on activism
a project fromthe boomtime cabal

in which a bunch of Discordians
run their mouths, like we do.

1

ON POWER
by Cramulus

Politics is about power. Power is not itself evil, it is a tool used toaccomplish a goal. When a marginalized group seeks to correct
societal injustice, what they are really trying to do is re-balance
power so it will be in their favor. Justice is the cover story. It’s asocial construct used in service of a political end.

Justice and morality are cousins, but they live independently.
What is good is not always just, and what is just is not always
good.

The organs of “public discipline” (discipline here meaning
obedience) have changed greatly in the last few centuries. We
used to throw people in dungeons, now they go to prisons. We
used to torture people to death in public, now we do it in private.

What changed?
It’s not that we became more moral. It’s that those old systems(the dungeon, torture chamber, auto-da-fe) were ineffective. They
were ineffective because they churned up resistance. People
rebelled against justice systems which seemed arbitrary and outof control. The judge and jury and public trial was invented sothat the victims of these systems would be confused about who to[1]
Foucault, Discipline & Punish

lynch. [1]2Today we are still confused. Most of our discussions about justiceand politics are aimed at dead ends because we do not have a
coherent theory of activism. It is very hard to see where to throw
your weight so that it will actually move something in the way
you’d like. Every system that can change the world for the better is
continually mis-framed or co-opted.

This can lead to a cynical headspace where it seems like getting
involved with anything is a waste of time. This complacency serves
those who benefit from the current power balance.

We are overwhelmed by competing ideas of how to help thisfucked up world get better. Should I write a letter to a politician?
Attend a protest? Leave a nasty Youtube comment? Donate
money to something? How do you compare the values of thesethings?

We are like consumers standing in a supermarket aisle,
overwhelmed and paralyzed by 23 different kinds of sauce. When
there’s too much information to process, the decision criteria gets
narrowed down to the price and the label design. The people
who set the price and design the label have the real power here.
Recognizing this power makes you a bit less vulnerable to it, but
only if you resist your initial gut impulse and make an informed
decision instead.

3

If you can’t manage to do
the dishes, don’t talk to me
about doing revolution.
-- Johnny Brainwash
4Forget ACTIVISM

by Johnny Brainwash

Forget activism. Activism is for the ego. Organizing is for making
change.

All your life, politics has been presented to you as a clash of ideas.
Don’t be fooled. Politics is about power.

Worry less about theory and more about practice. Study lessphilosophy and more history. Given a choice between studying
and doing, do.

Learn the difference between goals and objectives, and between
strategy and tactics.

When you join a group that claims to have no leaders, pay close
attention. You’ll find out who the leaders are.

Pay attention to how your group reproduces the social structures
it claims to oppose. It almost certainly does. You can change
some of these, but don’t expect to undo centuries (or millennia) ofculture overnight.

5Remember that we’ve all got a piece of the truth. Another groupthat disagrees with you on strategy may still be doing their part.
Or maybe not- just because they have a piece of the truth doesn’tmean they know what to do with it. Remember that last sentence
could also apply to you.

Never trust someone who’s got all the answers, especially if it’s
yourself.

Never trust someone who rejects short-term change because it
doesn’t look like their revolution. Waiting for the revolution is likewaiting for the messiah- you’ll eat pie in the sky when you die(that’s a lie).

Cultivate humility.

6

I think we can help
from david

I think that politics and culture are fucked up and I think that we
can help. I think that actvisim is helpful but activism is work andwork is usually boring.

If you don’t want to do activist work because it’s boring, that’s
totally OK and I get that it’s mostly boring.

If you say that you don’t want to do activist work because it’s noteffective or you don’t know where to start/what to do, or you have[1]
1 or 2 e.g. in this document

constructed a really solid arguments, [1] then I think you’re a liar. I
mean, you might not even know that you’re lying; you may believe
well your own BS - but those reasons are stories that you tellyourself to excuse your laziness.

If you do want to do work, figure out what you want to workon.

It is possible to get sucked into the trap of being a True Believer(and you might end up accidentally working against your statedaims). Part of doing work is messing up and learning to work
better!

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To get started doing work:
Figure out who is doing the work that you believe in, show up
where that work is happening, offer to help.
It’s usually really helpful to make snacks, take some notes,
and take out the trash.
Giving money to people and work that you believe in is
helpful. The jerks are ridiculously well funded.

If you can’t find any work that you admire, look harder and try to
be less of a hater. There is so much good and useful and exciting
work that is happening RIGHT NOW and it needs your help.

Remember that you’ll be wrong sometimes and when
you’re wrong it’s important to know how to say you’re sorry(for real) and do better (because that’s important).
Listen more. Listen better.
Do more. Do better.

Find people you trust and do something with them.

But if everyone looks like you, the problem is with the way
your group works (not with the people who don’t look like
you and who aren’t showing up).
Build coalitions; if the coalition feels comfortable,
it probably isn’t big enough.

But that’s just to start! There are so many folks doing so muchgreat work! Go help them, they need you!

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Metaphor break:Signing an online petition, showing up to a rally, writing acomment online, or writing a letter to a politician are sometimes
helpful! They support activism in the same way that going to a
baseball game supports baseball. But we need more folks tofigure out how to keep the stadium running, clean the uniforms,
and friggin play the game. I’m happy to go watch games but I’mlooking for people to play with me.

?!
...

Inaction is a choice.
9

Towards a Discopolitik

By Niccolo The Wholly Fooled

Discordianism is pretty unique in that while it, like the rest of thecounterculture, grew out of a reaction to the empty promises of
one-size-fits-all white-picket-fence modern living, it has a built-in
immunity to the various traps that counterculture fell into.

Discordianism isn’t something that you can stick on a lunchbox
and sell as Rebellion™. You certainly can try, but unlike thehippies and the punks, Discordianism tends to attract peopleof many different walks of life, and as such there’s 01,001
versions of Discordia. For every Discordian, there is a version of
Discordianism. My Discordia is not YOUR Discordia, but they can
inform each other. The fact that we’ve got a whole ecosystem ofideas to work with is our greatest defense against being turned
into yet another prepackaged lifestyle-for-sale.

Therefore, I’d argue that a Discopolitik could be a useful tool for
breaking down the barriers between ideologies and between
subcultures. I might surmise that Eris has taken on a new role as
Goddess of Information Overload. Not as nauseating insanity,
but as a deep knowing that lets us mash-up and remix our ideasof what society should (or could) look like.

10This Information Overload has taught us, by way of letting us peekinto the lives of thousands of Average Joes across the globe, thatmost of us just want to get those things we need to get by, havesome companions, and basically have a good time. Once you strip
away the particulars of our worldviews, we’re all just trying to figure
out What’s Going On and enjoy our lives.

The real downsides to IO are the overwhelming sense thateverything is terribly uncertain, and the professional info-engineers
taking advantage of all the noise, to get you to buy shiny things.
This is the nuclear arms race of information. If those of us whowant to keep the Eristic vibes a-flowin’ can take the tools that theengineers have built, turn them towards liberation and calm in theface of Confusion, we’ll really be getting somewhere.

11

On Immune Systems
by Cramulus

It is disgusting to have to spend one’s life jetting dirt in the face of the British
public in the hope that in washing it they may wash off the acrid grease of theircommercialism, the saline streaks of their hypocritical tears, the putrid perspirationof their morality, the dribbling slobber of their sentimentality and their religion.
And they don’t wash it! ...
--Aleister Crowley, The Soldier and the Hunchback

One of the things which disenfranchises people from just causes
is that they often come with a lot of baggage. People will dismiss
your point because some of its defenders are crazy. Some of thepeople who agree with you on a macro level also believe totally
fucked up things on a micro level. When you support freedomof speech, you are also defending the freedom of racists andfascists. Some of the people protesting government corruption
also believe the the moon landing was a hoax. PETA wants to stop
animal abuse, and also to end of the lives of all domestic animals.
Some actual racists and sexists disguise their points behind a bid
for equality.

12In Zenarchy, Kerry Thornley (aka Lord Omar) wrote about thespiritual awakening of the 1960s as it flowered in San Francisco-- so many people were gathering in public parks to resist thedominant religious paradigm, and explore where spirituality could
take them. But the movement also included a lot of crackpots,
such as multiple people who thought they were the reincarnationof Cleopatra. These people’s ideas weren’t challenged or refined,
they were embraced alongside everything else.

Discordianism was in some ways intended as a sort of vaccine.
The early Discordians thought that if they presented a religion
which was clearly too absurd and shoddily constructed to bea real religion, then the neo-pagan movement would have toreject them - and in doing so, would have developed an immune
system against patent bullshit and be stronger for it. In essence,
Discordianism’s challenge to neo-paganism was merely to hold up
a mirror.

13

Sometimes a cause really needs an immune system, a force within
it that filters out the bad ideas, dead ends, and rough edges thatkeep people away from it. But also, you can’t get too hung up on
that, or all you will end up doing is alienating people who agreewith you. Discordianism flipped off the neo-pagan movement, but
the overall point was to help fix it. It was a middle finger of love.

Advocates of any cause need to develop an immune system:
collective self-criticism. But know that this will never be complete.
Too much ideological purity will kill momentum too, as cleaning
house can become a major distraction. Any good idea comesbundled with bad ideas, so you can’t let yourself get turned off toa whole movement by the actions of a few morons or shills.

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On Online Activism
By Simon Pook

Online activism is everywhere. We live in the golden age ofcrowdsourced politics. From change.org petitions to Tumblr tag
communities - the Internet is fantastic for activism. And this is
awesome, right? We live in an age abundant with information andpeople creating and sharing it.

But here’s the thing about online activism; it’s really easy. You justhave to type comments into whatever internet box is in front of
your face. This super low effort barrier is great for inclusion - somany more people have platforms to say things and do things
than ever before, and that’s super cool - but it means that there’s
probably a whole load more people saying things that you don’t
agree with than ever before, too. And it’s really tempting just to
write all this negative stuff off as only existing in cyberspace, tosay that it doesn’t really matter.

But I think that’s a trap. In 2015 the distinction between
cyberspace and meatspace doesn’t really hold up anymore. The
networks that we use to talk and make decisions, to change theworld, to love and make love, are as real as the physical spacearound us — and we can’t just say that things don’t matterbecause they’re on the Internet.

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If we just ignore things we don’t like online, it lets politicians writeoff online views and petitions too. Online activism is as real as RL
activism.

So what does this mean? For me, anyway, it means not just burying
my head in the digital sand when I see something I don’t agreewith. Try and remember that there’s (usually) a real person typing
those words. You don’t have to engage in a huge argument withsome asshat, but remember that you cultivate your network. The
world is existing more and more on the Internet, which means you
have more power to change it!

16For The Cause. You Dumbass.
by the Good Reverend Roger

I am constantly told that as a Discordian™, I am required tosupport disorder over order, or some Cause or another. Well, letme tell you something about Causes.

Every Cause is a system of some kind, and to support that system
you are required to not question that system... And the moment
you can’t question ANY system, then the world has jammed asteering wheel up your arse, and it’s gonna drive you around theblock for a while.
Example: Social Justice Warriors, Tumblr style, of any
flavor.
Let’s say you’re out to crush “thin privilege.” You are
not permitted to allow for common sense. You are notpermitted to display intelligence. You are in fact required
to insist that there are no health issues related to being
morbidly obese. Reality cannot be acknowledged, or theother members of the Cause will turn on you like a pack ofrabid shrews.
Another example: Tea Party Members.
To gain any traction in the Cause, you have to repeat
incredibly stupid things, despite these things having
been proven false any number of times (Obama’s birthcertificate, Benghazi as a sole result of Obama’s actions,the notion that all your friends aren’t actually racist, etc). If
you voice any doubt at all, then you are a filthy communist
liberal atheist hippie, and they throw you out of theAmerican Legion.

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In short, joining a Cause means no longer thinking for yourself.

Even the Discordian Cause, if you’re foolish enough to view
Discordianism that way. No, instead you have become aquadruped, and your job is to carry the Cause on your back, like
Juan Valdez was your boss.

This is not to say that there isn’t strength in numbers, or thatyou shouldn’t organize to demand redress or just to kick a
motherfucker in the ‘nads... But the moment you start thinking ofyour activity as a Cause, then any potential good you may haveaccomplished is outweighed by the moral blind spot that you
have just created.

Also, you don’t get invited to parties anymore, because Causes
are boring to people who haven’t crawled under the same fart
blanket as yourself.

Conspiracy theorists think people avoid them because people areafraid of The Truth, but they’re wrong. People avoid conspiracy
theorists because they can’t talk about anything else and it’sboring as hell.

So the moment you join a Cause, you have become that which
you despise most: A DUMBASS.

Well done.

18WHO’S AT THE PROTEST AND HOW
DOES IT WIN?
by Pope Olboyfloats

I’ve worked as a labor organizer and a political organizer. If you
don’t know what that job entails, allow me to explain. Basically, I
was one of the people coordinating ‘astro-turf’ protests. Instead of
explaining the boring aspects of my job, that mainly consisted of“paperless paperwork,” I’d like to paint a picture of what actually
makes up your average protest.

At every protest where you will find two groups on eitherside of a polarizing issue you will find this breakdown:
One of the biggest portion of the attendees are organizers.
These are paid employees on either side, [1] who’s job is to “fill[1]

seats,” and coach the preselected press spokespeople. This canyes, both sides do thisbe political, labor, or community organizers. They all basically do
the same job. Working the healthcare debate I would frequently
see all three types of organizers at the same events.

The next biggest portion of the attendees are people with somerelationship to an organizer. These people usually don’t evencare about the issue, but care about the organizer. This can beanything ranging from friends, acquaintances, lovers, and literally[2] happens more than you’dhomeless people the organizer paid to show up. [2]

think

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These people are usually the press spokespeople because they
are most likely to stay on talking points and are less energetic than
the true believers.

A slightly smaller portion of the attendees are true believers.
These are the people the organizers have made contact witheither through canvassing, phone-banking, or holding open
events. They are easy to spot and are the best volunteers, yet areusually passionate to a fault and will cause trouble if the organizers
don’t keep them on a short leash. Any good organizer who’s beenat the job for a while has a small Rolodex of many true believers
about many different issues. I knew climate believers, heathcare
believers, anti-war believers, anarchists, etc, and I kept notes on
all of them. A big part of my job was to pamper these people andmake them feel special enough that they’d be willing to do any
task I assigned them without compensation.

An even smaller portion of the attendees are what we call ‘hitmen’. These are usually ex-military operatives who decided totake on a safer, more lucrative job. These people do ‘opposition
research,’ and usually have at least one or two moles on the
opposition side digging up dirt for them. Their job at the protest
is usually to either cause or contain trouble, and sometimes both ifyou can believe that.

20Finally, the smallest portion of attendees are either trolls or
onlookers. These people have no interest in the issue, have noconnection to organizers, and are either there to just watch orcause trouble. All novice organizers waste lots of time trying toactivate this group into the true believer group, while veteranorganizers simply herd their crowd away from them.

Now that you know what makes up a protest, allow me to illustrate
what is considered a ‘victory protest.’ There are three key things
that all organizers want to happen at a protest. These are:
1- Positive, prime time press coverage that focuses on
prepared talking points. This is a messaging win.

2- Positive feelings of true believers. Making the true
believers feel they accomplished something is the best way
to activate them into doing more free work for you.

3- Opposition shame. If the opposition is made to look badin literally ANY way, it’s considered a win.
Good organizers can get all 3 victory conditions in mostprotests. Notice that “making actual change” is not a victory
condition.

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Systems vs The System
By Placid Dingo

One of the most common expressions of frustration against thegeneral trend of extremely horrible people doing extremely
horrible things and making extremely large amounts of money
as a result, is to rail against ‘the system’, often with phrases suchas ‘the system is corrupt’, ‘crush the system’, ‘f- the system’ andso on. I have a feeling that this language, and the thought that
accompanies it is tragically misguided, and I’m going to try to
explain why here.

A good metaphor evokes images that help to make it easy tounderstand a concept. One metaphor used in the Discordianwork ‘Black Iron Prison’ makes liberal use of the metaphor ‘themachine.’ In this metaphor we are all part of the machine; one
cannot ‘fight’ the machine because we are the very cogs andgears that make it. Any attempt at change antagonistic to themachine will either be eliminated, subverted or accommodated
cleanly.

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For some reason, the metaphor of ‘the system’ doesn’t hold thesame nuance. We talk of the system almost as though it were on
one side of the world and we were on the other, when of course,that is not true. Political hegemony is upheld by people WE votefor. The BP disaster saw the spill of oil WE needed for our cars, andglobalization is fueled by our participation in the global economy;at any level.

Let’s stretch the system metaphor. ‘The system’ is a name given
to a collection (occultists might say ‘an EGREGORE’) of smaller
systems that link up together. These systems are in constant flux.
We are a component of the system, and the system is a part of us(we both influence and are influenced by Microsystems that makeup The System).

We’re not really going to deal with The System any more. We’regoing to talk about systems in general.

I personally have grown to dislike the idea of Random acts ofkindness.

Why?

23

Because the things that are making the world worse, generally,
are not random, but systematic. Exploitation of the world’s poor
is possible BECAUSE it’s done in the same way, day after day.
Successes that cannot be made systematic are not meaningful.

What I’m suggesting is a way of thinking of ‘systems’ as the tools
for change, rather than ‘fighting The System’ as a method ofchange.

What sort of systems can or have produced change?
Vegetarianism or Veganism present one example. World
Heritage, Environmental Regulations, Animal Welfare andchanges in marriage law are good examples for the same
reason above; they are systematic changes, they have had aneffect yesterday, are effective today, and will meet with successtomorrow.

24Compare this to any of the attempts by Adbusters to subvert
or destroy Capitalism. A mighty struggle may be an exciting
narrative, but it is not generally likely to get results. Again, if
metaphors can shape the thinking behind our action, maybe weneed to lose the idea of ‘fighting a battle’ and expand on theconcept of ‘building a village’.

Counter-culture belongs to the first category, the battle allegory.
It is parasitic, a reaction against the ‘mainstream’. Instead of a
focus on counterculture we should focus on ‘culture,’ building
alternatives instead of struggling against the existing culture orsystem.

If you just skimmed it, here’s the main idea;
The System is actually a collection of interrelated competingsystems. If we want to cause change we should focus on
supporting or building systems that can thrive within The
System, thereby causing positive change.

25

On Halos.
When someone we like puts forth an idea, weare more likely to agree with it. We put a haloaround their head, imagine them standing on
your right shoulder whispering what could only
be a good idea into your ear. Even halos haveholes, find them, see where they lead.

26

Two-Handed Activism
By Plastik and Discordian
The right hand path is a hard form
Two sides shouting: her her her; der der der
Conflict!
Opposition!
Proposed solution: Organize! (implied hierarchy)
Leaders to lead and volunteers to volunteer.
Noble and grandiose, it aims for the Big Change

The left hand path is a soft form
Two people sitting, talking and listening

A Flower/Fate/Flame of Heraclitus

As the words flow freely and are received
Two people become one Discourse.
Nothing really changes
Except a softening of edges:
Gentle observation and a wider perspective

The right hand path may lead to war.

The left hand path may result in sex.

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Boomtime Cabal
2015