By Jake Bellone

It is a commonplace that even in periods shaken by momentous changes, even the most innovative people have a hard time freeing themselves from many outdated ideas and tend to retain at least a few of them, because they find it impossible to totally reject, as false and worthless, assertions that are universally accepted.

It must be added, however, when one has practical experience of this type of situation, that such difficulties cease to matter the moment a group of people begins to base its real existence on a deliberate rejection of what is universally accepted, and on total indifference to the possible consequences.

Guy Debord, In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni

The position of Dionysus Unemployed 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. 

However, though we are interested in remaining on the forefront of the New, and being in constant search for the New, we will not saddle ourselves with such terms as “avant-garde”.  At the same time it must be made clear that Dionysus Unemployed is not a vanguard party, and has no interest in being the vanguard party for the revolution to come.  The pursuit of Dionysus Unemployed is that of current revolutionary theory, translated into concrete conditions of action.  Dionysus Unemployed will either be the first casualty of the revolution, or its founding crime.

The purpose of those involved in Dionysus Unemployed is to increasingly complexify and increasingly differentiate problems as is necessary with the evolution and progress of life.  Dionysus Unemployed traces its lineage from the foundation of the First International through the Situationist International.  This year, September 28, 2006, will thus be the 142 anniversary of the foundation of Dionysus Unemployed. 

As for the question we are frequently asked, how many of us are there?  What are our numbers?  The proper response seems to be that there are “A few more than the original guerrilla nucleus in the Sierra Madre, but with fewer weapons. A few less than the delegates in London in 1864 who founded the International Working Men’s Association, but with a more coherent program. As unyielding as the Greeks at Thermopylae (“Passerby, go tell them at Lacedaemon...”), but with a brighter future.