> Mycoloteur wrote:

>> Reprinted from brainsturbator without permission.
>>
>> Please visit them. They also have an amazing library that they are
>> about to take offline permanently!
>>
>> Love and Light
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 10 Ways YOU Can Fight Fascism in 2008
>>
>> This is the best guide I can offer for proactive, prolonged,
>> independent and effective resistance against the overwhelming
>> direction towards greater warfare, poverty, and fascist control we see
>> around the world in 2007.
>>
>> I was asked by a weirdo I have a lot of respect for to write on this
>> specific subject. I want this article to be as useful as possible, so
>> I'm just going to lay things on the table as quickly and as clearly as
>> I can.
>>
>> Let's begin by shaking off bad language -- we tend to discuss politics
>> using old metaphors, which are useless today and actually make
>> understanding the problem more difficult. There is no Left and Right,
>> there is no "inside the system" because none of us are "outside" of
>> it, there is no change "from the bottom up" because there is no "top"
>> to bring the change to.
>>
>> We find ourselves up against an entrenched power structure composed of
>> a relatively very small group of wealthy elites. They seldom rule
>> directly or even visibly, and maintain their power through building
>> huge armed bureacracies who enforce power for them. The global power
>> structure is a decentralized, constantly shifting network of organized
>> crime and national control systems, representing many different races,
>> nationalities, religious dogmas and cultures.
>>
>> However, there are common threads in all systems of social control:
>> They do not have a sense of humor, they are bitterly opposed to Art,
>> and they are unable to handle bizarre and confusing situations. These
>> systems are built upon enforcing conformity, turning nature into
>> consumer goods, and controlling information. These systems require
>> enemies and they create criminals.
>>
>> Because of these common threads, these systems all have common
>> weakness that we have the power to exploit to incredible effect. If
>> you take nothing else away from this, please remember: you are
>> exponentially more powerful than you think you are.
>>
>> The simplest summation of the overall strategy I propose is this:
>>
>> 1. Destabilize Existing Structure
>>
>> 2. Minimize Destructive Backlash
>>
>> 3. Establish Robust Communication
>>
>> To this end, I propose 10 steps which form a conceptual toolkit.
>> Perhaps that's a euphemism for "disorganized pile of shit," but I feel
>> strongly that these are all relevant and useful:
>>
>> 1. Practice is repetition is preparation is power.
>>
>> Can you win a fight? Can you control a situation enough to escape? Can
>> you outrun police? I'm not saying you need to be able to knock someone
>> out like Brad Pitt, but I am saying self-defense is a core life skill.
>> Without it, you're not effective. I recommend Aikido and Tai Chi to
>> all living humans, unconditionally.
>>
>> Establish meaningful and beneficial routines. Our culture is a
>> constant pulse of imposed rhythms and rituals that we need to actively
>> fight against to maintain clarity and effectiveness. Learning any
>> skill set is amazingly simple: learn about it, then try it out until
>> you get it. That iron-clad formula will guide you through anything,
>> from juggling to fellatio to meditation.
>>
>> 2. Create situations that cannot be controlled.
>>
>> I don't propose that because it's punk rock, but because I believe
>> it's a solid strategy. Ideally, in any confrontation, you want control
>> of the situation. However, we're talking about us, you and me as
>> individuals, taking on the global power structure of Earth in 2007 for
>> control of our planet. We are not in control of the situation, it is
>> dumb to assume we could be. So go for the next best thing -- be
>> totally unpredictable, escalate chaos and noise, and create a
>> situation that nobody could possibly control.
>>
>> This is basically an unspoken bet with your opponent: "I am giving up
>> control of this situation because I am faster, smarter and stronger
>> than you." Embrace chaos and leverage chaos, because what cannot be
>> predicted cannot be controlled. Only a lawyer would pretend otherwise.
>>
>> 3. Do not allow yourself to be controlled by situations.
>>
>> What do you do if someone puts a loaded gun in your face? Sure, that's
>> a heavy situation, but do you panic? I propose you remain calm and ask
>> the human with the gun what they want. There is never any reason to
>> panic. Self-assembling nanotech hunter-destroyer clusters swarming
>> thousands of feet high, raining down human blood and internal organs,
>> is still not a valid reason to panic. Panic is helpless idiot fear. In
>> high stakes situations, you need to be calm and focused.
>>
>> Horrible and amazing things will happen in the next five years, but
>> you're going to survive and maintain, just like humans always do. You
>> yourself should make peace with death. I mean that honestly, not being
>> sarcastic or macabre -- it's important for psychological health to
>> keep your death in perspective. Avoiding it always leads to
>> complications, and as I will discuss later, denial of death has been
>> shown to make people more suggestible, afraid, and prone to violence.
>>
>> 4. Seek information, avoid arguments.
>>
>> The only person responsible for getting you trustworthy information is
>> you. This involves a great deal of work. Am I seriously advocating
>> that you spend hours a day just sitting around learning stuff?
>> Absolutely yes, I am. The wonderful Jennifer Bowen introduced me to
>> the phrase "good company is kept discussing good ideas -- not people."
>>
>> The internet is insanely effective for rapidly accessing high volumes
>> of high quality information. It's also a great way to spend four hours
>> checking your email, watching porn, or getting into pointless
>> arguments with total strangers. We all have egos, we all get pissed
>> off occasionally, but don't do that online: get up immediately and use
>> that anger to lift some free weights.
>>
>> 5. Seek predictive models, avoid explanatory models.
>>
>> I propose that it's more important to have a general sense of what's
>> coming up next, than to have a precise picture of what's going on now.
>> The global power structure is not a monolithic, static object: it is
>> constantly shifting, and while we focus on one tentacle, seven more
>> will be taking advantage of our ignorance. An accurate history of this
>> power structure is far less valuable than knowing how they operate,
>> and what their assumptions are.
>>
>> Remember, we're living on the same planet. No amount of secret insider
>> knowledge will spare you the consequences of catastrophic storms,
>> toxic pollution, solar and lunar cycles, space weather radiation, etc.
>> The global power structure has to respond and adapt to the world it
>> claims to control, use the cycles of nature against them.
>>
>> This is a massive source of power that few activists seem to be aware
>> of: for the past three centuries, governments, militaries and
>> corporations have been waging a very literal War Against Nature,
>> attempting to control what they cannot understand. Recent documents
>> like the UK Ministry of Defense report "Global Trends 2007-2036" make
>> it clear that those in power cannot predict the short-term
>> consequences of worldwide toxic pollution. They are scrambling to
>> prepare for a future crisis they cannot plan for. You can, though.
>>
>> 6. Become an autonomous cell.
>>
>> Do you realize that most of what "intelligence analysts" do is just
>> read through publicly available media and look for patterns? Are you
>> familiar with the concept, technique and theory behind "asymmetric
>> warfare?" What do you think military analysts mean when they predict a
>> future of "constant low-intensity urban conflict?" Is it signifigant
>> that the US government has a long track record of inflitrating,
>> subverting and murdering counter-culture icons and revolutionary
>> leaders?
>>
>> As Peter J. Carroll observed in Psybermagick: "In practice the power
>> of any conspiracy rises and falls in inverse proportion to the power
>> of its internal conspiracies. Mutual guilt and bribery mainly hold
>> together conspiracies whose ideologies command insufficient loyalty,
>> but this makes them vulnerable." Take advantage of your opponents
>> paranoia, use their need for control against them.
>>
>> Autonomy also implies economic freedom, good health, and secure access
>> to food. Shelter can of course be communal and improvised -- in many
>> climates, shelter is barely nescessary most of the year. Although I'm
>> essentially advocating that we take the Army recruiting slogan, "an
>> army of one," further than they themselves ever will, I'm not
>> avocating turning your back on anyone. I'm advocating that you work
>> for your community, independently and perhaps invisibly.
>>
>> 7. Don't be a dickhead, and love thy neighbor.
>>
>> It's the only rational approach to life: do your best to be nice. By
>> doing so, you make life easier for those around you, you reduce
>> physical stress that wears on your own body, and you will often find
>> yourself reaping rewards at random. Some people call this "karma,"
>> other folks call this "emergent properties of complex networks."
>>
>> Be nice to your neighbors. Help them out for no reason, refuse to
>> accept money for doing so. Partly because real charity is subversive
>> these days. Also, in 2007, you do not want the cops called on you,
>> period. You truly do the world a favor when you purge yourself of
>> terms like "sheeple" and "the herd" -- I've also learned, through
>> hilarious personal experience, that referring to taxpaying citizens as
>> "slaves" will never work out for you.
>>
>> There is nothing wrong with being selfish, only being dumb. Dumb
>> selfish people look for simple self-benefit, smart selfish people look
>> for open-ended, mutually beneficial situations. If you can improve
>> your community, you have also improved your personal power base and
>> your chances for long-term success. That's not "public service," just
>> science, math and common sense.
>>
>> 8. Invest in tools and share them subversively.
>>
>> The old Industrial Revolution plan for social control was simple.
>> Wealthy families owned all the "capital goods" -- the machines and
>> factories that make consumer goods. So they used that power to hire
>> poor people to work for them, in exchange for being able to purchase
>> some of the "consumer goods" they themselves made. Things have changed
>> a lot in 2007, because the line between capital and consumer goods has
>> blurred almost completely. You can launch a record label with about
>> $5000 and be pressing your own CDs, for instance.
>>
>> Technology is magick. I think that's become clear enough to just leave
>> that as a statement. We now have the tools for invisibility, weather
>> control, human cloning and burning entire cities to the ground with a
>> single missile. We will soon have the tools for universal translation,
>> undoing one of Jehovah's major curses as chronicled in Genesis 11.
>> It's vitally important that us fringe weirdos get ahold of all these
>> amazing future toys before they get turned into future weapons against
>> us.
>>
>> Sharing is subversive. Communal access to important tools is
>> subversive. Growth is a sign of a healthy economy, profit is a sign of
>> a sick one. Break the profit cycle everywhere you can. Nobody will go
>> pay for a service or tool when they can use an equally good one
>> locally, for free. You would be amazed how low overhead can be when
>> maintenance is your only expense. You would be amazed how well you can
>> maintain tools and facilities if you're willing to put in work.
>>
>> 9. Become a Beacon of Insane Hope
>>
>>
>> Yeah, perhaps I'm reaching with this one, but I mean it emphatically.
>> There is no shortage of people telling me how fucked I am, but I've
>> spent the better part of a year tracking down people who are talking
>> about solutions, comparing technique, and putting in work towards
>> something better. I want to talk to people about seed bombs, quantum
>> microdots, urban farming, water purification, anything that can
>> improve reality, here and now.
>>
>> There's strong evidence that fear and anger are actively used as tools
>> of manipulation and social control: the White House spent $1.6 billion
>> dollars in 2006 on "public relations." This is a signal that needs to
>> be counteracted, becacause based on psychology experiments, evoking
>> the concept of death alters human perception. People become more
>> dogmatic, nationalist and likely to support violence. This is based on
>> the research of Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski,
>> and you can find more information searching for the phrase "Terror
>> Management Theory."
>>
>> I am not advocating violence to any extent. Perhaps this is the
>> strangest concept in my toolbag, but for what it's worth: violence is
>> actually not your weapon. Sure, you can throw rocks at cops, shoot
>> cops, and blow up police stations, but you're actually not
>> accomplishing anything. In fact, you're doing Their Job for them,
>> which is why undercover police officers around the world try to start
>> riots at peaceful protests. Violence is not a weapon we can control,
>> so it's not a weapon we should use, either.
>>
>> 10. Please, be fearless.
>>
>>
>> The stakes are beautifully high, the enemy is unbelievably strong, the
>> fight looks completely hopeless. It's too perfect, it's ridiculous.
>> How can we be bored on a planet as deliciously dangerous and insane as
>> Earth? I can only conclude that my entire generation is living inside
>> an open-ended video game that we've been training for since birth
>> without even realizing it.
>>
>> So keep pushing, stay calm, eat healthy, seek novelty, breathe deeply,
>> take risks, think slowly, move quickly, speak clearly, fight dirty,
>> dream crazy and please, be fearless.
>>
>> If you'd like to contact me, feel free. I am friendly, honest and
>> generous.

> Well said, that man....
> I'd add one (tho' it's kinda already in there) become skilled at a craft
> that you can do with your hands,Take the tools of that craft out of the
> hands of "The Man" (whoever they are!!!), make things from the earth, if
> you use metals, learn how to smelt them, learn your trades, whatever
> they may be.... And Learn from each other that all may be free....
> Hugs
> Eddie
> ps take the spam out of the addy to reply, it's good to talk...