deeper in ignorance and passivity than we are now. But the solution is not to combat their supposed "objective truths" with more claims to Historical Truth—for it is not more past we need, to weigh upon us, but more attention to today. We must not allow them to make our lives and thoughts revolve only around what has been; instead we must realize that it is up to us to reveal what is true about the present and what is possible from here.
So what can we embrace in place of History? Myth, perhaps. Not the obscurest superstitions and holy lies of religion and capitalism, but the democratic myths of storytellers. Myth makes no claims to false impartiality or objective Truth, it does not purport to offer an exhaustive explanation of the cosmos. Myth belongs to everyone, as it is made and remade by everyone, so it can never be used by one group to lord itself over another. And it does not paralyze—instead of trapping people in the chains of cause and effect, myth makes them conscious of the enormous range of possibilities that their own lives have to offer; instead of making them feel hopelessly small in a vast and uncaring universe, it centers the world again on their own experiences and ambitions as represented by those of others. When we tell tales around the fire at night of heroes and heroines, of other struggles and adventures and societies, we are offering each other examples of just how much living is possible. There may be those who will threaten that the whole world will unravel if we stop concerning ourselves with the past and think only of the present. Let it unravel, then! A lot of good history has done us until now, repeating and repeating itself. Let's break out of it once and for all, before we too tread the circular path that our ancestors have worn so bare. Let's make the leap out of History, and make the moments of our daily lives the world we live in and care about—only then can we make it into a place that has meaning for us. The present belongs to those who are able to seize it, to recognize all that it is and can be!
~Text by Nadia C. of CrimethInc. Site at CrimethInc.com~
Eight Things You Can Do To Get Active
1. Pay attention to where and how you spend your money. Is your money going to support companies that don't care about you? Are they destroying the environment, killing animals, treating your friends who work for them like shit? Are they trying as hard as they can to sell you a product that gives you cancer? Are their advertisements designed to manipulate you, to make you feel insecure or make their product seem like more than it really is? You don't need to give those people your money! For that matter—do you buy many things that you don't need? Soft drinks and junk food at convenience stores, for example? Do you end up spending a lot of money whenever you want to relax and have a good time? There are a thousand things you and your friends can do that are fun, creative, and don't cost anything (having intense discussions, exploring hidden parts of your town, making music—instead of drinking at bars or going to movies and restaurants) just as there a thousand ways you can eat and live more cheaply (Food Not Bombs, building furniture instead of buying it, living in big houses with a bunch of friends). Once you experiment a bit, you'll probably find that you enjoy life a lot more when you're not always shelling out cash for it.
2. Now that you spend less, you can work less, too! Think about how much more time that gives you to do other things. Not only will it be easier to do things that help you spend less, like volunteering at Food Not Bombs (the less you work, the more time you have to make sure you don't need to), you'll also be able to do all the things you never had time for before: you can travel, exercise, spend more time with your friends and lovers. When it's sunny and beautiful outside, you can go out and enjoy it!
3. And you'll have time to do the other things you need to do to take back control of your life and your world. First, start reading. It doesn't really matter what, so long as it makes you think about things and gives you new ideas of your own. Read novels about human beings struggling against their society, like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye or George Orwell's 1984 or Joseph Heller's Catch 22; read the beautiful, dreamers' prose of Jeanette Winterson or Henry Miller. Read history: learn about the Spanish revolution in the 1930's, where whole cities were run by the people who lived in them, rather than by governments; learn about the labor union struggle in the USA, or the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in the 1960's. Read philosophy, read about environmental issues, read vegan cookbooks and underground magazines and comics and everything you can get your hands on. Here's a hint: if there's a university in your town, you can probably get a membership for about $10 a year—and most libraries include videos, too!
4. Reading isn't the only way you can expand your horizons and clarify your ideas. Talk to people about the things that interest you, arguing when you don't agree, so you'll get to know your own beliefs better. Write to the people who are doing the 'zines you like, discuss and debate things with them, ask them for directions to find out more about your interests. Try writing about your own ideas, and sharing that with people, until you feel confident doing this. Travel to different places, try to learn about other cultures and communities, so you'll have more than one perspective on the world and you can start to imagine what the world is like through other people's eyes.
5. Now you'll know what you want, and you can go about getting it. Seek out other people and groups with similar goals, and figure out how to support them or participate in what they're doing. Maybe you can copy fliers and give them out at shows; maybe you can organize benefit shows for organizations you want to support (women's shelters, radical bookshops, local groups protesting against the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal or lobbying for protection of the environment). Maybe there are public protests and demonstrations going on that you want to be part of. Try to help find ways to make these more challenging and fun than just a bunch of people holding signs; everyone's so bored with doing that that there must be a more effective and exciting way to go about it.
6. You can start your own projects, as well, you know. If there's no Food Not Bombs in
your area, get a group of people together and find some local businesses that will donate their leftover food. If there's something fucked up at your high school or college or workplace, try organizing a walkout to force the "authorities" to do something about it... and to show everyone that those "authorities" only have as much power as we let them have. If the main street of your town lacks life and excitement, try organizing an unexpected festival to take place in the middle of it one weekend. Shake up everyone's lives and expectations, shake them out of their apathy and boredom so they'll start thinking about things. Establish networks with other people who are also interested in having an effect on the world around them, so you can help each other do this.
7. Through all of this, don't stop questioning yourself and your assumptions. Try to see through all the social programming you've received throughout your life: consider how gender roles constrain the way you act, how your own relationships with people reproduce the same hierarchical order that your fighting in mainstream society. We're not going to really change anything unless we can create new ways of living and interacting, new values that show themselves in the way we treat each other. Show your friends how much you care about them. Consider doing things you never thought you should or could do: dancing, singing, admitting things that you've been taught to be ashamed of.
8. Now look to the future. How can you stay involved with these things as you get older? How can you construct your life so you will always be free to do what you want to? Talk to people older than you who haven't given up and gone back to the daily grind of eat-work-sleep-watch TV. With a little input from them and a lot of resolve on your part, you can maintain your activities and your lifestyle as long as you want to. Idealism, adventure, and resistance don't have to be reserved for youth alone. History is filled with men and women who refused to compromise or calm down, who went all out from the cradle to the grave. They are the artists, the leaders, the heroes and heroines even people from the mainstream respect. We can all have lives like theirs, if we're brave and idealistic enough.
If all of us demand control over what we do and what goes on around us, if all of us do what we can to make life exciting and fair for everyone, things are bound to change. A lot of people know that we don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but persuade themselves that it's hopeless to try to improve things because they're afraid to commit themselves, to take any risks. But it's that lack of ambition that is the biggest risk of all—for what if you do nothing, and nothing happens, and we lose our chance to make this world the paradise it should be? Don't be shy or timid—there's nothing more exciting than taking an active role in the world around you, and there's nothing more worthwhile!
this message brought to you by the CrimethInc. Special Forces
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What Are You Rambling About?
I expect many of you to not understand this “letter” or “booklet”. But everyone doesn’t understand something once in a while.
Viewed with one disposition, history has so far been a horrible accumulation of oppression and suffering. Viewed with another disposition, however, history has chronicled humans discovering their own finer potentials and together mounting heroic offensives to attain them -- against monarchy, feudalism, slavery, Jim Crow racism, apartheid, sexual subjugation, second class citizenship, sexism, heterosexism, dictatorship, one party rule, capitalism, and coordinatorism -- and seeking, in their place, equity, justice, and freedom.
The “New World Order” as it shall be known may not work, but perhaps it shall. And what if it does? Then peace and prosperity may actually become reality, and not some fairy tale we hear in the ads on television and in magazine.
My history teacher speaks about the Five Cultural Institutions: Government, Religion, Education, Economics, and Family. All of these institutions are necessary to have a culture, a society, that will function.
Anarchy, traditionally speaking, calls for an end of all government. But what if government could function properly, without instating the beliefs of hatred and ethnical oppression on a broad scale? If such was a possibility, society could better.
All things that go for the better eventually go for the worse. Such is a saying used by many. But, is that the truth? Sure, in some cases people screw up and things become tragedies instead of revolutions…but this isn’t everyday life.
“The End of the World”
When the world ends, white dust will fill the air like the curtain at the end of a play. A rain of desperate bodies will fall from the windows of burning buildings, drumming the concrete below. Men with splinters in their eyes will stumble through streets choked with debris; women clutching babies will pick through the rubble and tear out their hair. Our Generation will go to its grave shouting its last words into a cell phone.
Or perhaps it will arrive as a thief in the night, step by invisible step. Factories will disappear overseas and corporations will vanish into thin air, taking jobs and retirement funds with them. Cities dying from the inside out will spread like ringworm, the shrapnel spray of suburbs slicing through forest and field. Wars will reach from continent to continent and neighborhood to neighborhood - the terrorists won’t make peace against the horrorists who enforce it at any price, who keep trying to impose harmony between oppressed and oppressor with fear and firepower. Tides will rise with global warming, acid rains fall with the last of the redwoods, computer systems crash with stocks and stock markets…until one day everyone has cancer.
Or else nothing will happen at all, business will continue as usual: prison guards pace concrete tombs, psychiatrists contemplate madness, demons glare from the eyes of ministers, consumers are bought and sold in the marketplace. It’s after the end of the world, whispers the homeless man on the corner - don’t you know that yet?
Others, mysterious and knowing, who have held themselves aloof from the discussion until now, finally interject: “Which world?”
The Other Side of the Argument
So when states and governments all over the world are finally overthrown in the Great successful Revolution yet to come, people will be able to come together to create a new, free society based on anarchist principles, realising their desires. The rivers will run clear and forests will grow again without the capitalist threat. Grim and anonymous cities will become places we can actually live in. Tedious useless work would become redundant, and room made for play and productive activities we enjoy. Crime could be reduced drastically by a return to living in real communities where people look after each other.
But this is a silly utopia and anarchists are hopeless idealistic dreamers who must be totally miserable when actually confronted with reality. Ah but no. Anarchists certainly have a vision of what life could be like, and we try to live it here and now, in many different ways.
The organization of this society is quite blatantly showing its flaws. Many people here are dissatisfied with the way things are run, from ecological destruction to the misery and monotony of daily life. Sitting in front of a telly in a run-down block of council flats without any inviting green spaces to sit down and maybe finally get to know your neighbor. Many will not embrace the lies anymore and also realize the futility of voting. But a general mood of cynicism, resignation and apathy has been created.
Anarchists want to get past this, encourage to speak of our dreams and desires and provide examples of what life could be. We put our revolutionary ideas into practice in everyday life.
Creating anarchy is helping your neighbors, stealing from your workplace, growing your own food, throwing a brick at a policeman, organizing a stamp-collectors' club, baby-sitting for your friend, talking back, phoning in sick, not being what's expected of you. Anarchy is mutual aid, cooperation and not leaving your life to others to organize it.
We don't see the mythical Revolution as something that will just happen suddenly one great day after we've polished some ideology long enough. Revolution is a process of individuals and collectives gradually reclaiming what's been taken from us.
By the hundreds of thousands, peasants organized in the MST ('Movement of the landless') in Brazil are squatting land to live on and work. In the LA riots a few years ago, the poor revolted, looting and making their communities no-go areas for the police. In 1994, the Zapatistas liberated many villages in Chiapas, Mexico, and their struggle against free trade agreements which had disastrous effects on the large peasant population has become international with the Encuentros, gatherings of groups and individuals from all over the world fighting corporate powers.
But anarchy is about all the small scale resistance as well, about individuals refusing standards, ignoring authority and coming together to improve their lives. Everyday, we can experiment with and learn the ways of dealing with each other without leaders and hierarchical structures and with mutual respect, building the world we want now - in our relationships, our interactions and our resistance.
Closing Statement from Yours Truly
“A sociologist is an authority on crowds like a policeman is an authority on people.”
-Bill Buford, Among the Thugs
You know what anarchy is, I’m sure of it. But do you understand it? Knowing and understanding something are two totally different things. “I know that Germany is a Federal Republic. But what does Federal Republic mean?”
Do you believe that one person has the power to change life as we all know it? To change the structures of beliefs and values we currently possess as a world.
This paper or disk can be mass produced. However, Freedom cannot be mass produced, nor attained by merely an agreement. Freedom has to be forged, person by person, action by action, object by object if it comes to that, putting each one through the fire of reinterpretation and recreation.
We must reform. Watch as fixed facts become negotiable, as new means appear under your hands. Now go out an repeat this process with everything else.
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