RANT 16
Global Uprising
?¨The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.?Æ
-Steve Biko
?¨L??amour est l??enfant de la libert?à.?Æ
?¨If suffering was all that was needed for liberation, most of the universe would have reached liberation eons ago.?Æ
-Siddhartha Gautama
I am going to say a few things about the global village and what will be happening in it in the next few years. As Hakim Bey (a.k.a. H*k*m B*y) predicted back in the 80??s, the focus of human liberation has shifted from a right-wing/left-wing dualism towards an understanding and resistance of Global Capital. The only reason why capitalism is still around is because it is truly more stupid (read ?´DUMB??) then Marxism or fascism. That stupidity has kept it alive long after people in the other stupid systems overthrew them. Maybe it is no longer correct to even call it capitalism?ñmaybe we should call it Mediatism?(or DUMB?) This is the ?´information age??, after all. And we are all just commodities for sale on the global market who only relate to other beings primarily through the use of media. Media is the tool by which authority (parenthetically known as DUMB with shades of DOOM) shapes your perceptions and thus fosters your obedience, for even in your little sub-cultural explorations of rebellion and revolution, you are obeying. Under the influence and sway of the media, revolution is just another buzz word, another image?ñanother object that is DUMBed-down, commodified and sold to you. Revolution is provided, much like drugs and religion, as an accepted escape route for those who wish to be different. But wishful thinking amounts to not a Damned Thing when you don??t understand the images you are playing with. Revolution?ñthe word itself should clue you into what is going on since it means ?´going around in circles??. (How DUMB! How aneristically orderly!)
So what is there to be done? What can be done? What will happen? These are questions that everyone must answer for themselves, not because I want to cop-out and be lazy (although there is that), but because one of you out there may hit upon a brilliant idea which could be obscured if you listened to only my ideas. But here goes some of mine:
First off, we need to trash the DUMB idea of revolution. The State and the Media have incorporated it into themselves as an escape pressure valve. Revolution will only get you co-opted or killed, while your ideas will be bought and sold forever after. I call that co-optation the ?¨Che Guevara T-Shirt Effect?Æ. Maybe it would be more useful to think about our everyday situations in an ?´immediatist?? sense. Revolution sounds too stagnant and if you look at revolutions that have succeeded, you will find that they have become institutions which impose only more forms of authority. Revolution is only believed in nowadays by some Marxists, Latin American malcontents, and a few scattered anarchists who should know better. The rest of society finds it much more useful to approach revolution as a commodity on the global market. Look around and see the Che Guevara T-Shirt Effect everywhere. ?¨Buy the shirts and the bumper stickers and the books and think of yourself as a revolutionary. Yeah! Take up the lifestyle!?Æ Che Guevara should come back from the dead and beat all of these people with a bat for such stupidity. Fortunately for them, I haven??t learned how to conjure up Mr. Guevara yet. (But I will soon enough.) In the face of this, a better form of resistance would be to learn to make your own damn clothing?ñwrite your own damned tracts of resistance?ñand set fire to your damned cars. You may as well set them on fire as someone else will if you don??t.
Secondly, since the State/Corporations?ñthe Authorities (Masters of DUMB) have as much power as they need to stomp on any real resistance, it may be best to keep expressions of uprising out of the ?´military?? sphere. Don??t try to kid anyone. You??ll end up shot. Or worse. Since we live in an information society in which all the motivations are caused and controlled by the Media??s DUMB control over images, then maybe it would be tactically wiser to subvert those images. 90 percent of the American economy is not related to production, it is related to creating and managing money??the most potent image we have. Operation Mindfuck was aiming at this sort of imagery (and therefore thought) subversion before it became lost in perpetual Discordian internet meanders.
You can say to yourself that the Authority, the State, the Corporations, the System will eat itself, but don??t kid yourself that way. The system never eats itself and never will. It eats all of us, my friends. Maybe you will understand what I mean if I say it like this: The System eats all of us; its selves. We are part of the system. Although we are not the Authority that sets up the system. We benefit from the goods and services that it provides us with. We take comfort under its umbrella. I wonder how many of you out there would run in horror from a real uprising if that uprising meant that you would not be able to have caf?à lattes every morning, unless you made them yourselves.
I use the word UPRISING for a reason. That reason is that it expresses a direction from which there is no return, regardless of whether or not it is ultimately successful. It leaves us all changed. Whereas a revolution only succeeds in changing the people assigned to the roles. Take a look at history to see this played out. The Protestant revolution became another oppressive institution like the Roman Church. The Soviet revolution started out as an uprising which almost succeeded but once ?´revolution?? became justification for the new revolutionary State, it was all over. There are more such examples. (Such as Discordians getting caught up in being serious about Discordianism.) The happiness and the potential embodied in uprisings are the reasons why people have them in the first place. Once that energy becomes structured into another dogma, it??s all over. So far, the only true uprisings have been the ones that were crushed before they had a chance to fossilize. Of course it doesn??t have to be this way, if we use some intelligence.
And speaking of Mindfucking, don??t do it if you are unwilling to have it done to yourself. There is a lot of talk and theory related to ideas of mindfucking and culture jamming and whatever else things like that are called. But how do you yourself know that you are free and that your mind is open? Another thing I have a problem with is the fact that many so-called Discordians spend most of their time trying to out do each other as opposed to bringing mindfuck to the general population for which it was intended. It is time to hijack the meanings and images of our media and society as if it were the last thing we do. There must be as many different types of mindfuck as there are mindfuckers. There must be as many different types of Discordianism as there are Discordians. It is this potential abundance of ideas, meaning, and creativity which will expose as false the State and the Media??s monopoly on meaning due to its supposed ?´scarcity??.
In the ongoing global uprising there is, and there will be more, backlash and smack-down from the State- the collective enterprise of DUMB and DOOM. But because of the vastness of the State and its relatives, not to mention the shear madness of bureaucracies, there exists many wide open spaces for us to create different zones of being. To not take advantage of this now, while you can, would be stupid. The time may be coming when the State and its Media will take over the vast spaces, and you will be left with no room, except to slit your own throat in despair. Stock up on autonomy and liberty now, while you can. (It may also help to stock up on fetish gear, while you can.)
It is also necessary to recognize that your ideas and aspects of your part in the uprising will probably be co-opted by the Media. So make sure that subversion is hidden in those ideas and aspects, like a virus, so that the Media unwittingly becomes the carrier for further uprising outbreaks. Find ways to use the Che-Guevara-T-Shirt-Effect to your advantage. Coat your Golden Apples in sweet DUMBness, if you must. As Discordians, we are pirates that hijack other thoughts and religions/philosophies, we board all cultural ships and steer them towards different destinations, if we don??t sink them. Global Capital (the most complex system DUMB has ever created) has created a great network for spreading our disease of free-thought. If Discordians are cultural and social parasites, then we must recognize our value by infecting the entire Media network with subversion of control and the stench of free-thought.
Friends, it is time to become violently happy. The ecstasy of uprising is catching on like a virus. It will not stop until either DUMB crushes it entirely or DUMB is dissolved entirely. But freedom means you can act as if DUMB is on its way out. Just remember the possible consequences of doing so while DUMB and its relatives remain a reality. It is time to be violently happy, not stupidly happy. Violent happiness is like dancing around freely in the streets but with a gas mask and a billy-club at your side ready to defend yourself. Remember that DUMBness ensures the long-term survival of the State, the Media, and the Corporations, but that DOOM could afflict them just as readily and easily as they try to inflict it upon us. Nobody is safe from DOOM, but we can thrive in that realization and use it to our advantage. Violent happiness will keep the DUMB away while it may attract people who once subscribed to DUMB. Violent happiness is the pre-emptive strike upon DUMB. There is fun-work to be done. Let there be as many expressions of global uprising as there are people! Get to it! And don??t forget that Eris made it all happen this way.
(Aftermath 34th, 3169 / November 22nd, 2003)
