Inspiration and crucial arts for anti-war demonstrators/direct actionists
unmediated artists syndicate | 27.10.2001 20:52
Inspiration and crucial arts for anti-war demonstrators/direct actionists
(ah, maybe this is due to the truth that most people whom use the Internet are of the well-colonized *implementer* mentality, and IMCs are really a tool for Left policy makers to have "community" with such people; because, if the "multitudes" of "unwashed" masses began accessing articles/art like *this one* that would be too threatening...?)
Of course, part of the pattern of the history of movements which are sought to be controlled by one or another side of the ideological belief spectrum have consistently been *radically beautiful* in their beginnings. My study of the phenomenon leads me to conclude that probably every civil "rights" movement began with ideals allowed to express themselves *all over the map*.
Only when influence began to build did the conscious dichotomists (those holding rigid, ideologically-challenged mindsets about 'how to do things') begin to water down the broad "radical" challenge. Of course, it wasn't those reformer-minded "leaders" on the Left (or Right) alone whom sought to water the broad coaltions down in each movement. The elites on both sides of the domestic "war" didn't really want the "stupid" masses to actually gain any seriously meaningful position of policy influence!
People need to begin understanding such *meta-games* of "our" 'leaders' and their handlers, no matter where they show themselves. We need to seriously understand the so-called "elite ruling class" and our oppressors, AS WELL AS those whom are taking up the leading positions, often with marked authoritarianism, in our motions for seeking sanity and beautifulness in this world.
Ideologically-challenged dichotomists (on the Left and Right "wings"--as well as whatever the "center" is) are playing a kind of *game* with we whom have been conditioned to "follow" or be "nice" and subordinate our desires to their "more informed" and "capable" positions! When we scrutinize the *heart of the matter*, we see ideologically-challenged "leaders" in the Left (and Right) whom are seeking to create a momentum which *serves their interests* in a quite similar way to the "ruling elites"!
This is probably why Noam Chomsky's institutional analysis remains so isolated from most people's awareness, even in the Left, while people like Robert MaChesney (spelling?), Michael Parenti, and the many other more topical critics of media and u.s. foreign policy are more so-called "accessable" to the traditional *followers*. Implementers of Leftist policy (like the Right-wing version, of course) talk about and give constant reference to the topical analysts, and so you are able to understand and "access" them easier; while Chomsky's analysis is not talked about nor promoted in a way where the "layman" could understand and thus his analysis pretty much only remains understood only by the "more capable" Leftist implementers and policy makers, and a few indeependents (!heh!) like myself.
(What's really interesting about it all is that Chomsky still hasn't been completely isolated, even though he continually demystifies propaganda and leadership "qualities" in his speeches and books, sometimes much to the chagrin of his Leftist handlers. For instance, Z Magazine will "edit" interesting portions of Chomsky's "Media Control, The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda" and no one notices, for example: compare Z Magazine's version with www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6904/Chom1.html which got Chomsky's permission to publish the speech in whole). And, once, during an MIT speech, where Chomsky began "biting the hand that feeds him" when he included his very own speech "sponsor", Pacifica Radio, in his critique. (Chomsky remembers this, so ask him)
Anyway, demystifying ideologically-challenged dichotomists isn't what this article seeks to be most about (even though i'm getting near to the end...of "your attention span"???). This article wants to promote a serious alternative *methodology* instead of rigid ideology.
tHuS, the arte accompanying this article: A guy sinking in the concrete sidewalk, exhibiting his ancestral indigenous spirit while surrounded completely by a world of "Devout Normalness"...calling itself "Sane".
Everything is our imagination. Do we limit our imagination to spoonfed ideas, or are there other ways to take on the situations we face?
i and other neolithic peoples propose a method of *mass jiu-jitsu*:
A) undertake a self-instruction/independently-oriented group-instruction course of "intellectual" self-defense so that we begin to understand how *policy makers and their dutiful implementers think*, and get acquainted with the "meta games"
(While Chomsky is a good analyst to start with in my estimation--tho not easy to comprehend for those whom have been thru our prevailing forms of institutional "education"--there are quite a few others which have moved me. Try Raoul Vaneigem and his online book "The Revolution of Every Day Life"; and John Trudell in _Stickman_; and John Holt in _Freedom and Beyond_; and Grace Llewellyn on 'unschooling'--i'd cite more people called "women" if i'd stumbled onto them; do yOu know of really excellent authors which demystify the meta game? Maybe Karen McElroy fits here.)
B) note that "the master's tools" can be utilized in our own ways/needs. We don't HAVE to let the dominant imagination keep us stuck in the models of reality that dominators submit to.
For instance, language. LAnGuagE! See the difference there? You can still read it, it's just played with! How about playing beyond the corrals of "grammatical" "usage" and other imposed "Norms"/"Laws" like that of "AP Style" "news"? How about the poli-tricks of "swear words"? How about the very ideah of *play* versus "serious"?!!!!
C) direct action methods. Way beyond pacifism and passive nonviolence, tho they certainly have their places;--going into *confrontive* nonviolence, similar to Saul Alynsky's methods in _Rules For Radicals_ (he only touched on the tip of the iceberg of what's possible!). As well as some forms of direct, personal warrior ways (those interested would do well to explore some of the African warrior traditions, where warriors did loud, threatening posing and only rarely actually wounded or killed an opponent; try also Berkeley's 'Hate Man' method).
Example of a direct action method for demonstrators:
Okay, the po'lice (relatively poor cops whom are pawns of those they trust) riot squad has arrived and they've formed themselves up in all their menacing macho. When their primary handler gives the order to disperse, all demonstrators do so. But they don't head home in defeat, they simply walk in solo or their usual affinity groups, or even better, 2 or 3 people together, and begin engaging *everyone* they meet. We all, in effect, split up (even the u.s.a. doesn't have enough satellites to watch all of us!); and we SPEAK UP to all we meet, in stores, in bus lines, on the street.
AND we engage them in the beautiful ideals we want society to become. "Practice what we preach"!
So, there's an outline. i'LL be seeking to sustain these ideahhs over the months ahead, when i feel like it; if yOu wanna help out with your own interpretations of this neolithic angle, please do so!
Btw, i happened to get on WEFT in Champaign, IL and spoke about these ideahhs, with some articulated interest, before the entire station was taken off the air...coincidence? It happened for the second time in one day.
(In the unlikely event that this was covert action by our country's political police, we need to remember that such warfare will be used, and we don't have to let it intimidate us. Read former SDS lawyer Brian Glick's book about *what we can do about any form of covert action* in _WAR AT HOME: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It_ South End Press, Boston, 1990. Extremely important that *all of us*, reformers, radicals, and heart-of-the-matterers alike utilize this tool for all it's worth; the procedures outlined there are crucial!)
Flougg(g) BlorNgoot being *seriously playful* with unmediated artists syndicate (uuu)
hope4a@yahoo.com, my email contact address, may begin to have problems getting mail, so please don't think just cuz i don't get back to yOu that i'm ignorin' ye; i also am involved with a lot of other projects, too...
recent artposters used (may be inspiring) in demos in IL (see also, index below comment form thingy):
http://urbana.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2820&group=webcast
recent anti-war demo on u of IL campus:
http://urbana.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2792&group=webcast
for further background and exploration of these ideahhs, see:
www.anarchymag.org (i ain't formally affiliated with'em, tho i'm inspired by some of their demystification!)
unmediated artists syndicate
e-mail:
hope4a@yahoo.com