10 ways to Sabotage America
by Robin Dunn
Edward Bellamy's turn of the last century warning "Looking Forward, Looking backward" may today look like a quaint Gilded
Age document describing the inequities of a capitalist system as it existed around 1900. He used the metaphor of the
carriage, on top of which sits capital, and around which run a mob of workers. Occasionally a worker gets pulled up on top
of the carriage to ride with the other capitalists, and occasionally one of the capitalists gets dragged off and has to
become a worker.
Well the carriage has turned into a Chevy Volt, but it's still much the same dynamic! Large economic systems cooperate to
keep the bottom line rolling in, for the benefit of a select few, all in the name of greater competition! It's a beautiful
system! Who can argue with it? If you do, you're a socialist, or even worse, a dirty pinko egghead liberal, even a
commie! We still have those somewhere, I hear, growing beards and talking about Marx. (They're said to live in ivory
towers somewhere near you).
Now for those of you, like me, that would prefer to sit back and watch the world collapse on Youtube and laugh at Bernanke
and Obama and Gingrich and Cheney's (why is he still drawing breath?) hijinks, I have one word of warning: bring a lot of
Corona. Or Negro Modelo.
For those of you that are now terrified and mortified enough to get off your asses and fight (unlike me), and have exhausted
the usual avenues to ease your consciences such as volunteering at homeless shelters and being nice to panhandlers, as well
as even bringing food to your less fortunate neighbors (in places where that still happens in America), I have another
solution: sabotage.
Yes, the good old sabots, wooden shoes workers tossed into the industrial machinery to fuck it up, can now win you millions
of dollars on our reality show 'Sticking it to the Man' (as soon as I get that TV funding). But while we wait for the
cameras to start rolling, I encourage your daily efforts to practice for the stage as it were, so that you too can win a
million dollar prize. (Who wants to do anything now where at least the faint possibility of a million dollar prize is
invoked? No one except idiots, that's who.) So, you MAY win a MILLION dollars for following these simple steps:
1) If you work at on office, steal all the pens. Also, steal all the stickie pads. Get the erasers, eyeglasses lens
cleaner, toner, paper, paperclips, big metal clips, and telephones while you're at it. Don't discuss it with your
neighbors. Just take the things home. You need them more than the Man does.
2) Spontaneously burst into song at inappropriate moments. This works best if there's some popular song going around, and
the office staff takes turns singing snatches of it, so that no one person can be blamed as the instigator of the song.
Songs were good for the slaves in the fields of Mississippi, after all. They survived, some of them.
3) If you don't already, begin hating your boss. He or she may be a nice guy or gal, but remember, they are your enemy.
They are the one who can doom you to poverty and homelessness. They are the one who can take away your children and put you
in the nuthouse. They want to do it, too. The solution is to hate them honestly, and with no regrets. Of course you must
smile and nod for them, even in public. But secretly you must hoard resentment and moral fervor, so that when the time
comes, you can all destroy them together. (More about that later).
4) If you work at a call center where your performance is measured by how much money you suck out of AARP Medicare
recipients over the phone, organize "strike" days, where everyone deliberately pisses off the elderly in the nicest of
tones, so that the managers don't immediately catch on. This is dangerous as it can lead you to being fired. But you were
going to be fired anyway. It's better to go out with your buddies, with a bang.
5) Buy no weapons. Too much suspicion and opportunities for random violence. Time for that later. In the meantime, just
concentrate on grinding the machine that is killing you to a halt.
6) Change your name. Encourage your neighbor to change their names. Then, get a lot of credit cards in your new name. Run
them up. Then, change your name again. It worked for Michael Jackson.
7) If you are a public works employee, cut off the water supply, or sewage supply, to a neighborhood. This will get things
noticed quick, so be sure to really fuck up the pipes down there before you quit for the day. You'll be fired and they'll
bring in scabs to do the work again. However, you will have achieved a moral victory.
8) Notice the bankers in your neighborhood. Notice your bank
managers. Notice your bank executives. Track their
movements. Are they buying more cars? Do they have a "permanent vacation" scheduled soon for the Maldives, or the
Canaries, or Madagascar? Keep track of them, you will need that information later.
9) Organize neighborhood marching groups. Carry no weapons. Call them "minutemen for peace." March around a lot and shout
things. The things you shout don't need to make sense. Remember: short ideas repeated massage the brain. It works for
the TV boys and girls. They've been doing it for 60 years.
10) Which brings us to my most important piece of advice. Burn all your televisions now. Burn them.
For those of you out there willing to undertake even some of this advice, I salute you! I am still too cowardly to carry
them out. But if you come over and we have a couple beers, I'll bet we could talk each other into it. See you on the other
side!