MARTIAL LAW WITH A CHERRY ON TOP...
The constitutional rights of (ascribed) "Canadians" as oulined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms allegedly include absolute freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression via any media of communication. However, these seemingly generous rights are offset by a limitations clause, rendering them all arbitrary and subject to the discretion of those in positions of authority. Basically what this means is that we in Canada live in a constant state of martial law, with the Charter acting merely as a spoonful of sugar to help it go down. Freedoms of thought and expression, contrary to statist thought, are not rights or privileges to be granted or revoked. They are values inherent to being human. This misconception is a trait inherent to all nations and all statist political systems where humans are perceived as subjects of the crown, state or flag before they are perceived as individuals. they depend on our dependence. Don't be a pawn. Don't give it to them. Reject their values. Reject tradition. Burn their flag. Fuck their system.

ONE DOLLAR = ONE VOTE!
We vote every time we purchase something. And some of the candidates are shittier and more deceptive than the slickest and sickest politicians (but just barely). The forces of capitalism control the world economy and therefore control the mostly powerless governments that we in a "democracy" elect. Who did you vote for today? It's generally agreed that large corporations are responsible for much of the pain inflicted on the world today. That's not some conspiracy theory that we just pulled out of our asses- like most of our other theories- that's just the way it is. Let's see... slave wages at McDonald's. Environmental destruction courtesy of Shell. A litany of despicable crimes care of the fuckers in the tobacco industry. The brutality of the meat and dairy empires... do I need to go on? What keeps all this shit in business? Why do we keep buying into it? Every stinking day, everyhere we turn, these greedy fucks make sure we are constantly assaulted by images that tell us who we should be, what we should want, how we should look and, of course what we should buy to fit our spherical bodies and minds into the square receptacles that they have created for us. It's an ideology and it becomes a way of life. It becomes a constant struggle to fulfill ourselves by accumulating and consuming material thing that we don't need... or even really want. Our real needs and desires are neglected and repressed, replaced by a false, prepackaged, reactionary impulse: BUY OR DIE!!! It could be considered a political act to patronize businesses like Taco Bell, 7-11, Safeway, Wal-Mart, Shell, etc... when we give these multinational bag-hairs our money, we are saying "we support the evil practices of this evil corporation." IS THAT WHAT WE MEAN TO SAY? NO! So what can we do? How can we put our political beliefs into practice? Well, we can stop supporting evil. It isn't hard. In fact, it's the easiest- and one of the most effective- forms of political activism! Whenever and wherever we can, we've got to avoid giving our money to these greedy, sour-parts-shaving corporations and explain to our friends and families why we don't/ won't support these kinds of businesses anymore. We've got to look around our communities and start supporting local, independently owned and operated food-stores, book-stores, record-stores, restaurants, music-stores, clothing-stores, theatres, hunting-and-fishing supply-stores (ha,ha... just making sure you're still awake!), or any other kinda business you can think of. Just think of what it would be like if we all thought and cared about what we are voting for with our money. We could, dare I say it, change this crappy excuse for a world... or even just a small corner of this crappy excuse for a world: our communities! We could, we can, we must make a real difference!

RELIGION? NO, THANKS.
Religion is an impulse to explain. A natural impulse that everyone has and everyone grapples with. It's an impulse that, sadly and ironically, has been exploited to convince people to take actions that defy and demean that impulse. The exploiters are (fuck - not these guys again!) the ruling elite of nearly every society, in every era, and ours is no exception. It's not hard to understand the false sense of comfort and security of faith that religion provides. A lot of us have been throuh it and can understand how hard it can be to shake the grip of dogma. Religious dogma, which is a set of rules, is a tool used by people in power to keep other people powerless, and to coerce them into serving the interests of the powerful. History is flooded wih examples of religion used to defend and promote most of humanity's dumbest moves. Like genocide: the holocaust and the annihilation of the worlds' indigenous populations. Like war: from the beginnings of "civilization" to the Gulf War and beyond. Like prejudice: the continued subjugation of women in all the major religions. Like poverty: as a tool of capitalism, religion has taught the poor to accept injustice. Probably the worst effect religion has on us is its' ability to create divisions so remarkably deep that people will kill for them. Fuck, scratch at any major conflict in the world today and just beneath the skin of diplomacy and territorial demands you will find a fundamentalist, bloodthirsty form of one or more organized religion. Many "progressive" people involved in religions believe they can work eithin their religious institutions to change them for the better. It's an understandable desire- we all work within institutions to some extent, but it's kinda dumb in the same way that the Catholic Church's motivation for wanting to feed the hungry is kinda dumb: their writings and dogma tell them to. Shouldn't they be motivated by simply knowing that feeding the hungry is the right thing to do?? People indoctrinated in religions (including the religions of ideology... not mentioning any names), seem to believe that a moral code cannot exist outside of their institution. It can and it does. We have the ability (and the duty!) to do the right thing without the rhetoric of dogmas, the threat of hierarchies or the fear of some some old coot in a beard firing a fucken lightning bolt at our sinful, hairy, zitty little asses. The saddest thing about religion is what is lost. Religion, or more accurately, I suppose, the appropriators and exploiters of religion, have taken our purest impulses of solidarity, compassion, celebration of the wonder and mystery of our lives, and turned them against us. This, moast of all, is why I reject religion: so that I can reclaim these impulses for the causes they deserve... love and justice.

ANIMALS ARE NOT BIOLOGICAL MACHINES
If you listen to the words of a couple of these songs, you may sense that there's a real problem in the relationship between humyns and other-than-human animals. And it's a social justice issue, as real as racism, sexism and homophobia. In fact, it's the same problem. Oppressive power structures and the institutions and people that control them disenfranchise and exploit vulnerable individuals. The exploited lose their inherent value; they become of value only so far as they are of value to the dominant group. Their right to choice and self-determination are ridiculed, dismissed and subordinated to the wants and whims of the dominators. So what are we talking about? We're talking about women (wimmin!), workers, people of colour, gays, lesbians, children- and animals. Exploitation and disrespect us the same tools to turn individuals into commodities: in the sex trade, child-labour, wage-labour, slavery and the meat/dairy industry. A lot of us make up rules of dealing with the world and with others: we set up arbitrary moral boundaries. Some exclude wimmin; some draw lines that exclude gays and lesbians; some draw lines around anyone who's not familiar. Most of us draw lines between us and animals. So their lives and needs, their loves and fears all become slabs of meat on the table. Or a "medical" tool. Or a pair of shoes. Or a "pet". BUT IT'S ONLY CONVENTION THAT TELLS US TO EAT AND USE ANIMALS. It's not reason, or need, or anything but outright greed. We have to challenge these customs just as we challenge discrimination based on gender, race, age or sexual orientation. Because it's all the same bill of goods that the power elite want us to accept. Put it this way: if you can make a case for eating a hamburger, you can make a case to defend rape, gay-bashing and white supremacy. Arbitrary ethical boundaries don't work for the individuals on the other side. Social justice is about stopping brutality and extending consideration to the inherent value of others. By not eating meat and dairy, and not wearing animals for clothing, you acknowledge that animals are complex, thinking, feeling individuals who are denied choices and fundamental freedoms just to feed the greed of human beings. And you deny the system that tells you everything's value is in whether it can be bought or sold. You can strike back even more deeply: by joining or forming an animal-liberation organization, you're throwing the garbage that society calls "decency" and "respectable morals" right back in its' fucking face. And even if some twisted chunks of tortured muscle still swing over a slaughterhouse killing floor, your voice on the streets is a voice that animals didn't have before. Beacuse society doesn't listen to the voices of the oppressed- unless someone stands up and shouts back!

COUNTRIES ARE DUMB
So, yeah, for thousands of years, we live in tribes running around humpin' and pickin' berries all day (sigh). But fast-forward a millenia or two and humans have somehow managed to divide the globe into a bunch of politicized geographic units called "nation-states". Yes, another wonderful facet of our technological and social advancement during the evoluton of this, the most asinine of asinine race. Here, inside of our nations, we are taught to identify with our fellow country-persons on the basis of similarities in cultural heritage, linguistic patterns, ethic relationships and/or geographical proximity. And with each nation, we get a state; the final and ultimate authority through which the government and all its' component parts operate. And this, the nation-state, becomes the focal point of many-an-identity. I am an individual human, but I become "Canadian". Not "Mexican". Not "Australian". Not "Nigerian". Weird, no? The whole world has become cut and divided. How convenient for the few who occupy the powerful spots in the class of the economic elites: governments to rule, laws to create, cultures to oppress, people to exploit, identities to inject through its' media outlets and systems of education. So we're all kept dumb to what's going on. Sure, we have certain "freedoms" in our nation-states... like choosing between Coke and Pepsi! Or between Baywatch and Cops! Or if we want to be factory workers or department store managers or teachers or waste-disposal engineers! We presuppose that the nation-state acts in terms of the "national interest". And surprise, surprise! "National interest" becomes a defence of the existence of the nation-state and of the ay it operates. So-called "national interest" is more than just partly responsible for the continuation and regeneration of a system that exists on exploitation and the fucking over of human rights. "National interest" is the justification for crap like Operation Desert Storm, the war on Aboriginals, NAFTA, the decimation of the environment, racist immigration policies or, say, the massive nuclear arms arsenal just a two-hour drive south of our city. So when some flag-waving patriot tells us to "love it or leave it!", because we're critical of "our", or any other nation-state's foreign/ domestic policies, I fell like snippin' off me plums and hangin' up me Chomsky reader! Ha.ha..ha....ha......ha........ha..........sigh.

UPPITY WOMEN UNITE!
Most of us meet the concept of feminism in very personal places, which may be why so many of us initially act so strongly against it. Yeah. It requires us to examine those forces and change. Change can be hard. Hell, change can be fucking terrifying- especially when it means examining the foundation of our culture and finding that it's rotten, built on shifting sands of fear and hatred Every form of media is enlisted to keep us convinced that women should remain opressed and that "they like it that way". The ideas planted in the deepest parts of our person by television, advertising and pornography all tell us that hatred is acceptable. Entire lives and eras and systems of thought have been dedicated to convince us that it is. IT'S NOT. Duh. Feminism is located at crossroads of all human prejudice. It is especially concerned with issues of class. We live in a society that requires poverty because desperate, exploitable labour-pools mean more profits for capitalism's asshole elites. Poverty's first target is women: women who make up the majority of sweat-shop labour around the world, women who must feed their children, women who have little or no control over their reproductive lives. So until there's economic justice, there won't be gender justice. Affirmative action in the workplace is important, but real justice will never be gained solely by women becoming a part of the corporate elite. As the great feminist poet, Audre Lorde, said, "the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house." FEMINISM IS IN EVERYONE'S BEST INTEREST. Go look at your record collection. Your television. Your bookshelf. If you're like me, chances are that between 75 and 100 percent of the artistic expression you consume is made by white, heterosexual, middle to upper-class males. Maybe we should be asking ourselves: AREN'T WE BEING CHEATED?? White heterosexual middle-class males make up a miniscule portion of the people on this planet! Think of all the emotions and thoughts we're missing! The incredible variety of voices that are lost due to our society's sexism! Feminism's primary concern is social justice, and wrapped up in that concern is the potential of every individual to be more complete, more informed and, well... happy! Knowledge- cliched but true- is our greatest weapon (besides Jord's ass). Why do you think that we aren't encouraged to explore and experience dissenting perspectives in our schools? Knowledge is dangerous to the status quo, which is why the forces in power endeavour to control what we read and see, and therefore, what we think! Knowledge has got to include self-knowledge, because an understanding of the sexist shit that has been buried deep within us the crucial first step we've got to take towards justice between genders. We've gotta try to understand ourselves well enough to have the courage and self-confidence to confront the blatant and subtle forms of sexism that we experience everyday. We have to be able to look into the eyes of that asshead who just told a misogynist joke and say, "look, tough-guy, I know you're afraid, but what you're scared of is inside of you. You don't have to be afraid anymore.". You have the power to make that choice.

SILENCE = DEATH!
Homophobia is the irrational fear of feelings of love for members of one's own sex and therefore, the hatred of those feelings in others. Heterosexism is the moronic belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby, its' right to dominance. Yep. You guessed it. It's the same old shit and it smells a lot like sexism, speciesism and racism: Group A claims to have a natural right to dominate and/ or exploit Group B. Gee, what else is new? Well, it's a different pile this time, in the sense that Group B isn't necessarily defined by race or gender, but specifically by sexual orientation... a definition that offers a wide variety of social penalties to anyone perceived as gay or lesbian. So we learn to fear the appearance of homosexuality and spend a great deal of our lives locking ourselves into rigid, "acceptable" gender-based roles, stifling our self-expression and "proving" our heterosexuality to oue friends, families, peers and co-workers. So what do we end up with? Well... a whole culture of paranoid heterosexuals, ranging in homophobic diversity from tolerance (as if homosexuality is a phase, duh) to acceptance (as if homosexuality is something to be accepted or rejected instead of appreciated and nurtured), to pity and, finally, to outright repulsion. That's what we end up with. Is that what we want? Do we really want to spend our lives trying to prove our sexuality? Let's stop living in fear, for fuck sakes! Stop gay-bashing! Love who you want. Love how you want. HOMOPHOBES FUCK OFF!