Joyous Treason: We Don’t Need Anymore Reasons

To the broken hearted

A Spectre is haunting America

Sitting at a bar in Reno I’ve never been to, a person sat next to me and hunched over to sink into their drink. Feeling a little lonely myself I struck up some conversation. The whiskey soon took hold and we were telling our stories and having some laughs. But as these things often go what goes up must come down. Soon enough my new friend was telling me about their troubles, frustrations and set-backs. Somehow becoming simultaneously more animated and exhausted in mannerism they blurted out, “It all just seems rigged, no matter how hard I try things never work out. The house always wins.” I took another pull of my drink—first hot then cool—I put my hand on their shoulder and said, “If you don’t want to loose at poker don’t sit at their table and relations between us and the dealers need not be so amiable.” I then leaned in and whispered, “I do believe this casino is flammable.”

Oh, shit town Pittsburgh, shit town Oakland, shit town Detroit…we’re ready! Even the bees are on strike and the sharks are biting back. Let’s do this Shit Hackensack!

!!!

We got an invite to join the Ron Paul Revolution but had to decline. We ain’t going back to that time: Yo, check out those children working them mines.

The “liberty” brigades can keep their slave rapist “founders.” That Jefferson could really talk the talk, but he sure as shit would never have walked the walk. Our fore-families were in the slave revolts, died at Ludlow, and were hanged in Chicago. Long live the martyrs of Haymarket. We are the ghosts of Wounded Knee and we are Fred Hampton…

…and we are ready

Dark Prince George was right, it is just a goddamn piece of paper and tonight we’re going to pull off a caper. Our ancestors didn’t write it, weren’t even invited, bullshit we are all United! Any constitution that doesn’t meet the needs and aspirations of a generation is a curse, well officer, we’re its hearse. Under her moonlight we’re going to break into the Archives, set the Constitution ablaze and dance around the fire light. The guards will be puzzled by our graffiti that reads,

We Demand a Do-over TONIGHT!

Tonight we’re going to steal the Liberty Bell and smelt it down. Of course we’ll make plowshares, but first we must fashion the swords! We gonna get free officers, that’s our fucking word. Each generation learns officers, each generation yearns, now watch us dance as these inside jokes burn. We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker etc.

What’s that stench? That’s the American corpse, pass the shovel, this is a funeral not a divorce. Too big to fail or world’s biggest failure? Spread the lye far and wide. The dream is dead, let’s bury the lie!

!!!

Some of us are self medicating in Shit Town, where the pain is real but all cures are false. The shifts finally over Pete pour on the forgetting sauce. Oh, right there, all better now, almost lost. Sitting here tonight with a sense of wasted years and general realization of loss, I can almost comprehend the fundamentalist’s yearnings for end times. So, come on Christo-freaks, join us working slobs for a drink. You can make the toast just please leave home your holy ghost. Pay no mind to our rising swords, for tonight we drink to the end of this world!

!!!

I sat down to write my sweetheart a poem and realized I didn’t know how. I then remembered my teacher’s eyes that seemed to say “you don’t need poetry where you’re going boy, it’s where no one gets out alive because nobody is ever really born.”

To my sweetheart:

My love tells me that where ever I am there is someplace I’d rather be. Oh honey don’t you know that when I’m inside of you I never want to leave? In Love:

Where else would anyone rather be?

!!!

Hey man why can’t you write straight?

I can’t, I’ve tried, I’m fried–don’t you know every mind is served scrambled in Shit town USA? Are we going to work or leaving, jerking off or weeping, most would rather be sleeping, but the underbelly is seething, every heart is beating for treason!

Good God we don’t need a reason.”—Fugazi

Jenny was a great joke teller…

Johnny could make a cello moan…

Jamal wrote sick rhymes for Allah…

Now we’re busy stocking the shelves, moving the tacos and going numb in the cubicles. No worries. We’ve gotten together and written a musical, with no songs or actors—you see it’s an action adventure. Spread the news wide and far, it’s a joyous romp called…

This Means War!

A little birdie just sang, “They don’t rebel because they’re too bought off.” Well? With our sheetrock homes and plexiglass jobs—getting paid with slave made shoes. Officer, you know what they say about a people with nothing left to lose? First World workers it’s time to choose…

Just what are we holding on to?

I am Jacks broken heart and rising fist

Somebody cried out, “We demand full employment!” What’s that you sadist? We demand the full deployment of all monkey wrench gangs and well armed poets. You don’t know us, faux socialist. Have you ever worked for a wage a day in your lives? You really think we want to be doing this shit, sunset sunrise? We’ll work hard but not for a boss again. Consider us on strike until Capitalism dies!

!!!

“But the capitalists provide us with the jobs and tools that we need.”

Uncle Cracker wants us robots, Uncle Tom sez good punch clock, Uncle Engine sez good play slots. Golly gee we sure have surrendered a lot.

!!!

Breaking News: Experts predict that in the coming decades humans will be having sex, falling in love with and marrying robots. Critics of this trend offered this statement that they addressed to the Brave New World Order:

“We have nothing to fear but here itself”

Oh Go-bots, Femme-bots, Sex-bots…

Ding Dong, look at me ma, I just jizzed motor oil. Do you think the US will invade me?

Ooh la la!

Come on Springsteen, come on Mellencamp sing us that song, “All the factories have left town, all the factoreeez are all gone.”

Good. Maybe next they’ll leave the planet.

Oh Captains of Industry you’ve built quite a machine. It shits out an apocalypse after eating everything. You poison the planet and plunder every last tree and of course your perpetual war for perpetual greed. Just how much shit could you possibly need?

So much loss for such pitiful gain…

Derrick Jensen sez: This culture is insane.

We’ve got hermaphrodite frogs, manufactured “quagmire” slogs and while we’re at it soldier boy, don’t get us wrong. We don’t hate you, just the slaughter you do each day. So save your soul son, say “Sir, No Sir” pick up your gun and shoot the other way!

So, Mr. Corpo hands off the land but since you love clearcuts so, we’ve hatched a plan. We’ve got the dream and you’ve got the machines: first we’ll mow down the Pentagon and next we’ll take Wall Street!

Wee-o wee-o wee-o

Oh Fudge! Here come the flat feet, crying, “Terrorists, terrorists!” Officers don’t shoot! We are your children, and just look at us: real terrorists wear suits!

To everybody ready to fight back…we salute.

!!!

Oh Greta van Whatever, so responsible in pleather. Sometimes it seems like we don’t live in the same damn Nation. “The workers that and the workers this” I’ll read The Onion where at least they know they’re full of shit

The “progress” brigades warn us to drop our mischievous wrenches and to cleanse ourselves in the electoral trenches. It’ll all be OK, we just need to win back the White House and keep those contributions coming, its revolution with the click of a mouse. Well dear “responsible” ones there is a fire in us that can’t be doused.

Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, the flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand.”—August Spies

Word.

Our hearts are a burning flag, a burning bed and a burning bible. And take warning officer, my comrades are reliable and no longer so pliable.

We are possessed by a murdered Columbian trade unionist. She says she knows who the real shooters were. She’s pissed.

She is for vendetta

So are we.

We’ve joined an underground army to smash the machine with more soldiers than the world has ever seen. We are…

Wild hearts, wild blood, wild sap, wild leaves, wild blades of grass, wild flesh, wild wills, wild thoughts, wild dreams, wild love, wild hate, wild rage, wild sorrow, wild joy, wild skin, wild fur, wild bark, wild wings, wild words, wild actions, wild claws and teeth. Wild bites, wild stings, wild smacks with wild tails.”Derrick Jensen/Stephanie McMillan

The cowards shout, “This is just the way it is, it has to be, it’s the natural course of history.” I have a dream, a pickaxe and fist full of seeds that say we could (will) tear up Wal-Mart parking lots and plant a new society. The end of the anxiety and all the false piety, the burial of the military and all the master deities, an economy that’s participatory, we don’t need charity because we’ve got…

SOLIDARITY!

There is a spectre haunting America—that spectre is our Liberation.

It’s closing time…in the USA.

Maxwell Black is a working class internet agitator from Arlington VA. He can be reached at: rejection08@gmail.com. Read other articles by Maxwell, or visit Maxwell's website.

11 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. spinnikerca said on November 3rd, 2008 at 7:14am #

    So you tear it all down.

    Then what?

  2. Ramsefall said on November 3rd, 2008 at 7:33am #

    As he writes, plant a new society. I would assume with seeds that will germinate into a society that is civilized and functional for all, perhaps even with sustainable traits that avoid destroying each other and the planet on which we depend.

    Best to all.

  3. Suthiano said on November 3rd, 2008 at 11:36am #

    Thank you for this.

  4. bozhidar bob balkas said on November 3rd, 2008 at 11:39am #

    stopping lying, deceiving, warring is what i am after.
    lying by ancient and modern patricians was always a must; else they cldn’t have so strongly enserfed/enslaved us.
    true, modern sefrdom is not exactly like ancient or of the middle age.
    but our strong intellectual subservience enables the most ruthless amonsgt us to kill children, women w. no compunction of any kind.
    in fact, they r extremely proud of that. thnx

  5. ron ridenour said on November 3rd, 2008 at 12:30pm #

    Beautifully thought, beautifully written. Right on brother!

  6. Giorgio said on November 3rd, 2008 at 1:03pm #

    Everything must be clean
    Everything must be sterile
    All expression must be squashed
    There is no room
    in a business driven world
    for colour and dreams
    These are distractions and lead to inefficiencies
    In the Land of Capital everything will be grey
    Bow down to the $Dollar !

    – Graffiti on a street wall somewhere in Durban, South Africa.

  7. Don Hawkins said on November 3rd, 2008 at 1:31pm #

    Beautifully thought, beautifully written.

  8. Robin said on November 3rd, 2008 at 6:31pm #

    “Imagine,” Tyler said, “stalking elk past department store windows and stinking racks of beautiful rotting dresses and tuxedos on hangers; you’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life, and you’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. Jack and the beanstalk, you’ll climb up through the dripping forest canopy and the air will be so clean you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles.”

  9. Poilu said on November 3rd, 2008 at 6:45pm #

    Damn! WOW!! And what Don Hawkins said above — It’s bloody terrific.

  10. Deadbeat said on November 3rd, 2008 at 8:19pm #

    SOLIDARITY!

    That’s the name of the game. Can this be achieved is the question.

  11. Timber said on November 4th, 2008 at 9:06am #

    People who idolize wife-beating professional athletes and mobsters and who drive Escalades and wear knock-off Rolexes to emulate the rulers have no interest in revolution. They want to be the slavemasters themselves; they don’t want to burn down the slavemaster’s house and free their fellow fieldhands.

    People who send their children off to kill for a nation where they can’t get health care or a decent job aren’t interested in revolution either; even though they are abused by the system, they would rather drown themselves in jingoism and fairy tales than challenge it.

    This is a nice piece of writing, and I’m on board with the author’s sentiments, I just don’t see the incipient revolutionary spirit among my fellow citizens of Turtle Island that some of my fellow critics do….