GOD IS OTHER PEOPLE

Marx once noted that the petit bourgeois - the small shopkeepers, that is - were the only class that truly could help the workers come the revolution. "When it is time to take to the streets," he said, "they will be the ones to provide the guns."

My aim is, and always will be, the overthrow of current modes of production and social organization. What I realized long ago is that this can best be achieved not through violence, but by creating a model of production and social organization that doesn't destroy individuals but rather builds them up. Once this model is created, I think it's inevitable that individuals would begin to prefer the better model and start depriving first their labor, then their dollars, to the earlier model. When I talk about "punk business", I understand that certain people will see this as nothing more than a call towards capitalism; these people, in my opinion, are idiots.

For what revolution can be executed part-time? It is ONLY when people are able to deprive their labor from the System that they're free to deploy it in the service of their OWN ends. One of these ends must necessarily be to eat; this means that profit should be a goal of the punk business, just as it is the goal of mainstream business. There, however, the similarity ends, for when I hear and wear and read and download the products made by these businesses, I often feel my life changing. It's sometimes amazing to me the consistency with which brilliant stuff comes out of the underground, but that's why the underground EXISTS - to provide the guns.

Of course, since this is a media age we live in, much of this ammunition consists of media. The revolution in underground media - and by media, I refer to any vessel for messaging ('zines, magazines, records, books, video, websites etc.) is a direct consequence of the work of punk rockers, who innovated such forms as record labels and 'zines. These innovations have spread to other subcultures, and as a result we're in an age where kids know their own creative potentials.

When punk rock came around, it was obvious that the existing "model of production" in the music industry was not going to cooperate with the social agenda of revolution promoted in much of the music. One of the major contributions of the Sex Pistols towards this agenda was their utterly humiliating treatment of the corporate record labels that tried to work with them. In 1976, corporate record labels thought they were pretty damn liberal, at least in comparison with other industries - after all, they tolerated Mick Jagger, you know? Punk was a liberating force, and yet I look at a scene full of people who are ready to talk shit about anyone who's taken that liberation and made something of it for themselves. The reason is because punk once was a collective effort to destroy the mainstream; now, it's turned into a way for people to proclaim their individuality and nothing more. That's a generalization, but that's how I feel.

I have come to see things differently since I first got into punk. My mind is a gateway to infinity, as is yours, as are all of our minds. EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. We DO live in a deterministic world, but that determination is not done by some machine; it's done by a living, breathing, billion-legged organism called you and me. In other words, we are ALL affected PROFOUNDLY by the collective consciousness of humanity. If everyone believes in doom together, well, we will inevitably and methodically set about engineering that doom. If everyone believes in revolution together, on the other hand, we will inevitably achieve that revolution.

This collective consciousness is not some God in the sky; it is obvious, tangible, and it doesn't require any spiritual belief to understand it. It exists wherever groups of people gather; it's simply the feeling of togetherness that emerges from any joint experience. These experiences are many and diverse, ranging from sex to movies to natural disasters to coffeeshop poetry readings, but we all gravitate towards them, and without these experiences we begin to worry about ourselves (are we getting out enough?) This is because humans are SOCIAL; in fact, our major evolutionary advantage has been our ability to work together in groups. Without the ability to hunt together, our ancestors would never have survived the jungle. This ability is a foundation of our humanity, and the relentless pace of our modern world has threatened our survival because it de-emphasizes intimate socialization in favor of dependence on the corporate media and organizational hierarchy.

To me, this consciousness has a voice and a rhythm. I can hear it whenever I wonder aloud, "what should I write for my audience today?" This voice is heard whenever someone says something that people agree with; once you start putting together words in sequences that prompt agreement, you are a poet. In my opinion, this voice spoke softly to Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and an infinity of famous and nameless people who sought after, and discovered, the TRUTH. But even Douglas Coupland and Martha Stewart have figured something out about this truth, and you can too. You will know the truth because you will agree with it instantly, without thinking too much about it. Once you stumble on a little bit of it, the whole thing opens up to you and you understand that there is no real competition here; all of us who are dedicated to illuminating things that interest others understand that there's PLENTY of truth to go around, and that we're all in this together.

As near as I can make out, I have been put on this earth to liberate people from the oppression of WORK. People tell me their horror stories about work, and they count on my stickers to give them a little lift in their boring, monotonous lives. I look around at these lives, and I can see the damage clearly, and I simply know how to help in a way that others don't. Capitalism harnesses the abilities of the talented few and enslaves the rest, stomping out the indiginous cultures of local areas and forcing us to serve time in their thrall within our own living rooms. What we need is to think about our relationship with ourselves. What is "us"? When we talk about Americans, what are we talking about? The common thread between all people in America is that they WANT utopia but instead have a disappointing mainstream existence.

All truly deep religions are deterministic. Science is no different - cells are derived from DNA; DNA is nothing but a sequence of atoms that programs the biological destiny of the organism. Even psychology has its root in a behavioral determinism; what has been done to you is not your fault, but the fault of circumstances and events that must be brought out into the open. If you want to find the Truth, look for PATTERNS, routines, rituals, cycles of repetition within your life and the lives of others. Figure out ARCHETYPES and forms, understand the way you work, understand how you can be joyful and interact with others, learn to plan and the value of simplification, find ways of understanding larger-scale ideas than you with your puny senses have a right to understand. Feel the world outside of yoruself; understand what it might be like to BE SOMEONE ELSE for some time. The secret is simple - IT'S ALL IN YOUR MIND. As part of the plan, you have within you an understanding of the total plan.

As long as you do what you do in the spirit of the collective consciousness, what you do will succeed. If you do what you do to help others, others will appreciate and help you. Until you figure out how to help other people, you're going to find the going rough. The second others pick up on the fact that you're trying to help them, they'll rush in to help you. It's interesting how we help each other on such an instinctive level; we are so into the collective experience that any opportunity to experience things together becomes a party. Serve others, and they will assist you any way they know how. If you can create something that will enhance other people's experience or alleviate their disappointments, YOU HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD.