D E C L A R A T I O N
"...the state, is disturbing the peace on two other levels in our lives.
One of those levels is internal: The disorder within the person, the
violence to body and spirit that may come from the ill-health, unemplyment,
humiliation, loneliness, a sense of impotence - those afflictions which
poor, or black, or sick, or imprisoned persons may have, or even healthy
young people forced to fit into a money worshipping, success-idolizing
culture. This is the result of a society which distributes wealth
irrationall, condemns black people to a special status, destroys the sense
of oneness with nature and with people that we all want.
Should we congradulate ourselves for those periods that Harlem has no
riots, when during every such day of 'peace' thousands feel as this man,
thirty years old, recorded in Kenneth Clarkes Dark Ghetto: 'A lot of times,
when i'm working I become despondent as hell and i feel like crying. I'm
not a man, none of us are men! I don't own anything...'
How real is the social peace which harbours drug addiction, alchoholism,
mental illness, crimes of violence, and all those thousands of instances of
despair which will never be entered in the hospital records or the police
blooter because they have been safely contained by society's instruments of
control? The nation remains unperturbed by the disorder within each
individual, and is quite pleased, so long as that does not break our and
reveal itself by a 'disturbance of the peace'.
The other level is external: the disorder abroad, inflicted outside the
country against others. Indeed, the state tries to pacify us on the
national level precisely in order to free it to maintain disorder on those
other two levels. Unless we are aware of this, we will not see the value of
civil disobedience; and we will condemn its disorder as a blom to peace and
tranquility. We will see no need for the rude shove with which civil
disobedience tries to waken society."
-Howard Zinn - Disobedience and Democracy
19-21 Random House Pub: 1968
In a society that rewards us for falling off of our guard and forgetting
that there is a world outside of our safe homes, simply living with our eyes
open becomes a challenge. Within every store, newspaper magazine, job and
television show there are countless products urging you to fall asleep.
Around every corner is a poisoned apple waiting to put you to sleep for the
rest of your life. The food they try to feed us is one example. Our
supermarkets and variety stores are stuffed to the brim with fats, oils,
caffiennes and sugars to weaken you. Here, take a bag of potato chips or
this chocolate bar instead of these fruits and vegatables - they are cheaper
and taste better....sure, have this coke instead of water, you'll look
better, and you know you want it....obesity and ill-health are no miskate -
what better way to get people of their feet where they could be causing
trouble and get them into their cars and onto their couches and infront of
their TVs where they only thing they can do is consume more product. And on
TV you can see ads for the same products you have in your hands, as your
eyes get heavier and heavier....
Our muscles and never used, weakening us physically, as we move around
via electrical machines rather than on the merit of our own strength.
Instead of walking, or riding a bike, or joking, we get into our
automobiles, because its easier, and for some strange reason, all the places
we have to go are placed conveniently just outside walking distance. In our
world, movement is made by pressing buttons - we have become our own video
games. We can travel faster than any other animal just by flexing a few
foot muscles, and travel to new worlds without ever moving. The only input
to motion is credit and gasolene. We can scale to tops the tops of
mountains and beyonds just standing inside of a metal box. Even our chairs
have wheels. This virtual-mobility again weakens us, as we are robbed of
our physical strength. If they ever decided to thin out the pack, we would
all be the victims, since we are all sick and weak, with no strength left to
fight back.
Everyday is an exercise in weakening our mental capacities. Forced to
wake up before we've had a healthy amount of sleep, we spend the rest of the
day waiting to get back into bed, tired and out of focus. Mentally-draining
jobs with no creative thought input drain us of our intellegence and
potential. Devoting 9 hours per day to our plastic-box, assembly line
"careers" leave us little time to get by the rest of our tasks, let alone
stop to realize that there is something very wrong happening. We can rarely
ever finish the things we need to do before we fall facedown back into bed
to await another day on the chopping block. We are left with no time to
think. They have removed us from reality, and we live inside a new
corporate time dimension were hours at a time dissapear without a trace.
Jobs.
Our senses are being dulled on all levels to the point where we are
oblivious to the outside world and the disasters and tradegies occuring all
around us, every day. We are being defeated, mentally and physically,
beaten to a weak husk by poisoned food and information, and the metal cages
that take us to the places they want us to go.
They know exactly how to take you out of commision - no one can fight when
they are too tired to get out of bed, no one can learn when they are too
busy pushing pencils or filling out forms, no one can run when their legs
are too weak and un-used to carry them, and no one can strike back when
their arms are to heavy to lift.
No one is going to look out for you. You must become your own watchdog,
your own watchtower, awake at every moment on guard for the agents of
control, oppression, with your eyes open to injustice, your muscles poised
to resist and disobey, and your mouth closed to the sleeping pills and
tranquilizers hiding in every shadow ready to shut you down for good. When
life becomes a war, you've lost when you forget.
Resist their jobs, their food, their information, their clocks, cars,
elevators, televisions, concerns, prizes, coupons, clothes, wealth, success,
dreams, gloss, commercials, roads, their cultural gamma rays. Build a
shield around yourself to maintain your mental and physical strength,
because to win this war, you're going to need all of it.
