Guns and Dope: The Anti-Oppressant

(This article originally published by Gods and Radicals)

The Guns and Dope party: like most Discordian ideas and projects, it went nowhere fast. Also like most Discordian ideas and projects, it won't go away. A good joke wants to be told, even if it can only make you cringe with how cheesy it is. That's the punchline of the Guns and Dope party. It is a party that seemingly champions the interests of most Americans, and yet few have heard of it, and no one was interested it when it started. Since Wilson came up with the idea and then died (in what I'm sure are a series of acausal events, separated by like, at least a year or two, I'm sure...), new shit has come to light, man. It has no bearing on the Guns and Dope party I'm sure, since the party seems to be disinterested in asking a person to do anything so humiliating and debasing to human dignity as running for office. It might change your mind about the priority and centrality of some issues. 

Maybe you'll say to yourself, "Now who can argue with that? I think we're all in debt to Patacelsus for stating what needed to be said. I am particularly glad that these lovely children are here today to read this article. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age." But what do I know? You'd think you could share your love of a comedy without everyone you try to share that passion with taking it to a racist place somehow? But oh no. Every time I tell someone I like Blazing Saddles, suddenly I get put on blast with all the racist jokes. Like race was the only punchline to every joke in that movie. Gives me a fucking headache. I mean, I'm not saying that it didn't have jokes that relied on the crushing racism of both the "Wild West" and 1974 America for its humor, just that it didn't exclusively do that. Eh, never mind. I can be particular at times. Let's get to it then; excuse me while I whip this out!

Gun control is in the so called modern age is seen as a liberal issue. But this was not always the case. The Mulford Act of 1967. A full year and some change before the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Mulford act was signed into law by Ronald Reagan (the actor?), who claimed that the Mulford Act "would work no hardship on the honest citizen." You know, because having the police raid your home and murder you and your family for the crime of being black is naturally no hardship for a true patriot. 

Now, most Federal gun laws legislate the manufacturing, transportation, and sales of firearms. This is not out of the ordinary because the power to regulate interstate commerce and all that crap is "constitutional", if you go in for caring about that kind of thing. The Mulford Act stands out, it was meant specifically to disarm the Black Panthers. Now, let's be clear, these are the guys wearing black leather jackets and berets, not the Wakandan King. You can tell they're serious too, because who else wears a beret with black sunglasses and a rifle but a serious mother fucker. I mean, without the beret, they would have just been weirdos with guns.

Why should one racist California law matter? Could you please stop referencing movies and get to the point? Where are you going with all of this? The answer is nowhere special. Well, the answer is stop and frisk laws; but also the answer is, no, I will not stop with the movie references, I get a big kick out of it and you're just going to have to put up with it until I get bored and move on to cryptography puzzles.

So the next year after the Mulford Act was passed, the 90th U.S. Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, which was actually a response to the assassination of Kennedy, but it is the U.S. Congress, so a 5 year lag shouldn't surprise anyone. How the fuck does racism fit into the Federal effort though? I could do the lazy thing and point out a Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership opinion piece that claims the GCA of 1968 is copied wholesale from Nazi laws banning Jews from owning firearms, sans the Jew part and all the provisions for licensing firearms and not outright banning them. But such laziness would be wrong. Instead I'll just outright say that Politicians were afraid of an armed uprising in 1968 (the year Martin Luther King Jr. got killed, along with Bobby Ken), and that was the real thing that kept that 5 year lag from becoming an infinite lag. I wonder were the Congress got the idea to use gun laws to suppress minorities?

I mean, it was probably a bunch of Republicans in a Republican controlled Congress, right? Baeh! Wrong! In both House and Senate, Democrats had the seats. Not only that, but almost as many Republicans voted yea as Democrats in the House and Senate. Also, fewer Republicans said no than Democrats. Think about that a sec. Confused? Permit me to explain with much abbreviation and little detail. The Dems use to be the party of the Klan, and the Triangle fire flipped the bitch on the U.S. political spectrum. Want more detail? Read a fucking book!

Hey! Check this out!:

"( h ) I t shall be unlawful for any person—

"(1) who is under indictment for, or who has been convicted in

any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term

exceeding one year;

"(2) who is a fugitive from justice;

"(3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to marihuana or

any depressant or stimulant drug (as defined in section 201 (v) of

the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) or narcotic drug as defined in section 4731 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954); (sic)

Now, if you didn't want to read this legalese gibberish, I can tell you that it is the bill that will convert a state hospital for the insane into the William J. Le Petomane memorial gambling casino for the insane. Ha! No, it is a portion of the 1968 GCA. That part in bold seems kinda weird right? Well, to most it wouldn't, if that most was America in 1968 (haha, like people in America read it, right?). It comes after the provision which states, "it is not the purpose of this title to place any undue or unnecessary Federal restrictions or burdens on law-abiding citizens with respect to the acquisition, possession, or use of firearms appropriate to the purpose of liunting, trapshooting, target shooting, personal protection, or any other lawful activity, and that this title is not intended to discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms by law-abiding citizens for" blah blah blah, you get the idea. The direct mention of Marihuana(sic) seems fishy to me though. So after looking up "liunting" (the best I could find was 'linting', which is 'to walk around smoking a pipe'), I looked to see if any of the authors of the Mulford act moved up from state assemblyman or senator to U.S. Congressperson. Ha! No such luck. Just a whole bunch of dudes in the U.S. Congress and the California political class who all knew or were in the same circles as Nixon. Nothing to see here, move on.

So, no, I have no grand conspiracy theory for you about how this was all designed from the start. Just a bunch of rich white dudes that thought it best to specifically mention marijuana in a Federal gun control act. To be honest, it doesn't matter if this was orchestrated conspiracy, the inertia of racist habit, or complete accident. The result is racism; and similar acts, enacted in the same era, were definitely meant to be racist. So it's time for a hard subject cut; remember when Richard Dix came in here and tried to take over this town?

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. That is not a claim I'm making, and it probably isn't news to anyone reading this. It is a quote from a Harper's magazine interview of John Ehrlichman from 1994. Ehrlichman was Nixon's domestic policy chief, so he'd know what he was talking about. Want to know the source of the War on Drugs? Nixon! Yes, all bad things eventually lead back to Nixon; in fact, I bet you could make a pretty good game of a variation of Six Degrees of Bacon, call it Six Degrees of Nixon, and see if you can connect a fucked U.S. law to Nixon in six associations.

Anyway, he goes on to say:

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Oh wow, the 1968 Nixon campaign ran on a promise of fighting drug fueled mad-men and might have had an influence on an Congressional Act being passed that year, and was signed into law by a Democrat in October? Do tell, I'm so surprised. I've never even considered that a Democratic congress might pass a law to counteract the political rhetoric of Richard Dix, I mean Nixon (allegedly...).

This is the reality of the War on Drugs; it is thinly veiled, and sometimes not, racism. As well, it is about quashing political dissent; but mostly it has been about racism. I've seen the Left shoot down people that tried to drum up support for drug decriminalization pretty savagely. Because I guess, the "hard core" Left is against the government telling people what to do, except when it is about drugs, then the oppression is less important somehow (hopefully, if you still have some gonads and human blood in you, you're saying to yourself that you don't need anyone's permission to get high, good!). But for many on the “Left”, Uncle Sam swiping your recreation options from you doesn't count as important. And some of you fuckers probably wonder why the Left have a reputation of being such a joyless and humorous lot too, I'll bet. Well, if you can't get off your asses, to tell Uncle Same to fuck off, for the sake of getting high: can you be bothered to give a damn for the civil rights of black people? Yeah, that's what I thought.

So here we are, Stop and Frisk laws. Terry Laws are actually older than all this crap, by several decades. They have their origin in the efforts of the LAPD in the 1930's to combat "crime". Essentially they would flood an area where a crime had occurred and search anyone and everything. Of course this became the norm for black neighborhoods in the 50's. New York made the words "Stop and Frisk" the unofficial name by passing a law of that name in 1964. Yup, Stop and Frisk, which definitely has targeted minorities in large proportion, was in place before the contraband laws were. It shouldn't be a surprise that the supposed guardians of law and order have been holding on to Stop and Frisk tightly as they can, and use their tongues prettier than a twenty dollar whore to defend it.

So, not everything is coming up roses in California. We innovate a lot out here. Unfortunately, that means this state comes up with a lot of grade A racism and the racists to legislate it. From Stop and Frisk, to Ronald Reagan, we have a problem with racism in California that most people pretend isn't here. Even the Right pretends we're a centrist liberal fuckhead bastion, all the while their Moses and Jesus, Nixon and Reagan respectively, both hail from California. These are the real problems in California, the ones no one really talks about on the grand public stage of approved public discourse, a.k.a. "news". But never mind that shit, here comes Mongo!

Or as most know him, Donald Jiggle Jowl Trump. Nah, I'm just kidding, I just wanted to see the words Jiggle Jowl published. Actually, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who is so super into coming down on Marijuana (black people) that it gives his little weasel rigor mortis, is who I want to mention. I could say a mouthful about him, I guess, but instead I'll use this time to say, "Instead of a weasel, why not an Ostrich?" 

Yes friends, the Guns and Dope party only nominates the finest Ostriches to Congressional office, specifically because their, "mysterious and awesome dignity will elevate the suidaen barbarity long established there." The attempts to suppress minorities through laws has instead led to the majority of Americans having their lives ruined, lives ended, their property stolen by the government. It has resulted in wasted money, and in inane bullshit being spread far and wide. Everyone has had a shittier life because some rich fucks wanted to oppress a minority their feeble psychology associated with the scary stuff. The oppression of a few only results in the oppression of all. We either take care of everyone, or we can take care of no one. This is not a philosophical proposition being offered you, it is truth based on fact. I doubt this article stated the case for this truth from fact clearly, eloquently, or convincingly. But that's ok, maybe someone better at this will read this and hopefully do better than me.

Of course, you'll have the good taste not to mention that I spoke to you.

How the Discordian Society created the Deep State, and other Silly Lies

(This article originally published by Gods and Radicals)

Once upon a time, in a land far far away (for most readers it would be far, for me it's a day trip), there was a group of Baby Boomers that enjoyed trolling Right Wing groups. They did this in an age in which trolling required effort, Art, forethought, finesse, and of course, a bit of a mean streak. Of course it wasn't called trolling back then; these dope smoking, Leftist, chronically jovial Baby Boomers, lets call them, Discordians, called it by its holy Discordian name, a jape. 

The jape was to convince these Right Wingers that there was an ancient organization, called the Illuminati, that really ran everything, and that the Illuminati wanted what they were most afraid of. Certainly, this was not the genesis of the human behavior that seeks order, and someone to blame, in a world that is less than satisfactory. But the modern belief in the “Deep State” has a lineage, and that lineage I think is clear. And the consequences of those old japes, long after all those old Discordians have died, is that the Right sought out a weapon, to destroy the “Deep State”. I say the Right, but there are two types of Right. The people in charge, who don't believe in anything but power and money, like all politicians, and the people who are on the Right, who believe in all the totem ideas that make up their Belief System (herein this will now be referred to as B.S.). 

Donald Trump is their weapon, selected by them, against the wishes of their leaders, to destroy the “Deep State” their leaders told them was real. Their leaders didn't realize that this has been a project of Operation Mindfuck for decades. They selected their weapon, but we made the windmill. That being said, I think it safe to say that a weapon that was chosen to defeat a fake terror we made up, that will succeed in destroying the real terror of the U.S. Federal Government (which will herein be called the United States F.G.), is actually our weapon. Naturally this means that the Discordian Society, long lambasted as lazy stoners who don't actually accomplish anything, life style anarchists as some former Marxist asshole wanna-be calls us (you hearing me Bookchin? Your seriousness has led you to jack shit!), has done more to defeat the imperialism of the United States than any other Leftist. We've come closest to toppling the whole thing. Which means any of you on the Left who don't claim to be Discordians have not very long to change the flow of history and have your special interest group be responsible for it. 

I triple dog dare you to beat us to the punch. 

But we've been at this plan for decades, so good luck with that. I'm gonna run down this history/pedigree of ideas for a bit, and then I'm going to make fun of the people that bought it hook, line, and sinker, in the meanest way possible. Because to come so close to seeing how the rich manipulate the people on “THE RIGHT”, and then to miss the obvious in such a wide way, is definitely worthy of cruel ridicule.

One could say that the need for order and someone to blame has always been there, but its modern genesis came in the 1882 publication of “The Gay Science”. I have no doubt that few if any Right Wingers have never read this book, for the obvious reason of the title, but also because it's a book. I say that because when I was a boy, Christians (which is their own internal code for Anti-abortion activist), were careful to show up to Nine Inch Nails concerts with signs, obviously intended to be in dialectic with the song lyrics to Trent Reznor's song “Heresy”, clearly missed the reference to Nietzsche. I think this because the signs said, “God is not dead and Yes we do care!”. So ironically, the reference went over their head like they're Captain America or something. Anyway, the god is dead thing is from Nietzsche, and what he meant was that a core provider of meaning and purpose for European society was gone. The way he saw it, most people had to have their meaning and purpose handed to them. God did this, or at least the idea of God, through the Church, but since the rise of “Science” (which will herein be referred to as Atheistic Materialism, and as well, “scientist” shall be referred to as stand-up philosopher (which is a movie reference that you get extra internet points if you can profess the movie I'm referencing in the comments)) that function was no longer being performed. People weren't getting that injection of meaning, or weren't getting enough. For if Atheistic Materialism was now pontificating ontology, who then shall be the Devil? Many tried to fit the bill in the period between the Pronouncement of Zarathustra (I mean Nietzsche, not his fictional character), and the First Jape. But none could do it. Only us Discordians could construct a Devil good enough for the fearful, ignorant, stupid and bigoted of the United States. Only we could stare at the festering corpse of God and say, “this world cannot function without a Devil”. And by “function”, we mean, “can't be funny”.

Robert Anton Wilson, in recounting his days as a playboy editor, recalls the moment he realized his Illuminati meme had finally started living apart from him, “The Discordian revelations seem to have pressed a magick button. New exposes of the Illuminati began to appear everywhere, in journals ranging from the extreme Right to the ultra-Left. Some of this was definitely not coming from us Discordians.” The Illuminati meme was created, admittedly not on purpose, by the first modern Discordians. I say modern because there were also Discordians back in Roman times, that's what the “V” hand sign is about anyway, that's the Roman numeral for 5, our most sacred number. But the story of the Roman Discordian Society is a story for another day, we're focused on the Ur meme for conspiracy theories. This meme spread rapidly, like a “magick button” had been pressed. The Illuminati became the “Other” for everyone locked into second circuit territorial squabbling so deeply that they had stopped thinking. For a while, the idea of the Illuminati had grown powerful, suckling as it were on the fears of stressed out, burnt out, tired, worn down denizens of the 70's. But an idea can only live so long without becoming passé.

Next thing you know you have Lizard People running the world. Which could only be a more apt metaphor had the writer who came up with it intended it to be metaphor. It's also some pretty savage satire, almost. There's also the individual output of Alex Jones, which is just torrential. Just, wow, it exists, it sure does. Anyway, most of this modern, science fictiony, “They Live” type of conspiracy theory is just cultural riffing off that initial Discordian Jape Jazz. Us Discordians in the here and now? We just work hard at pulling the strings of that marionette Devil.

The “Deep State”. I'm willing to bet one of the Cock bros thinks he came up with that. The Deep State was the genius idea one of the Cock bros thinks he had to facilitate the continuation of threatening rich old upper middle class white people and the under-served and mostly abandoned country folk they live off of with a black guy that was a president. What the Cock bros didn't realize is that the beast they thought they were going to saddle was their creation, that it was tame, that it belonged to them. Mwuahahahahaha! Fools!

Lets be honest, Donald J. Trump is too stupid, lazy, and weak to be a fascist. I do not say this to complement the Black Sun's dutiful little shit lords, but only to point out that Fascists do indeed believe in something, and are at least willing to kill, take risks, alienate family, and generally inconvenience themselves and suffer many different pains, all for the sake of being a shit lord. Trump would never undergo a moment of any of that for anything. He believes in nothing, the worlds first true nihilist. He is Nietzsche's “last man”. Remember, Donald Trump, underneath it all, hates being president. He's just too dumb and cowardly and narcissistic to quit. So for the first time in his life, he's had to make sacrifices, like being bored, not getting his way all the time, not being able to get away with lying all the time, not being able to randomly sexually assault women. Tortures of the damned folks, tortures of the damned. He didn't even think he would be president, he was setting up Trump TV or whatever they were going to call it, to start right after the election! He didn't understand the beast either. The idea of the Deep State is just the idea of the Illuminati, with a new paint job. You can't just paint a mustang and expect it to be broken, tamed, and ready to ride! That's crazy, you don't even paint horses to break them, you certainly don't just tap into the repressed Id being projected on to a memetic “Other” and expect to control that shit! Might as well try to convince teens not to fuck, even though they are literally descended from people who mostly like to fuck. Yup, that's right folks, the weakness of the fascist is his own stupidity. A fascist has to believe, and not believe, certain things. This inevitably winds up in a Warner Bros cartoon escapade of murder, rapine, theft, genocide and ultimately suicide for the fascists themselves. The Black Sun rewards loyalty with death. Anyway, Trump got elected because some rich idiot told the masses through his private propaganda engine for the Right that there was a Deep State. At first the rich idiots tried to fight Trump's rise to power, but since Trump is their number one viewer, he just repeats all their talking points, including the Deep State shit, they couldn't fend him off. Trump of course was planning nothing, he was just watching Fox to ultimately rip them off for Trump TV. His rallies were where he would riff on stolen material and see how it played. Stand up philosophizing is hard work, and Trump is a huge plagiarist; because you know he's never worked hard a day in his life.

He even brought Steve Bannon in to find the Deep State. Having performed the mighty ritual of keeping up appearances, Steve Bannon slimed away. Two years later, there Trump is, with the Government partially shuttered, and us Discordians, cheering him on like a gambling addict at a race track with their last dollar. Yeah, the national parks are sad. Especially Yucca Valley. I was stationed in that area. If you like stark landscapes, that's your place. I do, and it was beautiful. But I'd rather the common United States of American, with their limited means and selfish focus despoil our parks. Better that than the systematic destruction planned for it by the rich, so that they can make one more dollar before our oceans boil off. Anyway...

At the time of my writing this, in the 23rd day of the month of Chaos, it looks like for the first time in history, since like, 1913, a yearly ritual carried out by the Archons of the State will not happen. For the first time in history (since 1913), a president who talks at the United States of American people constantly, will have to address the American people somewhere else than a joint session of the House at the Capitol. He may even, horror of horrors, have to submit it in writing like every president after Washington and before Wilson! He doesn't even know how to read! Clearly he knows how to write, because he's on twitter all the time, but he would actually have to proof read his B.S., which we all know never happens. I'm personally thankful for Nancy Pelosi, who through the years has always maintained that cool, condescending, spitefulness that is helping to make the slow evaporation of the government possible.

So that's it, now you know the story. How we are fighting Grey Face with Cheeto Face. <Applause> We've got the United States F.G. listing like a drunk Van Helsing, making too many missed stakes. <Laughter> Our favorite marionette Devil still dances for you, still dances to distract you from the cosmic horror of no inherent meaning or purpose. One day, beautiful ones, you will see not cosmic horror, but boundless freedom. One day you will learn to make Art. But for now, marionette Devil.

Art Manifesto: Utopian Fever Dreams

(This article originally published by Gods and Radicals)

I have it on good authority that good art manifestos start with a declaration denouncing all previous art movements and putting them on notice that they have been found out to be hacks concerned only with money. In keeping with that fine tradition that may or may not even exist, I am putting the leaders of all previous human societies on notice, we have found out that you are run by hacks concerned only with money. Most leaders who are dead are safe from the embarrassment of being found out. Those leaders currently alive don't seem capable of shame, so for now lets just end the ritual formality of denunciation and get into it.

But what is Utopia exactly? It's heaven, heaven on Earth. A heaven built with one's own two hands. Everyone is in the Utopia game. Since Ur and Babylon, all of civilization has been an imitatio in divinus. Everyone wants to build “their” Utopia. Guess who's Utopia we are living in now?

Why Art Manifesto and not An Art Manifesto? Well, to put it quite plainly, I'm not just talking about art, or the arts, I'm also talking about THE ART, the only Art really. All of the rest of it is just practice in technique. Some people are technically amazing, and an even smaller slice of people actually achieve Art without ever intending to. Many who practice The Art have no artistic technique to speak of and yet still make it work. But many, many, many, who aspire to art or The Art, fail, miserably. Because they never even try.

If you are unwilling or unable to create your own Utopia, you will inevitably live in someone else's. Many create their own Utopias, but have neither the means or the will to build it very far outside of their imagination. This is the consequence of the Capitalist Utopia we all live in. Our Utopias either stay locked in our imagination, never breathing free, or quickly bankrupt us, or sometimes, get us locked away behind bars, either in a jail or a hospital.

Then there are some who have technique, they achieve unto The Art, and spend their lives churning out baleful anti-art, which like the flaming eye of Sauron, seeks out imagination, creativity and freedom, and burns it out of a person, replacing it with product jingles, corporate logos, and asinine TV/video ads. The products of these anti-art da Vinci's go on to live their own lives in the ether, astral plane, noosphere, collective unconscious, whatever you like to call it.

But imagine having the means and the will, and choosing not to create a Utopia. What does one call that? Imagine not having the imagination to create a Utopia. That is the beginning and end of poverty. The Capitalist Utopia has broken your body, and hence, your mind. Or it has broken your mind, your body is soon to follow. The Capitalist Utopia is a meat grinder, and Mammon turns the crank.

What kind of art can you make these days that some jackass isn't looking to commodify and sell. Or would it be better to say commode-ify? What kind of art resists best this trend of the endless shit torrent of “content”? What medium aesthetically and physically resists being owned and sold?

While we're on the topic of demonology, why do Capitalists get all the fun? Belphegor is in Peter Binsfeld's demonology too. He is the demon of sloth, and teaches mankind ingenious devices. Seeing him inside out, he encourages mankind to cast off drudgery and instructs in tools designed to eliminate work. He was known to the ancient Middle-East as Baal-Peor, his symbol was a phallus and he was associated with orgies. The Kabbalists know him as the disputer, would that more people in a labor dispute had made friends with him. What better demon to evoke for a Utopia? What better demon to preside over the end of someone else's Utopia?

In Tibet they have a tradition of art called sand mandalas. There was once a team of monks making a sand mandala in a museum, after they had left a small child decided to play in the pretty sand, the mandala was gone in an instant! But I do not suggest you take up making Art in sand. No, instead I suggest you take up Art with chalk. Lasts just long enough, but not too long. A medium burn in a universe on fire! Let your Art adorn every surface! Let every McDonald's arch face down with the orison of Papa Guedhe! The local block looking drab? Cook up a special haunt and make it interesting again, seal the deal with a Seal of Solomon! Chalk is cheap and so is talk! Get out there and make street Art!

Strikes and slowdown's were once the tools by which worker's unions twisted the arm of capital to get what they wanted. But the union slowly became a tool of the establishment. Wages have been stagnant since the 70's, and yet worker productivity has risen since to over 70%. The eight hour workday is an idea that goes back to 1810. Eighteen hundred and ten! We are living in the world of the future according to those people, now long dead. In the duration since, repeatedly it has been promised, more often than not in the contemporary discourse, that in the world of the future drudgery would be gone, post scarcity would render society radically different. So what happened?

Why chalk and not spray paint, or something else more permanently defacing? Well, in the case of paint, it no longer permanently defaces like it used to. Society has become accustomed to it, works around it. In other words, paint isn't permanent as it used to be, and permanence isn't the point. This universe is a burning house, everything is impermanent. Chalk then is the perfect medium as message, as well as resisting attempts to commode-ify Art. Most taggers tag in paint to see how long a run they have before their tag gets painted over. As well, most tags are just names written in elaborate, barely readable script. A bunch of latter day Andy Warhols, signing their name on civilizations concrete coral reefs. Boring!

Murray Bookchin, in his book “Post-Scarcity Anarchism”, a book written in 1971, seemed to be of the opinion that a post-scarcity that provided a high quality of life, as well as a harmonizing with the environment, was possible. That was in 1971. Some might argue that we weren't there yet, but are today. Some might argue that we are almost there, but maybe tomorrow. Many anarchists are jaded with the notion entirely, convinced that the long promised technology will never manifest, that it was a fever dream that distracts from the revolution. The reality is startling and may cause you to shit yourself from seizures; the shock from this revelation will be overwhelming. It was the Capitalists that promised the future of post-scarcity. They lied.

Spray paint has become passé, something to be ignored on the urban landscape, not pretty enough or weird enough to grab attention. Permanent enough that it is an annoyance to the particular “owner” or caretaker of whatever bears the mark, but not impermanent enough that it becomes worth looking at simply because of its short life. “Tagging” artists have also partially pushed into the mainstream, it is no longer the universally hated pastime it was in days gone by. In contrast, chalk is too ephemeral in its duration to be worth hating or accepting. The simple fact that it is still there makes one curious enough to look. Though it is imminently destructible, no one bothers, it's chalk, let the rain handle it.

Oh, they didn't lie about the technology, that's for sure. If we didn't have it in the 70's we definitely have it now. No, they lied about using it. They had no intention of ever improving the quality of life with it. No transformation of society was going to happen, regardless of whether or not the tech was real. The point of Capitalism isn't the greater good, it isn't the most benefit to the most people. It is about getting that mutha fuckin' money. Every single other thing that a Capitalist does is auxiliary to that. Give up all that money and power so that people can live in dignity and without fear of having basic needs met? “Fuck that bullshit”, says the Capitalist. The point of a Capitalist society is so that the most sociopathic and ruthless can get more. It's an asinine way to run a civilization, if you want it to last for more than a few hundred years, and not collapse into ruin.

How complex your works need to be is entirely up to the artist and their skill. You can go for the fully utilitarian mode of sigil work, or create murals that will wash or blow away within the week. What matters is your intent, and how much life you breath into that intent made physical. You might even find that as you make more works, that your technique and your ability to  bring these works to life, to Art, grows and takes on a life of itself, that's real Art.

And if our leaders are asinine, then why work so hard for them? It's one thing to show up because you need a paycheck, its another to let yourself be goaded into working as hard as you can because you're afraid one of the salarymen is going to call you lazy! Constantly on the media streams, these assholes get up in front of everyone and the gods to either implicate or out right accuse the citizenry of laziness, despite all research asserting the opposite. You have a 70” LCD TV that you bought on credit, what do you need with all that health care and minimum wage anyway? Right!?!

Not only will your works take on a life of their own, but they are also embedded there in the moments they occupy, there for any being with eyes to see them. The beings we (and I'm just going to assume that since you're reading this you are one of those types who talks to spirits, gods, demons, etc.) talk to exist on another plane, sure, which is another way to say higher dimension. Just like the floating silvery orbs often seen over populated cities might be aliens, sure, but are more like cross sections of hyper dimensional shapes being rotated on their 3+n D axes, and less like beings from another planet in our “volume sliding along a duration” type of existence. That means that the chalk is actually not just an aesthetic statement about anti-commodification, but also an effective way to conceal your works from the mundane peoples.

Look, in the past it was sabotage, strikes, and slowdown's that twisted the arm of capital. But punctuated events have become easy for the Capitalist and his Statist cronies to deal with. Instead, why not provide the ultimate slowdown? Belphegor makes sense as an adopted comrade spirit in these times. Corporations are now more than ever trying to foist as much work for as little pay as they can on the worker. If it isn't overtime due to under-staffing and high volume, then it is pursuing your personal GOALS, which must meet the SMART criteria, and though they are refereed to with various anti-prose euphemisms such as employee enrichment, what they are friends and fiends is extra work. Extra fucking work, as if the shit they have you doing for a whole third of your life wasn't enough.

I have a confession to make, I don't think the revolution will happen soon. I do not mean to say that we should not make the attempt, or struggle in other ways. What I mean to say is that until there is a collapse, the kind that normally happens when a society spins off into massive inequality in wealth and environmental degradation, that the inertia of our collective history will deflect naturally such efforts. We should struggle anyway, however, because the attempt itself plants seeds that can be watered later, to grow in the fertile corpse of our current context. I would not deny anyone that demands “revolution now” the opportunity to make it happen. But in the succession of “nows” that pass, why not engage yourself happily? Why not make Art? Why not paint this soon-to-be corpse of a civilization, like a cemetery mortician putting make-up on someone's gran-gran, in runes of struggle, revolution, liberty and community? If you have better things to do, then feel free, certainly, to get on with it. But if not, why not pick up a stick of chalk, and paint the world mad?

They don't lift a finger except to count their money, and they vilify us, these scoundrels, for not wanting to drudge in a world where drudgery could be done away with. It keeps us tired, unable to absorb information as fast, and closer to docile than not. It is not a lack of technology that prevents Utopia, it is the fear of the privileged, and indeed today they enjoy such “private law” that has not been seen since the days of aristocracy. The slick haired, over perfumed, chemically tanned aristocracy of money want you working hard so they can continue to enjoy the privilege that comes from their money. Ready to play hookie yet? Ready for an, ahem, “sick day”, full of fun and adventure?

Indeed, if I should be so bold, I might suggest that one's whole life should be a work of Art. A magical statement to echo down the ages, heard only by ears that can hear such echoes, and yet the waves of which affecting those who can and can't nonetheless. Like Nietzsche suggests to us, “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'” If indeed your life were to occur repeatedly in such a manner, would you want a third of that time spent drudging for a douche-bag with a watch collection worth more than hundreds of thousands of families incomes? Many think when they die the drudgery is over, and if it isn't, would this not then be hell?

“What kind of adventures”, you ask? Well, you could do a lot of things, with free time comes choice, a thing most at least dimly remember. I could make a suggestion, why not art? Paint the town red as they say. And why not magical art, or as they used to call it, The Art. An abattoir of Art, the concrete deserts of the worlds cities blooming on a spring, summer, fall, or winter day. Any time of the year is good. Not a bad suggestion if I say so myself. I should write a little primer, a wee little Art Manifesto to rouse my glorious fellow rabble into acts sacred and profound. Why not an Art Manifesto, I don't have much better to do. I wonder if anyone knows anything about Art Manifestos?

Who wants to live in hell on Earth? Why not then use Art to make a Utopia? Nothing fancy mind you, this present context is two breaths away from being a rotting corpse. Perhaps then we should just plant dreams in the subconscious minds of our fellow humans, and nightmares for Capitalists who hope we all stay sleeping. But whether or not we bother to plan our Utopia or with Jovian profligacy spread our Art like so many weedy species spill seeds into the wind, we should at least have a talk about Utopia. If you could live your life as a work of Art, in a civilization that was a work of Art, that might be Utopia, if you were into that. But definitely, lets talk about Utopia first.