423 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
423 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
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- * -
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we are in great need of reality in our time
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a generation rages: don't vote don't pay taxes defy the police burn your
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money puncture tires upheaval destroy the whole culture let go of the past
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shit on everything rather than the sterile power clean machine eat less
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wear less work less do nothing that does not contribute directly to great
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transformation poetry break every law to pieces break up the sidewalks walk
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on the earth find another life take your children out of school make flags
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into flour sacks destroy all government the wasting of time stop the
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time-clocks strike strike strike holy terror into our hearts reverse
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peristalsis drive out the money changers stampede the banks ban them bombs
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and the whole thing of it dismantle stare dissolve grow fins fly focus feed
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exude light from the eyes beauty from the ears night exultation is one of
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the roads to salvation pound crack scream oggle wallow fuck creep crawl
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retch suck open the roof to the rain open the lungs the blood the cells to
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the plants high five fingered cannabis bright coca the languid poppy the
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secrets of the cactus the magic formulae of the earth are our chemical
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warfare against the killers recreate everything dislocate the brain which
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kills right and left revoke the pitiless modern mind lengthen this list
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with all variety of action until every sentient being eats right and left
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breaks the love barrier and sheds his anger his sexual revenge sexual
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revenge on everything
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lick it all
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begin again
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Julian Beck's *The Life of the Theatre: the relation of the artist to the struggle
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of the people* (New York: Limelight Editions, 1972).
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Meditation on Action. 1967.
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- * -
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A quote from the recent issue of *Fifth Estate* [4632 Second Ave., Detroit,
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MI 48201 USA]--from E.B. Maple's excellent article on Somalia:
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"Anarchy isn't a political movement like socialism which seeks
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administrative control of people's lives after some distant event. While
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it similarly looks to a revolution in the future, anarchy also implies a
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set of ethics and values we apply to our daily lives whether there are
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millions of us in a movement, as in the 1930s in Spain, or just a solitary
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individual resisting the demands of the state to register for the draft.
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Whether revolution or ruin awaits us, we still have to live out our lives.
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it is better to do so in the tradition of the men and women who sought a
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different world than to mimic a model citizen, the cheerful robot, the
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lover of Big Brother."
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- * -
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"Self-theory is the body of critical thought you construct for your own use.
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You construct it and use it when you make an analysis of why your life is the
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way it is, why the world is the way it is... You build your self-theory when
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you develop a theory of practice - a theory of how to get what you desire for
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your life...
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"Those who assume (usually unconsciously) the impossibility of realizing their
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life's desires, and of thus fighting for _themselves_, usually end up fighting
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for an ideal or cause instead (i.e. the illusion of self-activity or
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self-practice). Those who know that this is the acceptance of alienation will
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now know that all ideals and causes are _ideologies_.
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"Whenever a system of ideas is structured with an abstraction at the centre -
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assigning a role or duties to you for its sake - this system is an ideology. An
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ideology is a system of false consciousness in which you no longer function as
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the subject in your relation to the world.
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"The various forms of ideology are all structured around different
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abstractions, yet they all serve the interests of a dominant (or aspiring
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dominant) class by giving you a sense of purpose in you sacrifice, suffering
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and submission...
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"In accepting ideologies we accept an inversion of subject and object; things
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take on a human power and will, while human beings have their place as things.
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Ideology is upside down theory."
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"Revolutionary Self-Theory: a beginners manual"
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- * -
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"Conscientious objection is objection not merely to military service but to all
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the demands and obligations imposed by our society: to taxes, to vaccination,
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to compulsory schooling etc." - Jaques Ellul
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- * -
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It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem,
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to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group
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destroys the spirit of society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment."
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-- Albert Einstein
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"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome
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nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I
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hate them!" --Albert Einstein
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"The pioneers of a warless world are the youth who refuse military service."
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-- Albert Einstein
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"Nationalism is an infantile disease" - Albert Einstein.
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"The shadow of force, embedded in the law, stands behind every act of
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government, and in the end every government relies on soldiers and police
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to enFORCE its will. This ever-present and necessary threat of official
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violence in society helps keep the system operating, making ordinary
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business contracts enforceable, reducing crime, providing machinery for
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the peaceful settlement of disputes. In this paradoxical sense, it is the
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veiled threat of violence that helps make daily life nonviolent."
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-Alvin Toffler _Powershift_ 1990
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- * -
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In the hands of a people whose education has been willfully neglected,
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the ballot is a cunning swindle benefitting only the united barons of
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industry, trade, and propety."
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-Daniel Guerin
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- * -
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Freedom, 24th December 1949:
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"In the issue of Freedom for 26th November we reported on the seizures of
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land by the peasants of Sicily and Southern Italy, which have since spread,
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even as far as the Po valley in the north. The Italian peasants have invaded
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the land after every war since the days of the Punic Wars of 264-164 B.C.,
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and the present occupations are the culmination of a continuous series of
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sporadic and isolated seizures which have taken place since the last war.
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In fact, as Prime Minister de Gasperi admitted last week, by the end of 1947
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375,000 acres had already been occupied, and for the period 1946-49 the total
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is 600,000 acres".
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- * -
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"My country is the world and my religion is to do good."
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-Thomas Paine
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- * -
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No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression.
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If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses,
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they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes,
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the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement
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is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it
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lacks one of the most distinct marks of a popular revolutionary
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movement; it is a dogma of the few, and not the faith of the multitude.
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-James Connolly
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Introduction to "Songs of Freedom", 1907
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- * -
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"What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders,
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to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be
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compared? For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have
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to punish a criminal, who had warned his victim of the date at which
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he would inflict a horrible death on him, and who from that moment
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onward had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not
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encountered in private life." --Albert Camus, writer, France.
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- * -
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"When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked
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why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist"
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--Dom Helder Camara
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Brazilian Bishop
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Nobel Peace Prize nominee
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"Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and
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tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have the upper
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hand, they have always fallen. Always."
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- M.K. Gandhi, Lawyer, philosopher & peace activist.
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"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed
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by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing
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about them." -- George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," 1945
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- * -
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"Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It
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means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not
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avowed, autocrats, We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
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"You ask for votes for women. What good can votes do when
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ten-elevenths of the land of Great Britain belongs to 200,000 and
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only one-eleventh to the rest of the 40,000,000? Have your men
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with their millions of votes freed themselves from this injustice?
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[p.337, Helen Keller, 1911 letter to British suffragist]
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- * -
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"[Sitting Bull] once told Annie Oakley, another one of the Wild West
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Show's stars, that he could not understand how white men could be so
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unmindful of their own poor. 'The white man knows how to make everything',
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he said, 'but he does not know how to distribute it.'
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- from Dee Brown's *Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee*
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- * -
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All truth passes through three stages.
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First it is ridiculed.
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Second it is violently opposed.
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Third it is accepted as being self-evident.
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--Schopenhauer.
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- * -
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"The events of those years underlined what prisoners
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already sensed--that whatever crimes they had committed, the
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greatest crimes were being committed by the authorities who
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maintained the prisons, by the government of the United
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States. The law was being broken daily by the President,
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sending bombers to kill, sending men to be killed, outside
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the Constitution, outside the "highest law of the land."
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State and local officials were violating the civil rights of
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black people, which was against the law, and were not being
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prosecuted for it.
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[p.508, Howard Zinn, in reference to the US prison
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rebellions of the late sixties and early seventies]
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- * -
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"Socialism means democracy. And that means elections, free speech and
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press, free political parties and labor unions -- things the Soviet
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people don't have.
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"In the Soviet Union, power has been centralized in the hands of a
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bureaucratic elite. Not only doesn't the Soviet Union deliver
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democracy to the Soviet people, but a highly centralized
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bureaucratic economy cannot meet even many of their basic economic
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needs. Just because the Soviet elites call their system
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"socialist" doesn't make it so. After all, they call it
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"democratic" too. [E.g. East Gernamy's former name, GDR, German
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Democratic Republic --HB].
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- * -
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"Why of course the people don't want war... It is the leaders...who
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determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the
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people along...all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked
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and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
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country to danger. It works the same in any country.
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Hermann Goering
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"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever
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that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority
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of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."
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--Bertrand Russell, _Marriage and
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Morals_, p. 58
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- * -
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"Highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill
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me.... Most of them, I have no doubt, are kindly, law-abiding men who
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would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other
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hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a
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well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it."
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-- George Orwell
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
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- * -
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"It [the telephone] will unmake our work. No greater instrument of
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counter-revolution and conspiracy can be imagined." ...Stalin
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- * -
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The Dalai Lama on the Environment:
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Peace and the survival of life on earth
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as we know it are threatened by human
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activities that lack a commitment to
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humanitarian values. Destruction of
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nature and natural resources results
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from ignorance, greed and lack of
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respect for the earth's living things.
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Our ancestors viewed the earth as
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rich and bountiful, which it is. Many peo-
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ple in the past also saw nature as inex-
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haustibly sustainable, which we know is
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the case only if we care for it.
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It is not difficult to forgive destruction
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in the past that resulted from ignorance.
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Today, however, we have access to
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more information, and it is essential that
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we re-examine ethically what we have
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inherited, what we are responsible for,
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and what we will pass on to coming
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generations.
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clearly, this is a pivotal generation.
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Global communications is possible, yet
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confrontations take place more often
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than meaningful dialogue for peace.
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Our marvels of science and technol-
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ogy are matched, if not outweighed, by
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many current tragedies, including
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human starvation in some parts of the
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world and extinction of other life forms.
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Many of earth's habitats, animals and
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plants that we know as rare may not be
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known at all by future generations. We
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have the capability and the responsi-
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bility. We must act before it is too late.
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[Quoted page 10, GreenPeace magazine March/April 1990 issue]
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- * -
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The first person who, having fenced off a plot of ground, took it into his
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head to say 'this is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him,
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was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what
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miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared by someone who,
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uprooting the stakes or filling in the ditch, had shouted to his
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fellow men; Beware of listening to this imposter! You are lost if you
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forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth itself
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to no one!
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'Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men' (1755)
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Jean Jacques Rousseau,
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- * -
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"I am an anarchist! Wherefore I will not rule
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And also ruled I will not be."
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-- John Henry Mackay
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- * -
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*RIGHT*, n. Legitimate authority to be, to do, or to have; as the
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right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have
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measles, and the like. The first of these rights was once universally
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believed to be derived directly from the will of God; and this is
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still sometimes affirmed _in partibus infidelium_ outside the
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enlightened realms of Democracy; as the well-known lines of Sir
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Abednego Bink, following:
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By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?
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Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r?
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He surely were as stubborn as a mule
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Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour
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His uninvited session on the throne, or air
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His pride securely in the Presidential chair.
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Whatever is is so by Right Divine;
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Whate'er occurs, God wills it so. Good land!
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It were a wondrous thing if His design
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A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!
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If so, then God, I say (intending no offence)
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Is guilty of contributory negligence.
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Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
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- * -
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"the kinds of liberatory fantasies that surround new technologies are a
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powerful and persuasive means of social agency, ... their source to some
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extent lies in real popular needs and desires. Technoculture ... is
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located as much in the work of everyday fantasies and actions as at the
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level of corporate or military decision making. It is a mistake to
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dismiss such fantasies as false consciousness and such actions as
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compensatory bait, or to see their subjects as witless dupes of a smooth
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confidence trick. To deny the capacity of ordinary women and men to
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think of themselves as somehow in charge of even their most highly
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mediated environments is to cede any opportunity of making popular
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appeals for a more democratic kind of technoculture. More important is
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the task of re-creating a tradition of technoculture activism and
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practice that would be able to contest the pragmatic shape of these
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fantasies and everyday actions, rather than dismiss them as the sugary
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fare of the lotus-eating masses"
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_Technoculture_ edited by Constance Penley and Andrew Ross.
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(University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
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- * -
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" Basically the message is: Steal It! Art, music, culture, the odd book and
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the slab of cheese... the new will be built upon the ruins of the old. "
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-Buenaventura Durruti
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- * -
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Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather
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forced upon them from without . . . they do not exist because they
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have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have
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become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair
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them will meet with the violent resistence of the populace.
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-- Rudolf Rocker
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