Who We Are
The position of DionysusUnemployed is that of formulating the proper actions which can actually pose a challenge to any form of the “reigning order”.  At the same time we are interested in resisting the temptation towards mere self-sacrificial gestures, and being wary of any sort of Thermidorian point, where a revolution or Act can fall back on itself and reintroduce the “old way of doing things” back into the present.  [read article]

Protesting means we are losing
Over the past few years there have been more protests than in any other time since the 1960s.  The US has seen anti-war, pro-choice, and most recently pro-immigrant demonstrations.  France has seen minority up-risings in its neglected banlieuse and large student-worker protests against Villepin’s CPE.  Buenos Aires, Beirut, Haiti, Chiapas, and many other cities have seen citizens express their discontent by taking to the streets.  WTO ministerials from Seattle and Mexico City to Hong Kong have all taken place under heavy protest from with many diverse groups and peoples standing up against globalization. [read article]

I Love America
I love the United States of America.  I love the people, I love the land.  From the densely populated coasts—both of which I have lived in for some time—to the barren landscapes of the interior and far north.  I love that I can say “Fuck George W. Bush!” in print or in the streets without finding my life in grave danger or imprisoned for my political views (at least long term, police like handing charges for disorderly conduct that require a petty fine).  Sure, I might be put on a government list and illegally wiretapped, but try telling Hu Jintao to fuck off in Beijing or Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, you’ll be liable to get run over by a tank and erased from history. [read article]

The Image of Che Guevara
The image of Che Guevara has done more for capitalism in the 40 years since his death than his actions and words did for socialism during his life.  While alive he was daring, idealistic, and charismatic.  He sought to unite an entire continent under the imagined equality of socialism.  If he had lived longer he might have been successful, and if strong enough, the totalitarian versions of Soviet, Chinese, and even Cuban communism could have been overcome.  But we will leave that to speculation. [read article]

Things are going well. Right?
Are things really going that well?  Americans will spend over $700 million dollars on self-help books this year.  It seems that good ol’ American virtue of self-reliance has morphed in a horrific way.  Instead of being self-reliant in the sense that one should change the oppressive circumstance to better fit one’s personal worth, self-reliance now seems to mean that one should change their outlook and perception of self to better fit the circumstance they find themselves in.  The Purpose-Driven Life, which has sold 25 million copies, more than any other non-fiction other than the Bible, gives people a purpose that is docile and tame, subservient to the interests of the ruling elite. [read article]

It's too late. We can't win. Thay've gotten too powerful: Abbie Hoffman's Suicide Note
One does well to remember that what we are fighting is big, bigger than us, seemingly outside of us—not something that’s alienated from us so much as we are alienated from it.  We are fighting a large overarching system, something that is at one and the same time economic, political, social, and even more difficult, psychological.  [read article]

There is only woman
Man did not come from primordial dust and the breath of God—man came from a womb.  Throughout the ages man has ravaged Earth with hard head and hard dick, saying that it is woman who is lacking.  These two-headed beasts—having only enough blood to allow one to function properly at any given moment—have displayed an insatiable blood thirst, while it is woman who bleeds with every lunar cycle. [read article]

The Bleeding Lines of Demarcation
No realization is quite as humbling to those of us—and we are many—who fancy ourselves “dissidents,” “revolutionaries,” or agitators of any kind than the horrifying truth that we all have, by the mere fact of being homo sapien monsters conditioned the way we have been from birth, as this: each and every single individual is responsible for the idea of the collective, the nourishment of it, and the present horrifying state of society and by extension, state.  None of us are exempt from the creation of fictitious societal norms.  Beneath our independent clothing, whether bought from the local mall or a thrift shop (the former more likely than the latter, if we look at the actual state of the so-called young revolutionaries of today) beats a scarred heart that has been beaten into docility and fear by the status quo.  [read article]

Play by the rules (of nature)
So you want to change the world?  Well, it can’t be done; it is beyond our control, but not beyond our influence.  What we can change is how we function within the world.  The common phrase “to change the world” exposes the ignorance in the collective ego of Western society.  Sure we can change global climate patterns, drive species into extinction, leave the land, air, and water toxic and radioactive, and exhaust natural resources to the point where our technological advancement will mean shit.  But, the only change in the world will be that it is uninhabitable for human beings.  Nature will wipe us out because of our misuse caused by our nearsightedness.  The Earth will continue on with altered yet ceaseless cycles until it crashes into the sun or is sucked into a neighboring blackhole.  [read article]

The church of Billy Collins and other corpses:
An essay on the state of contemporary poetry
From a revolutionary perspective, contemporary poetry now is rather akin to preparing for a particularly excruciating Sunday.  We know we will be bored, that dead time will sweat through every pore until we mercifully lose consciousness; and so we set the alarm clock and bow on our pillow in helpless resignation. [read article]

A note on history
It is well understood that the controlling interests in the US want the 21st century to be one of US hegemony.  This is one idea that is shared by the policy framers of both the Democratic and the Republican parties.  If John Kerry had been elected president over W he would have been nothing more than a shoddy velvet glove pulled over a momentarily unclenched iron first. [read article]

Critical Economy
My first real girlfriend fucked a friend of mine in my own car 50 feet from where I was.  I found them there, and then, in an act of grace, sadness and regret, held her in the grass for a long while, letting the chiggers feast on our uncovered legs.  The moment I decided to leave, I knew I didn’t love her anymore.  I didn’t say goodbye, but drove 130 miles back home, in the middle of the night. [read article]