Eight
Things You Can Do To Get Active
1. Pay attention
to where and how you spend your money. Is your money going to support
companies that don't care about you? Are they destroying the environment,
killing animals, treating your friends who work for them like shit?
Are they trying as hard as they can to sell you a product that gives
you cancer? Are their advertisements designed to manipulate you, to
make you feel insecure or make their product seem like more than it
really is? You don't need to give those motherfuckers your money! For
that matter--do you buy many things that you don't need? Soft drinks
and junk food at convenience stores, for example? Do you end up spending
a lot of money whenever you want to relax and have a good time? There
are a thousand things you and your friends can do that are fun, creative,
and don't cost anything (having intense discussions, exploring hidden
parts of your town, making music--instead of drinking at bars or going
to movies and restaurants) just as there a thousand ways you can eat
and live more cheaply (Food Not Bombs, building furniture instead of
buying it, living in big houses with a bunch of friends). Once you experiment
a bit, you'll probably find that you enjoy life a lot more when you're
not always shelling out cash for it.
2. Now that you
spend less, you can work less, too! Think about how much more time
that gives you to do other things. Not only will it be easier to do
things that help you spend less, like volunteering at Food Not Bombs
(the less you work, the more time you have to make sure you don't need
to), you'll also be able to do all the things you never had time for
before: you can travel, exercise, spend more time with your friends
and lovers. When it's sunny and beautiful outside, you can go out and
enjoy it!
3. And you'll have
time to do the other things you need to do to take back control of your
life and your world. First, start reading. It doesn't
really matter what, so long as it makes you think about things and gives
you new ideas of your own. Read novels about human beings struggling
against their society, like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye or George
Orwell's 1984 or Joseph Heller's Catch 22; read the beautiful, dreamers'
prose of Jeanette Winterson or Henry Miller. Read history: learn about
the Spanish revolution in the 1930's, where whole cities were run by
the people who lived in them, rather than by governments; learn about
the labor union struggle in the USA, or the Free Speech Movement in
Berkeley in the 1960's. Read philosophy, read about environmental issues,
read vegan cookbooks and underground 'zines and comics and everything
you can get your hands on. Here's a hint: if there's a university in
your town, you can probably get a membership for about $10 a year--and
most libraries include videos, too!
4. Reading isn't
the only way you can expand your horizons and clarify your ideas. Talk
to people about the things that interest you, arguing when you don't
agree, so you'll get to know your own beliefs better. Write
to the people who are doing the 'zines you like, discuss and debate
things with them, ask them for directions to find out more about your
interests. Try writing about your own ideas, and sharing that with people,
until you feel confident doing this. Travel to different places, try
to learn about other cultures and communities, so you'll have more than
one perspective on the world and you can start to imagine what the world
is like through other people's eyes.
5. Now you'll know
what you want, and you can go about getting it. Seek out other
people and groups with similar goals, and figure out how to support
them or participate in what they're doing. Maybe you can copy
fliers and give them out at shows; maybe you can organize benefit shows
for organizations you want to support (women's shelters, radical bookshops,
local groups protesting against the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal or
lobbying for protection of the environment). Maybe there are public
protests and demonstrations going on that you want to be part of. Try
to help find ways to make these more challenging and fun than just a
bunch of people holding signs; everyone's so bored with doing that that
there must be a more effective and exciting way to go about it.
6. You can start
your own projects, as well, you know. If there's no Food Not
Bombs in your area, get a group of people together and find some local
businesses that will donate their leftover food. If there's something
fucked up at your high school or college or workplace, try organizing
a walkout to force the "authorities" to do something about
it... and to show everyone that those "authorities" only have
as much power as we let them have. If the main street of your town lacks
life and excitement, try organizing an unexpected festival to take place
in the middle of it one weekend. Shake up everyone's lives and expectations,
shake them out of their apathy and boredom so they'll start thinking
about things. Establish networks with other people who are also interested
in having an effect on the world around them, so you can help each other
do this.
7. Through all of
this, don't stop questioning yourself and your assumptions.
Try to see through all the social programming you've received throughout
your life: consider how gender roles constrain the way you act, how
your own relationships with people reproduce the same hierarchical order
that your fighting in mainstream society. We're not going to really
change anything unless we can create new ways of living and interacting,
new values that show themselves in the way we treat each other. Show
your friends how much you care about them. Consider doing things you
never thought you should or could do: dancing, singing, admitting things
that you've been taught to be ashamed of.
8. Now look
to the future. How can you stay involved with these things as
you get older? How can you construct your life so you will always be
free to do what you want to? Talk to people older than you who haven't
given up and gone back to the daily grind of eat-work-sleep-watch TV.
With a little input from them and a lot of resolve on your part, you
can maintain your activities and your lifestyle as long as you want
to. Idealism, adventure, and resistance don't have to be reserved for
youth alone. History is filled with men and women who refused to compromise
or calm down, who went all out from the cradle to the grave. They are
the artists, the leaders, the heroes and heroines even people from the
mainstream respect. We can all have lives like theirs, if we're brave
and idealistic enough.
If all of us demand
control over what we do and what goes on around us, if all of us do
what we can to make life exciting and fair for everyone, things are
bound to change. A lot of people know that we don't live in the best
of all possible worlds, but persuade themselves that it's hopeless to
try to improve things because they're afraid to commit themselves, to
take any risks. But it's that lack of ambition that is the biggest risk
of all--for what if you do nothing, and nothing happens, and we lose
our chance to make this world the paradise it should be? Don't be shy
or timid--there's nothing more exciting than taking an active role in
the world around you, and there's nothing more worthwhile!
this message brought
to you by the CrimethInc.
Special Forces c/o C.W.C., 2695 Rangewood Drive, Atlanta, GA 30345
USA