It was against this backdrop, namely, the ultimate and the infinite, that an organization known as the Vietnam Day Committee invited Kesey to come speak at a huge antiwar rally in Berkeley, on the University of California campus. I couldn’t tell you what bright fellow thought of that, inviting Kesey. Afterwards, they didn’t know, either. Or at least none of them would own up, despite a lot of interrogations and recriminations and general thrashing about. “Who the hell invited this bastard!” was the exact wording.
He comes on soft, in the Oregon drawl, like he’s just having a conversation with 15,000 people:
“You know, you’re not gonna stop this war with this rally, by marching… That’s what they do… They hold rallies and they march. They’ve been having wars for ten thousand years and you’re not gonna stop it this way… Ten thousand years, and this is the game they play to do it… holding rallies and having marches… and that’s the same game you’re playing… their game…
There’s only one thing to do… there’s only one thing’s gonna do any good at all… And that’s everybody just look at it, look at the war, and turn your backs and say… Fuck it…”
They hear that all right. The sound of the phrase—Fuck it—sounds so weird, so shocking, even here in Free Speech citadel, just coming out that way over a public loudspeaker, rolling over the heads of 15,000 souls.
There was no way one could prove Kesey had done it. Nevertheless, something was gone out of the anti-war rally.
-Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Whenever someone mentions the occupy Wall Street protests I think of that scene, especially poignant when you compare the weight of the war with our current grievances. Let’s set some things straight.
Wall Street’s fucking beautiful. Because it’s going to destroy capitalism. Capitalism requires infinite growth to survive, but it’s a system based on finite resources. See the flaw? Capitalism was born in a time when labor produced product and product produced money; in that reality it’s a viable system. The stock market created a reality where money is both product and payment, a feedback loophole that literally makes money. Money’s created from money, and in the process it’s become less real. Money went from gold coins to fiat currency to pure mathematics. The problem isn’t Wall Street; Wall Street is the solution. Running capitalism in the 21st century is like trying to run CS5 on an Amiga. Wall Street is waving the flaws of capitalism in our face; it’s the herald of change, and it’s going to run the system into the ground by turning money into valueless, meaningless numbers.
That said:
In the meantime, here’s how you occupy Wall Street. You don’t. You don’t invest in stocks, you don’t get a portfolio, you don’t get an IRA. Don’t own a credit card. Don’t get a loan. Stop shopping at chains. Keep your money local. Rent from a person instead of a corporation, buy your food from farmers, put your money into a local bank or under your mattress. Don’t go to college. Live in a different country. If you can’t walk the walk, don’t bitch. Getting mad at Wall Street execs because your investment portfolio lost money is like protesting soccer because you got your ass kicked by Pelé.
If you don’t like a system, you don’t hold a rally. That’s their game. If you don’t like a system, stop being a part of it. That’s the only thing’s gonna do any good at all.
Chad Valley – Ensoniq Funk|| 2010/Chad Valley EP
