The Little Things.

Today I got to dance on the street outside Whitehall, opposite Downing street. I got to speak with and meet some wonderful people. Truly committed to creating change through direct action; The White Flag Revolution, a group of people camping and occupying the street outside Whitehall. Their goal is to create forceful change on policies regarding Afghanistan, we know all protest is pointless, this is the next stage of direct action. I think it’s fair to say I do a lot of political activism, whether it’s some satirical megaphoning or something else but today I found something that I so often don’t see.

When given the right space and the right group, people will truly project their soul through themselves and it is an utterly raw and wonderful thing. Whether it comes from talking to a group or another small action it doesn’t matter, you can see it in people. When this happens it feels like a perfect demonstration of what so many peace movements try to achieve. So here’s to the girl today who was laughing along with my shit on the megaphone and later in the day came up to me out of nowhere and asked for a hug. Strange that that’s the one thing that sticks out from my day, I think her name was Maddie. So yeah, thanks for the wonderful little projection I got to share with you.

Projecting to you; Tom :)

Dance Dance Revolution

So I’m thinking about this whole political change issue. Some people were looking at the riots that took place on Wednesday as something of a resistance, people standing up and fighting back against their evil oppressors. Now I’m all for standing up again scumbag oppressors, but I saw a bunch of pissed of young people letting out their anger, no greater agenda then that, just a small space in time that happened to be perfect for them to let it all out.

In many ways it did feel revolutionary but in many others it felt fucking stupid. The moron who threw the fire extinguisher off the roof, people going just for a fight with the police and those determined to throw rocks and light fires whether or not it hurt their fellow human beings. What the whole event showed was potential; that when pushed, people can push back.

So the whole thing was pretty destructive and yeah it was cool to see “fuck you tory scum” and “Anarchy” spray painted across the walls of Tory Party HQ. But on the whole I don’t think this type of action is the way forward and I speak now from a “conspiracy theorist, we’re in desperate need of revolutionary change” point of view.

Back to this thought I had. Instead of this conventional notion of revolution and change being mass riots and take over perhaps we need something else. Perhaps that method is outdated and, to quote Bill Hicks, “we need to evolve the idea”. Here’s the thought and yes it may sound bizarre. Instead of complete violence and destruction to create revolution and overthrow the system we need a party and not the political kind.

We need the peaceful take over and occupation of buildings like Millbank tower, but instead of destroying them completely we turn them into party central. We dance, we sing, we shout, we fill the place with good vibes. We show how fearless we are by skanking it out to some righteous ska in the face of the police and if they bring it down with force then they look even worse because there is no violent opposition to blame. Besides as it’s been said many a time, if there’s a lot more of us then there are of them we will succeed.

It’s strange because I don’t even know if I support the idea of revolution. I know I support the true philosophical and political view of Anarchism. In truth though I don’t know where a revolution would leave us. Whether we would graciously fall into an anarchistic type of society (or lack thereof); or whether we’d be left with nothing but chaos and for those who don’t know, there is a massive difference between Anarchism and chaos. If there was a revolution would I support it? I have no idea.

I guess with this I just wanted to say that there might be other forms of revolt other then the classical perception of revolution. Imagine just on the off chance we tried this, we revolted with a party we occupied a building and just filled it with love and positive energy, a combination of direct action and spiritual projection, it could be magnificent. It could fall flat on it’s arse and fail completely. You know what though? If it failed, well shit at least we would of had one hell of a good time.

Finishing with a quote as I so often do.

“A revolution without dancing, is a revolution not worth having” – V (V for Vendetta)

Debt anyone?

Those sell-outs! Those Liberal Democrat sell-outs! How dare they allow The Conservatives to cut university funding how dare they!

Let me put a different spin on this for you. First of all, you really think this is a simple matter of budget cuts? It goes far deeper than that. This isn’t a classic case of Tories being Tories, no no no. This issue relates to a very important part of the matrix of society.

This society is the way it is because of mass brainwashing, conditioning, indoctrination, propaganda ...whatever you wanna call it. The reason this society is so docile and placid is because it’s been taught to be that way. Through the media, through the politicians through the glorification of mediocrity, those in control and I don’t mean your government, are getting away with mass murder. They invade nations who pose no threat, they commit acts of terrorism at home and abroad, they covertly enslave their own people through a monetary system based on debt and fiat currency. They have successfully trapped us in an intricate web of deception and forced perception.

It starts when you’re just a kid and you get thrown into the education system. As you grow up you have instilled in you all these values and morals by your teachers. When you’re younger your taught the basic ethical and moral principles upon which our society functions. When you reach 15 and encounter GCSE’s it’s truly the first time you are forced to consider where you’re life is going after school and by that I mean what you’re gonna do for a living. You take courses relating to these sort after occupations, you repeat the process with A levels until you’re ready to go out into the wild to find a job. It’s what society expects, it’s what your family expects and it’s what you’ve been taught for the past 14 years of compulsory education.

So what next? One of two options, you go get a job or you head off to university. Getting a job and working inevitably helps maintain the system as you are less left time to think for yourself and are warn down so you’re more vulnerable to propaganda (see my post “Jobs we hate, shit we don’t need). But if you choose to go to university then your mind is left open and there’s a high chance you might start to think slightly differently from the way in which you are taught. Think about how many people become politicised at university, the student movement of the sixties, the numerous anti – war groups that are active today; it is a time where people leave home and start to consider their own opinions on what’s really going on.

So what do you do to people who are starting to think for themselves, who are breaking their programming and who are swerving off the road that was laid out before them? You can’t put a curriculum on universities that’s ridiculous. So you make sure these students get into fuck loads of debt. Once completing University nearly every student has a huge debt looming over them and as such seek out work to pay it off. So regardless of what you thought at uni, regardless of the conclusions you came to you owe, and you owe big. Meaning you’re forced to become part of the system, you’re enslaved by debt.

So what do I see when I see university budget cuts? I see an excuse to take the caps of university fees and making the debt even bigger and enslaving more people. Once you’re in the system it’s very hard to get out. Now I’m not saying that there’s a group of people in a smoky room discussing this master plan, but what I am saying is regardless of why this is supposedly being implemented. It will help maintain the current system; it will benefit the elites in charge and it will force graduates to be part of the system, whether they like it or not.

“You think you’re free? Try going anywhere, doing anything, without money.” – Bill Hicks