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Title: Chasing Dreams, Fighting Nightmares Author: RebelNet Date: 1st January 2020 Language: en Topics: property, labor, labour, housing, economics, distribution, climate change, ecology, pandemic, consumption, capital, capitalism, imagination, practice, skills, community, relationships, play Source: Retrieved on 7th December 2020 from https://archive.org/details/chasing-dreams-fighting-nightmares/ Notes: There are quotes and images appearing in the original e-zine which are not included here. Also a well-known shitbag company has had its brand redacted just because...
Now, more than ever. we need to believe that another world is possible.
We need the courage to dream and imagine what that world could be like,
and how to bring it about.
Come with us into our brave new world, and find inspiration and ideas
for how to make this dream a reality.
Questions, Itâs questions that drive us. Itâs questions that teach us.
Itâs questions than move us from acceptance to doubt, from the convert
to the curious, from illusion into truth. From the very first breath of
this universe inhaled we begin our explorations, our very own
experiments, enraptured with mysterious wonder at this unique experience
of life.
Then, slowly but surely, our sense of curiosity begins to fade; our
imagination gets hijacked, and our lust for adventure is under siege. We
stop asking questions, and start obeying instructions. We absorb stories
about our nature, distorted for an agenda, conceived by the least of us.
We are held under constant threat of deprivation of our fundamental
needs by structures, corporations and agents of control whose very
authority depends on our obedience and ignorance.
We all know this. We can all feel it, some more than others. Whilst a
privileged few fly first class to dine with âassociatesâ plotting
endless financial growth, many struggle to provide food for their family
and to pay rent for their home - which is owned by the bank or business
man. Whilst The Few have the luxury of ambition, others are confined by
desperation. Whilst the âpowers that beâ own everything you need to
survive, you barely own your own chains. And we accept this, like itâs
natural, normal, like itâs what we deserve... that is, until disaster
strikes!
As the rising tides cascade our shores and disease spreads across the
globe; as the rain falls for 2 months straight and thousands seek refuge
from war torn lands; as the elderly are evicted and the youth fight
depression; as the rich get power and the poor get neglect - it is in
crisis that we remember what we have lost.
When the world ends, as we come out from our homes and tear down our
barricades, we offer mutual aid to those in need and solidarity with
strangers. The streets flood with color as we break up the concrete and
sow seeds of transformation in the remains of the ruins. And we start
again asking the questions which have been buried for so long.
When did you last look at the stars? When did you last touch the soil?
When did you last receive information that wasnât from a screen? Who was
it even from? (Did you trust them?) Do you ever feel pressure to be
someone you donât want to be? Like your life is not your own? Do you
ever feel trapped in a cage to which you did not consent? Each day a
carbon copy of itself? Do you sometimes wonder if there could be more to
life than this?
What if your world could be modified? What if your life could be hacked?
What if you could take back your power, your agency, your energy from
the authorities that have stolen it?
What would your world look like then?
We call it The Tipping Point. The moment in time when everything came to
a head - the climate emergency, mass migration, governments who refused
to do anything about either, locked into capitalism and controlled by
corporations. Populations pushed to breaking point by austerity policies
that left thousands homeless and hungry while the wealthy got wealthier.
And on top of it all, a mental health crisis of epic proportions, people
of a digital age who were more disconnected than ever, losing the
ability to converse, to empathise, to even notice what was going on
around them. All these problems, bubbling, simmering away under the
surface, that shiny veneer that this was how things were Supposed To Be.
But the cracks were starting to show. As the world barrelled along
towards self-destruction, we were balanced on the perfect pinnacle of
madness, and all it needed was one small nudge to send it all tumbling
down...
It came, of course. Two decades into the 21st century, a pandemic swept
the globe that opened peoples eyes. The veil was lifted, and it threw
into stark relief just how mad and bad things had become. It wasnât a
great leveller, this disease, that affected rich and poor alike and
showed how we were all just the same. The rich fled on private jets to
private islands, and billionaires demanded billions from the pockets of
those with nothing to enable Business As Usual to carry on. As
quarantine measures spread, people lost jobs, livelihoods, homes - and
were blamed for not anticipating the unimaginable and being prepared,
while the government used tax money to shore up banks. Our systems were
fragile, our communities broken. But not our spirits.
Yes, there was panic. There was fear. People died. But while some waited
for direction, guidance and support from those in charge, many more
realised it was never coming. And we didnât need it to. We had
everything we needed to weather the storm - compassion, kindness,
cooperation. And power. So much power to refuse to play the game any
more. To refuse to pay rent. To refuse to keep marching to the drum of
Big Business and singing with the Choir of Consumption. We could grow
our own food, in spaces we took without permission. We could join with
people on our streets to prevent evictions. We could share our excesses
with those who had nothing.
And when the spread of the virus stopped, when no more people were sick,
we refused to hand it all back. We had shown the elites how unnecessary
they were, and not only had we survived, we had started to thrive again.
We came out into the streets, we had stuck crowbars in the cracks, and
we were never going back.
I'm awake. Birdsong drifts through the window, along with the first
light of dawn. Itâs summer, so itâs early, which means I have plenty of
time to ponder what my day could bring. If the weather is good Iâll head
to the community garden. If not, perhaps Iâll stay at the house -
thereâs an ongoing, ever-evolving mural project happening in one room
thatâs always fun to work on when itâs raining.
The house is shared by six people at the moment, and was originally
three buildings that weâve knocked through and connected together.
Once we did away with private ownership of land and buildings people
started to spread out, many heading for the countryside and starting
communities. Buildings in the cities were freed up, and we were free to
do with them what we would. Walls and fences came down, community
projects moved in and people started sharing space.
We installed composting toilets and built grey water systems to recycle
water to use on the gardens that started springing up everywhere. We
rigged up solar panels and wind turbines for electricity, although we
need far less now, what with all the time spent outside and how
beautiful everything looks by candlelight.
Most of us today live in a building owned, controlled and managed by
someone other than ourselves. Agencies, landlords and banks hold the
authority in our relationships between our homes and our lives. Whilst
rent prices skyrocket, our freedom takes a nose dive, and all the while,
someone makes a profit.
But what if things could be different? What if we created new ways to
live together, to share together, to take control? Could we foster
exiting new spaces to live, to work, to breathe? And what if we did it
together, with friends, with family - better still, with strangers?
There are many ways that this is happening already, from housing
co-operatives to community land trusts, volunteer collectives to
occupied homeless shelters. All around the world, people are finding
ways to live, work and play together in exciting and creative ways - and
weâre only just beginning.
When property is privately owned by absentee landlords, it is often
neglected. If you donât have to live with rising damp and a dodgy
boiler, whatâs the incentive to fix it? If you can afford to buy land
and leave it empty to obstruct your competition, why do anything with
it? Note this on a larger scale and you see long term empty buildings
and derelict petrol stations, abandoned apartments and barren farmland.
Housing co-operatives are a great way to start making a move towards a
more empowered housing system. Joining together as a group to buy
property gives greater control and autonomy to the people actually
living in the building. Organising as a co-operative means working
together - there is no-one who is not involved, and no-one is superior
to another.
Whilst itâs important to make use of what there already is, we also need
to build new homes and spaces very differently than we do now. Long
before we had cities of concrete and steel, there were homes built from
earth, stone and straw, of wood, lime and clay - and this tradition is
being resurrected today. Natural building is accessible, cheap and safe,
in contrast with the industrialised process weâre familiar with, but
ultimately separate from. Natural building allows us to become connected
to our homes as we join with neighbours to create them with our own
hands - it takes a village to raise a family, and it could to build a
home too. Unfortunately, land ownership, planning permission and
building regulations currently make it very difficult for this to be
common place, but it is being done, all over the world, in small pockets
of resistance, whether legally or not.
In both the countryside and the city we will all need to think about
managing our water, food, power and âwasteâ. These fundamentals of a
home can be under our control, not left to big business to sell back to
us. We can recycle the rain for washing our bodies and clothes and we
can grow food together instead of lawns. We can generate power from the
sun, wind and water, and with our âwasteâ we will make compost. All of
this could be possible with resources from nature, and no one needlessly
profiting from their use.
Changing how we organise one of our most basic needs - that of shelter -
requires challenging one of the most fundamental concepts our society is
based on - the ownership of property. It will take a huge mental shift,
but doing so will open up the possibility of everyone having access to a
home that is good for both the planet and the soul.
I get up, eager to make the most of the daylight and sunshine. As I make
my way through the tree-lined streets to the garden I graze on the
raspberries, blackcurrants and fresh peas that are just some of the food
growing along the way. People are cycling down the middle of the roads -
there are hardly any cars now, and our neighbourhood has a community
bike system of salvaged and repaired bikes, painted yellow and available
to anyone.
The garden is on the site of an old supermarket car park, raised beds,
containers and greenhouses taking up the spaces no longer given over to
cars. Itâs been designed along permaculture principles, making the most
of the space to provide food for the community, but also a place to
connect, to relax, to play.
A group of children are weeding beds, another learning basic carpentry
in a shipping container workshop where theyâre building bird boxes to
share around the neighbourhood. Some more are joyously covering a wall,
and themselves, in chalk and paint. I join with a group who are
harvesting produce and filling boxes for people to collect from the food
hub weâve set up in the old supermarket. A group of elders gives us
advice - they regularly gather at the garden, eager to share the
knowledge and experience of years growing food in allotments.
A few people rustle up a lunch from our freshly harvested bounty, and we
relax in the sunshine, watching children play, their laughter echoing
round this once grey and soulless patch of ground.
When I was very young, I thought everything grew on trees - the
processed chicken nuggets, the gummy sweets, the jackets of frozen
potato. For the past few decades, our lives have been attacked by
corporate culture, and our diets are no different. Where there once
stood humble market stalls surrounded by localised trade, there are
multinational super chains with a lust for endless growth - and not
without consequence. We now live in a culture almost entirely
disconnected from our food supply and utterly dependent upon a handful
of corporations for our basic nutritional needs, totally reliant upon
companies that would rather you starve than give you their waste for
free! Weâre consistently told that there are not enough resources to
feed the worldâs people, yet how much food is thrown away? Daily! How
much bread, broccoli and beans are discarded as waste that could easily
feed your family?
Yes, weâre in a crisis, but the fight is beginning! Everywhere, we are
taking land, growing food and sharing seeds. We are bulk-buying whole
foods collectively and dumpster diving âwasteâ for community kitchens.
We are building new networks to feed each other, and having a go
ourselves. The ultimate goal is abundance, to challenge the idea that
someone needs to profit in order for us to exist. We could grow salad on
our doorsteps, and cherries in the wastelands, mushrooms in the forests
and grains on the hillside. What could it look like if we stopped
âshoppingâ and started âgrowingâ? If we tore down our fences and made
entire streets fertile? If we grew together, cooked together, ate
together - without a price tag?
There are many ways people are working towards this change, from
Community Supported Agriculture to Edible Forest Gardens, from
Permaculture Farms to City Garden Squats. Get in touch with your local
council or activist network and see if they have any community garden
projects in the area - if they donât, start your own! The time has come
to move beyond sustainability and towards regeneration, beyond plastic
packaging, bar codes and best before dates and towards food free for
all, grown by the many.
But what about fresh water? Stopping the industrial agricultural machine
will have an incredible knock-on affect on our natural waterways,
dramatically reducing the pollution we currently pump into them; so will
switching to composting toilets (in a world of water scarcity, shitting
in the drinking water will necessarily become as absurd as is sounds).
Perhaps one day we can rely on water from rivers and streams as we used
to. Until then, the capture and management of rainwater and the
recycling of grey water for use in the garden will reduce the pressure
on our existing water sources to provide all our water needs. Access to
springs and wells and the sharing of these resources could provide the
rest.
Reconnecting with our food has a positive affect on so many areas of our
lives - not just the environment, but our physical and mental health as
well. Food brings people together, whether weâre growing, cooking or
eating it, and an abundant, communal and local food system could be at
the heart of our new world.
I wander through the Really Free Market to see what I can find. After
decades of mass production and epic consumption we had created more
âstuffâ than we could ever hope to use, so free shops and markets were
set up in neighbourhoods to facilitate the reallocation of goods.
As we began to clear up the mess we humans had made, we began to repair
things that were broken, repurpose things once seen as âtrashâ and share
what we had accumulated. I find some gloves, and a couple of books that
Iâll bring back when Iâm finished. I sign up for a natural building
workshop thatâs happening next week at a rural community, and have a cup
of tea with the person taking care of the tool library helping to
organise the inventory of tools and getting a few things mended at the
Repair Cafe.
The building has become a hub of shared resources and connection, full
of people talking, organising events, swapping skills and collecting
their veg boxes. Thereâs time now to stop and chat, to learn something
new or spend time with old friends. To just wait and see what life might
bring your way.
It has often been said that âmoney is the root of all evilâ and it
should come as no surprise to hear that we live in a culture that values
money above anything else. We use it every day, for acquiring everything
from bread to shelter, water to fire, transport to stability; all our
human needs (and more) are met with the necessity of finance - so much
so that even our most private and personal affairs are not outside the
jurisdiction of capital and profit. And to put it bluntly: itâs killing
us!
Depending on the class, race or culture we are born into, we come to the
world with an agenda in place for us, a life path already laid out. Most
of us rarely transcend these limitations, shaping our identities and
relationships with economy across a spectrum of privilege. Indeed, many
of us are so conditioned into our place in society that we find it
impossible to imagine what we would do with our lives if we werenât
employed full time into the contractual labor we depend on to meet even
our most basic needs.
Capitalism is the barbed wire between our needs and their fulfillment we
donât have a lack of resources, we lack accessibility!
But economics doesnât have to be so malicious. There are countless
examples of alternative models of meeting our needs taking place right
now. From resource sharing to free shops, volunteer bike workshops to
random acts of generosity; in fact, every time you have a meal together
or take it in turns to wash the dishes, youâre practicing the economics
of a new world. In a âGift Economyâ value is not measured by finance or
merit but by sharing and respect. Jo brings some bread, Sean, the
dessert, Sandra brings the wine. No one is in competition, everyone is
in collaboration, working together for the benefit of all.
In a new world we can produce enough for what we need, prioritising
necessity over profit - after all, most things we discard can be
repaired, repurposed and redistributed. This becomes possible once we
have dramatically reassessed what we think of as âneedsâ and âwantsâ to
align more with caring for the planet and the people we share it with.
When cracks of injustice and deceit begin to show in our current
economic system (and they already are, if you havenât noticed itâs
because youâre not falling through them), and as crisis after crisis
reveals just how fragile those systems are, the walls that stand between
us and true freedom will start to crumble until one day, when the time
is right, all it will take is... one... small... push!
Picture a library, and scale it up. Supermarkets become food-banks,
hardware stores become communal tool sheds, high streets become
playgrounds and money is lit as tinder for the bonfires. If we pooled
our resources, including money (if such a thing were still necessary),
we could all live in abundance regardless of our divisions, without the
endless struggle to take back wealth from those who accumulate it.
I walk home, past walls covered with art rather than advertising, and
people outside together rather than isolated indoors. Neighbours work in
shared garden spaces and children play in the roads. At home someone has
set up tables and chairs for a street-wide potlatch dinner, and from one
house floats the sound of music being played. A couple of the kids ask
if Iâll hold one end of their jump rope, which devolves into a riotous
hour of me and a few other adults making fools of ourselves as weâre
persuaded to give it a try, surrounded by kids laughing at our efforts.
Dinner comes as a well-deserved rest, back against a tree, discussing
ideas for the area.
Our neighbourhood meets together once a month, on the full moon, to put
forward ideas for projects and work that needs doing, to allocate tasks
and work on any problems that have come up. Neighbourhoods have become
self-organised groups that link with others to share resources and
skills, and throughout the year festivals provide a space for those
groups to gather together to discuss and make larger-scale decisions,
swap surpluses, celebrate and socialise.
We are directly involved with how our communities are run, consensus
decision making ensuring that everyoneâs needs are being met. It takes
time and effort, but weâve developed a sense of pride and commitment to
our homes, our streets and the people who we share them with.
We live in the age of the individual; everything is geared towards the
serving of self - our personality is god, and âindependenceâ our
reverence. But what have we become independent from? Our families, our
friends, ourselves? And what have we chosen instead?
Weâve all been sold this story and dedicated our lives to it, creating
more isolation, depression and despair than ever before. Adults are
hopelessly dependent on intoxication and consumption, whilst children
addicted to cyberspace demand the latest Aââle product in fear of
seeming uncool. When enslaved to the impulse for indulgence, we fall
prey to corporations, tempting us with their symbols of glamour,
happiness and hope. We are put under their spell, vulnerable, open and
weak - at the mercy of businesses and governments providing the illusion
of leading us into prosperity!
Itâs clear that we are not the ones benefiting from such a society, and
now is the time to take steps to change things. Itâs about seizing our
power. Itâs about fighting nightmares. Itâs about taking control. We all
want to live in a world where we have a say in how our lives should be.
We all want to be heard, and to make an impact. Deep down, we all strive
for connection.
If only we could remember how to live for each other, to open up and
reconnect and build new empires in the ashes of the old.
One way this could happen is to re-localise our communities and abolish
the power structures that make decisions for us without our consent. It
would mean doing away with hierarchy and replacing it with
horizontality. Getting rid of state control and replacing it with
consensus based direct-democracy. In such a world, we would all be in
charge. A world without bosses, of rules without rulers. Each of us
empowered, creating our collective destiny together â with no-one left
behind.
We could link our communities through festival and celebration, sharing
new ideals and forming new connections, making collaborative decisions
on issues that affect us all.
We could declare all land as commons, converging to discuss how our
world should be, whilst holding safe spaces for the diversity of our
needs. We could work towards understanding and inter-dependence, whilst
recognising our differences â and we could do all of this ourselves,
supporting each other to support each other. Together, we could design a
future worth fighting for. Sounds much better than a day at the office
right?
Someone has set up a fire pit in the middle of the street, and we
gravitate towards it, pulling up chairs or sitting on cushions, cozying
up together to enjoy the warmth and magic of an open fire. The musicians
have brought their instruments, and are learning the words to folk songs
from some of the elders. Sleepy children curl up on laps, a few people
are dancing under a nearly full moon and someone begins to tell a story
for the wide eyed kids who want to stay up just a little longer. It
becomes a game, a communal effort which we all end up contributing to,
complete with a live soundtrack.
As the fire dies people start to drift home, ready to rest for another
day of life being lived and loved. We are fulfilled. We are healthy. We
are together, dancing by the light of the stars to the sound of
birdsong. We are home.
Since the very beginning of human history, we have told stories. Some of
them are true, some of them less so. Regardless of their authenticity,
we have grown up with these models of how the universe works, creating a
narrative of our relationship with it. As time moves on stories change -
some are resurrected, others persist, some fall by the wayside entirely
in light of new ways of thinking shaped by new experiences.
Now more than ever, imagination is critical in taking our next steps
together as a species. In fact, the ability to visualise that which has
not yet happened is a quality which defines us uniquely as human. It is
our most powerful weapon against the status quo - the instinct to invent
and the ability to manifest. To design the world anew with a revolution
of our values. As old stories melt in the rays of a new age, we are
given space to design new worlds, and to tell new stories. We can stop
writing his-tory and start creating âour-storyâ. It is time to hijack
the narrative!
Contrary to the misunderstandings our culture holds around ritual, it is
not exclusive to devil worshippers or religious puritans - ritual and
ceremony are an integral part of our everyday lives. How often have you
really thought about the rituals you partake in? Shopping, Marriage,
Christmas? Do you agree with these concepts or are you just playing
along? Do you still want to celebrate them or could you create new
ceremonies to give your life new meaning? Isnât is time we created new
traditions, ones more relevant to the world we want to live in?
From our bodily rhythms, to the cycles of the stars, we will forever
celebrate rituals - but this time they will be spoken from our own
mouths, represent our values and tell our children tales of what it
means to be alive. We will express ourselves freely, liberated and
without restraint, as we re-discover each other and rejoice in a world
we made real. We will tear down the skyscrapers and sacrifice our
corruptions, we will chase our wildest dreams and fight our darkest
nightmares. We will storm reality and terrorise tradition and we will
sleep in the moonlight, before the rise of a new day.
The only thing we proposed was to change the world,
the rest we have improvised
Subcomandante Marcos, Zapatistas.
We started with questions. And so many remain unanswered because, (and
we canât emphasise this enough) this is only the beginning. There are so
many elements of life and living together that weâve only touched on, or
just missed out completely - transport, education, justice, borders, the
climate crisis, conflict resolution...and so on and so on!
Which is where you come in, gentle reader. Itâs time to look up from
these pages with new eyes and see the world in front of you in a
completely different way. See it as a blank canvas, a place where
anything is possible, if only we dream big enough and love hard enough
and believe we can make change happen.
And if all those things were true, what would you make? What could we
make? Go to the depths and wilds of your imagination, then go a little
bit further, just for the sheer hell of it. See what you can bring
back...
RebelNet is a decentralised (dis)organisation of rabble-rousers and
rogues; there are no leaders, no one is in charge and no one has any
idea what the next person is up to - and if that sounds like total
anarchy, thatâs because it is!
The first rule of RebelNet is: You Do Not Talk About Rebel...no, wait,
thatâs something else. Definitely talk about RebelNet. Talk with your
friends and families, seek out like-minded folk and start a RebelNet
group of your very own.
One of the most important things about RebelNet is that it exists in
real life, not just on the screens of your social media. Form
connections with sentient beings in your local area. Start RebelNet,
affinity and mutual aid groups (perhaps they are one and the same). Use
those groups for discussions, skill swaps and workshops. Organise direct
actions and film nights. Start Really Free Markets and community
gardens. Use technology, but remember it is just a tool. The real magic
happens IRL, not in URLs! See you at the barricades.