Capitalism: It’s The End Of Your World As You Know It And I Feel Fine

FUCK THE SYSTEM by vagabond ©

“Behold Your Future Excutioners”
– Lucy Ella Gonzalez Parsons

The Mayans predicted 2012 would be the end of the world. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it is the end of the world. Not in a global catastrophic natural disaster kind of way or a nuclear war armageddon kind of way… but in another way…

The African Spring (Algeria, Egypt) followed by the Arab Spring, followed by the unrest of the European Summer to the occupations of the American Fall of 2011, are the preview trailers for the upcoming feature…. All of these resistance movements are realizing that the cozy bedfellows that politrixters and banksters make, leaves little room on the bed for anyone else. And so the rest of us are left out in the cold occupying a space on the floor to sleep… Where we dream of improvising the world into a new existence…

Maybe the world of capitalism is falling like the Berlin wall fell in ’89. Maybe ’12 is when the wall on Wall Street comes down. Maybe it’s the end of the world as capitalism knows it… There isn’t much time left… Someone tell them, someone tell the capitalists that they might want to get their affairs in order and not to worry about writing a will, it was written somewhere that meek shall inherit the earth…

i’m not afraid of a world without capitalism… are you? It could be that these are the last daze… The final chapter and verse being written… Capitalism’s judgment day… And it could be that the apocalypse is just the screams of labor pains as the world gives birth to something new…

The Call from 1984 doing The Walls Came Down live on Swedish Televison

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They’d all been warned
And the walls came down
They just stood there laughing
They’re not laughing anymore
The walls came down
Sanctuary fades
Congregation splits
Nightly military raids
The congregation splits
It’s a song of assassins
Ringin’ in your ears
We got terrorist thinking
Playing on fears
Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They’d all been warned
But the walls came down
I don’t think there are any Russians
And there ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin’ with tanks
- The Walls Came Down by The Call

The image at the top of this piece is a remix of Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton holding a shotgun and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask… The text on the design – FCKTHSYSTM is a discreet way of saying FUCK THE SYSTEM…
You can get a T-shirt or 5 pack of 1″ buttons (to share with friends) of the artwork above from my design company Audio Visual Terrorism
And as always, much thanx for the support, until we find another way out of capitalism i’m forced to exploit my art in this way… Trust me when i say i’d feel better if i could just give it all away…

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-pd

Centuries End

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centuries end
(for the artist responsible for the work on sw 57 and 9 and mohamed bouazizi)

hakim bey said the end of the 20th century
occurred when the wall came down in ’89
and who can argue with hakim bey?

it’s common knowledge that capitalism fell in ’07
and everything since then is just voodoo economics
making zombie capitalism in a way only george romero prophesied

they say trickle down economics
is gonna make it rain prosperity but it smells like piss
as it bounces off the tops of our heads

i say the beginning of the 21st century
began with the self-immolation of mohamed bouazizi in tunisia
setting fire to the african winter of ’11

everything in-between ’89 and ’11
was side line gestation and formulation
out of the binary and into the dialectic

the writing and the pictures were on the wall
on the sw corner of 57th and 9th in new york shitty
but no one bothered to look

but once felt these ideas spread like a virus across walls and into streets
and it’s easier to serve up the messengers head to madness
than decipher the coda of a centuries end

- vagabond

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-M6

A Generation Of Sacrifice

It’s Only Class War If You Fight Back by vagabond ©

“Look at yourselves. Some of you teenagers, students. How do you think I feel and I belong to a generation ahead of you – how do you think I feel to have to tell you, ‘We, my generation, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its human rights – and you’ve got to be born into a society where you still have that same fight.’ What did we do, who preceded you ? I’ll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don’t you make the same mistake we made….”
- Malcolm X

The question isn’t what we want – the question is what are willing to do to get it. Capitalism must go and in an effort to be clear let’s define exactly what capitalism is. Capitalism is the exploitation of people and planet at any cost for financial profit. Slavery, genocide, poverty, disease, war… if it brings in a financial profit then it’s all good for capitalism. The only rule in capitalism is financial profit. That needs to end. We won’t accurately be able to chart a course for a world without it, until it’s gone. It’s difficult to imagine what a world without capitalism because our whole lives are completely polluted by it. We won’t really know how to proceed until we’re rid of it. And that’s ok… We have what it takes to improvise a new world into being… The faith in our imagination is growing and spreading like anti-bodies fighting a virus.

The process we saw in the popular uprisings in the streets during the African Spring that spread into the Arab Spring and into resistance movements across Europe in the summer, that finally jumped across the Atlantic into the American Fall weren’t concerned with what political apparatus was going to replace the current systems of oppression, as they were concerned with just doing away with the systems of oppression altogether. This is a matter of renewed faith in imagination and a collective rebirth of humanity. The old arguments between Marxism or Leninism or Libertarianism or Anarchism didn’t go away they were just set aside while we went about the business of getting rid of the common enemy. No matter what the differences of direction to take in the future, the common enemy had to be dealt with in the present.

The first question that needs to be asked is what we are we fighting for? Reform or revolution? If it’s reform then let’s not bother. Reform for a system as twisted as this would be like that line from Apocalypse Now – “We cut ‘em in half with a machine gun and give ‘em a Band-Aid.” If we’re in it for the long haul, if we’re in it for revolution, if we’re fighting to turn an upside down world right side up then let’s answer the difficult questions that naturally would come from deciding that. For those of us struggling in the US the next question is what measures are we willing to take to achieve that revolution?

The powers of the state here in the US have perverted the notions of non-violent protest so that they are so narrowly reduced and defined that they become ineffectual. The problem isn’t that the state is defining and sanctioning certain forms of resistance to be ineffectual, but that most progressive resistance movements in the US have accepted those terms. And in the same breath that the state is defining what protest is and isn’t, it’s using brutal force at will and without rhyme or reason, as a shock and awe tactic, to be a constant reminder to those who protest that they better stick to the state sanctioned program of ineffectual protest or else suffer the consequences…

A decades long conversation has been taking place between the state and US progressive resistance movements. That conversation goes something like this… When US protest movements come before the state in an effort to negotiate the change they want to see, they essentially come saying we will do whatever it takes within the parameters the state sets. This is essentially allowing those who are doing the oppression to dictate how you can alleviate that oppression – which has become the greatest form of oppression. After decades of such negotiations the US protest movements refuse to see that the only way to achieve their goals is to step outside of these state sanctioned parameters of protest. Instead of defiantly stepping outside those state sanctioned forms the US protest movements have acquiesced to the degree of strengthening the state to even further narrow protest in the US.

After decades of the state defining resistance to create ineffectual protest, US protest movements have succumbed to a kind of Stockholm syndrome where the needs of the oppressor are placed above the desires of the oppressed. It’s a form of self-induced censorship. What we need to do is to step outside of these state sanctioned rules of engagement that bankrupt current protest movement tactics, while giving the state a blank check to run rough shod over any resistance it finds. US resistance movements need to redefine what it means to effective and need to redefine the tactics it’ll use to achieve those goals in a way that works for them, instead of letting the enemy completely dictate the terms of battle.

If the terms of protest can be opened up and redefined by those to whom that protest serves, then we’ll be free to decide how we will deal with the oppression we face. That freedom will begin a process that will invariably lead to the question of sacrifice. Do we really want to fail at making the impossible a reality for the next generation? Do we want the inheritance of the next generation to be the continuation of this struggle? Or do we want to be the generation that ushers in a new era of equality that will be unrivaled by any other era before it?

Can we decide right here, right now that this battle ends with us? Can we say to the corporations and the politicians that we’re willing and ready and able to do whatever it takes this time, to bring into being what was once considered impossible? Can we say to the system of oppression that the tear gas and the batons and the riot shields and the rubber bullets and the beatings and the arrests and the court dates and the prison terms will not stop us from giving birth to the impossible? Can we say with some certainty that we’ll die to make the world a better place if we have to? Can we say that nothing will keep us from finally having a hand in remaking the world in our own image? Can we sacrifice our time, our education, our career, our family, our friends, our future to see something better? Can we risk everything NOW so that the next generation can be without the burden we were forced to inherit? Can we become the generation of sacrifice? Can we be the ones to say it ends with us?

Shortlink: - http://wp.me/p1eniL-zx

Occupying Wall Street 1492 – 2011

DISCOVERED by vagabond ©

“These people are very unskilled in arms… with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.”

“Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.”

“I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries.” – Christopher Columbus

If there was one thing, that one had to choose to lay bare the inhumanity of this United States Of America one would not have to go any farther than the celebration of Columbus Day. The genocide that Columbus thinking set in place is unparalleled in the world. A genocide of wholesale slaughter that has never really ended. It’s never really ended because the pathology that Columbus used, continues today in Afghanistan and in Iraq and in Palestine and in Northern Ireland and especially in Puerto Rico… the oldest colony in the western hemisphere, a colonization that began under Columbus and continues today under the US.

Racism is a relatively young concept within world history. It’s only a little bit over 500 years old. Before Columbus there was no racism. It was the writings of Columbus that set in motion the idea that some were superior and others were inferior and that the criteria for that superiority and inferiority was in the color of a man or a woman’s skin. The ideology of racism opened the door to mass murders, torture, rape, disease and enslavement. What makes racism even more particularly odious is that it’s rooted firmly in the soil of capitalism. Racism was and is, simply a means to an end. It was a means to impoverish the many to enrich a few and it all began with Columbus.

From the enslavement and genocide of indigenous populations in North, Central and South America and in the Caribbean, to the trans-atlantic African slave trade to the subsequent colonization of Africa and parts of Asia. The common means in all this is racism and the common end is capitalism. It’s built a foundation and a template for capitalism that is used to plunder and exploit to this day.

ENJOY COLONIALISM 1493 by vagabond ©

Some 500 years later people have taken to the streets to connect the dots. It began in the Spring in North Africa with Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Sudan in the African Spring. It spread to the Middle East in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Yemen in the Arab Spring. In the summer it spread across Europe in the European Summer in Greece, Spain, Italy and England and now it’s finally reached the modern-day epicenter of capitalism with the occupation of Wall Street and the American Fall.

The uprisings that began in North Africa and spread to the Middle East were clear about the racist implications of capitalism and how it affected their lives with the way that European and American powers back dictatorial regimes in their respective countries in order to rape and plunder the natural wealth and resources of their countries. The difficulty connecting the dots between the 500 years of racism in service to capitalism however is not something that is as prevalent in the European Summer. The uprisings in Europe were an indication to the end results of capitalism’s austerity measures on the populace. However the link between capitalism and racism cannot be broken so easily. What may have begun as racism towards others in service to capitalism is now being applied to the European population. Although there was no connecting of the dots between racism and capitalism among native Europeans the effects of austerity measures against them and the resistance movements built up to them are the same as in the African and Arab Spring.

As an aside – the reference to the African Spring as being a part of the Arab Spring is something that is a blatant example of racism. The very negation that these uprisings began on the continent of Africa and then spread to the Middle East is something that is done by design to further remove the issue of racism in the global question of capitalism.

Now it’s America’s turn to turn up the heat on capitalism. The Occupation of Wall Street that was inspired by the African and Arab Spring in a tactical sense is a good start but the American Fall hasn’t connected the dots to capitalism’s handmaiden racism, in much the same way that the European Summer didn’t. This could be the fatal flaw in the Occupation of Wall Street. The financial collapse for white Americans and Europeans may have started in 2008 but for non-whites it started with Columbus in 1492 and has continued since then.

AMERICAN EXPROPRIATION by vagabond ©

This issue of recognizing the 500 year history of racism within the machinations of capitalism has a huge impact on the Occupation of Wall Street. Wall Street is the epicenter of the financial world. If the dots between racism and capitalism can be connected here then they can be connected around the world. If something can be done about racism and capitalism here in America with the Occupation of Wall Street and the other Occupations that are spreading around the country that are quickly making up the American Fall then maybe, just maybe, a paradigm shift of the last 500 years can be made. A paradigm shift that can re-shape the world and turn it back to right side up.

This federal holiday of Christopher Columbus is a perfect example of the disconnect between racism and capitalism in America. There are a lot of bright, young, intelligent, college educated people downtown on Wall Street struggling physically, spiritually and mentally to come up with solutions to the wholesale greed of capitalism. Yet the annual parade for Columbus that marches up 5th Avenue in New York City on this federal holiday seems to have gone off smoothly. You would be hard pressed to find a wider chasm between racism and capitalism than with the Occupation of Wall Street downtown and the Columbus Day Parade uptown. You would be hard pressed to find a greater disconnect between what Columbus began with the genocide of indigenous people’s in the Americas and the subsequent trans-atlantic African slave trade and what the banks did and continue to do to the global population.

If after the American Fall the United States of America is still celebrating Christopher Columbus who is the embodiment of the genesis of the Native American holocaust and the birth of the trans-atlantic African slave trade, and the harbinger of what the world is suffering under now, then it would be better if those who were Occupying Wall Street just went back home. It’s not too late to make the paradigm shift that will not just free the us from the corporate exploitation we ALL suffer under… black, white, red yellow and brown. It’s not too late to shackle the means that capitalism uses divide us to make that exploitation possible. It’s not to late to understand that racism is a tool of capitalism…

Occupying Wall Street 1492 – 1898 #nothingtobegainedhere #ows
nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/occ…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) October 10, 2011

Some notes on the art. The first piece DISCOVERED is of course a Christopher Columbus credit card. The two sets of four numbers on the card are 11/19/1493 which was the day that Columbus landed o the island of Boriken, now known as Puerto Rico. The second two sets of four numbers are the date 12/10/1898 is the day that the Spanish gave the possession of Puerto Rico to the United States after losing the Spanish American War. The flag in the right hand bottom corner is the first flag of Puerto Rico known as the Lares flag. It was named after the mountain town of Lares where it was used in an uprising Spain against Spanish colonial rule that took place in 1868 and is known in Puerto Rico as El Grito de Lares, the Cry of Lares.

The second piece is Enjoy Colonialism Since 1493. It’s a design i did for RICANSTRUCTED a design company dedicated to the liberation of Puerto Rico from US colonialism. You can get that design on a T-shirt or Hoodie. It’s 1493 because that was the year that Columbus landed in Puerto Rico.

The third piece is an AMERICAN EXPROPRIATION credit card for Uncle Sam. The first two set of numbers on the card are 07/25/1898 which is the day that the US invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish American War. The second two sets of numbers are 03/02/1917 (on the card, the year is first followed by the month and day – for aesthetic design reason) that was the day that Puerto Ricans were made US citizens by the US congress (without their consent) so that they could be drafted to fight in World War I. The 1952 under the small Puerto Rican flag is the year that Puerto Rico became a Commonwealth of the US in order to have Puerto Rico avoid being listed on the United Nations list of colonized nations.