J X (Nov 12, 2002 08:08 p.m.):-I just discovered this site today from indymedia and I think its great that we have a place to go and vent-I'm 25, am a motivated, creative, free thinking, individual. I also work for a major banking corporation-why? because I believe the only way to change things is from the inside. Not a day goes by that I don't have a fantasy about destroying that company-in any variety of ways the imagination can come up with-I'm waiting as a "sleeper cell" for the true call when one day there will be an uprising-The climate of paranoia is so strong there - I imagine even this email being triangulated-but we must unite and find each other and plan!
Um, sorry, but you're living in a fantasy world. If you're going to subvert from the inside, have a clue of what it is you're trying to subvert. If you've got a bomb to throw, do it. Otherwise, you're just another cog in the machine, and your hands are nowhere near the controls.
Everyone talks about being a 'cell' or waiting for the 'uprising,' but if you don't have anything else in mind, you aren't channeling your rage, you're just ragin'. Haven't most successful revolutions come from having a distinct political or social philosophy that said revolution was set in motion to institute? There's no revolution going on in America right now because none of the dissenters have any consensus of what they'd want to make America INTO, except in the vaguest of senses.
For right now, the way to start living is to live. Ride your bike everywhere, buy organics, and recycle if you want to contribute to a better environment. Write op-eds for your local newspaper or free weekly or Alternet.org if you want your words to reach people (and pursue journalism as a career if you want to take that further). Write plays, pirate television for public access, novels you can publish online, and give them away freely or stage them in public. Artfuck the population with poetic terrorism. Protest your heart out until they listen and earn your living somewhere other than Starbucks.
LIVE the life you want to lead or don't. But don't sit in your cube farm pretending that the revolution's going to come to you.
*end post*
P'raps I'm a pompous ass, but if I've learned anything in this life, you've got to either put your money where your mouth is, or wedge your foot in there and shut up.
