Little known heavyweight boxer and activist for his own cause Cassius Clay, (known later as Muhammad Ali) surprised and upset most everyone in the boxing world in 1964 by mercilessly beating the indomitable world champion, ‘the killing machine’ Sonny ‘Big Bear’ Liston. Immediately after Cassius’ hand was raised in the ring as the new ‘world champ’, Cassius ran and stood on the ring ropes yelling at the top of his lungs, “I shook up the world! I SHOOK UP THE WORLD!”
In General Custer’s ‘last stand’ on Big Horn Mountain, Wyoming, in 1876, Custer was an activist of sorts going to glory or to hell, depending on one’s point of view. With just a few hundred cavalry horse soldiers Custer attacked thousands of native American Sioux Indians, the Sioux being just one of many tribes contributing to Custer’s ‘last stand’. One of Custer’s last commands was, “Scouts out!” The last thing Custer heard shouted back by his trusty scouts before Custer’s cavalry was surrounded and massacred at Little Big Horn was, “Sioux!” Custer’s last cavalry command was, “Dismount! Fight on foot!”
French Emperor in the early 1800s, Napoleon Bonaparte’s finest fighting cavalryman, Joachim Murat, reportedly coined the phrase, “Ride to the sound of the guns”, which he successfully did many times during Napoleon’s reign despite being outgunned and outnumbered…like activists today fighting against all odds. “He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”–Napoleon
Like Custer, when you are outnumbered, surrounded and sure to die all you have left is the ‘soldier’s lament’, a passionate wailing or ‘battle cry’ for glory or grief. No matter how much you love your country, it will NOT love you back. No matter how much you believe in the system, it does NOT believe in you, but your duty is required, and your loyalty is expected. If you scorn these traditions, you will be branded…‘dishonorable’. Activism is a difficult and thankless, and sometimes perilous, commitment fitted only for a few…for the hard and dangerous. Anyone who answers the urgent call of drums, and marches toward the sound of the guns, must be willing to die unsung, unwept, and unknown.
Several of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution in 1776 were Deists and believed a Supreme Being did create the universe but these activists rejected the idea that a supernatural (beyond the natural) deity of ghosts and spirits intervenes or interacts with humankind meaning basically you are on your own in the universe.
In 1776 Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and other activists modeled the USA, not after European monarchies, but after the democracies of the native American Indian, the forgotten founders of America. This is the lost history of the U.S.
American history shows that the American Indian gave our forefathers the ideas of mass participation in government, leaders as servants of the people, not their masters, impeachment for wrongdoings, freedom of expression and religion, as well as freedom from unlawful searches and seizures.
So where did activism originate? All we have is recorded history and Mozi was known as the father of Mohism. Mozi was the first true philosopher of China in 400 BC. Mohists were the first known radical conservative activists, a group made up of commoners, sons of peasants, skilled laborers and artists that banded together into a force that today would be called paramilitary troopers setting out to perform military and civil ‘black ops’ (operations) that others were unwilling or unable to handle. These ‘defenders of the defenseless’ followed a code of ethics based on living sparingly and economically (austerity) and followed utilitarianism which is uniquely Chinese communist wanting only what is needed or ‘the minimums’ (minimalists).
Among Mohists’ major ethical tenets was a selfless concern for the well-being of others (altruism) and a universal, unbiased respect and concern for all people regardless of relations or affiliations. Mohists were willing to fight to the death to defend the defenseless.
Today, the New Global Activist Network consists of artists, writers, students, educators, entrepreneurs, culture jammers, environmentalists, reactionaries and revolutionaries who wish to launch the New Social Movement in the Information Age of the 21st Century. The goal is to galvanize resistance against all aspects of the commercial, consumption culture we have created.
Our commercial culture seems hell-bent on destroying too much of our precious environment, depleting the earths limited resources and at the same time is polluting our minds, diminishing our lives with overwhelming amounts of elitist, self-centered, commercialized propaganda which is conditioning consumers to believe that everything is OK and no harm is really being done to us or the environment.
Now this is where oppositional culture steps in, known as the New Activism which is, to date, a loose knit network of artists, activists, green entrepreneurs, media literacy teachers, ‘downshifters’, reborn liberals, high school muckrakers, campus rabble rousers, dropouts, incorrigibles, poets, philosophers, eco-feminists, ecological economists, TV culture jammers, ethical investors, idealists, anarchists, guerilla tacticians, hoaxers, pranksters, anti-tech neo-Luddites, malcontents and punks.
These type folks range from cool intellectuals to the violent lunatic fringe. These ragtag remnants of oppositional movements of days long gone by, are what is left of the revolutionary impulse in the jaded atmosphere of post-modernity in which revolution is said to no longer be possible. These culture jammers oppose consumer capitalism and represent a growing number of people giving up on the American dream, like students who do not want a career working for corporate America, like creative people and salespeople who are tired of selling their souls to corporate clients. The American dream and progress lost its luster because of its never-ending “materialism”. The affluent Western cultures are living in denial while militarily and financially propping up so-called friendly, puppet, quasi-democratic governments, and corrupt capitalistic economies worldwide like those found today in Egypt, Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere.
Culture jammers also include vegans, maverick professors, as well as, cyclists who paint their own bike lanes to reclaim the streets; earth-firsters who liberate (vandalize) commercial billboards along our roads and highways; urban guerillas who stage wild street parties; and other protesters who ‘skull’ public advertisements or paste ‘GREASE’ stickers on tables and trays at fast food restaurants.
Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, lived in Greece in 100 A.D. and said, “Wealth consists not of having great possessions but of having few wants.” You encounter despair when you desire things you fail to obtain. Rid yourself of desire and rid yourself of disappointment, a sense of failure and bad fortune. You are not free if you are a slave to desire.
“Fortune does not change men, it only unmasks them.”–M.J. Riccoboni
“One is never more on trial than in the moment of good fortune.”–Lew Wallace
“Power corrupts the few; weakness corrupts the multitude.”–Eric Hoffer
“Real knowledge is to know one’s own ignorance.”–Confucius
Liberation does not center around objects and a mindless compulsion to consume but is guided by a different, equally fundamental desire: the ever-present human need to create. The general population is passive, apathetic, steeped in sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity, diverted to consumerism and hatred of the vulnerable, and the end result the powerful can do as they please…and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
If we cannot control our wanton consumer lifestyle and put our economy on a sustainable path, and if this death spiral downward is irreversible, this is called ‘ecocide’. It is kind of like suicide by lifestyle and uncontrollable, wasteful habits.
Today’s consumer culture is bloated and decadent. Industry is cancerous. Economics have replaced Goodness and morality. The corporations are in control. Our brains are pickled by commercialism. Our only hope may be in the activist tradition but even this is bogged down by the “spent ideology” of the liberal left wing that, today, is ‘in bed’ with corporate America.
Are we, the people, even up to the challenge? What we may need is the birth of a new American dream, better ways to eat, think and behave, as well as a new political movement if we are to reverse the seemingly irreversible ecocide.
Today, to be a citizen means no more than being a consumer. Citizen democracy is now consumer democracy, meaning it is your DUTY as a patriot to consume to foster economic growth.
We buy more than we need or can often afford. Our focus on the marketplace distracts us from non-commercial facets of life.
Commercialism is backed by lawyers, lobbyists, politicians and powerful capitalists who understand the secrets of propaganda, power and who gets to keep power. To persuade the public, you completely immerse consumers in the commercial, consumptive ideas you want adopted without consumers ever really noticing that they are being immersed in them.
If the USA doubles its rate of economic growth, will we, the citizenry, be twice as happy? The only unlimited growth found in nature is cancerous tumors which grow by ‘stealing sustenance’ from healthy tissue to grow throughout the body. Our never- ending economic growth may prove fatal to the planet, stressing out the Earth’s capacity to endure, which is not unlimited by any stretch of the imagination.
Should public policy focus on fulfilling endless human ‘desires’ of Western culture? Excessive material comfort can impede human progress, the community, family, spiritual and moral development. Socrates, the ancient philosopher, said “We never “desire anything that, at the moment of desiring it, we can deem to be all absolutely Good.” This means desires and appetites are without end and based on ignorance, not wisdom as there is always something better, always something more to possess, but once you have it, this type of happiness is fleeting, temporary and unfulfilling. Consequently, endless economic growth and consumptive behavior will not lead to the promised land of human well-being and happiness.
Economic activities should lead to the development of “well-being” within you, society, and the environment. The reason capitalist economics is overall counterproductive is because of the phenomenon known as ‘discounting’, meaning we prefer benefits NOW not later and prefer to defer any societal and/or environmental costs into the future or on future generations.
‘Discounting’ allows the easy way out because we attach less weight to a benefit or cost now. Politicians in the U.S. figured this out a long time ago and use it against the American public to continue getting elected. Too often in every stratus of American society, if benefits cannot be seen immediately, they are seemingly irrelevant.
Generally, the public and politicians are not rewarded for long term solutions. Instead, everyone involved is rewarded for quarterly profits and economic growth now, as stockholders are unforgiving. They want profits NOW. Any consequences of unyielding economic growth will arise in the future as we unwittingly rationalize that advances in technology, science and economics will solve any problems. This is ‘wishful thinking’ and why we have many of the problems we face today which have been created by the very technology, science and economic growth that we thought was going to save the planet for future generations.
We, as consumers, are ‘discounting’ our future just to get products now, products that do not necessarily make us any happier. Economic growth for growth’s sake has become America’s ideology. Consumerism and economic efficiency has risen over most all other values. We have become “hungry ghosts” so to speak, to consume, produce, consume, and consume some more. All that matters is the “more”. The first ever billionaire, oil man J. Paul Getty, was asked once, “You have all the money in the world, what else do you want?” Getty answered, “More.” Quantitative has surpassed qualitative.
Politicians, economists and business people are ‘discounters’ and have failed the public miserably by championing economic efficiency and consumptive behavior over other values, even though the average citizen has to share most of the blame. We, consumers, with our endless appetites and desires, are all negligent derelicts and irresponsible but we must be held accountable. The ultimate question becomes how can you avoid becoming a “hungry ghost”? Or can you?
Economic recovery is when wages are kept low as possible for the “wage slaves” while the opulent few owner/operators just get richer. Slavery is NOT dead but alive and well, masquerading today as wage slavery. Ask any wage slave.
REAL economic recovery occurs when people figure out what it takes to pick themselves up off the industrial scrap heap, reject the “rat race” and make it on their own to either become one of the opulent few, or decide instead that they would rather have a more fulfilling and satisfying life as opposed to making a money-driven, materialistic living.
The U.S. government politicians’ and Wall Street titans’ idea of a growing economy may be very different from REAL progress made by working class people. The economy may be fine, but the working class may not feel so fine at all. As long as consumers spend most all of their available income, the economy will look fine because of all the buying and selling of goods and services and business transactions taking place in the process.
However, if the economy is better off, are you, the consumer, better off, happier and feeling more secure? Spending most all of your income and our consumptive behavior, in general, does not necessarily equate into well-being. Genuine progress by how the working class may be advancing and “feeling” is left out of the government’s and Wall Street’s equation of determining just how well-off the U.S. economy may really be doing.
The “typical” millionaire owns a small business, may not show many outward signs of being wealthy, probably spends no more than $500 for a new suit and does not own an expensive watch. The most popular car among typical millionaires is a medium-priced sedan like a Ford, while the higher income, lower net-worth wage slave probably lives beyond his means and drives an expensive luxury car.
The typical millionaire does NOT tend to shower their children and family with gifts, yet their children do NOT tend to be as frugal as their parents, and the kids often end up less affluent than their millionaire parents. The frugality and self-restraint that helped cultivate the parents’ wealth too often disappears with the children.
In America poor people may be considered middle class in much of Europe and other westernized cultures. The U.S. standard of living is so high that poor people in the U.S. do as well as many middle class Europeans especially in the area of creature comforts. Many of those classified as poor people in the U.S. can often afford simple luxuries while middle class Europeans often cannot afford simple luxuries.
Many U.S. citizens think less of what it takes financially to keep healthy than they do about maintaining their entertainment subscriptions. German workers may earn $50 an hour but $25 or more of it goes back to the government to support their nation’s social programs. In 3rd World countries, like Vietnam, workers earn $1 an hour but save up to half of it because they know their government will not take care of them.
It can be hard to avoid hypocrisy in any struggle against the status quo. The political and capitalist economies in place in America make it practically impossible. To be an activist against environmental rapists and polluters by avowing not to wear leather, fur or eat meat and dairy products, remember, animal products are still used to make pet food, processed food, shoes, belts, cosmetics, and COUNTLESS other products. So, can you swear off this stuff? Even if you are a vegan the companies you buy vegetables from are likely connected to the meat and dairy industries.
To be an “activist” your choices are limited. You cannot entirely escape the conditions you are forced to live within, replicate and reinforce. Like one U.S. Supreme Court judge said, “We are a prisoner of the times and culture we live in,” which also forces us to make decisions we will likely not understand until decades later. To insist that an activist obeys only one set of rules is not only unrealistic but dogmatic and even authoritarian like the dogma that has been forced down the throats of us activists for centuries by the egregiously greedy ruling elites.
An activist’s guidelines need to be re-evaluated and challenged from time to time to prevent stagnation. Tasting the forbidden fruit of hypocrisy also helps the activist remain immune to the shame and potential despair that may afflict the person who strives for the ideal and perfect innocence.
Inconsistencies in your heart and soul are only natural. Be proud to be a hypocrite in your struggle to overthrow the status quo. Anyway, it is difficult to be a “saint” and still be a part of the political and capitalist economic system of modern life in America. Do not even try to claim you are innocent and a saint, pure and right all the time. Act and act joyously and do not accept that we are helpless to effect change….even if we are. Act on your own, passionately and joyously and this, in and of itself, can be the revolt you seek but probably not the revolution. A real revolution involves breaking out of all preconceived roles, reclaiming our lives and seizing control of our own destinies, creating new selves and new forms of interaction and community.
In your heart an activist KNOWS and believes that state-organized societies, whatever economies they are based upon, cannot be ecologically sustainable in the long term. Activism helps us and others see this. However, in the meantime, you will face negative media and language from critics which try to make you feel guilty about that which you cannot change right now, yet in your heart you know something is wrong and it should not stand. Remember, negative words from critics are merely psychological ploys to keep you down and on the defensive.
Activism is all about priorities and not always about ideals. An activist enslaved to “the cause” stunts your own life and your will to live, generating bitterness and antipathy toward life while withering everything around you. A martyr may go down in history, but the most productive success may be to try and create or promote a role for others to emulate which can be more rewarding for an activist than martyrdom.
An activist’s self-imposed isolation from people is wrong because these are the very people you should be connecting with. For example, to be anti-capitalist is to alienate ourselves from the service of the ‘things’ capitalism has created to help further ‘the cause’.
Activism expresses real struggle, not the affirmation of separateness and distinctiveness of a particular group. However, linking your activism with other activists’ causes or campaigns different from yours may only relegate your ‘cause’ to the ghetto of ‘good causes’ in the public’s eye never to be heard about again, so be careful who or what you link up or hook up with.
Ancient philosopher Epictetus said, “There is no need to explain your philosophy (activism). Embody it.” The activist struggle today, and for decades now, is to get what you want without compensating the egregious, consumptive capitalists in the process. Americans, especially lower and middle class socio-economic groups, figured out long ago, and even more so today, that you should just ‘take’ (liberate) what you want.
In the past the big thing was making counterfeit goods with name brand labels but there is no need to accept counterfeits anymore when you can simply liberate all the name brand goods you want by easily deactivating a store’s anti-theft strips, or by simply walking out of a store with what you want unimpeded by store security personnel, then sell the goods for 50% or less of their retail value ‘on the street’ with little, if any, fear of getting caught by law enforcement. No one with any ‘know how’ pays full price anymore because you can buy many liberated, name brand goods in many small, ‘hole in the wall’, legitimate retail outlets nationwide across America. Also, expensive items from jewelry to fashion clothing, liberated from the rich, capitalist pigs’ retail outlets, can be resold to other legitimate retail outlets run by rich, capitalist pigs who have retail outlets in large, well known shopping malls, and these retail shop owners are too often more than willing to buy ‘hot’ (stolen) high priced goods for a fraction of what they can resell them for. Seemingly, everyone legit and illegit is on ‘the take’.
Today, everyone asks, “Why is it so hard to find workers for low wage work?” If you do not want the risk of liberating or buying liberated goods you can easily not work and live off the U.S. government teat.
In 35 states in the U.S., primarily states in the Northeast and in the Western U.S. and Hawaii, if you are a legal or illegal resident of the U.S. you can take home up to twice as much money, up to $80,000 a year in taxpayer paid, free benefits for a family of 4, if you simply do not work and get on U.S. government assistance and welfare rather than working a full time, minimum wage job. What incentive is there to go to work at all? So why not get paid by the U.S. government taxpayers NOT to work then, at the same time, go out and simultaneously work the tax free, underground, black market economy.
The downside is a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have. Ethical corruption is nauseating and once exposed increases public mistrust and potentially leads to civil unrest but this is only temporary because the public always tends to quickly forget.
So what is the Good Life?
We work like crazy to attain the ‘good life’ and keep up our standard of living, but many of us are not getting that much satisfaction from it.
Attaining and maintaining the good life forces most of us to become obsessed with time. Every activity gets consciously or unconsciously measured by how much time it takes to complete and not necessarily always by the satisfaction it brings.
One of the consequences of sustaining the good life nowadays is that we are enjoying it less and having less time for the activities which once “truly” defined the good llfe–friends, love, charity and reflection.
Americans consume like feasting aggressive sharks ‘wolfing down’ ‘cheek bursting’ mouthfuls without taking a breath or time to savor what was just consumed before they need more. For example, naturists take 40 minutes to enjoy a good cup of coffee savoring every sip and everything natural about its stimulating effect, from appreciating all the work that went into growing the coffee beans in the field we are now consuming, to enjoying the scent of roasting fresh brewed coffee beans simmering in a pot, and watching the fragrant steam and unique aroma gracefully lifting into the air as we delicately pour the earthy flavor, with its eye-catching swirling motion, into a cup as we enjoy the continuous plopping chorus of sound as the cup fills up at a snail’s pace…now to be leisurely sipped oh so slowly…smoothly and savored…leaving us wanting more.
When ‘the system’ fails you…you will create a new system.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE WINTER 1997, SPRING 1999 and EARTH FIRST JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2001 and CATO INSTITUTE 8/21/2013