The Activists
“Subversion, resistance and epic spanner-chucking are an integral part of a sane response to world death. The global resistance movement has neither the time or the power to dismantle the ruinous market system before nature has her say.”
Lierre Keith – Deep Green Resistance
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to persuade people that when laws are made to be unjust, civil disobedience is not only justified, it is essential. Techniques of resistance, protest and ‘spanner chucking’ are essential (more on this later). Resisting the dominant hegemony, challenging it at every turn and revealing truths are important actions to change to change the dominant stories. Extrapolating our often unquestioned human actions and ‘bad stories’ to their resultant conclusions helps people to think about the consequences of their actions.
Every act of progression in a nation’s history has involved tension with law, whether it was the formation of parliament itself, the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women or the ‘birth of a nation’ enshrined in a constitution. Laws had to be broken because they were wrong and they prevented the situation from changing.
Perhaps you still believe, like too many people, that our existing government systems can be reformed in time to make a difference? Perhaps the extent of your activism is justinvested in a vote? Good luck with that one.
The Terrorists
I fully realise that if I advocate terrorism in what is a public document that I am liable to be arrested under current laws. So I am stating quite clearly here that I am not doing this. But where civil disobedience ends and terrorism begins is an important discussion, especially in the face of completely unjust legislation.
It’s a fine line and even advocating what might be ‘perceived as terrorism’ on social media can get you arrested in this age of enforced paranoia. As I am writing this my Facebook media stream tells me that Madonna is under investigation by the Secret Service for publicly admitting that she had ‘thought about blowing up the Whitehouse’.
With the advent of the US ‘Ministry of Truth’ – it seems that thought crime, (or at least ‘admitting to thought’ crime until they can snoop our minds directly,) is already a reality in the US. When combined with the UK’s ‘Investigatory Powers Act’ – its easy to see how we now have legislation that can easily discover what anyone with a phone or computer is thinking.
I write novels (as well as books like this one) and I have been researching a Royalist pamphleteer called Silas Titus who was considering the assassination of Cromwell in 1663. He persuaded himself that such an assassination would be just killing rather than murder because it would be ‘tyrannicide’ – the killing of a tyrant.
In a similar way, some of the more extreme political factions would advocate the destruction of property and people to promote their cause. The logic is if you can kill a few now to make people aware enough to act and save millions – then this act of terrorism is actually saving people. Bond villians are made of such! Weird logic I know – but where is the line when we have such oppressive laws being enforced? Laws that appear to be stealing a future from so many people.
Spoiling your vote is OK, in fact Caroline Lucas advocates in her book that this is a better choice than not voting, as not voting smacks of lethargy. But ballot box bombs – incendiary devices that destroy all the votes in the box? Definitely terrorism. In this material world the line seems to be that terrorism involves the destruction of property, places or people. Ironic indeed when these are the very outcomes of capitalism in action.
Every act of progression in a nation’s history has involved tension with law, whether it was the formation of parliament itself, the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women or the ‘birth of a nation’ enshrined in a constitution. Laws had to be broken because they were wrong and they prevented the situation from changing. Remember, apartheid was legal, the Holocaust was legal, Colonialism was legal. Legality is a matter of power, not justice.
Parliament Must Die contains quotes from: A. Greenburg, M.D._Abraham Maslow_Albert Einstein _Alnoor Ladha_Andrew Gwynne _Anneke Lucas_Arthur Koestler _Arundhati Roy_Asgeir Jonsson _Barbara Max Paul Hubbard_Bertrand Russell _Bill Mollison _Buckminster Fuller_Calcida Jethá _Caroline Lucas_Charles the Great_Chief Arvol Looking Horse _Christopher Ryan_Copernicus_Daniel Christian Wahl_Daniel Pinchbeck_Darwin_David Edwards_David Holmgren _David Icke_Dieter Duhm_Donald Worster_Donnachadh McCarthy_Doreen Massey_Doris Lessing_Dr A Bartlett Giamatti _Dr Claire Wordley_Dr Jay Cullen_Dr Kathy Sykes _Dresden James_E C Lindeman_Eckhart Tolle_Edgar Cayce _Edward Snowden _Ethan C Roland _Ewen MacAskill_Galileo_Galtang and Ruge _George Monbiot_Gerald Heard _God in Genesis_Greta Thunberg_Gudrun Johnsen _Guido Dalla Casa _Gustave Le Bon_Guy Fawkes _Henry Cloud _Henryk Skolomowski_Isaac Cordal _J Eliot_Jack D Forbes_Jack Forbes_James Gordon M.D._James Lovelock _Jeremy Lent_Jeremy Rifkin_John Cleese _John Hammell_John Hilary_John Trudell_Jon Stone_Jonathan Bartley_Julian Assange_Karl Marx _Karlos Kukuburra_Ken Ward _Lee Williams _Leonard Higgins_Lierre Keith _Lord Strasburger_M Knowles_Maddy Harland _Marianne Williamson_Mark Boyle_Martin Kirk_Martin Winiecki_Masanobu Fukuoka _Matthieu Ricard_Mogens Herman Hansen _Nafeez Ahmed _Nanice Ellis_Neil Dawe_Nikola Tesla_Noam Chomsky_Olafur Hauksson _Osho_Paul Hawken_Paul Levy_Peter Joseph_Peter Macfadyen_Pope Francis_President Franklin Roosevelt _Rabindranath Tagore _Rene Descartes _Russell Brand_Safa Motesharrei _Seyyed Hossein Nasr_Sigmund Fraud_Silas Titus _Simon Mitchell_Sir David Attenborough_Sir Isaac Newton_Sir Joshua Stamp_Skip Sanders _Steve Kent _Sting_Terrence Mckenna_The Dalai Lama _Thomas Berry_Tom McKay_Tyler Durden_Walter Bradford Cannon_Wendell Berry_William Derham_Yaneer Bar-Yam
5c