WHAT IS "THE SYSTEM"?

I make a lot of mention on this website of "The System", and I want to explain what I mean by it here.

I use the term "the System" to connote anything shitty that society or its component institutions do to individuals. Included is taxation without representation as practiced by our government; crappy bosses bossing crappy bosses bossing you; Limp Bizkit; and McDonalds. When a waitress is so tired after working twelve straight hours that she can't even stand up, that's the System; when clothes are made by third-world assholes who work their all-female slave workers to the bone in order to keep those Old Navy and Gap stores stocked with cheap thrills for the American consumer, that's the System. Alan Greenspan is the System, AOL/Time-Warner is the System, the rich-get-richer syndrome is the System, the Vietnam War was the System. Your boss - or a cop - may or may not be the System depending on the circumstances, and actually can slip back and forth (after all, s/he's a human too). You get the idea.

All of these are to me like poisons that will bring a person - or a society - down; they are the enemy, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm going to take it as my sacred charge to fight them with every ounce of my skill and vigor. But I'm jsut a poor person with zero resources; how can I best conduct this battle? I have figured it out, ladies and gentlemen; I am committed to spending my life turning this project into a bullet headed straight for the System's blackened heart. It's just a matter of getting more people to read these words, and to agree to join me in the fight against the System that oppresses us all.

You see, here is why the System fails. We are BIOLOGICAL entities, not mechanical ones. Once upon a time, society was barely organized at all. As people figured out that collective effort was more fruitful than solitary effort, society was formed; individuals took part in collective decisionmaking. Slowly, hierarchy emerged from this arrangement; first natural hierarchy (those who are strongest or smartest rule), then institutionalized hierarchy (warlords, emperors, kings, landed gentry), and finally functional hierarchy (for instance, an assembly line or corporation). The truth, however, is that functional hierarchy cannot force standardization upon the human spirit; each of us, awakened, is equally deserving of a say in the collective Will. This is best implemented by granting as much autonomy as possible to individuals within the collective, but still inhabiting collective space in order to rub off as much as possible on each other ("familializing the collective").

We can see and understand intuitively how society itself is ALIVE and we are each just cells that make up organs within it. We have affiliations and bonds and relationships and duties towards each other, and we function organically and intuitively. We do the work that needs doing, joyfully, without stress or strain; we are the SAME BODY, homo collectivus, and "work" and "play" will be functionally equivalent at long last. This is the destruction of the System, the glorious world I can promise you if you will work with me and the others that have been brought together by this webpage.

I am not suggesting that we should blame the System whenever something crappy happens to us. I'm a big fan of personal responsibility and accountability. But I'm also a big fan of not going it alone. If we don't go ahead and share the knowledge we have gained due to our disasters, or the resources that we have gained due to our prosperity, we have done nothing towards helping the next person who should wander near the trap or needs a little lift. For instance, being in awful debt, I can now give some advice on how NOT to use credit cards for you younguns to learn from so you don't repeat my mistakes. And once I'm rich, I can invest in other people's companies! In other words, we have been conditioned in this society to ignore each other instead of to help each other. We're brothers and sisters, though; we don't want to see the credit card companies or the law hurt one of our kin!

My point is that we can collectively fight the System most effectively by sharing knowledge and resources. Instead of hoarding information or money, let it flow freely towards that which deserves your support! The System wants us to be atomized; we need to create bonds of trust and mutual backing in order to form a threat to the System, and we can do so by joining the community of people that dare call themselves "unamerican".