Now, to seize them:
Given that our lives and our world are occupied
territory, that relations of struggle and competition
exist on every level in our society because once
introduced they tend to replace other relationships:
everything then depends on whether we can find ways to
reappropriate our own creativity and productivity from this
cycle, with which to subvert and abort it.
Revolution will never be bought at list price. Obviously,
we’re not going to get our “money’s worth” for either
our labor or our capital on the “free” market; we have to
create situations, as fleeting as need be (for what could
be sustainable, in an unsustainable world?), in which we
have power over resources that are otherwise out of our
hands. We need to learn from those already adept at these
practices: the bank robbers, the cheating high school
students, junior high students who call in bomb threats in
spring, workers who cheat the time clock or use company
materials for private projects, office-supply pilferers,
suburban adulterers, grill cooks who pull off workers’
compensation frauds. With this precious contraband, we
contra-bandits can rediscover the folk arts—which we
can use both to create new, liberated environments, and to
rescue our fellow human beings from the current nightmare.
Folk Art
murals, markers, spraypaint, stickers, posters, wheatpaste,
stencils, bricks, gasoline and styrofoam . . .
The reappropriation, by every individual, of the means
(and “right”) to transform the environments we live in. The
realization that as the fashioning of the world is a collective
project, the designing of it must be as well.
Folk Lore
stolen photocopies, broadsides, pamphlets, ‘zines, phone trees,
discussion groups, oral tradition, independent media networks . . .
The circumvention of the mass media by
direct, decentralized, and non-hierarchical means of
communication. The rejection of History, any History,
in the objective sense, in favor of myth and legend and
storytelling.
Folk Music
d.i.y. punk rock and hip hop and techno music, pirate radio,
drum circles, demonstration chants and songs . . .
The demystification of the role of musician: the
realization that anyone can create an aural environment,
that anyone can shape the emotions of her fellows into fear
or courage, love or sentimentality, rage or despair—and
the subsequent insight that this must be done cooperatively,
or else the result will be a dreadful, atonal mess. Thus, the
recognition of music-making as the perfect analogy for
human relations.
Folk Science
squatting, dumpstering, gardening, inventing, d.i.y. building
and plumbing and decorating and printing and repairing . . .
The end of specialization—the end of expertise as
a commodity in a scarcity economy. The rejection of
technology as a deity mediated by an elite priest caste,
and of linear “progress” as the sole and unquestionable
principle of human history. The realization that each of us
can do anything, that it is more valuable to make your own
progress than to passively accept or even contribute to a
“progress” beyond your control.
Folk Love
gift giving, Food Not Bombs, local and international
communities, communal living arrangements, community spaces,
open relationships, loving friendships, affinity/infinity groups . . .
The emergence of mutual aid and emotional support
outside the exchange system, for their own sake rather than
as a transaction, so that we can build communities which
protect and foster individuality and cooperation at once.
Folk War
street blockading, demonstrations, squatting, Critical Mass,
Reclaim the Streets, the Black Bloc, wildcat strikes, spokescouncil
meetings, topless federations . . .
The collective establishment of means for
defending individual freedom and autonomy
that do not endanger them in the process.
The abolition of leaders and orders,
even in times of war (like this one), in
favor of radically democratic, decentralized
or at least consensus-based strategies
of resistance.
all word is by crimethinc
