Craig Marshall

Destroying Industrial Society

There are many people pulling out — rejecting society as we know it. The numbers of these people are growing everyday, some may see this as a good thing, however I don’t see this as a solution to the growing environmental crisis. While these people who pull away from civilized society are one up on those who take part in this death race called civilization, many are doing nothing to dismantle the machine that’s killing all of us. As I see it, the people who flee from consumer society and don’t fight it are cowards. By fighting it I don’t mean coming up with ways to avoid consumerism, I mean smashing the fucking corporations that endanger and eradicate any/all life forms. We do need to relearn alternative ways of living, but relearning how to coexist with nature is only one half of the equation, because no matter how well you live with nature, when everything dies you will too. This is why we need to hit these corporations repeatedly, without mercy, for this is precisely what they are doing to our ecosystems. Our little ecovillages won’t mean shit when the air, water, and soil finally become pure poison, which is what we are allowing to happen every moment we allow factories to continually churn out more goods that consumers just “need”. Even our language is corrupt — as if consumer goods are good. This is one more way this industrial culture brainwashes consumers into believing more is better. We need to destroy this consumer mentality, but just as importantly, we need to destroy the institutions that created it and those that perpetuate it. We need to get back to a sustainable culture — one in which we live in harmony with nature — but this will never happen as long as industrial wastes, from packaging to poisons, are being pumped out by corporations whose only concern is profits. People have been led to believe that comfortability and security come from working half of their waking hours so they can buy things that will save them time and energy. Am I the only one who sees the utter ridiculousness of this? Fortunately not, but more of those who see it need to realize that even if they stop participating in this work/consume/die culture, the others that are still taking part, are helping to poison all of us. While I personally don’t take issue with these people dying, I think a much more effective tactic is to take out the consumer goods at the point of production by destroying the factories, power plants, and laboratories that enable such a cancerous society to exist. Every moment that is not being spent on destroying industrial society is tantamount to condoning its destruction of us and every other life form. We are being poisoned by toxins that are being pumped out 24 hours a day, yet the average person spends less than 24 seconds a week doing anything about it. Hopefully this doesn’t make you pat yourself on the back if you do more, hopefully it makes you realize how much harder those of us who are doing something need to attack.