Redoubt

Build it up, build it strong. Make it impregnable. That’s what they said. They said the fortress of bourgeois oppression would never fall. The workers would never be free, and the people would never be repaid for all the suffering they have experienced. Since the start of America’s financial crisis we have seen the beginning of something beautiful. The empire is falling! It is become old and frail, and the old guard is seizing it won’t be to long before it dies. This is a beautiful time indeed. We could see in our time the end to the injustice of the empire!
Do not underestimate it. A creature in its death throws can be capable of vicious things. Do not stand to close to it. Watch it die with pride. Help it along its way. The creature is in pain. This is a mercy killing. We have come to put it down. The old documents of its foundation are long expired, and irrelevant. Our times could witness a new one. A brand new document, a brand new world, brand new lives for everyone.
We see its insidious claws recoiling back everywhere. Places where it was thought to have dug in all the way, now they are being pulled out. I say to the people all around; if it has its claws in your home, your life, pull them out. The fist of the beast is weak. It grew to fat, and now is exploding at the seems. What a glorious sight! Free from its tyranny. Freedom in our times. Help strike another blow at it.
Tell the police that they are no longer needed. They have looked out for the state so long that they forgot about the people. Now it is our turn to forget about them. Disarm! Stand Down! Leave us in peace! They said they were here to protect the peace, but they were there to crush our spirits. Go away Police! The people can protect the peace, and protect themselves.
Disband the Army. Sink the Navy. Trash the Air force. Disarm the country! Disarm the world! No more killing! The Redoubt is about to crumble, and all of its perverse institutions are going with it. Hop on board it will be a hell of a ride.
Have you ever scene the water running down the gutter and been jealous of its momentum? Well we could see the people flood with a similar momentum in our times. Do not bail out giant companies; do not bail out big banks. You know they were not there for you when you needed them. Why help them. End corporate privilege. You know they ought to be afraid. The one thing they had tried to use to oppress the people for so long is becoming worthless. Money devalued. Inflation could spell their end. I greet it with happiness.
No more banks, no more multi-national corporations. Let us burn it all to the ground and start anew. Liberty only costs one thing, and that is resolve, if you resolve to take it back at any cost than you can have it back. Burn down the banks! Close the town halls! Evict the government! It is an occupying force and unwelcome. Eliminate greed. Stifle intolerance. Reject jingoism. Trash the superstores! Torch the capital!

Women, Explosives, and Plastic Manufactures

Night and day a man wants either a good woman or a good beer. A man wants someone or something to escape into. Oh, but women, what a licentious vice! Maybe if there were more like the lovely Louise Michel, than we would all be better off. In general women can become the bane of revolutions.
It is not their fault, as I have cited earlier there are the Louise Michels of the world, and every revolution could use a woman like that. She had more spirit than most of the men. Oh there was Rosa Luxembourg too, she was another brilliant radical. These are not the women young girls are taught to look up to or respect. The country lacks good revolutionary images for most people in fact. Children aren’t raised with images of Robespierre, or the Marque de Sade, because of all the removing of the heads of the bourgeois. I personally wouldn’t be bothered too much seeing their heads roll.
See the Barbie and Ken Doll image is what they sell to children. It’s a real rip off. Barbie is plastic and blonde and if she gets to close to an open flame she will melt. Now trust me, I may not have the best taste in women, but I know something that should be pretty universally accepted, if it melts it ain’t good.
Lovely Louise Michel on the other hand was famous for her skill with a Molotov. As lovely as she was violent, rallying the communards as the vile Theirs Army was exterminating the beautiful commune. What I would give for a beautiful woman who spoke fine French, and was handy with a Molotov cocktail.
Instead the women I see these days are enslaved. They are told fairy tales, and as soon as it’s too late they figure out what is going on. Fairy princess Barbie becomes Xanax-Shopahollic Barbie. She gets knocked up by some hyper muscular jock, and slowly her beauty fades. First from the childbirth, then the pills, next the abuse and finally pretty plastic Barbie is sagged and ugly. Barbie melted. Ken is fat, and their children repeat the same cycle. What a shame.
At least Barbie landed a man with a big…. Wallet. Which won’t work so well after the years of binge drinking and that thing he picked up from that hooker that one time he has meant to tell her about. The beautiful American dream. It puts a warm feeling in your stomach doesn’t it? Or maybe that’s just an ulcer?

On the Rights of Man

The word right is thrown around to easily; we need to look at these things as obligations.
You have an obligation to be free. Never should you give this up. Not for any reason, freedom is worth more than any amount of money, or any lies about security. If you are not free than you are not really alive. If you do not want to be free, please drink a cup of draino from under the sink. Giving up freedom is the same as consent to dying.
Next, we have an obligation to act in such a way so as never to exploit another person. If you do exploit another person, we’ll find you. The tradition of the ultra-rich and the bourgeois has been to profit from the exploitation of other. We want your heads. When our time comes we suggest you take your own lives before we get our chance to repay you in kind for all of the blood sweat and tears you used to furnish your wealthy estates.
We are also obliged to share our knowledge with others. A high price will be levied on the war apologists and media propagandists who have been lying to the people. All that we know should be shared with the masses, it is their right. For all of those who have lied to the people, I have a grand punishment in store. We’ll turn you over to the mob. They’ll do worse to you than anything we could even imagine. I wonder what poor Bill the factory worker, whose boss decided to lay him off rather than reduce his already usurious pay, will do? Will it feel as awful as he did when his wife left him and took the kids since he could no longer provide?
Unity is one more thing that as free men we must establish. We must care for and assist others. United firmly together we can resist the lies. Unity can stop consumerism, exploitation, and hate. It is an awfully heavy burden, but together we can carry it. If you spread the weight of a heavy burden among enough people it doesn’t feel so bad. Unity is our obligation to protect, and it will be our basis of power.
The final obligation is that to resist oppression. Oppression can take many forms. You must resist them all. No one is free while anyone is oppressed. Classism, Sexism, Racism, and all forms of inequality must fall! Resist!
(Unfortunately no bourgeois were hurt during the writing of this document.)

The Farmer

I watched a particularly gruesome spectacle. A starving stray cat was caught by a farmer. The farmer was full of excitement; he had trained his prized pig to kill. There would be a show. He placed the cat into the pigpen. The terrible beast charged at the cat. It was sickening. The cat fought as hard as it could, but in the end the pig overwhelmed the poor thing. The starving creature’s life was extinguished to the cheers of dumb hicks. The pig marched for his master full of pride, and boasting its victory.
The next night the farmer held a banquet. He slaughtered his prized pig to feed his esteemed guests. The meal was had in the best of spirits all commenting on the quality of such a fine pig. The pig was picked clean and the bones and leftovers mixed in the trough for the other young pigs.
The moral of the story is, a good pig, loyal to his master, and proud of his work, can also be a good dinner for his master too. So pigs, keep killing for your masters, entertain them, and when they are bored with you they’ll serve you up for dinner. You end up just like all the starving cats you’ve killed. Alone and bloody on the slaughterhouse floor.

Nihilism is not always Defeatism

Have you ever wondered if the earth was exploding would you walk into the flames or run from them? I myself would run head first into them. If the whole world was burning I would just like to go to ashes with it. I’ve been in chains long enough to say anything else seems like freedom. My one dream is to see this Modern Rome burning. It may be hate now, but it could have been something more. Isn’t that what one says to a former lover?
No, I would really not prefer to compromise. I just want to see it burn. The capital of the empire is a city of decadence and privilege. The authorities spend their time in splendor, while the poor starve on the streets. Let us take up the gauntlet, and burn it to the ground. I’ll rest easy when it is in ashes. Use the wealth of its excess junkies to feed the poor.
So, call it hate, call if blasphemy, but we’ll never be free as long as the capital stands the beacon to tyranny around the world. America, hero to despots and vanquisher of revolutionaries.

Reactionary Rhetoric will not stop the stem of change.

Reactionary Rhetoric will not stop the stem of change. When Imperialist nations forcibly take control of other nations and topple sovereign powers I get worried.
And this is why I campaign against the human rights abuse inherent in capitalist “free-market society.”
Socialism is humanism. The old propaganda clearly has blinded you. The erasure of civil liberties that you talk about are all in perspective. I know you probably want to talk about the Soviet Union. They were the evil communist specter haunting the “free world” after the fall of Nazi Germany. One old conservative argument was, “Communism? Do you remember the bread line?” I would have to say in response to that absurdity, I grew up poor, and if you know anything about America, this means I was destined for failure, but that bitterness aside, I remember waiting outside the food pantry in a line. Waiting for hand outs, charity, ironically, since capitalism doesn’t favor the poor, we had to turn to the Catholic Church’s food pantry just to subside. Oh so different from government sponsored food depots. Did the soviet government drastically reduce its citizen’s rights? In contrast to the myth, the people of the Soviet Union faired much better under Lenin than the Czar. In pre-soviet Russia the people were subjected to the rule of an absolutist monarch. So, the Soviet Union emancipated the people from the twentieth century feudalism of the Czarist Empire. In fact if you had checked your facts, the status of most pre-revolutionary countries is drastically lower in comparison to their post-revolutionary state. Consider the drastic growth in literacy since the Cuban revolution emancipated the people of Cuba. So, before you lie about the ulterior motives of social revolutionary movements, please take a page from the anthropology handbook, please extract yourself from orientalist perspective, and examine these countries through the scientific lens, and consider the relative growth in overall development, and happiness after the movement.
The regime of G. W. Bush and his neo-fascist conservative cronies was a terrible watershed. We saw a side of America none of us ever wanted to see. It was the era of the wholesale raffling off of our freedom for the perpetuation of capitalism. The invention of preemptive war for the benefit of capitalist development. Invading third world countries to exploit their resources, and regulate in our favor through military expenditure the rate of which we receive their products. This is old world imperialism all over again. We are the new Rome. This is not something to be proud of.
Some say democracy will fall to a flag and a cross. This will be our fault and our burden after accepting for too long the injustice of this Fourth Reich.
I believe in people’s rights. The state doesn’t know what is best for you. The empire doesn’t care about individuals. Only free from the tyranny of states and governments can we make choices that truly matter.
The Bourgeois Elitists are trying to exploit the third world with as much tyrannical oppressions our suffering poor feel. In fact the mission to spread capitalist-democracy to the world is clearly an attempt to bring the entire world under the heel of these financial monsters.
So, in all of America’s wars of aggression, its liberal use of weapons of mass destruction of civilians, and its insidious use of capitalist trade sanctions to impoverish and starve the fight out of its enemies, someone can honestly believe that more people are helped by this blood thirsty super power than hurt. I think Agent Orange, the atomic bomb, and the obsession with napalm are enough to prove otherwise.
Sadam hurt a lot of people. How many people did he help? Every story has two sides. What happened to the status of women in Iraq before and after the imperialist violation of their country’s national sovereignty? In the post-Sadam Iraq women have been regulated to a de-secularized space. In pre invasion Iraq they were not required to hijab, and now they must. Also they were much more involved in education. Not to apologize for the despotic treatment of so many, but to consider the pain the people have felt under our horrific occupation, I think we can see which is worse.
CNN is not an accurate source of media information, it is state run and sponsored.
Water boarding is not the problem, but torture is. No form of torture can be tolerated! It is the obliteration of human rights! Any country that liberally engages in torture for any reason signs the end to its people’s freedom. We know how much further than water boarding it had gone. Transparency is democracy and anything else is a sham.
What if your child was picked up by the secret service, and a confession was extracted from them. They may die, but according to their murderers the secrets they found were enough to save millions. The Spanish inquisition used torture to justify the merciless murders of hundreds of thousands, because they believed differently. Our use of torture is no different. We are lying to ourselves if we pretend it is anything different.
Osama is a hero to many people. He defied a super power. He shook it to its core, and rocked its foundations. By falling two building’s he convinced the people that their rights were worth nothing. The people let the government engage in the most anti-democratic actions scene since the red scare, and these horrendous deeds were committed in the name of “national security”. If we got Osama, if we killed him or tortured him, we would vindicate everything he said. If we were not the evil empire before he attacked us, he made us show our real colors. We are the Fourth Reich now.
Conservatives might as well keep their heads buried in the sand, since they never seem to see far enough past their own lies anyway.
Emancipate the Proletariat! Together we can liberate humanity from the tyranny of capitalism! Verisimilitude.
~Jean Améry

The Explanation of My Personal Devotion to Cynicism

I can not pretend to be something I am not. The nature of wolves has always been that they are wolves, and the nature of myself, well I have always been a cynic. I learned it at a very young age. We know that the things we learn when we are young stick with us for a very long time. If we are told when we are young that we are a member of a lower class, and the system is manufactured for us to fail so as to reinforce its dogma of inequality, and preserve its status, we really take this to heart. I came to understand this far too young. I think it personally killed my childhood. Fuck my childhood.
I grew up in a town on the east coast. It wasn’t the nicest place today after a few years of relative calm it has a higher per capita murder rate than the states capital. Still, a child can adapt to any environment. My family lived in the projects. They were mass-produced low income housing for the poor. It seemed like a good idea to the designers of towns to house the poor somewhere out of sight in one place. I never understood why the projects were not more political. All that human misery in one place. When conservatives on their self-righteous bombast tell us that communism they try to invoke pictures of the bread lines. They say, “How awful it would be.” I actually remember going to the food pantry and waiting in line with my grandmother, since my mother always had to work to try to make just enough so that ends could meet, although the scales were not tipped in her favor. America has her bread lines too. Fuck the conservatives.
I can remember the first time I figured out that this country told me I wasn’t good enough. I had scored too well on the states standardized test they administered to children in the fourth grade. First, they called me to the office and accused me of cheating; they told me that poor kids weren’t supposed to do so well. They said, it wasn’t the poor’s place to think, or to do well. Eventually I believe my mother talked to them, and they decided I hadn’t cheated. I was shipped off to some brand new yuppie school in a rich town that needed to fill a poor child quota. I was a quota. Still not a person, and not even a child, they considered me a statistic that would improve their image. It was distasteful to say the least. The bus began at our town and then drove through all of the other towns. It was funny, it started at the poorest and least accepted and worked its way up. I made friends with a kid from the second town on the stop. Their town was the second poorest allowed in this school. Most of the people there did not talk to the poor kids. We were seen as charity cases or something. Fourth grade children conditioned by their bourgeois parents to hate the poor children already. Fuck the Bourgeois.
Eventually though, since the poor are weak, living off subsistence rations, and working yourself to exhaustion everyday can do that to you, the yuppie parents were able to find away to force the children from my town out of the school. They removed it from the bus stop. They said the children from our town were miscreants, and a liability to have on the bus. We may have been poor, but we were not stupid. It was a fancy way of saying that we were no longer welcome. The parents of our town went to the school, and protested vehemently, but the school pointed out, that they were well within their rights. The school said that it had not expelled our students, but just canceled the bus; any parents who wanted to drive their children to the school were free to do so. This was a loophole, since most of the people in our town did not own a car. We relied on the bus or train to get around. So, the parents left defeated. It was ok though, because it had proved one thing. The schools were owned by the bourgeois. Fuck the Schools.
I grew up more than a little bitter. Poverty ingrains on a child’s memory something terrible. He learns to envy or hate. Neither are very wonderful things. I see people drinking away their unhappiness, and I see them trying to forget their own inequality. I see them choking on the bitter pill everyday. Are we still in a recession? Wasn’t that just a fancy word for saying the rich were losing a little money for once? The poor spend every day in a great depression. Hunger is not new too them. The CEOs of banks will never understand this. The class gap is getting too far in this country. The thing the dirty fascist bourgeois slave drivers don’t seem to see is that it can only go so far. I think they should really try to close up the gap before it is too late for them. Do you remember reading about the French Revolution? Did privilege go too far? What did the people do? They baptized their country in blood. Is that what it takes? America soaked in the blood of the old guard to purify the people? I hope it wouldn’t come to this, but we know how stubborn they can be. Fuck the Old Guard.
America, what does it mean to a poor cynic who means nothing to it? In my heart the word makes me cringe. I think of torture, I think of lies, secret police, armed guards marching the street, and insatiable greed. I see a police officer walking the street and I wonder how many people he has hurt. How many lives he has destroyed to secure the peace and security of the state. Do the police know that when they kill they are still committing murder? Just because America says it’s alright doesn’t make it true. Two men preaching very different philosophies came to a very similar conclusion on murder. Kant said that act as if each thing you did would be universally allowed for everyone to do the same. Sade said the same thing about the murder, that if he chose to kill he would have to allow for the possibility that he himself would be killed. So, the police, if they kill, rape, steal, or hurt others they are creating a situation where they themselves have made killing, rape, stealing, and pain universal maxims. I don’t want that world. Fuck the police.
What can we do to make the world a better place? We can stop the police from hurting people, can stop the bourgeois from exploiting people, we can stop the schools from lying to our children, tell the conservatives to shut up, give children of the poor back their childhood, or tear down the old guard. I like that last one. Death to tyranny! Then again you could stay home. You could buy their shit. You can listen to what they say, and believe every word. Just going about your life everyday. In that case, Fuck You.

Pride

On my way home I passed many people, they were proud of many things. One man had a brand new car, it probably cost more than a lot of us make in three years. I saw a woman with a sticker on her car, she was apparently proud that one of her children had made the honor roll at some school. Next, I saw an old man with a hat; it said he was a veteran of some war. He was proud to have served his country. I wondered if I was proud of anything.
I can not afford a beautiful brand new car. Luxury as they call it. It looks like excess to me. I prefer functionability to luxury. A symptom of being poor. I was told growing up that the poor usually have a certain adverse reaction to being born that way. One reaction is to desire money above everything. The other is to resent money and materialism. I think I have an undiagnosed aversion to money as a result to a childhood of poverty. So, I can never be proud of stuff. Its too bad, some of the prettiest woman out there would love a man if he drove a nice enough car. Alas, I’ll never have them.
I do not have any children, nor would I particularly be proud if they were on the honor roll. The problem with state education is it misses too many critical things. Our society has a strange obsession with progress. I think kids get a raw deal in school. They are taught to compete, and to fight. They are taught to obey rules, and to dislike others. Some schools make children where uniforms. The idea is that if everyone looks the same, than the poor kids will never ask why. Schools deceive the youth, they tell them we all have an equal chance, and we all have equal access to the world. In fact it is quite the opposite, in fact we have no chance. The poor are meant to work crap jobs to make the rich more comfortable. If they want to make it in this world they have to betray each other. People are taught that competition is healthy, when really its sickly. We shouldn’t look at others as competitors. We should see other people as our brethren. We do not have the right to exploit them, it should be seen as the contrary, we have an obligation to help them. When others go hungry and we do nothing we let a little bit of our humanity die.
I would never fight in a war for this country. I do not love my country. They once accused a French president of loving the French people more than he loved France. I feel the same way. Except I can honestly say that I don’t love America, but I have a great love for the people. It is out of compassion that I have to constantly address that they are getting a very raw deal. When our friends and family are sent to a desert to die for the progress of capitalism America has gone in a terrible direction, and it is one in which I can not accompany her. See the thing is, we should never expect progress at the expense of others to mean anything. Exploitation can only breed resent. Revolt happens as a result of repulsion a the sight of too much exploitation.
So, I’m not a proud person. In fact I’m very sad today. I’m sad to think of the children whose families are ripped apart because big business wants more. I’m not defeated in this despair though. In fact I think I see something more. I think that if this reckless band of elitist pigs continue to abuse their privilege than their time will soon be up. We, the people will be waiting. You can only push us so far and treat us so savagely before we return it. In fact I dare the terrible fascists to see what the people will do to them if they keep it up.

Lust

Everyday we have to wonder what draws us to things and people, and what controls our action. Picture lust as a strong sensual desire for another person. People will lie, cheat, and steal for it. It never leaves us in a quite clear sense of mind. Fraternity boys seem thoroughly infected by it, some even resort to chemical appeals. Anything to satisfy this terrible monster.
Serve lust some alcohol, and it does even more malicious things. Have you ever had a couple of drinks, and slept with someone, even though you really weren’t interested in them? If you’re a guy the answer is probably yes. Have you ever slept with someone, and pretended they were someone else? I’m sure the answer is yes as well. I know I’m guilty of lust. It’s a burning desire within us all.
The problem is lust is a poison. Not for any strictly moral reason but for something more simple. Anything that causes us to lose our humanity is a poison. Lust can lead to deception and exploitation, and I for one do not want to exploit anyone. When you trick someone, or deceive them for your own benefit how much better than the capitalist pigs are you?
I tell the fraternity boys who think getting a girl loaded and having their way with her is a good idea, to leave rape to the pigs. I think the evil capitalists and their military’s are hurting enough people.
Lust turns people in to commodities. Commodization is a capitalist perversion. It suggests that quantity trumps quality. We know that if you mass-produce shit it is still shit. So, lust should function on the same principle.
Worse still, it desensitizes us. Every time we keep score, or try to just pick up chicks we are shopping. Another capitalist function, we fill emptiness with quantity. Disgusting really. So, when we tell them that capitalism and commodification is evil, it goes in hand that anything that robs people of their humanity and commodifies them is evil as well.
If you reject their consumer labels, also take a look at your other habits. My friends, capitalism runs deep indeed. Free yourself, and grant the dignity to all people never to be exploited.

Angry Young and Poor

Today I ate potatoes; yesterday I ate rice, and the day before pasta. These are subsistence foods for the poor. I am poor. My bank account is in the negative. The air in my tires is dangerously low. My car probably needs a tune up. I spend my nights alone in the dark. I’m broke and defeated. It isn’t so bad. It wouldn’t be so terrible, if the state left things well enough alone. I had some savings. The state seized them; they said it was because I didn’t deserve a future. They told me I was dangerous. I have a place to stay, for now. The state took my entire pay check last week for its attempt at reform. I over drafted my bank account to pay my car insurance. They increased the amount I had to pay on my car insurance. I studied at the university. I received a degree under the assumption it would make life easier. It didn’t happen. Lucidity was more a burden. The poor have enough burdens. Some poor people find someone to share the burden. I know people who believe love conquers all. In some cases they are right. The capitalist pigs use the word fair to deceive us. They say that we all have a fair and reasonable chance to obtain what they consider the American dream. I wish they wouldn’t lie. There is nothing fair about America. The kid who grew up having to wait in line with his grandmother at the food pantry just so the family could eat that month doesn’t have the same opportunities as the spoiled rich boy whose daddy buys him a brand new car when he turns sixteen. The poor struggle everyday to make ends meet. That is not fair. The system is absurdly out of balance. So I am angry. I am Young and I am poor. And in the words of a great punk band, Anti-Flag, I’m “Angry, young and poor! Angry, young and pissed! Angry no one cares!”

Empowered

To control is to exert total power in accordance with your will sans exception. In this reality there are things you can control. And there are things you cannot control.
The things you can control are: Desires, aversions, goals, beliefs, and essentially whatever is within yourself.
The things you cannot control are: Your body, others, institutions, situations, and essentially whatever is outside yourself.
Anyone whose taken a philosophy course knows this, however if it was learned merely to pass a test than you've shorted yourself. Doctors provide anesthetics to help their patients avoid intense pain, and we take painkillers to prevent or curb physical pain. Why would someone ignore then, the fact that there exist painkillers and anesthetics for emotional pain as well. I'm speaking outside of drugs and medicine. Psychologically we have the power to nullify emotional distress. It is NOT a facet of life, it is NOT inevitable and we do NOT have to live with it.
Exert the power you have over the things you can control to conform to the situations and the things you cannot control. Strip away the emotional context and view everything and every occurrence for what it is. Reality is all we have to cope with.
Take for example a glass figurine that my grandmother gave me on my wedding day. I kept it on the mantel in my home and one day it fell and shattered. The expected response to such a thing would be tears, devastation for the loss of my most cherished wedding gift, fear of what my grandmother would say as it meant a lot to her, and so one. This is wrong, gravity is not in my control. My grandmother's feelings are not in my control, and the fact that it broke and cannot be repaired is not in my control. So why would it be fair that I would feel pain over this? Reviewing the situation; a cluster of glass formed into a specific shape fell and became several clusters of glass no longer resembling what it once did, and that is all. What I can control is how I react to the situation. I can control how I feel about the situation. And I can control my desire for the situation to have happened differently. So I decide to react calmly and sweep up the broken pieces. I decide to feel okay with what happened because it is in the past anyways, and feeling any different would be nonsensical. And I decide to desire the situation to have happened exactly as it did. So the loss did not affect my day, it did not affect my mood, and I feel content with the way things unfolded.
My grandmother, however, was angry. But because I hold power over myself, I could chose to be understanding of her anger. You cannot control what other people do, or how they react, so it is much simpler to just accept it. I could chose feel comfortable with the yelling, and I could even go so far as to desire the reprimand. Emotionally I remained un-phased, and even thankful. How else could it have gone?
I could have been angry with myself for placing it on the mantel and I could have allowed myself to become emotionally irate over the loss of this figurine. I could have become defensive and in turn become angry with my grandmother for being angry with me. And I would have spent a week under more emotional burden and baggage than I deserved over this little glass sculpture no longer sitting or on my mantel. It would stew into a dread for the next time I saw my grandmother, and it would put a rift in our relationship permanently. This path seems a bit irrational, that I would place to much power to do harm into such a tiny glass sculpture seems ridiculous. But many people can see it happening no other way. And this is sad.
So many are bent on controlling the outside stimulus, when in fact their exerting energy over nothing. It is impossible to control whatever is outside of yourself, and attempting such things will only frustrate and depress you. Start controlling yourself. Get a hold of the reins on your psyche and steer your emotions around the things you cannot control. This is the only way to withstand the inevitable situations that will arise only to drain you emotionally. "Don't worry, be happy," Bob Marley knew this wasn't an unrealistic dream. And it's a simple as that. He didn't say, try to ignore things so you won’t worry so much, and strive to put yourself in situations that will make you happy... He said "Don’t worry," it’s a choice. And “Be happy,” its within your power to become happy regardless of anything else going on around you. Pain is unnecessary.

Journey to the Void

So it has been said that there is a time and place for the void. Can we ever return whole from it? What is the void? The void is pain, the void is suffering, it is desolation, and it is nihil. Come with me and let us take this time to explore it, and probe the empty space of nothingness.
First stop along the path is deprivation. It is the shortest path to exploring the void. You enter its gates, and it is terrifying. You vow that as long as you have the power you would wish to never go without again. Deprivation takes so many forms it is hard to narrow it down, but allow for my part certain simplicity in dividing into two categories. Material Deprivation occurs when we are without the basic necessities of life. It can take the form of hunger, lack of clothing, or lack of shelter. With the loss of these essentials a true akin is felt to the impoverished. Hunger particularly is the easiest path to feeling the undeniable unanimity of the human experience. Once you have gone hungry once, you will wish that no one would ever have to go hungry again. Emotional or Spiritual Deprivation is the next one, and this one is a little more complicated to diagnose. It occurs when we feel cut off from humanity. We can feel victimized, alone, defeated or lost but they all amount to the same thing. We are deprived of an aspect of humanity. It is a dreadful pain, more acute and much more devious than some of the material deprivations, and it is also a lot harder to cure. The loss of humanity occurs in isolation. Some event triggers a mechanism in our mind to tell us essentially that we are not welcome, and not accepted. In such an individualistic society most of us who end up with this feeling usually lash out. A fierce cry against the absurd. The scars left from the emotional deprivation can last a person’s whole life. In some cases it can be the cause of the end of some people’s lives.
The next level of the void is occupied by pain and suffering. The young girl who feels disconnected from reality, who chooses to cut herself, pain is the only feeling she believes in anymore. The man captured by some U.S. secret ops forces, he is stripped and tortured because the men doing it believe his pain can prevent some pain of others. We suffer, we feel pain, and we become accustomed to it. In this level of the void, the people trapped in this part of the void experience a break with reality. The mind is constructed in such a way that pain is experienced in a systematic way. The first stage is shock. The individual is shocked by a sudden unpleasantness. The next stage is a prolonged sensation that is uncomfortable. We begin to feel cold. The third phase is the worst. In order to prevent the total collapse, the mind recoils back in horror, and the body no longer registers a sensation. This type of pain is the most insidious. Sometimes pain is the only true proof of reality, so when pain becomes the recoils sensation, and the mind no longer connects with the body it severs its most useful function. It no longer provides alertedness, but instead it wearily pushes us onto oblivion. Appropriately enough, the final stage of pain provides us with a very close experience to the deepest stage of the void.
The deepest stage of the void is death. It is the unequivocal ceasing of all bodily functions. The mind dies cut off from the blood pumped by the heart which has stopped beating. The skin grows cold, and the body becomes rigid with rigimortis. Death is the deepest stage of the void, but also the most peaceful. All pain and deprivation recedes into a cool dark sleep. We no longer feel alienated, or excluded. Death equalizes us all. It cures every illness, and it even provides the final calm in a life plagued by turmoil. Death is a beautiful woman clothed in black. Her skin is soft, and her touch is gentle. She has no voice. Death does not judge. It only embraces. We are embraced if only once in our entire life by this beautiful specter. This is also the most dangerous part of the void. Many who have spent too much time recollecting on death have drastically cut short their lives, and although life may be filled with hardship, it also gives us the chance to experience a range of being. With deprivation, pain, and ultimately death we still are given little glimmers of light. Like a chance to share a meal with those who really need it. The ability to help a person who can not walk to have their arm over your shoulder, to walk step in step, shoulder their burden. Or the glimmer of happiness a man can experience at the sight of a beautiful girl’s smile. Oh on this last one, I would take an infinity of pain so that I could see just one lovely woman’s smile.
Let us not tarry to long in the void. Let us leave. Do you feel more enriched? A deeper understanding? Do not speak. I ask for a moment. Let us bow our heads. We must have a moment of silence for those who were unable to make it out of the void. Some people will send a lifetime lost in deprivation, pain, suffering and death, without knowing the soft taste of a woman’s lips. I wish I could share their burden. I would give everything would that they all suffer a little less, and they all feel just a little less alone. Verisimilitude wishes pain to stop, and wishes the world to be engulfed in love and happiness.

The Calm of Void

I woke up to a loud clap of thunder. It was Monday. I rolled lazily out of bed and scooted to the bathroom. The neighbors were arguing again. Or still.
"You'll never understand how I feel!"... Female voice.
"I don't give a fuck about how you feel!"... Male voice.
That couple was in love, or at the very least, they cared about each other.
I glanced over at my wife lying asleep in our bed. At peace. Innocent. We'd made love the night before. She's precious to me. But am I a fool? The fact that she means anything to me at all will mean that some day, perhaps soon, I will care enough to yell. She will care enough to cry. We will care enough to hurt.
If I decided not to care, then nothing she did or said or felt could ever provoke me to anger with her. I'd remain indifferent. Some may argue that indifference is easier to cope with than pain. It's void. Indifference is the lack of pain. Like darkness, is the lack of light.
I could be indifferent and genuinely not care about how she feels, unlike the man next door who clearly "gives a fuck," despite what falls from his lips. But that indifference would come at a price. It would mean being indifferent to the I love you's, and not caring about the kisses she plants on my neck and cheek after she thinks I'm asleep. What then? I would no longer have a marriage. I have to care. I have to feel it. It needs to be real, even when it gets heated. Even when seething venom flies back and forth over the space between us. And even when lines are crossed. If I bowed my feelings out of those situations and stood indifferent, the fight wouldn't last... but neither would the love. Stoicism has it's place, but there are some places where it shouldn't be welcome.
I started brushing my teeth, when I heard a scream, "No!". The sound of a gunshot sliced through the paper thin walls. I rinsed and spit. It was going to be a good day.

War

War is not politics by other means, that was a nineteenth century misnomer they did not fully understand the world. War is capitalism. It is fought to continue the cycle of greed and triviality. Capitalism is a system that is set up by a small group of bourgeois dictators which seek to exploit the masses for money. When exploitation of the masses becomes less than profitable the bourgeois dictatorship goes to war to exploit the resources of other people. War is the bourgeois answer to a drop in net profits. Capitalism run amok. Devoid of humanity.

Expression: An Obligation to Lucidity

In order for us to remain vigil, to remain lucid we have an obligation to our peers and ourselves. We must express ourselves. We ought to pioneer, and invent new modes to convey our messages. We should try new styles, new methods, and even new fonts.
Tragically people in our country today gorge themselves on every excess imaginable but hardly ever leave time to develop their minds. Our minds are all we really have. We should cherish them. Instead of spending that afternoon watching soap operas and re-runs of old sitcoms why not send the day in the library. Go learn about Norway plan a trip in your head.
When we were kids we were encouraged to imagine and explore, but now as adults we tell the artists, authors, and poets to “go get a real job.” We devalue imagination, as we get older.
I think this world could be a much better lace if we valued imagination and expression. Mass-production has cheated us out of meaning.
We experience life 1000s of degrees away from it. Life as a copy of a copy of a copy. Coca Cola, McDonalds, Television News, its all crap. Make something for yourself, trust me it may be a lot more work, but you’ll feel better about it than any of the mass-produced shit they force on you. Express yourself, leave a mark on this world, any mark even if its in the shape of your face as you hit the concrete.

Where the Buffalo Roam

I grew up on the east coast, and eventually I headed west. It was a real Horatio Alger story. In the past people headed west looking for freedom, looking for a new world, and a new chance. Now if you start your journey, the mid-west is the new bastion of conservative consumerism.
The Wild West sold off all its shares to Coca Cola, Marlboro, and McDonalds. The corporations control the lives of the people and the churches tell them to accept it, and to be good since the god of capitalism likes good consumers. He likes it when you buy into the free market lies. Since the dawn of the protestant movement, their god has favored capitalism. One particular member of the early protestant movement was a man by the name of John Calvin. Calvin’s doctrine suggested that the rich are so because they are blessed it was called outward manifestation of inward grace. The Calvinists believed the poor were wretched because god had abandoned them. These sadistic movements were expelled from the more civilized world and found its only refuge in the un-secular Midwest.
The free spirit of the Wild West died from a combination of obesity, lung cancer, diabetes, and neglect. What can be done? Let me start by, albeit a little bit out of character, saying it isn’t necessarily the churches fault. In fact some churches go against the spirit of capitalism and continue to provide for the poor and destitute. These orders are counted among the best. Although we may have fundamental differences we can agree on one thing. This is that mankind has a right not to suffer, and those of us who have the means must do all we can to prevent and alleviate man’s suffering.
Capitalism has truly run amok in the center of the country. More fast food restaurants open than libraries or schools. People all lust after a quick fix to fill up the void. Capitalism is a unique disease, because it preys on people’s fears and inadequacies, and offers them cheap and easy remedies. It tells them the only thing they need to feel better about their lives is more stuff. I don’t agree; call me an ascetic if you must. I just know in my heart that no amount of stuff can fulfill me. No, all I want is freedom. I want the chance to carve my own way out of the world. A world that doesn’t revolve around the corporate monsters. Allow me a little bit of fantasy, allow me to share a few images of the world I dream of. I dream of a world where anybody sick can receive treatment for free. A world where if you have no food a bakery will provide it. I dream of a world where if you see a person fall, you rush to their aid, and if they have a heavy burden to carry you share it with them and walk step and step with them. You share their burden out of a mutual sense of fraternity. Laugh at my dreams if you must, but the only way to conquer capitalism and hate is with love and responsibility. Kindness and temperance.

Pain

Pain is the awareness of negative stimulus or bodily harm. It is the most important part of being human. To feel pain proves we are alive. So should we embrace pain? Should we become indifferent to pain? When we see others in pain should we just say that is human? I think not. Sure suffering is an integral part of the human experience, but it doesn’t have to be. Look into the eyes of an alcoholic; you see a pain, veiled in an addiction. Look into the eyes of a child in grief after the loss of a parent, you see a poor individual struggling against an unjust universe. See the man sitting outside his former job after being laid off too afraid to go home and tell his family they’ll be on the streets within a couple weeks.
We all may battle an addiction, lose a loved one, and we may even lose everything and end up out on the streets. Life involves a whole lot of pain and suffering. There are some places children are killed in the middle of the night by people claiming they are revolutionaries. Other places men in camouflage shoot children down in the street for the progress of capitalism. I would like it if this was a world where nobody had to suffer.
Torture, famine, hatred, and war, these are mankind’s pain. Man experiences a unique type pain. These special types of human pain are particularly malignant, because we cause them. The pain of war isn’t caused by a bite from an insect or an accident of weather. War is the systematic killing of other people for the advancement of a radical ideal or system of belief. War is a radical form of pain because it can remain in men’s hearts even after the actual conflict is over. When Germany and France fought in 1870 the conflict left the French bitter over the loss of their provinces of Alsace and Loraine. When the First World War broke out Nearly 45 years later, there were still cries of vengeance and re-conquest. The particular extremity of the reparations and occupation of the German frontier lead to a sense of embitterment and hatred that was experienced by the Germans in the twenties and thirties. War broke out as a result. War leads to nothing but war and perpetual war.
We kill, we die, we rape and we torture. Man keeps this cycle up and we’ll never see the beauty of peace. Peace is the opposite of war, and it is a chance at the avoidance of pain. If we could truly seek peace than we may be able to protect the world from pain. If war is the perpetuity of pain, than peace may be the true perpetuity of pleasure, or happiness.
No more death. No more Pain. No more war to perpetuity. Free the people. Stop the killing. Verisimilitude!

Cupcake

Travis Benson was enjoying a stroll through a park last Friday after work. Blowing off steam, and looking forward to his weekend when he spotted something out of the ordinary. A man hugging a tree. It was a thin tree, and the man’s arms were around it completely. Crazy person, Travis thought. He kept walking. The park was unusually quiet that day.
“Sir!” A man’s voice.
The yell fell on his ears hard, he didn’t want to be bothered, but he looked toward the voice instinctually. It was the crazy man, still pressed tight against the tree.
“Sir! Come here for a second, you have got to try this!”
Aw man, “Sorry, not today, I’ve gotta get home.” That should get him off my back.
“But the parking lot is the other way, and this won’t take long, seriously, I’m not insane or anything, this is really spectacular.”
Dammit. Ah well, what could it hurt? He approached the man who had now stepped away from the tree. The man shook Travis’ hand and started talking.
“This tree is rather amazing.”
“Is that right?” He feigned interest.
“Absolutely, it’s incredible, if you listen hard enough you can hear it’s voice.”
What the hell is this guy on?
“Seriously, give it a shot!”
If it will get him to leave me alone, whatever. Travis stepped over to the tree and leaned close, as expected not a single sound was uttered. “I don’t hear anything.”
“You’re not doing it right, press your ear right up against its bark, and wrap your arms around it, I promise you can hear it talk.”
Well, he’d already gone this far he supposed. What the hell. Travis hugged the tree, closed his eyes and listened intently. Suddenly he felt cold metal slap his wrists. Hand cuffs.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!”
The man, chuckled a little and without a word he mugged the ever-loving shit out of poor Travis. The man stripped him of his clothing, and made off with everything.
Travis was left there, handcuffed to a tree, balls naked. It started to get dark and he hadn’t seen anybody pass by all day. His cries for help went unanswered until finally a man jogging by noticed him.
“What the hell happened here?” The man said in a gruff voice. He was built like a linebacker and looked as if he’d spent his share of time in handcuffs, if anyone could get him out of his predicament this guy could.
“Thank God you showed up, I’m freezing!” Travis told the man what had happened and he listened intently.
“Well,” he said in his burley voice after Travis’ story was finished, ”This just isn’t your day, is it… cupcake?”

Choice

A man goes to the store and buys himself a lobster. He puts it in the passenger seat and heads toward his home. The lobster peaks out of the bag and looks at the man. It asks, “Where are we going?” The man replied that the lobster was going to be his dinner. In horror the lobster asked, “But why?” The man told it that it was because he had chosen to have lobster for dinner.
The car remained silent for a few moments, and then the crustacean asked, “What is choice?” The man told the lobster that choice is the freedom to change variables that affect the outcome of our actions. The lobster asked if it had any choices. The man told it that it would have three. The lobster smiled and told the man “that is very nice, how democratic of you.”
They arrived home and the man placed two pots in front of the lobster. He asked whether the lobster preferred the red pot or the black pot. It said, “I like the red one. It reminds me of my family.” So the man filled it half way with water. He then placed two packets of seasoning in front of the lobster. The lobster chose the spicy one, he said, “The happy boy on the picture made him laugh.” The man placed the seasonings in and stirred the water. He asked the lobster which burner he should use to boil the water. The lobster chose the furthest one back. As the water boiled the lobster thought, thought the way anything condemned to die for no reason does. He thought of the other lobsters swimming around oblivious to his horrific fate. He thought of his mother and wondered if she would miss him. He thought of his friends. The lobster looked up at the man, but he couldn’t find any more words. The water had come to a boil. He closed his eyes and awaited death. The man picked him up and looked at him one last time. He said, “At least you had the experience of choice.” The lobster looked back at him, almost smiling and retorted, “Isn’t democracy grand. We can choose which pot we are boiled alive in, which seasonings are used to flavor us, and we even get to choose the burner on which the water is heated.” The man smiled and told the lobster he got it right and that democracy was truly beautiful. Then he tossed him into the pot and boiled him alive.

A Coward

Think, think quickly decide. When was the last time you did something courageous? Did you go to the poorest part of your city and give food to the hungry? Did you find a clinic where people were dieing from aids? Did you hold them in your arms comforting them as they slowly slip away? When was the last time you did anything noteworthy?
I think we are all becoming cowards. I am not measuring courage as being willing to die for a cause, but instead I’m suggesting courage is trying to make the world a little better. Instead of going to work everyday trying to make a car payment, or just scrape by.
How can life be worth living everyday in an empty consumerist daze? Wake up, buy coffee, drink coffee, go to work, get off work, buy dinner, buy liquor, rent a movie go home fall asleep alone defeated depressed. Yea, that’s going to change the world.
Is there something better? Do you think maybe falling asleep exhausted after working the whole entire day on the street trying to help the poor may feel better than after too many beers at the bar? Maybe consumerism isn’t going to go away over night. Maybe we can’t save everyone.
Courage isn’t the ability to stop this world from being a place where people suffer and die for no reason. Courage is being able to know that you are personally trying to make this place a world where at least fewer people suffer and die by the hands of the cooperate global elites. Courage is the strength to protect at least one person from the evil excesses of the bourgeois.

From the Heart

So this is something new for me. I’m not much for inner expressive writings. I was inspired on my way home this evening to think about my heart. Although, my former lovers and close confidants may attest that I do not have much heart. This stands to reason. I have a lot of anger, a lot of passion, plenty of experience, intelligence, and talent. Oh vanity. These things I can say freely can be tested and illustrate a degree of who I am. I rarely am counted among the great hearts of my peers. I’ve been called a cynic, a raw wit, all more likely than being considered a man of heart.
Let me address my heart.
I’ve never been in love. I would probably not reject it. I just have never been cut just right for it. I remember a friend of mine had given me a ride home from work when I was fifteen. She asked me what I planned on doing with my life, I made the usual undeveloped response about changing the world then I put on a cynical smile. I told her, maybe I would fall in love get married move to some nice coast and live in a big house with a pretty wife and a dog. My friend laughed. She told me that she could never imagine me like that. At fifteen people already considered me a mutant inadequately manufactured for the normal life.
So at one point I tried to discover love. I figured it could possibly be flexible enough to even fit my inverted spectra. I didn’t find it. What do I think about love? It is only the most important and beautiful thing in the world. It forms bonds, and makes people happy. Love builds great monuments, and it destroys cities. Love is the most powerful force on the planet. Love is madness, it is also reason.
I personally think it is too big for me. I have other more pressing concerns than love and happiness, and ironically this doesn’t violate my new vow to engage the world in a more positive polemic. I want to change the world. I want the poor to have a fair chance, I want the hungry to have food, and I want the sick to have comfort. I think I have found a better way to occupy that empty place. My search for love leads me to revolt. I revolt against pain, suffering, anguish, unhappiness, and torment.Love is always an act of revolt. A revolt against the universe.

Bulls Eye

I hit a bulls eye yesterday. I pulled out a handcrafted longbow that was given to me by my uncle, and I shot a straight arrow into the side of my garage. With a thud it landed and stayed. It asked me a question, "Why am I sticking out of the side of your garage? There was no point in firing me here." With that I pulled out a permanent marker and approached it. I answered in a whisper, "You were meant for great things, you were intended to hit the bulls eye on the first shot and you were successful."
"But there is no bulls eye here, only the blank side of a garage."
"Yes," I answered, "But waiting for a target to appear would have ended in my giving up and going to bed. And even if by some miracle, one spawned, there is no guarantee you would have successfully penetrated it's inner sanctum."
I began then to draw around my arrow a small circle, then a bigger one around it, and yet another bigger circle around the first. I stood back and admired my shot. With only a single action, I nailed a bulls eye on the first try... and I didn't even need to see the target to achieve it.

-Selador

A vindication

Here I sit, my moment of vindication. The state, which I do not endorse, has decided to bring down the hammer of bourgeois justice on my head. I remember all the times the state would not help my family or I when we needed it. I remember all the terrible things it had done in fact. I suppose this one is really personal. I’m ready for anything they can throw at me. Any conviction justifies my every word and every feeling. I wonder if the brain dead bourgeois realize that they can only abuse the people so long. Do you think these bourgeois judge pertinent have any clue what it is like to go hungry? I doubt it. Today the yuppies do it. They have signed their own warrant. Its written in all of our blood, and our convictions are vindicated by their irrational and unjust abuses. Let the terror state bring down everything it has against us. A state that can only maintain power by terror and police is not legitimate! We know the states evil, we know its hypocrisy, and those of us strong enough to stand against its tyranny are the bulwarks of real freedom. It is time for the corrupt and unjust bourgeois dictatorship of the people to really reevaluate its ever more precarious position. The financial crisis of these recent months proves the era of bourgeois consumerist dictatorial manipulation of the people is on decline. Rise up brothers seize the chance to no longer be exploited, but to be the sole beneficiaries of the effort and work of your lives. Victory, and resolve brothers Share Verisimilitude share truth!

An open letter to the mindful in a place that had once been the bastion of revolution and dissent.

(A discussion between two brothers.)

Jean: Do you remember the American Revolution you learned about in your history class? Wasn’t it about a group of people unhappy with what their government was doing? I think the story goes; the people of the thirteen colonies felt the government ruling them was an over taxing, jingoistic empire that had lost the most important thing, that being the consent of the people.

Vincent: Why then should we consent to rules and laws stemmed from a system we sought to escape. We recreated it. Made an exact replica. All we have left is our voice. Why aren’t we using it? Silence is the death of ideas. This can be frustrating; our only choice is to move forward as a people. If we keep on this path, this “American Dream” we will fall, further into a terrible place.

Jean: The American Dream? Wasn’t it a fair chance for everyone? As far as I can see that never happened. I took a walk yesterday to examine and research these ideas. I wandered into a department store. I saw a woman with her child yelling back and forth. The child wanted a doll, and the mother kept telling her that she had too many dolls already. The commotion died down and the scorned child and the mother wandered away. I ended up lost in this department store for a while; I asked a clerk if they knew where I could find the special offer on guaranteed personality, not getting the joke, the clerk left. I headed to the counter. There the mother and child were being checked out. The child was silent, scorned and burned. The mother had picked out for herself a pack of cigarettes, some alcohol, eyeliner, and some clothes. The total was twenty-one dollars and ninety-five cents. The doll the child had wanted was only six ninety-five. The mother was truly an excess addict. She would rather feed her addiction to materialism than to feed her poor daughter suffering from this same sickness. This is the American Dream, it is hypocrisy.

Vincent: Lifeless is a term too seldom heard unless you are at a morgue or the scene of a tragic car crash. I think it is appropriate to describe the current state of things. This may be a simplistic reduction, but how long did the “happiness” you received from buying that new hundred dollar stereo last? How many television shows did you watch on your brand new plasma screen before life was just as empty and as pointless as before? It would seem that we drown our lives in middle class materialism. They tell us that the more stuff we buy the happier we will be. Materialism has robbed us of more than rights! It has begun to degenerate our very humanity. Instead of spending time with real people, conversing, playing games, going for walks, it gives us televised versions of lives, shows like Friends where we are sold a sitcom image of life. Existence becomes one long sedated convalescence where the goal is not recovery but a trance like apathy. Everyday we wither away; connivance slowly sucks away our souls. Become something more! Anything more, anything different, unique, eccentric, extravagant, because this is the hollowed ground we so rarely tread this is hope!

Jean: Bourgeois needs to possess and organize the world; I think that is where the people really got the knife in the back. A few people decided with just enough deception and just enough triviality they could deceive he many. Once this awful artful act of deception was executed the people became blind, and enslaved. Everyday this old pact by the few to take everything they want at the expense of the people gets worse. Each generation witnesses a more disgusting and extravagant generation of bourgeois that seeks not just to maintain its separate status but push it further. Yachts, sports cars, and pretty blonde Barbie doll wives, is this really the future we want? How were we brought up thinking pretty things, and possessions would be enough? Consumerism is not the answer! Let me take a moment; let me get this out, get this off my chest make it clear. Listen, all the rich consumer whores of this nation. I do not want any part of what you’re selling. I don’t care about your excesses. They will not make me happy. Happiness comes from other places!

Vincent: Freedom used to be something beautiful, something precious. Now that this sick consumer world has run amok freedom becomes a bottle of whiskey or a little white pill. If you take this little pill or drink enough of the whiskey your worries will dissipate. What a brilliant government! Literally mass producing apathy in pill form! Becoming blind is an accident, but not doing anything to stop it, well that is ignorance. If we continue to fill our lives with booze and pills then we will eventually consume ourselves.

Jean: I really like where Vincent is going with this last point. I have two pills to offer you. One will make all your problems go away. This means no more worrying, no more pain, just silence. This pill is cyanide! That’s what the men in power are feeding you! If you continue apathy and allow the ultra-police state to continue and expand in its excesses than this is what you’ll get. If you choose the second pill, albeit a little harder to swallow I promise it is not a suppository. Its size and the struggle is the measure of its merit. This pill I offer you is called responsibility. We have a privileged position. We have a voice! We know how to speak up. The responsibility is to those who have not found their voice; they are our brothers, and comrades. Verisimilitude means an apparent truth. We have that, and this truth is our obligation to enlighten others. We are here for those who cannot speak for themselves; we are here for those who cannot fight for themselves. At this moment we may be like Socrates and only be the gadflies to the state, but even flies when their numbers are great enough and appearing united can make a difference. An eagle can fall to an insect if numbers are on their side. More than just speaking up for the people without the means to speak and fight our true obligation is to show these people their own strength and to help them find their own voice. Only with the people strong and conscious of our position, of our numbers, and our true rights can we hope for change. On to the future my brothers! Verisimilitude is the vox populi! We will conquer ignorance and inequity. The people have the right to be free, and they have the right to a voice!

(When Vincent departed he shook my hand and we both promised to spread our message to the people. We want a better future. We want justice. We want to take back our world.)

Spatial Apathy and Radically Redefining the Spaces we occupy

Take a good look around take inventory of everything you see. We possess so much stuff so much clutter. Our lives are kind of like that; they are filled with junk and clutter. The space each one of has on this earth is very short and to fill our lives with junk and clutter betrays the beauty of the world around us.
Every single television show we watch, and every single mass produced distraction we fall victim to takes up space in our lives. Slowly we start selling off pieces of our lives for things.
Consumerism, now that’s an evil. It teaches kids when they are young that all they need to be happy in this world is things, and with enough things happiness just appears. Ignore the cliché, but I can promise you the beauty of looking up at the sun as it rises can fill the mind with a truer sense of beauty and content with the world than even the biggest house or the nicest car. I’m not putting fourth anything particularly radical, and in fact it may seem a little weak to suggest it, but I have a plan for redefining your life and the space it occupies. This is the proxemics of a better life.
When you wake up in the morning, don’t turn on the news or the television at all in fact. Go read the paper somewhere for free. Don’t work too hard. Life is far too precious to waste slaving away at a job you hate to buy coffee tables and armoires. Every once and a while, just go to the park and take a long walk, exhaustion feels great when you know its because you are free. Reclaim your life from McDonalds and Wal-Mart; remember not everyday has to be about mass production.
We never elected to be part of the bourgeois consumerist state, and we in fact do not have to be. Everyday we have a thousand chances to break free and take back our lives. The founding fathers of this nation believed in a few unalienable rights, and these were life, liberty, and the pursuit of property, for their era this was all right, but I feel the post-modern people we have become in the globalized super consumer world should be given a different set of rights. Life is precious and beautiful, and there is nothing that should make us give it up. Liberty is fragile and was the first to go as our rights began to erode.
In fact liberty was lost when the government decided the people were too irresponsible to protect themselves. Now I am not humanities biggest fan, but I know for a fact with a little time and compassion people can prove they no longer need this ancient regime from the eighteenth century. We have to show a genuine respect for liberty before we’ll ever get one precious drop back. The American government considers itself the bulwark of anti-revolutionary thought. Much like Russia became in the period of the French revolution up until its own in kind. When ever there is a genuine outcry for a return to the liberty promised in the earliest part of this countries life it is squashed. Any ideas that are new, radical, or anti-consumerist are shot down violently by an illegitimate government that cannot claim that its power comes from the people.
The reason it cannot make this claim is complex, one reason is the nature of the American police state. No state can at once be both for the people and have armed guards on the street. Well some objections may be made that the police are there to keep the peace, I disagree with that, and peacekeepers shouldn’t wear bulletproof vests and carry loaded weapons. Peacekeepers should not gun down innocent people because they had a hunch the person was doing something wrong. A state that claims its right to rule is derived from the people cannot enforce its beliefs with armed guards. A legitimate state truly backed by the people does not need armed guards marching the street in Gestapo fashion.
Wake up good people, and do not let the corporations and the police state run your lives.

~Yours Jean

Strange

This planet has played host to many strange and unnatural things. Remnants of its dark past are withheld as secrets, and our ignorance is our order. But what is hidden can sometimes come to light, and the realization emerges that our existence is much more fragile than we assume.
The human mind is ignorant of its own potential. However there are a select few people who have been able to tap into extra percentages of their mind the average human cannot. These people are embodied by artists and poets. Sensitivity, ever so sleight, to the possibility of the impossible; and the ability to conceive the unimaginable gives its owner the key to uncovering the scary secrets only these few dream about.
Since our conception, human beings have been striving through science and philosophy to expand outward and discover a world that holds meaning. But it is not by these means that any form of genuine reality can even so much as be glimpsed. Science will only give you facts relative to its surrounding environment, and philosophy will only allow for ideas based on the truths agreed upon by consciousness. Reality, it seems, can only be discovered through dreamscapes and nightmares, where active thought and tainted reasoning are put to rest, and environment is variable. It is there that information can surface without inhibition and allow a short gaze into the only reality that truly matters.
Though, fortunately, this rare glimpse is not nearly sufficient enough to provoke in someone even the smallest curiosity, let alone a vested interest in its relevance. That is how the secrets of an ancient time are kept, however when these atypical dreams occur at precisely the right moment, and they are coupled with, and consciously connected to other materials, their relevance does surface. And the secrets find a way out …