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December 8, 2007 - 9:19pm -- Anonymous Comrade (not verified)

Luka Magnotta :

Men are as much a part of the sex industry as women are, and while we are at it, lets not forget our transgendered co-workers. Having worked in the sex industry for over three years I would like to make my observations known. Men in the sex industry must be prepared to face homophobia and invisibility in addition to the traditional ignorance and hostility towards the profession. Most people, if not all, when they hear the word 'prostitute' automatically assume the feminine gender. This is understandable to a point. I am sure there are many more women in prostitution then men.

This bias is a by product of sexism in our society that oppresses women at every turn. Those who are against prostitution see the profession as yet another example of violence against women by men. Prostitution advocates see sex work as a way for women to empower themselves, at the expense, literally, of men. Sex workers of other genders do not fit easily into the equation, and no one has known what to do with us beyond the recognition that we exist.

I have encountered what I perceive to be homophobia among members of the female escorts as well as prostitute advocates, and sexphobia among gay men, in addition to whorephobia from all angles. Because a male prostitute is such a new animal to many people, those of us who are out and have opinions are easy targets for criticisms based on partially processed assumptions about being a man, being a queer, and being a whore.

However, homophobia has darker manifestations for men in the industry. The obsession in this society of labeling based on who you have sex with has resulted in many problems for those who do not conform. Just ask any bisexual.

The man who has sex with men for money but is not gay is another creature who, because he doesn't fit in any of the existing structures, gets placed in whatever cage is left over in the What Are You? zoo. Because sexual identity is such a charged absolute, and because the ramifications of not picking the right answer, these men are in a service and support twilight zone.

Sex Workers have the right to not be assulted, we are providing a service and doing our job. We are consenting adults. It really bothers me when somebody says "hookers deserve whatever happens to them" because noone, no matter what profession they are in deserve to be assulted.

I am not a "weirdo" nor am I a drug addict. I have a nice home and I have a car I go grocery shopping, have friends over to my place, relatives over. I go to University. I am just like everyone else.

I would like to set the record straight and to let others know what male sex trade workers go through and to bring a better understanding to the profession. Luka Magnotta

October 31, 2007 - 6:43am -- Anonymous Comrade (not verified)

FYI:

http://banglapraxis.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/panos-radio-podcasts-report...

http://phulbariresistance.blogspot.com

http://banglapraxis.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/profits-versus-the-poor/

We are seeking media attention in UK. Can you help?

July 18, 2007 - 4:56am -- spartac

THE ANARCHIC PLANET (Panegyrized)

This is our planet, not theirs. Our planet is without authority and borders. There are two planets mixed into one. One is called capitalist planet and the second is the anarchic planet. The capitalist planet is full of barriers and thousands upon thousands of soldiers and police, known as the state of that planet. The capitalist planet is entangled with its own barbed wires. The mass murderers and mass exploiters created their own luxuries prison to dwell in, they have to protect themselves from the mass rage they have created around them. The financial and political leaders of the planet can exist only by being permanently surrounded with police, soldiers and body guards. Behind high walls protected by guns and helicopters afraid to move afraid of the people.

The future is ours not theirs, we refuse all continuity, we want to create a new world, we don’t obey and rebel, ours time is for love and creation theirs is a timetable for the destruction of humanity and its planet. We are truly free but you are a commodity fetishist, we have the dance and music you have only military marches and loud speakers from helicopters. We give pleasure you give torture, the only dance you know is the marching of your soldiers trampling all over the planet.

We have the knowledge you have disinformation, we have the communication you have indoctrination. We are the planet and you are (the capitalist system) its exploiter and destroyer. We are the freedom you are the enslaver. It is important to know, especially in these miserable and horrible times, especially when they have launched the fifth world war against us, the war of state capitalism against all people. Whilst capital is celebrating its bloody but very profitable orgies, it violently represses and oppresses those who want to create a different and a much better world, this is the routine practice of every state and every system. They want to subordinate us, the want us as mindless obedient zombies, to make us like them.

They want us to be capitalists or workers, they want us to be nasty like them, the stinking part of inhumanity – the very thought is ugly and sickening. Not only that we abhor capitalists and capitalism but also we want to finish it and start something different and new. Through violence and brutality, through deceit and bribery they keep the majority under control and tragically enough the majority of the people relate to this, consciously or subconsciously as normality as nature. How wrong they are and naïve and they are going to learn this unfortunately in the hard way, in the form of catastrophes and social upheavals.

The real enemy is the capitalist system and its lackey’s, religion, the state, the nation, all the diseases of human historical evolution in one basket, and capitalism is guaranteed to lose and vanish once and for all from the face of planet and free us from its bloody claws. We don’t need new rulers; we want no rulers at all but An-arch-y. Revolutionary emancipation is the key to our struggle and liberation, our weapon is that we are truly and clearly different than them. We don’t look or behave like them but always to the contrary and with levels of conscious far beyond their reach.

Against their borders and prisons we have our exter-national and anti-authoritarian terrains; against their coercive labor we have festivity and the celebration of life and creativity. Against their constitutional violence and exploitation we have our courage and revolutionary imagination, against their hate and viciousness we have love and human compassion. Against their arrogance, we have the knowledge and daring to bring them down, and this is the plan for tomorrow.

Against their imagined permanence we guarantee their permanent disappearance from the globe, through a revolutionary transformation of society and the creation of the anarchic alternative. They are not going to exist in the future; this is their final phase, the end of their his-story. All those who defended and advocated capitalism will become relics of the past, hated, despised and then forgotten. We the anarchists are uncontrollable and insubordinate to all commands, in our world there is no authority and control, there is no bosses and workers, just people living for the sake of free living. Let’s rebel and enjoy it.

July 7, 2007 - 3:14am -- spartac

The Future Is Anarchy

Capitalism causes and maintains the conflicts of history and the only way to resolve these conflicts is by ending capitalism. Capitalism can be ended through a non-violent social revolution that will replace the social relations. By deepening and expanding our thinking and knowledge we will find all the alternatives necessary for the transformation of society and the world.

The human condition is stuck because it is good for capitalism; people suffer because it is profitable for capitalism which is solely based on exploitation and deceit. As long as capitalism continues to exist, humanity will remain in misery and disease. As long as business operates and functions there is no hope for humanity and no genuine freedom.

There is no left or right, there is no capitalism or socialism, what there is it is either anarchy or capitalism and I am thinking heartedly recommend the former. Capitalism has no right of existence, not in the past and definitely not now. Humanity is capable of living much better than by killing or enslaving one another for the sake of organizational power and capitalist globalization.

What will happen in the future and whether capitalism will last, depends mainly on the amount of conscious anarchists that will be around in different regions. The level of social consciousness and the stage of the anarcho-subversive penetration and intervention will determine the speed at which capitalism will fall.

All the wars and national violence, all the poverty and hardship in the world are directly caused by the functioning of capitalism and its greed for more profit and domination. All the antagonism in history is orchestrated for the maintenance and preservation of hierarchical structures and rulers and ruled.

But there will come a time when capitalism will collapse and on its ruins a new social system will rise and flourish, a new world will be created, without classes, bosses and kings, without generals and tycoons, without states and labor. Anarchy will prevail everywhere and humanity for the first time in its agonizing short existence will discover real freedom and a different level of existence. That will terminate the condition of survival and it will be the start of a new form of anarchic life.

Where will the first anarcho-social revolution start at the 21st century? America Asia Australia Africa World

Capitalism is the name for everything ugly and obscene, a name given for modern slavery and exploitation of the planet and humanity. Capitalism is the system of economy that destroys life and earth, a class system that is based on violence, mass poverty and coercive discrimination. This system must go and the sooner the better for our future, the capitalist system must be dismantled by a minimum force if necessary before it dismantle us and all what’s around us. The capitalist system will fall, with all its anti-human values and bourgeois social relations, when people will start rejecting these values and the accompanied alienated social relations. Capitalism will be destroyed when the people start disobeying the rules of class indoctrination and liberate the lower classes from the upper class. The state goes with its classes, once capitalism is terminated anarchy and equality will prevail as to allow humanity for the first time in its evolution to live in dignity and total freedom without a fear of counter-revolution by the reactionaries.

Our life does not have to be like this and society does not have to look like this, our lives and society as whole are only a reflection and a reaction to what capitalism has caused and imposed coercively upon us and upon planet earth and the rest of humanity. So the time has come to stop and terminate this historical mayhem through an anarchic social revolution that is based on an advanced conscious and on the emancipated self.

It is hard for you to imagine how life would be on this planet without capitalism and all its accessories, because you have known nothing else, they told you that capitalism is the only natural process, it is the only way to motivate the people to work for their masters. They say it is the laws of the jungle that make capitalism natural, but it is natural to whom? Is it natural for a person to exploit another person and for generations, so his master can live and get ever richer on his back? The answer is of course that there is nothing whatsoever natural about capitalism. Capitalism is the creation of the masters so they can enslave the rest of us. It is designed to keep you down and oppressed, so they can control you better, it is made by the master for his slave, by the employer for the employed.

Let’s break the chains and set ourselves free, let’s finish capitalism and start something else much better and utterly humane. There is only one way out of capitalism - a highly advanced anarchic conscious.

May 18, 2007 - 4:18am -- spartac

To exist so they can get richer

The poor, the worker, the unemployed, the salaried and all those who were born without inheritance or business, are forced to waste their whole lives in monotonous and stupid jobs that makes the owner much richer. The pay they get from government or private sources (owners of the means of production) is immediately spend on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, rent, food and fuel so as to survive another day and be ready and healthy enough to provide the service (work) again and again till old age if you last that long.

The majority coercively sell their labor all their lives and are always afraid of losing their jobs since unemployment is constantly on the rise. Life under such circumstances becomes instantly very desperate and cruel, so imagine a life long conditioning to such a miserable and torturous existence. Also can you imagine a worker without a job, how will he or she exist, how will they eat and sleep, without a wage you are doomed to die.

I know that one day capitalism will end and a new society will replace it, as the conscious level of humanity rises so too the end of capitalism becomes closer. The end of capitalism is directly proportional to the ratio of human consciousness. We want a world without oppression and exploitation, a world which broke loose from the influence of the past and from the rulers of capitalist economy. We will have a society without classes and states and without workers or bosses, just people living for the fun of it.

Humanity will have to free itself from this fate of ever lasting modern enslavement. If you don’t want your children to become the next generation of neo-slaves, then you must start doing something about it now. The rich are also subjectively very desperate individuals but with plenty of money to cover it up. By oppressing and exploiting the others, the rich and their representatives also pay a price; the repercussion is the inevitable anarchic revolution. The poor must be released from their misery and agony and also free the rich from their unnecessary and cruel power.

No person should be able to exploit and oppress the other; no system should allow and encourage persons to do so. The whole capitalist system is based on the sole exploitation and enslavement of others. First they occupy the geography violently with all the assets of the planet and then herd the total majority of the population to serve the rulers of economy so as to barely survive generation after generation. We can exist very well without the nation-state, religion and capitalism; these three parasitic structures are blood thirsty, violent and psychotic. The capitalist organization is a fascist and a nazi in time of crises and war whilst portending to be liberal in time of relative low class antagonism.

All the people of the planet can become rich without the mediation of money and hierarchy, all the people of the planet could be free immediately if they will get rid of capitalist sub-development and its deformed social relations. Humanity can coexist without trade and business and turn history on its head and change it for ever. Most of us spend our whole life either employed on a minimum wage or unemployed barely living on what remains of social benefits. No matter where you are “living”, freedom and subsistence is needed by every one and all, the need for health and creativity is the same everywhere but the objective conditions are different. No matter where is the place or at what time, its is pleasure and liberty that we seek and desire, but under capitalism only the exclusive few have the material ability to achieve this, but with it comes also the constant fear of revolution.

I know that one day in the coming future the capitalist-state system will implode and free humanity to choose how it wants to live, in an anarchic society or in a class society, in boring jobs or interesting lives. Capitalism cannot go on like this forever, it is reaching its last historical phase, the phase of collapse and the end of empire and the liberation of humanity. It will be the first time in human civilization and evolution that humanity has reached the stage of not wanting a system of servants and masters and a social relation based on discrimination and racism.

Anarchists make an anarchic society, without many anarchists there will never be anarchic society, the more anarchists there will be the faster the capitalist system will goe and since anarchism is deeply rooted in human nature we see the revolution on the horizon of the not so distant future.

March 30, 2007 - 6:54am -- spartac

Anarchy as the true reality

Reality as a direct experience - Reality as the objective experience of the subject - As it is also the real experience of the majority of the people of earth including my own. We experience daily direct oppression and suffering and severe physical and mental exploitation too. We live under draconian anti-poor laws that aim at maintaining the employed and unemployed under their total control, the question is for how long they (the capitalists) will succeed. I say that capitalism is running out of excuses and apologies, capitalism is desperate as ever, but this time I exist and you too.

The cause of all this mass misery is the law of private ownership of property (capitalism) – Misery obviously has existed before capitalism and before slavery but the causes where then different and which don’t exist anymore, whereas capitalism does exist now and causes most of the misery on this planet. For the last 300 years capitalism has degraded the world to unrecognizable and nearly irreversible condition.

The name of the disease is the private ownership of resources and production under the disguise of private property, ie. People are the property therefore slaves to the wage. They own us to serve them indefinitely, they own the land we live upon and they own the water and the air we breadth and we have to work for them and buy the products that we produce, this is called modern technical capitalist slavery – the proletarian slave. The nation-state was created to allow capital its free operation of enslavement as the religious-state has done earlier.

The military industrial complex is good for killing and looting, the business corporation is good for keeping us waged or unwaged till death and to the next generation. They claim that selling and buying products and labor is natural and that this can never change, i.e., a wishful thinking of the rich to keep us terminally poor and always ready to work for a minimum wage or less.

To support capitalism you must be a nasty person, by supporting capitalism, like a willful salve you are increasing the pains and suffering of others and your own. We are the majority; we are the human race controlled by a few rulers who are driving capitalism fast to its ultimate end and the start of the anarchic society. By increasing my pain and the pain of others they are constantly declaring war on us and we are fighting back and in full force to liberate ourselves and for the first time from the tentacles of capitalism.

Disregarding someone else’s oppression and suffering is exactly as taking part in the oppression and the exploitation itself. We will eventually eliminate all the causes of suffering and pain first by erasing capitalism and dismantling its infrastructure and secondly by the creation of an anarchic world. Capitalism will be substituted by an egalitarian and humane society without any form of oppression or exploitation and this will mean also the end of inherited classes and the collapse of the nation-state.

Capitalism is a catastrophe on a global scale that must be stopped and as quickly as possible so we can save as much of what is left after devouring all the people and matter and then excreting us in the form of zombies and poisonous environment - lets get rid of capitalism and start our real long lost living and as it was supposed to be from the beginning but it was not, not up to this moment, but this time the future will unfold differently from its cyclic past and for the first time in human history people will to live together or apart but without capitalism.

March 21, 2007 - 11:56am -- spartac

Never Say Never - The Music Must Go On

To stop human suffering we must stop capitalism. If we want to save of what remains of this planet we must dismantle the class society. Most of the people on earth are suffering, like me and billions of others, for the first time in human history we can end this suffering.

The ruling class must go, the state must be replaced with anarchy, and the rich will have to learn to live with us on equal terms. The laws must be abandoned and replaced with human consideration and creative alteration.

A new human being is created, a new brain is manifested. A positive human character is emerging, a new and different individual, a revolutionary personality that does not tolerate any suffering and discrimination whatsoever. New and different social relations are created, that are not based on money but on the love of freedom. At last a different attitude towards property and matter which is based on complete equality and total freedom.

Without trade or barter, without capitalism and slavery, without authority and hierarchy – just real anarchic relation based on the materialistic and anarchic understanding of the world and the laws of nature.

Anarchy is the only known alternative to capitalism and the forthcoming anarchic revolution will create a new society with a new anti-capitalist interaction so we could live in a harmonious anarchic planet on the ruins of primitive civilizations of the past.

All the pain and suffering that humanity has experienced and all of the past and present struggles that humanity has undergone and is undergoing; all this is will not be spent in vain. All the crimes of civilizations against humanity, in modern and in ancient times is not going to be repeated, it is going to be stopped and a new post-civilization will begin its new march to a better and a more humane future.

Nothing goes in vain, every cause has its effect and reaction and a meta-action. The time has come for this global insurrection to transform us from suffering to happiness. All the systems of the past including the present one, are all the same continuation of the same thing but with a more advanced tools.

The people will rise, they have no choice, it is either happiness or suffering, they have nothing to loose but their modern slavery. The majority just had enough of this everlasting torture, and we want it stopped now, and this is done through the destruction of the state, capitalism and all ideologies including religion. We want a life without police and classes, without cheap labor and poverty and without wars and violence and without the root of all evil – money.

The post-democratic anarchic revolution

Bloodless and unarmed revolutions lead by the majority. There is no dictatorship because there are no leaders. The revolution will be anti-national, anti-religious and anti-capitalist. It will be a social revolution without violence and without physical force. The revolution will succeed when the conscious level of the people reaches its height.

Billions of people will participate and take a direct and active part in a simultaneous revolution all over the world. Borders will be erased and capital and the means of production decentralized and distributed to those who created it in the first place. A revolutionary leap into a future, a future without gods or masters, just people living happily on one planet for a while.

You can never blame the poor

When conditions are hard and painful, the people become more extreme and more radical. When the conditions are easy and wealthy, the minorities advocate democracy and moderation to hide their real motivation, the exploitation of people and the planet for profit. The poor people everywhere are still wrongly navigated; their extreme and radical view of the world is manipulated for other purposes, like national and religious struggles. The well to do preach to the oppressed the meaning of law, class and order, punishment and impoverishment is the reward for those who never obey. The consensus is a mediocrity of the alienated, the broken citizen in a capitalist collective of joined tragedies. Half of the people who still earn wages and salaries have to keep on swallowing apologies for democracy and liberalism designed cleverly for the maintenance of their disguised enslavement.

Are You Active In The Revolution?

Imagine a proletarian without work, imagine a proletarian with work, the former is homeless and starving and the latter lives on a minimum wage. What a life to the majority of the people, what a life each of these individual have to undergo. Capitalism is turning all of us into paupers, the lucky ones who work are in constant fear of losing it, the unlucky ones are in constant fear of brute survival.

They employ you when they need you and dump you in times of surplus. The pay you the lowest wages when they need you and you starve if they don’t need you. This is the true face of capitalism; it is a very ugly system that destroys humanity and nature around the clock till oblivion.

The only way out of this desperate situation is a social revolution to liberate us from the yoke of capitalism and its lackeys. We need an anarchic revolution to free us from the capitalists, as long as they are in power we shell suffer. The revolution will topple them down and eliminate those positions, i.e., the elimination of capitalism and the state.

Try and live in capitalism without money or work, you cannot, you die. And since capitalism is everywhere you have no choice but to serve it if you can to survive and you will be very unlucky if you could not, i.e., you will have a short life of despair.

Therefore only an anarchic revolution can guarantee to all the billions of the poor people, a permanent abundance and a permanent freedom. Only an anarcho-individualist communist revolution on a massive scale will guarantee all of us an interesting and labor free life, where we determine how we want to live and not the bloody capitalists.

Capitalism kills love and kindness, capitalism kills everything that is beautiful in the world, capitalism kills life and nature and the absurdity of it all, is that all this killing is just for the mere greed of more profit. Anarchy is the exact opposite of capitalism.

They own the water we drink, they own the food we eat, they own the rooms where we sleep, they own the entertainment we swallow, i.e., they own everything and everyone who owns not. Soon will be paying for the oxygen we breath and for the waking on a pavement, this means that if you are not born into this class your life is doomed for an eternal torment here on earth and now. To pay them for everything you are paying them to survive, you are forced to work all of your life if you are lucky. If you are born without money you are going to suffer all of your life and eventually become either a legal or illegal criminal. In power or in prison, lick the rich people asses or live a life of poverty, disease and despair, capitalism aggravates all these antagonistic conflicts, a nega-process that leads to a fatally absurd terminal.

I am not a Jew therefore there is no Chanukah I am not a Christian therefore there is no Christmas I am not a Muslim therefore there is no Aladkha I am not a Nationalist therefore there is no country I am not a Capitalist therefore there is no business I am not an Idealist therefore there is no dialectics I am an Anarchist therefore I am free

The Revolution Is Here To Stay A Post-Cultural Revolution The Revolution Starts At Home

Globalization of Anarchism (Anti-Capital)

The economico-political and the nation-state system known as capitalism is the most vicious and cyclic tragedy that humanity has ever encountered, the ugliest form of social relations known to wo/man – with consequences that are more severe than a natural mega-disaster.

The catastrophic effect of capitalism on humanity and on nature is devastating and mostly irreversible, its effect on each and every individual is horrific and horrendous, and we cannot compare it to anything else because humanity has never known anything else. From the beginning of civilization we have known nothing but the three varieties of slavery.

Capitalism impact you on all levels, it destroys and deforms your inner self by shuttering the structure of your character and instead implanting the perfect worker - soldier – shopkeeper – consumer. Capitalism utterly distorts and deviate your psyche and emotions and turning them into brutalized sensations of rage and permanent dissatisfaction, a severe form of alienation. Capitalism forbids you to think and daring to do so you risk legal retribution, capitalism also ruins the foundation upon which you can think independently. In the name of profit and business success they destroy the living; in the name of democracy they rape life and the planet.

The so called free market capitalism is a continuation of the mid-ages feudalism, but with an improved industrial implements and electronic techniques. Capitalism is a very brutal system, capitalism is the modern version of slavery, and all this in the name of progress and democracy but which in reality means poverty and hardship, therefore this system must be terminated.

The termination of the capitalist system with its nation–state as the only possible social relation will mean that for the first time in the history of wo/mankind – humanity will at last achieve a real and true individual and social freedom, i.e., the end of modern enslavement.

The end of the class-system will mean the for the first time ever in human existence that people will live in harmony with themselves and with nature, for the sake of the pleasure of human existence and the continuation of it’s survival and future existence.

Capitalism or life – there can be no happiness or peace on the face of this planet, no prosperity for the masses, as long as this modern version of slavery continues. Capitalism kills the individual and society, it can kill you in a variety of ways, slow or quick, with or without suffering etc.

This pathological race for more profit and exploitation at any cost, will lead capitalism to its final downfall. By robbing fast the planet and enslaving the majority of its people is not going to last long, people will eventually rebel when they will discover that all their suffering was spent in vain, for the sake of more power and wealth of the few.

Capitalism has polluted the whole planet and more, it has pauperized billions of people for what? So the rich can continue to wallow in their luxuries whilst we are the slaves that maintain all this. By keeping the modern slave in a permanent crises they can control and manipulate him to their advantage, this destroys the inner self of the individual and disintegrates society, leaving nothing behind but a metropolis of moles and mentally disturbed consumers.

By crippling the individual intellectually and emotionally, the capitalist system wounds the subject turning him into one dimensional zombie who is ready at any time to work for a minimum wage and/or sacrifice himself whenever he is called to serve the flag of the rich and/or become a gullible consumer that works overtime and/or two jobs so he can also cue for his own self-consummation.

I hope that this mass mayhem will end one day, the sooner the less misery will have, the globalization of anarchy is the first step towards this goal, the termination of all misery and suffering on the planet and the creation of society based on equity and mutual-aid.

Only Anarchy

“We must overthrow the rulers of the mind by the workers of the mind, an act of insurrection. The bourgeoisie ego shall be replaced by the proletarian ego. The Revolution will be followed by a long period of the withering away of the proletarian ego. Then, and only then, will it be Revolutionary Anarchy Time!”

February 9, 2007 - 8:23am -- Anonymous Comrade (not verified)

Music is liberating. We will always make music; it’s what separates us from the monkeys. We create music to share a part of ourselves that is completely unique. We participate in it emotionally, whether we are creating it, performing it, or hearing it. There are untapped reserves of talent in the underground scene where unsigned artists have complete creative license to do anything and everything. That’s where the medium and the message is most vibrant. How then can we justify the continuing dominance of major record labels to determine what music gets heard?

As it stands, music and the music industry is stagnant, churning out “pop” music that by definition lacks any substantial cultural context or social message and where similarity to the last big thing is a prerequisite to being the next big thing. It is the business of marketing to the lowest common denominator and selling as many records as possible before moving on to the next banality.

This leaves the masses of independent artists struggling to climb an increasingly narrow ladder of traditionally defined success – where everyone’s individual dream of “making it” is in competition with everyone else’s. It is music as a commodity and selling it as success. In this climate, there is no scene, no community, and no way for a grassroots artist to be heard as a distinct voice.

What we are suggesting is an inversion of that pyramid. Instead of the masses of independent artists climbing over each other’s bones to be the one band on top, we are offering cooperation over competition. Consider the individual artist as the point at the bottom of an inverted pyramid, and at each stage progressing upwards the pyramid broadens out as the individual comes in contact with a wider network of like-minded musicians: a local, regional, and eventually national scene.

The key is to take the profit motive out of the equation by donating the proceeds generated from live music events to charity. Our experience organizing live events under the aegis of AlternativeFuelSource.net has shown us that a community naturally coalesces around a music scene once the ego and the money are removed. That is why the non-profit model is so revolutionary. It appeals to it’s own built in core demographic of socially conscious individuals who are agitating for greater participation in their community. It provides a forum for emerging artists to reach out with their music. It allows us as organizers of live events to cross-promote among different interest groups: musicians, activists, and fans, etc.

By shifting the focus from the promoting individual artists to the live charity event sponsoring the artists, we are redefining success as a cooperative rather than competitive goal. We are inverting the pyramid and providing the avenue for the individual to access a higher network and be heard by more people while simultaneously contributing to the success of the non-profit model.

In our work with the Common Ground Collective, we used the 501(c)3 status of their fiscal sponsor, Community Futures Collective, to purchase supplies destined for Hurricane Katrina relief directly from our supplier, A. W. Meyer, Co., at the retailer’s cost. This saved us more than one hundred dollars and increased the effectiveness of each individual’s donation by more than 20%. As such, we have decided that the best way to replicate the success of our Solidarity w/New Orleans project is to incorporate into our own 501(c)3 entity. This will allow us to negotiate with suppliers under our own tax-exempt status, accept larger donations, issue grant proposals, and resolve any unexpected liability issues. Foremost, it allows us to operate as an umbrella group for anyone who wishes to replicate our non-profit model to create their own live events, increasing our success and the success of the greater community.

The music industry is a colossus - a bureaucratic, centralized arbiter deciding which sounds get integrated into our culture, and which sounds don’t. When money and the profit motive determine our cultural priorities, is it any wonder that the diversity of our culture suffers? The social standard in which music is distributed is changing. It is becoming increasingly socially acceptable to pirate music, allowing fans access to more and more diverse music, simply by stealing it. While record companies are struggling to adjust to this new reality, the non-profit paradigm has already addressed it.

A record company derives revenues from album sales which it uses to promote a relatively few nationally touring acts, and as technology undermines the monopoly of record companies on the recording and distribution of music it undercuts their revenues. We see this trend as progressing indefinitely. However, our non-profit model derives revenues from a source that cannot be infringed upon, the live event. At the grassroots level, stealing the music is more like free advertising. If you are Virgin Records and 1,000,000 people steal your music, you are out of business. If you are an independent artist and 1,000,000 steal your music, congratulations, you’re famous.

As modern home studio technology empowers artists to create and distribute their own music, we can begin to exploit the space made by the increasing obsolescence of record companies. What is essential in this newly leveled playing field is a network to overcome the initial distrust and disinterest that separates individuals, both as musicians or fans of music. The non-profit model allows a grassroots music scene to germinate by connecting like-minded people through a common interest in charitable endeavors.

This new paradigm relies upon the generosity of individuals and their willingness to accomplish together what they cannot accomplish alone. It seeks to establish a counter-culture peer group that takes the place of the ubiquitous consumer. It returns music to its role as art for art’s sake. It is a powerfully redeeming statement of human goodwill, and a forceful rejection of the winner-take-all for-profit model where, in the end, everyone loses.

by David Chege - Co-founder Executive Administrator of the Alternative Fuel Source

December 11, 2006 - 3:08am -- spartac

May the year 2007 be the beginning of the end of capitalism?

Another year of capitalism is coming to an end, one more year has passed full of wars, serious poverty, low paid work and addictive boredom. But at the same time, the count down has begun for the final chapter in the existence of capitalism.

November 12, 2006 - 6:14am -- spartac

The Future is Ours Anarchic

You don’t have to go far to know that capitalism is tragic for most of humanity. It is just enough to look at your own personal life and my own to realize that capitalism is life and planet destroyer. Because of a prolonged oppression, poverty and enslavement, most people have never experienced in their lives any freedom or choice, they never new the meaning of pleasure and creativity, they where always severely deprived of all the good things in life. They don’t know what it means to be materially secure, or that one can live if circumstances allow, an interesting and satisfying lives. All this is beyond them and beyond their reach, what they are left with is hunger and disease. Most people don’t know the meaning of free choice and free will, they where never given the chance, always in poverty and depravity they know only one thing, that they suffer and that the rich always wallow in corruption and in luxury. Humanity is in misery for many centuries and now it is the time to change all this ‘permanence’ and turn it into a full blown anarchic revolution in the coming future. We must return to humanity its long lost dignity, there is enough for everyone and plenty, no excuses and apologies can change the facts that billions of people survive and barely exist in a downtrodden subjective reality and unbearable misery. This explains clearly why is the politico-economical world situation is like this – the most inhuman and brutal. Who can dismantle capitalism and how? The answer is really simple; the anarchists will dismantle the capitalist structure and replace it with an anarchist society brought about by an anti-national anarchic revolution. The sooner the capitalist system is dismantled is the better for all even for the rich although they don’t know it. The sooner capitalism goes as a result of the anti-capitalist social revolution the sooner humanity will start tasting the never ending spring of freedom and discover for the first time in human history the real meaning of life, pleasure and creation. A mass revolution, beyond borders and nations, beyond classes and countries, a social revolution that will definitely and once and for all put an end to this capital geo-demographic mayhem. All poverty and all wars are the result of political economy of wealth and control, all human misery and suffering also all the violence are the direct result of political economy and its representatives, all is because of economical laws of the masters of capital. Once we de-economize society and abolish capital and politics we shell enter into a higher a stage of canceling all money and the private ownership of the means of social production. Capitalism negatively affects the inner self of every individual; the rate of degradation of each is according to the actual material objective condition of the subject. Capitalism is the latest form of slavery and it must be abolished, before we are abolished. This imposed modern universal slavery will implode one day soon, because of the deteriorating pressure of the last threshold. A major rebellion will take place against this condition of oppression and quickly turning into an anarchic social revolution sweeping with it the unwanted remains of the previous era and creating for the first in human history a genuine anarchic society that guarantees the well-being and the freedom of all everywhere and all of time. Our selves are constructed and made on the major of oppression and poverty we endure, our behavior and personalities are founded on the major of our enslavement to the system and its leaders and on the major of our resistance to it all. The more rebellious we are the less we fear the brutality of capitalism and its executing arms. The more revolutionary we become the less time will remain for the nation-state capitalism and the less time will remain for its hegemony. The more we fight theoretically and practically against discrimination and exploitation, the sooner will our freedom be achieved and our livelihood guaranteed.

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