Last night, after I returned from meditation class, I found that the book I had ordered last week had arrived in the mail. For all I know, placing such a transaction on a credit card might have just landed me on some FBI watch list, or put me on the radar of the Homeland Security department. You never can be sure of these things, especially with the Patriot Act, Total Information Awareness, etc. At this point, I am beyond caring. Eat my shit, John Ashcroft.

Along with the book was bundled a mindbomb-load of propaganda. I mean a HUGE pile; when I got done sorting through it, it had pretty much covered the top of my bed, and there was still stuff I hadn't really even looked at. Newspapers folded inside other papers, zines, posters, bumper stickers, creative vandalism howto guides, news bulletins, brochures, an instruction sheet on how to formally request that your local library order CrimethInc books for their shelves.

As a tiny example, one tiny little piece of paper has a black and white photo of a dark skinned woman as she breast feeds an infant. A busy crowd of indistinct people are wandering about behind her. The caption above the photo reads, "resistance is fertile." Flip it over, and the text on the back is:

Let's be done with waiting, doubts, dreams of social peace, little compromises and niaveté. All metaphorical rubbish supplied to us in the stores of capitalism. Let's get rid of the great analyses that explain everything right down to the most minute detail. Huge volumes filled with common sense and fear. Let's rid ourselves of democratic and bourgeois illusions about discussion and dialogue, debate and assembly and the enlightened capabilities of the mafiosi bosses. Let's get rid of the common sense and wisdom that the bourgeois work ethic has dug into our hearts. Let's get rid of centuries of Christianity that have educated us to sacrifice and obedience. Let's get rid of all priests, bosses, revolutionary leaders, less revolutionary ones and those who aren't revolutionary at all. Let's get rid of numbers, illusions, quantity, the market laws of supply and demand. Let us sit for a moment on the ruins of the history of the persecuted, and think.

The world does not belong to us. If it has a master who is stupid enough to want it the way it is, let him have it. Let him count the ruins in place of buildings, graveyards in the place of cities, the mud in the place of rivers and the putrid sludge instead of seas.

The greatest illusionist spectacle in the world no longer enchants us. We are certain that communities of joy will emerge from our stuggle, here and now.

And for the first time, life will triumph over death.

CrimethInc.

That's but a tiny taste of the flavor of it. For a while, I got so lost in all the stuff that I almost threw the outer wrapping away before I noticed the little hand written (in red pen) note and drawings on the other side of the packaging. Somebody spent at least a few minutes drawing little doodles inscribed around my name on the brown paper. Who the fuck are these people?

The book itself, Days of War, Nights of Love, authorship attributed only to the "CrimethInc Workers Collective", jumps out at you like something that might be written by Immanuel Goldstein, but with a post-MTV aesthetic. Virtually every page is rife not only with text, but drawings, photos, soundbites, sidebars, and compelling headlines. Basically, you can pretty much just flip the book open to any page, and jump right in, and be guaranteed to find something unique and interesting.

Honestly, given the obviously high quality of the binding and print, I'm surprised they were able to sell it to me for $8, even at cost. In a typcial capitalist book store, I wouldn't see something of this calibur going for less than $20. And that would be just the book, without all the other printed materials (some of them on glossy paper) that were enclosed for free.

Conclusion: Nobody's getting rich off this operation. But boy, does it have the love.

Nevertheless, at the very beginning, right inside the front cover of the book is printed a warning message:

Today there is a booming discontent industry, consisting of entrepreneurs who cash in on your misery by selling you products that describe and decry it. Thus the exchange economy finds a place even for its enemies: perpetuating both industry and discontent as we struggle to fight them, we keep the wheels turning by selling more merchandise. And as in every other aspect of your lives, your real desires to make something happen are channeled into consuming -- and your own abilities and potential are displaced, projected onto the "revolutionary" items you purchase.

This book could be part of that process. While we hope we are using our product to "sell" revolution, it might be that we are just using "revolution" to sell our product. The best of intentions can't protect us from this risk. But we've undertaken this project because we felt that, in addition to our other, less explicitly compromised activities, it might be worth giving the old experiment one more try: to see if a commodity can be created that gives more than it takes away.

For this book to have even the smallest chance of succeeding in that tall order, you can't approach it passively, you can't expect it to do the work. You have to regard it as a tool, nothing more. This book will not save your life; that, my friend, is up to you.

Ok, that said, HERE WE GO!!!

As for the contents; well, I don't really know most of the contents, since I've only read a few little bits so far. I'll just say it hits on many, many subjects, including religion, gender, politics, media, capitalism, sex, the true purpose of deodorant, and, well... I've barely scratched the surface.

Ironically, much of the book (and associated propaganda) is designed with the explicit purpose of inciting the reader to quit reading, watching, and passively consuming, and get into life as a first-hand experience!

After I first started reading it for a few minutes, I literally had to get up, go outside, and walk around. I couldn't sit in this room staring at papers anymore, despite their fascinating content.

Since the book is explicitly anti-copyrighted, with "no rights reserved", I'm going to go ahead and quote one more little paragraph before I leave. (Not that copyright would stop me anyway.)

What are you being screened from?

The minutes and hours that add up to your life?

Can you put a value on a beautiful day, when the birds are singing and people are walking around together? How many dollars an hour does it take to pay you to stay inside and sell things or file papers? What will you get later that could make up for this day of your life?

What are we deprived of by labor-saving devices? By thought-saving devices? How are you affected by the requirements of efficiency, which place value on the product rather than on the process, on the future rather than the present, the present moment that is getting shorter and shorter as we speed faster and faster into the future? What are we speeding towards?

Are we saving time? Saving it up for what?

How are you affected by being moved around on prescribed paths, in elevators, buses, subways, escalators, on highways and sidewalks? By moving, working, and living in two- and three-dimensional grids? How are you affected by being organized, immobilized, and scheduled... instead of wandering, roaming freely and spontaniously? Scavenging? (Shoplifting?)

How much freedom of movement do you have -- freedom to move through space, to move as far as you want, in new and unexplored directions?

And how are you affected by waiting? Waiting in line, waiting in traffic, waiting to eat, waiting for the bus, waiting the bathroom -- learning to punish and ignore your spontaneous urges?

How are you affected by holding back your desires?

I can't take it anymore. My bike is outside, and it wants me. Here I come, Serenity.