By Stuart Wise. (2019) - with a wee bit of help from twin-bro Dave.
Originally published on the Revolt Against Plenty website.
These muros are both profound and simple at one and the same time. Nay, sometimes even banal each giving that extra edge to the other and this is no abstruse paradox because isn't the flow of critical everyday life thinking a play-off between obvious simple delights and quick-fire profundity. So what's wrong in saying "Would that I had artichokes with grapes" or "Love, happiness and cold beer" before or after making some smart-arsed, snappy comment on Descartes or Galileo that no buttoned-up, hierarchy conscious academic could make?
Both the utterly reactionary ambiences of modern and ultra-post modern times are to the forefront here and sometimes it's not a pretty sight with aspects of graffiti on the brink of total despair regarding the human condition. Nowadays, despite the MSM's tendency towards promo-ing religious fundamentalism, God really is Dead in the heads of a sizable proportion of the world's rapidly expanding population and, no matter what religious bullshit you inherited – Christian, Muslim, Hindu – and what have you, "Life is shit and then you die" as one of the muros says. What's left is a meaningless life of desperate alienation followed by permanent oblivion despite the omissions within such blank despair of all the progressive mystics (William Blake, etc) from times present and past. In the last few decades via speculative aspects of quantum theorizing now reaching 11 dimensions so far, aspects of mysticism have received some scientific validity but this line of research is still alas, in its infancy. However, one thing's for certain, the greatest, most wrathful and destructive God remains – the one most humans slavishly bend their knee to countless times daily - and that is the one Marx delineated as "the fetishism of commodities." Until this neo-religious, productivist genuflection is overthrown all life on this planet is hurtling towards quick-ish extinction. What we sensuously experience as a "fall of life" is this excuse for existence, retreating most obviously into permanent none-lived, vapid, aestheticised screen-displayed representation bringing with it little or no enduring satisfaction. It's a life in absentia dialectically implying the only hope lies in a revolution of everyday life which through its own authentic volition must destroy in its totality a death obsessed capitalist mode of production.
In the early to middle 1990s a haunting graffiti appeared on a wall along Scrubs Lane close by Grenfell Tower and Notting Hill in west London. It read, "Your life is worthless" a sentence that could have come from among these more contemporary muros on display here. Much later we found out the slogan had been sprayed up by Richey Edwards from the Caerphilly based, Welsh post punk group, Manic Street Preachers. Shortly afterwards Richey Edwards most likely threw himself off the Severn Bridge bestriding the Bristol Channel. His body was never found. For sure the knowing graffiti ambience of Notting Hill which we helped create, also found belated expression here having become sadly recuperated through a cash-from-chaos punk rock orientation but along with the desperation bent of the Manics with songs like Suicide Alley also couldn't divorce itself from the utter reality of that last great plunge into the murky waters beneath. And where are we as human beings at now as aren't we all collectively – unbeknown to ourselves heading also to those murky depths beneath our feet? In itself no matter how aspirant, how seemingly successful we appear to be, we are cast adrift as all forms of political economy from Adam Smith, David Ricardo through to Lenin and Keynes have bitten the dust. Or, to put it more abstractly, where the economic constructs of Bolshevism through to autarchic Fascisms and finally world neo-liberalism have had their day; a theses all too briefly outlined by a still neglected Robert Kurz and his cohorts. This is unprecedented and an admittedly awesome inspired leap into the unknown cannot finally be avoided BUT with a happier future than any suicide plunge. In the meantime confronting this ever growing void it's hardly surprising that severe depressions, self-harming and death cults multiply everywhere. It will remain so until slavish obedience everywhere is broken through a radical world uprising. For sure a tall order but it is still the only game in town. Phew!!
(IGNORANTS) NOT IMMIGRANTS OUT
When those who rule lose their shame, those who obey lose all respect
THE WORST POVERTY IS IN YOUR MIND
Don't mistreat your children by giving them everything they ask for
The Holy Spirit was an absent father
FASCISM IS CURED BY DYING
The IDEAL of BEAUTY that involves SUFFERING corresponds to an UNBALANCED society
LUXURY IS VULGARITY
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, IT'S SOCIETY THAT SUCKS
Don't burn the forests SONOFABITCH..
EDUCATE FREE WOMEN NOT SUBMISSIVE PRINCESSES
The problem of closed minds is that they always have their mouths open
I loved you, shithead!
"I think of you and then I am. Don't get rid of me" - Descartes. (A play on Descartes "I think therefore I am")
WE MUST CONTINUE TO FIGHT
IF YOU MATURE TOO MUCH YOU ROT!
YOUR SUPERIORITY COMPLEX IS THE FRUIT OF NOT BEING ANYONE
TO BE NEOLIBERAL AND SAY YOU WANT THE PUBLIC GOOD.......IS LIKE SAYING: I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD I'M AN ATHEIST
TO BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IS TO BE A NOBODY
What is the use of lots of money in your pockets if there is poverty in your head
I don't believe in socialist ministers that wear a Rolex. I don't believe in artists that drive a SUV. I believe in my people who are daily fucked over
WHO DOES NOT FIGHT FOR WHAT THEY WANT DO NOT DESERVE WHAT THEY DESIRE
WHO STEALS FROM US IS HERE AND RICH, NOT AN IMMIGRANT AND POOR
They are born to study...... They study to get a job...... They work to die......
They were dead from the start!
DEATH TO CAPITALISM
DON'T LYNCH THIEVES, JUST STOP VOTING FOR THEM!
I Loved you, shithead
The beautiful is not how we see ourselves but the fire we have in our hearts
Insecurity is not knowing if there's anything to eat
IF THE CORPORATE MEDIA WERE TO TELL THE TRUTH WE WOULD NOT HAVE TO PAINT WALLS
READING ALSO BURNS CALORIES
.......CONTINUE FIGHTING, CONTINUE LOVING
Pigs are telling us bankers are not our relatives
We are not forcing you to feel more and more hatred
The thirst for gold will leave us WITHOUT WATER
Against all authority...... Except my Mama
BE MENTALLY ATTRACTIVE
I like bread with avocado and cheese (but it's very expensive, capitalist cunts)
Only dead fishes GO WITH THE FLOW
Punk is not anarchy nor are drugs rebellion
Would that I had artichokes with grapes
The major act of rebellion is to defend happiness
YOU ARE THE DIALECTICAL NEGATION OF THE BOURGEOSIE
The Disappeared will never be deleted
Don't hate Mondays. Hate your job
God loves the poor - what would it be like if he hated them
Your hands belong to the banks, your soul to the church, your dignity
is in the dust and your life is nothing but misery.........
How to stop wanting when you started wanting without wanting
I will take you from poverty by richly kissing you
In times of war your love is peace
THE MEME LIVES
THE STRUGGLE FOLLOWS
It is more violent to obey than rebel
It is rare to come across someone with a mind as provocative as yours
You will continue being a slave with or without qualifications
YOU DON'T MAKE A REVOLUTION WHEN YOUR ARSE IS STUCK TO A WRITING DESK
THE MIDDLE CLASSES DON'T HAVE WHOLE IDEAS
THERE ARE LOVES SO BIG THEY JUSTIFY A REVOLUTION
WHEN ALL IS FORBIDDEN WE WILL ALL BE DELINQUENTS
WHEN EVERYBODY THINKS THE SAME NOBODY IS THINKING MUCH
Everybody talks about freedom but if someone who is free turns up they do a runner
Load the backpack.....put on hoodie covers to the face and fight
KISS ME - then I'll explain (Poetic Action Venezuela)
(Also the title of a popular, commercialised song throughout South America)
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