Jack Burns Lives!

Authorities befuddled by decentralized, non-violent movements….what can they do if people simply choose not to participate in the dominant, corporate culture?

“Which way did he go, which way did he go….”

May 28, 2011
The New York Times
For Anarchist, Details of Life as F.B.I. Target
By COLIN MOYNIHAN and SCOTT SHANE
AUSTIN, Tex. — A fat sheaf of F.B.I. reports meticulously details the surveillance that counterterrorism agents directed at the one-story house in East Austin. For at least three years, they traced the license plates of cars parked out front, recorded the comings and goings of residents and guests and, in one case, speculated about a suspicious flat object spread out across the driveway.

“The content could not be determined from the street,” an agent observing from his car reported one day in 2005. “It had a large number of multi-colored blocks, with figures and/or lettering,” the report said, and “may be a sign that is to be used in an upcoming protest.”

Actually, the item in question was more mundane.

“It was a quilt,” said Scott Crow, marveling over the papers at the dining table of his ramshackle home, where he lives with his wife, a housemate and a backyard menagerie that includes two goats, a dozen chickens and a turkey. “For a kids’ after-school program.”

Mr. Crow, 44, a self-described anarchist and veteran organizer of anticorporate demonstrations, is among dozens of political activists across the country known to have come under scrutiny from the F.B.I.’s increased counterterrorism operations since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Other targets of bureau surveillance, which has been criticized by civil liberties groups and mildly faulted by the Justice Department’s inspector general, have included antiwar activists in Pittsburgh, animal rights advocates in Virginia and liberal Roman Catholics in Nebraska. When such investigations produce no criminal charges, their methods rarely come to light publicly.

But Mr. Crow, a lanky Texas native who works at a recycling center, is one of several Austin activists who asked the F.B.I. for their files, citing the Freedom of Information Act. The 440 heavily-redacted pages he received, many bearing the rubric “Domestic Terrorism,” provide a revealing window on the efforts of the bureau, backed by other federal, state and local police agencies, to keep an eye on people it deems dangerous.

The rest is here.

“Be of good cheer: We’ll yet live to piss on the graves of our enemies.”-Edward Abbey

A recent article in our local newspaper caught my attention. It was all too typical, a story about a wealthy developer clearing a swath of land to build new mega-homes. Nothing new here, except the fact the developer is trying to dress it up and call it a “sustainable” development when it surely isn’t. Where are those materials coming from? How is a house of more than 5,000 square feet “sustainable? ” The lots alone cost $400,000, and while that may seem cheap to folks in California, around here, it’s a princely sum. Add the $500,000 house, and it’s a million dollar home.

Despite what the brochure says, they’ll suck more energy than a Ford F-250 drinks gas, and then there’s the landscaping. Oh, those perfect lawns, little monocultures created with chemicals, all of which are endocrine disruptors so little Winthrop and his mummy can develop bizarre tumors and learning disabilities while wiping out the local amphibian population. If there’s such a thing as putting lipstick on a pig, this is it.

I decided to post some comments on the paper’s website. As you might expect, they were critical comments and met with a fusillade of attacks from the conservative, pro-development, crowd. The comments were typical, some were even funny:

“We’ll live however we want to live!” I believe that’s been well established.
“You’re just jealous. You probably don’t even have a job.” I wish I didn’t.
“You’ve got to be the grumpiest person I’ve ever seen.” Thank you. Best compliment I’ve received thus far. Guilty as charged.
“This is just left wing dribble.” I think he meant “drivel,” but language and reading comprehension has never been a strong suit of conservatives.

One suggested I was crazy. Didn’t Edward Abbey say only the half-mad were wholly alive?

One suggested that everyone should pay close attention to what I was saying (please do), since my “positions reflect much of what is be espoused by the current administration in Washington, DC.” Oh, how I wish that where true.

But the best one of the day was the lady, “coacheswife,” that suggested I “take a happy pill.” Actually, a profound statement since that seems to be the answer to coping in our over-industrialized, fascist society. All of the sudden, sprawl and packed interstate highways look like dreamy landscapes filled with opportunity for all. I don’t live in Memphis. I live in Candyland. Running for the shelter of mommy’s little helper is standard operating procedure in my own community. Thousands of nervous, evangelical soccer moms and doctors wives (U. suburbanus), jacked up on Xanax and Chardonay, texting, driving their 8,000 pound steel mastadons at excessive rates of speed so they won’t be late for Jazzersize or Bible study. Terrified their doctor husbands will leave them if they have a normal body weight, their diets consist mostly of Diet Cokes and a few crackers with a single grape. They have a strange look in their eyes, a sort of deranged look combined with a eerie smile that makes you immediately think “Stepford Wives” or “Mommy Dearest.”

But I don’t want to sound like a grumpy, over-generalizing, stereotyping, misogynist, since it’s mostly greedy, pig-headed (apologies to pigs) men doing all the damage. Men driven by greed and their oversized egos. Men willing to do whatever is necessary to fatten their own wallets, even if it means terrorism in their own backyards.

What can be done? Probably nothing, at least until oil hits $200 per barrel or higher. That’s the only hope we have of slowing the growth locomotive. Until then, just pass the bourbon and the pills.

“You know, sometimes it takes a lot more courage to live than it does to die.”
(From the film “Two Road Together,” 1961)

Thoughts on Lew Welch

I thought of killing myself
But I looked at a flower
it opened its petals
wide
to the sun
it embraced the warmth
it embraced life
and then I thought
why shouldn’t I?

postscript: I’ve always been a huge fan of Lew Welch. He’s one of the great Beat poets and very inspirational to me as a writer and as a human being. He was a giant of his generation but a tragic story. On May 23, 1971, he walked out of poet Gary Snyder’s house in the mountains of California, leaving behind a suicide note. He had carried his rifle, and his body was never found.

So, another lunatic has predicted the rapture, the Christian fantasy that all of Christ’s followers will be gathered in the sky with Him, safe and sound and out of harms way of this big old nasty earth so full of evil. The earth that, as Christians tell it, “shall pass away.”

To be followed by the Tribulation, a period of great torment. Seems like we might be there already, because as I survey the landscape, what I see is mostly death, destruction and mayhem. Perpetual war and genocide in the Middle East, the theft of public lands in the U.S., the destruction of ecosystems courtesy of multi-national corporations and class war on the aged, the infirm and the less fortunate.

How can it get any worse? I guess another WalMart could open in my neighborhood, so yes, it can always be worse.

It seems to me that life would be so much better if humans focused on the here and the now and stopped viewing life as little more than a warmup for eternity. This is the big show. Nirvana is now.

All of this talk of living forever. Thank god we don’t live forever. There’s too many of us humans roaming around already. As Abbey said, old time desert rats can’t breathe properly without at least a cubic mile of unshared space about them. Can you imagine what the earth will look like if the average life expectancy of a human reaches 90? The Catholics want women to be baby machines, and Christians of all stripes are infiltrating political positions so they can monitor women’s uteri and destroy birth control education. Christians want the planet crawling with humans, and it seems they’re winning the ideological battle.

Humans, of course, think they’re in control, but they’re not. Ole Ma Nature rears up every once in a while, kicks us in the butt and restores the balance. Viruses and bacteria mutate and evolve. Tornados ignore radar and weathermen and go as they please. The Mighty Mississippi flows as she wishes. Humans hang on, but never seem to learn the earth is not ours to “subdue.” We’re lucky to be here. Every day is a gift.

Myself, I experience rapture every time I see a thunderstorm make its way over a mesa. Each time I see a towering Century plant in the desert. When I’m fortunate enough to see U. americanus in the Smokies. When I hold my wife’s hand as I walk down a long, winding trail in the Southern San Juans to find a remote alpine lake. When we enjoy a hearty meal with our children and our friends. When I read a good book, and when flowers and tomatoes bloom in my garden.

“What does the desert mean? It means what it is. It is there, it will be there when we are gone. But for a while we living things-men, women, birds, that coyote howling far off on yonder stony ridge-we were a part of it all. That should be enough.” Edward Abbey, Beyond The Wall, “Desert Images”

It is enough.

“We should restore the practice of dueling. It might improve manners around here.”-Edward Abbey

Scattered amongst the trees on a perfect spring day, dozens of species of birds sing beautifully in celebration. Separate but seemingly in rhythm, they produce a symphony of delightful song. I imagine them going about their daily business, gathering nesting materials and finding food while maintaining a careful lookout for their powerful red-tailed cousin lurking above in the azure sky. The garden is pallet of color, reds, blues and pinks and my young, fragile plants reach for the sun.

Then, from less than a quarter mile away, just beyond a row of houses on the west side of the garden, a shrill, dissonant sound, a high pitched squeal, penetrates the air. It grows steadily, increasing in volume, then briefly decreases, changes directions and pitch, but remains. Soon, it’s joined by a similar sound and then another, until there’s a cacophony of noise permeating the landscape, drowning out all other sounds.

The peace of the afternoon is shattered.

Lying in the sun, I imagine a man on horseback confronting the abomination. An anachronism, his clothes are trail worn, and his boots are caked in dust. His hair, slightly curly and light brown, is long for his age and reaches his jacket. And although his face is weathered, he posses a youthful look, a face that beams with confidence and determination, dominated by blue eyes that seem to waiver between between sadness and rage.

He stands for what he stands on.

Before him stand three men, each holding a leaf blower. The man on horseback studies them, slowly shaking his head as if amazed by their ignorance. The men stare at him in equal befuddlement, holding their machines by their sides like weapons, idling, burning fuel. Suddenly, the rider’s gaze hardens. Beneath his wide brimmed hat, his frightening blue eyes focus doggedly upon the men. He judges them and sets the sentence, then focuses on the man closest to him. The rider pulls a Winchester rifle from his scabbard, points it at the leaf blower and fires. The unmistakable sound of the Winchester lever action rifle pierces the air like a scythe, and the plastic casing of the leaf blower explodes as the .30-30 slug buries itself in the machine, leaving the man holding holding nothing but the handle. The rider again cocks his rifle, points at the second leaf blower and fires. Same result. The third man tries to run, but it’s useless. In seconds, the rider steadies his horse, aims the rifle, holds his breath and fires, knocking the device from the man’s hands. All three devices lie on the ground, inoperable.

The men scatter for their truck like roaches caught in the light. Order is restored.

Thanks to Kent Duryee for this find….

From:
Western Review
A Journal of the Humanities
Published winter and summer by
Western New Mexico University, Silver City New Mexico
Volume 4, Number 1
Summer, 1967
Sunflowers
by Edward Abbey

It was a clean stark high sparkling sunlit silent desert morning. Hayduke sat at his desk in the
backyard, facing his typewriter. But listening to a meadowlark. And thinking of the mountains.
Those mountains, he thought, oh those magic and magnetic mountains where the mule deer – at
this very moment – are gnawing at the bark of aspens, and the jackrabbits plunge through snow
under dripping piñon trees, and the redtailed hawk, also starving – but in style, with pride, with
honor – rides the thermal pillars, his merciless green eyes glittering with cold clear craw hunger.
Buen fuerte, compañero…

The rest is here.

I watched Legends of the Fall early this morning, the 1994 film starring Anthony Hopkins about a ranching family in early twentieth century Montana. Hopkins plays the role of Col. William Ludlow, a man sick of the betrayals of the United States government against American Indians. Throughout the film, he becomes increasingly more anarchistic and convinced of the evils of government. One of his sons announces his intention to seek public office, and in the presence of his corporate supporters. A conversation ensues, in which the father, Col. Ludlow, inquires what will the business men hope to get from their support of his son. The conservation predictably turns sour, as conversations are apt do once the plain truth is out on the table.

“The Congress is government. I worked for the government once. Indians! Indians were the issue in those days. I can assure you, gentlemen, there is nothing quite so grotesque as the meeting of a child with the a bullet; or an entire village slaughtered while sleeping. That was the Government’s resolution of that particular issue and I have seen nothing in its behavior since then that would persuade me that it has gained either in wisdom, common sense, or humanity.”

I was already in a pretty low state, terribly frustrated with our government and with life in general. The film, while enjoyable, hardened my resolve about my own path, and the incredibly beautiful cinematography made me long, even more, for the wide open spaces of the American west.

It seems clear to me that the government of the United States is one of the great evils in human history. Edward Abbey said, “All forms of government are pernicious, including good government,” and as hard as I’ve tried, I can’t dispute his statement. For years, I kept trying to deny it, constantly seeking and desperately clutching positives like Social Security, the Postal Service, the National Parks and the CCC. I’d say, “See, this is government working for good.” I kept telling myself it was just a few bad apples, not government itself, but the historical record suggests the problems are way beyond a few bad apples. I wanted to like or love my government, but I kept finding too many reasons to not like it.

I once had childhood dreams of going to West Point, of being a great soldier and leading armies like Lee or Patton. But as I grew older, better educated and confronted the undeniable truth of our history, those dreams faded to nothingness. Any good our government created was overshadowed and eventually drowned out by the inescapable pernicious reality of its main purpose. It became clear the positives weren’t worth the price.

The purpose of government is to be the advance guard and protectorate of capitalism. The United States government essentially stole the continent, was and remains an aiding and abetting agent of genocide, and now spreads its terror across the entire planet via the greatest military apparatus the world has ever seen. It has stolen the resources of its citizens and used those resources to spread death and misery while fattening the pockets of the greedy, phenomenally evil human beings that it serves.

From Wounded Knee to Fallujah, the story is the same. Untold human suffering, torture, the killing and murder of women and children and not just in “isolated incidents.” It’s systemic.

Do I hate my country? No. The country is the land and its inhabitants, not the government. It’s the canyons, mountains, rivers, forests and mesas. It’s the community of life, both human and non-human.

There are good people in America. Honest, hard working people that want peace. It is my hope that people of this land will bond together and create a sustainable, democratic society, but in order to do it, they’ll have to first turn their backs on Washington and Wall Street.

Some maintain that the government is the only protection we now have against growing corporate power. I maintain that the government could be a bulwark against corporatism, but as it stands today, it’s clearly not, and it shows no sign of becoming one. Today, the government and the private sector are virtually indistinguishable. Oh, the government puts on a good act in a pathetic attempt to make itself look like it’s doing its job, but it’s a ruse. Just look at the Gulf of Mexico. It’s open for business again, despite the lingering, long term effects of the BP spill and the fact that there are still insufficient safeguards against another major spill. And nothing is being done about the very real and potentially catastrophic threat of nuclear power. Once again, it’s open season on wolves and the government has stamped Monsanto and its Frankenstein food with its imprimatur, a pass card that will allow it to not only control food production but perhaps make permanent, unnecessary and potentially genetic changes to our food.

Where is this mighty protector?

I will no longer support this idiocy. I will no longer be caught up in this ridiculous, never ending cycle of voting for “the lesser of two evils.” I will, to my last breath, remain an anarchist revolutionary, opposed to corporate power and to the centralized government that supports it.

I’ll stand for what I stand on and be what I was always intended to be, not a soldier, but a revolutionary, perhaps like the Mexican anarchist Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón, a real man, or like Ludlow, a fictional character that stood firm on convictions based on real observation and experience.

The man sits motionless at his cubicle staring at a computer screen. There are 112 messages in his inbox and a stack of files to his right, 15 or so deep, all waiting. Waiting for him to take action, but he can’t move.

He hates it. The computer, the job, his clothes, his life, his inability to act. It’s the same routine every day. He wakes up, showers, puts on the corporate uniform, navigates roads crammed with raging self-medicating lunatics so he can sit in a putrid yellowish prison of steel.

His job is to help THE COMPANY money and make his BOSSES richer, although such action almost always means some poor soul somewhere, some little person that apparently doesn’t matter, loses out while profits soar.

At the top of the stack is file 1125. A mother with systemic disease, now unemployed, is four months behind on her mortgage. She’s racked by pain and her disfigured limbs are now useless to the corporation she formerly served. Daily, she contemplates how she might bring about her own death. She’s written a fair and final plea, an offer to make two payments and to finance the repayment of the other two over next six months with current payments.

The man scans the document and enters it into the digital filing system. Pursuant to company policy, he selects Option 4 and rejects the offer. This automatically accelerates the foreclosure process and will generate Letter 4 informing the mortgagee of the “decision.”

The man knows he’s guilty. He’s one of them and brings these things to pass. Guilt pounds through his veins,darkens his soul and cuts through him like a scythe. Betty sits across from him doing the same things, but she blithely goes about her daily routine with no guilt whatsoever. He listens to her each day, taking calls from desperate people, her raspy cigarette scared voice showing no mercy. She’s as callous as a cancer and terrifyingly efficient, processing three times the number of cases he does. No emotion, no feeling, just a job a do and the job is to destroy lives.

During his break, he slips away. He dreams of living under a viaduct. Dropping out and no one ever knowing what happened. Working as a ranch hand in Southwest Texas. Washing dishes in Marfa. Anything but this, a life that’s a gaping wound, draining his spirit.

He decides he’s finished and reaches under the desk to turn off the computer, completely ignoring the company policy for proper shutdown of the device. Then he stands up, shoves the chair back under his desk and walks out. He’s free.

“Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean; the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises into nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.”

His things are already packed and in the truck. They’ve been there for two years. Driving through downtown Memphis, the ramp to the Hernando Desoto Bridge rises before him. Beneath the bridge flows the Big Muddy. The Mighty Mississippi. To his right are the silos of a grain company and a few houses foolishly built in a flood plain. To his left are the cold, dreary office buildings filled with people like him performing mostly operose worthless tasks. Investment analysts, lawyers, IRS representatives and county commissioners.

Pressing harder on the accelerator, he finally crosses the Mississippi but decides to stop just past the state line and lighten the load. He walks to the edge of the bridge and hurls his cellphone over the edge into the swirling chocolate abyss, walks back to the truck, changes the radio station and stops at a song he loves.

He drives onward.