sEE yOU On thE OthEr sIdE!!!

Have you noticed—exhortations to indulge yourself are always followed by suggestions? Adherents of doctrines seek footholds to claim territory within you, salesmen grasp for handles to jerk you around . . . from new-age prophets to advertisers, from pornographers to radicals, everyone exhorts you to “pursue your desires,” but the question remains: which ones? The “real” ones? Who decides which those are?

If we are to transform ourselves, we must transform the world—but to begin reconstructing the world, we must reconstruct ourselves. Today all of us are occupied territory. Our appetites and attitudes and roles have all been molded by this world that turns us against ourselves and each other. How can we take and share control of our lives, and neither fear nor falter, when we’ve spent those lives being conditioned to do the opposite?

Whatever you do, don’t blame yourself for the fragments of the old order that remain within you. You can’t sever yourself from the chain of cause and effect that produced you—not with any amount of willpower. The trick is to find ways to indulge your programming that simultaneously subvert it—that create, in the process of satisfying those desires, conditions which foster new ones. If you need to follow leaders, find leaders who will depose themselves from the thrones in your head; if you need to “lead” others, find equals who will help you dethrone yourself; if you have to fight against others, find wars you can wage for everyone’s benefit. When it comes to dodging the imperatives of your conditioning, you’ll find that indulge and undermine is a far more effective program than the old heritage of “renounce and struggle” passed down from a humorless Christianity.

To return, finally, to the original question—yes, we too are making suggestions about which desires you pursue. We would be scoundrels to deny that! But we would be scoundrels not to make these suggestions, not to extol freedom and self-determination in a world that discourages them. Exhorting others to “think for themselves” is ironic—but today, refusing to oppose the propaganda of the missionaries and entrepreneurs and politicians simply means abandoning our society and species to their control. There’s no purity in silence. And liberty does not simply exist in the absence of control—it is something we have to make together. Taking responsibility for our part in the ongoing metamorphoses of the world means not being afraid to take part in the making of our society, influencing and being influenced as we do.

We make suggestions, we spread this propaganda of desire, because we hope by doing so to indulge our own programmed passion for propaganda in a way that undermines an order that discourages all of us from playing with our passions—and so to enter a world of total liberty and diversity, where propaganda and power struggles alike are obsolete. See you on the other side.

The Playful Violence

"I do not dream of a gentle revolution. My passion runs to the violence of supersession, the ferocity of a life that renounces nothing." -Raoul Vaneigem

The playful violence of insurgence has no room for regret. Regret weakens the force of blows and makes us cautious and timid. But regret only comes in when violence is dealt with as a moral question, and for insurgents who are fighting for the freedom to live their desires, morality is just another form of social control. Wherever rebel violence has manifested playfully, regret seems absurd. In riots (other than police riots) and spontaneous uprisings - as well as in small-scale vandalism - a festive attitude seems to be evident.

There is an intense joy, even euphoria, in the release of violent passions that have been pent up for so long. Bashing in the skull of society as we experience it on a daily basis is an intense pleasure, and one to be savored, not repudiated in shame, guilt or regret. Some may object that such an attitude could cause our violence to get out of hand, but an excess of insurgent violence is not something that we need to fear. As we break down our repression and begin to free our passions, certainly our gestures, our actions and our entire way of being are bound to become increasingly expansive and all we do we will seem to do to excess.

Our generosity will seem excessive and our violence will seem excessive. Unrepressed, expansive individuals squander in all things. Riots and insurrections have failed to get beyond temporary release, not because of excess, but because people hold themselves back. People have not trusted their passions. They have feared the expansiveness, the squandering excess of their own dreams and desires. So they have given up or turned their fight over to new authorities, new systematizers of violence.

But how can insurgent violence ever be truly excessive when there is no institution of social control, no aspect of authority, no icon of culture that should not be smashed to powder - and that gleefully?

The Joys of Travel

Industrial tourism - more distance, less difference

"Journeys, those magic caskets full of dreamlike promises, will never again yield up their treasures untarnished...the first thing we see as we travel around the world is our own filth, thrown into the face of mankind" - Claude Levi-Strauss (1974)

It cannot be denied that tourism and travel issues are at the heart of a huge amount of environmental destruction, and that increased travel and communications have caused a drastic reduction in cultural diversity . However, it must be noted that the human species possesses strong nomadic tendencies, and for this reason it has dispersed itself across the entire planet . Indeed, such tendencies have at one time or another been essential to survival; it is therefore perhaps improper to condemn "travel" or "tourism" outright; rather we must examine what these two words have come to mean, whilst also trying to define what we mean by "sustainable travel" (bearing in mind that such phrases are very much abused by those who stand to gain from the current socio-economic model)

As campaigners, we must look to a situation where "Progress" won't necessitate yet another runway, motorway, or other mal-development mobility scheme. To do this, we need to understand what processes make us want to travel .

In the words of one activist: "To me, outside the normal network of paths I follow to work, live and sleep, I want to travel further in order to see, understand and learn about something different which I could not fully encounter at home. This process enables me to relate what I have experienced at home with what goes on outside those boundaries, so that I may return with new insights and with the hindsight of seeing home from far away; from a broader perspective or context."

If we accept that it is in our very nature to roam, it may well be that people have a need to travel...to go on what might be called a "pilgrimage" to places other than their home at least a few times in their life. But this must be done in a way that does not advance monoculture . Wherever we are travelling, it is the way we travel and the relationships that are formed with the people we meet along the way which will determine whether the net disturbance we cause is positive or negative. It should at best leave the people we have visited with a sense of pride, satisfaction and empathy; that someone came and visited from afar, lived alongside them, sang and spoke in their language and helped them in the fields; someone who thought that their way of life was different but equal to their own .

Kabalintunaang Kalagayan

Minsan gusto ko nang itakwil ang masang minsa'y gusto mo pang ipagtanggol dahil sa hirap na dinadanas nila. Ang kontradiksyon na ito ay pilit na kumukurot sa aking puso at isipan sa dahilang ang kahirapan na kanilang nararanasan ay maaaring bunga rin ng kanilang kapabayan.

Sasalamin ang ganitong kalagayan sa kasalukuyang kundisyon na aking kinalalagyan. Sa Tingin ko hindi naman nagpapabaya ang mga kinauukulan sa pagpapaalala at pagbibigay ng tulong sa dapat nitong abutan. Subalit kailangang matiyak na ang tulong na ito ay mapupunta sa tamang pinaglalaanan.


Walang katapusan ang kontrobersiya ng korupsyon sapagkat habang patuloy sa pag-ikot ang buhay ng tao sa pera. Patuloy naman itong dedemonyohin ng tukso.

Korupsyon sa simbahan, sa pamahalaan, sa mga pamayanan, sa mga pagawaan, at opisina ay tiyak na lalala kung hindi mapagtutuunan ng makabuluhang programa.

Ang kasalukuyang inihahain ng kabihasnang ito ay tiyak na lilibing sa mga pangarap ng mga nagtatanggol.

EXPERIMENTAL ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS: EMERGING CONDITIONS FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER

a personal evaluation:

“Anarchism is not a concept that can be locked up in a word like a gravestone. It is not a political theory. It is a way of conceiving life, and life, young or old as we may be, whether we are old or people or children, is not something definitive: it is a stake we must play day after day.”
-Alfredo Bonano, THE ANARCHIST TENSION

Jealousy, And What I’ve Learned From It
Yes, I still feel jealous sometimes. I’ve had experiences before of being insanely jealous --- not just of another man, but of other things my partner loved or experienced or were excited about. Being able to come to terms with these things has been a very important in the development of my confidence and sense of self. It took me years to feel not just understand) that if my partner loves other things or other people as well, it doesn’t mean I am less valuable. Besides, if she truly loves me, it’s not because I march up to someone list of desired qualities that someone else can outmatch me at – she loves me for reasons that are unique to me, that no one else can compare with, so I have nothing to fear.
I consider my jealousy a worthy adversary, one that can teach me a lot about myself if I confront it with rather than trying to protect myself from it by controlling others. I’ve had experiences in relationships before where we have limited ourselves in order for us to protect from jealousy, and it has been catastrophic for both of us, you can imagine.

Love isn’t a scarcity commodity --- it must increase, just like joy, the more it is permitted and shared and given away. Remember the elementary song “LOVE IS SOMETHING THAT YOU GIVE IT AWAY” and movies like “PAY IT FORWARD”?
I don’t feel like I have to hoard anyone all to myself now. I know that doesn’t work, or help to protect love (or me, for that matter) It’s just as important to me now that I help others to not be “afraid of me” as it is they learn not to be afraid of themselves.


Another Gender Rant

One of the things jealousy has taught me about is my attitude toward other men. In our society, men are conditioned to hate each other, try to “protect” womyn from other men (which often looks more like hoarding and protecting personal “property”), and this inclination makes sense when you look at how fucked up many men are when it comes to interacting with womyn. But for me to not trust any men to be something good for my partner (past the point of limited friendship) is outright paranoia and territorial bullshiting. If I trust the judgement of my partner, I should trust her to know what and who is good for her, and to not let my each-against-all male conditioning interfere.

Objections I’ve Heard Raised Against Open Relationships

“I guess that’s fine if it’s what YOU WANT (choice) to try, but luckily I only want monogamy for myself! I’m all set!” – a friend
That’s great for you, if it really is true --- for the time being, at least. We’re always so thrilled when our desires happen to coincide with social rules: then it is easy for us to feel proud of our desires, to think they’re beautiful, since they are universally accepted (indeed, everything around you is reinforcing the idea that that what you are lucky enough to feel for the moment is perfection itself) … but you might not always be that “lucky”, you know. Should you (or someone else) ever feel a need that isn’t satisfied by the monogamy system, if you haven’t explore it once, try it twice!

“It sounds good in theory, but the way people feel is more important than these abstractions…” –a friend
Some people think that we come up with ideas and theories not as solutions to the real problems of our lives, but to show off what good ideas we can come up with. If it is not clear by now that that I’ve been thinking about this as an attempt to solve rather than exacerbate the problems in my intimate relationship, then I apologize for doing such a poor job writing this article.

Ang Makabagong Panawagan: Pagtutulungan

Malaon nang pinagtitibay ng karanasan ng mga tao na mahirap asahan ang pamahalaan, na sa gubyerno lamang iaasa ang lahat. Ang kasalukuyang bulgaran ng mga baho ng mga lider progresibo, sa gubyerno, sa simbahan, sa mga barangay hanggang sa kaliit-liitang yunit panlipunan ay isang anomalya na dapat pagtuunan ng pansin.

Taong 2003 nag-alburoto ang sandamukal na mamamayang hindi natakot sugurin ang balwarte ng pambansang kapangyarihan sa galit dahil naikulong ang lider “kuno” ng masa na umani ng tagumpay mula sa kanilang hanay. Hindi napigil ng baril, bumbero, teargas, military-marino, trailer tank, barb wire at mga pulis pangkalawakan ang mga nakakakilabot, nakakatuwa, nakakagalit na eksena ng nataguriang “malacanang siege”
Magdamag naming inantabayanan ang mga pangyayaring ito sa maliit na transistor radio na minana pa ng aking ama mula sa aking lolo. Nagtitinginan lamang kami sa tuwing lumalampas sa mga barikada ang mga kapwa naming maralita na hindi ko alam kung nabubulagan ng kanilang mala-messianikong turing sa nahalal/inihalal nilang pangulo. Aminin ko matagal din akong napaniwala na masasagip pa ng halalan ang mga inaasahan ng mga mamamayan. Minsan pa nga ay naging volunteer pa ako ng inaakala kong may matinong programa sa ating bansa (sumalangit nawa, mabuhay ka!) na magbibigay pag-asa sa lugmok na kalagayan ng pulitika sa ating bansa.

Sabi nga hindi naman masamang managinip, subalit may babala na dapat managip ng makakaya lamang ng sariling kakayahan. Mas malakas kung magsasama-sama ang mga magkakaparehong mga panaginip. Ang kolektibong hangarin “collective consciousness” ng mga tao ay makakamit sa pamamagitan ng pagtutulungan.