My Jandek Plague Journal: 6/11/20 "Outcast of Civilization: Part Five"

"And they are following you, to kill you if you haven't died/To obliterate your secret knowledge/Because one who really knows is a threat to the establishment/Where all kinds of causes and occupations/Are offered to generate compliance." Systems always try to co-opt their critics, to bring activists into the system to give the appearance of taking action and then diffusing tension. Take the charismatic organizer and put them at the head of the committee to schedule the meeting to plan the agenda to be voted on in the hearing of maintaining the status quo. The US hasn't been doing that for at least 20 years. Seattle '99 was violently put down, Occupy was violently put down, the Dakota Access Pipeline protests were violently put down, and Black Lives Matter has been consistently met with violence. It's evidence of a system that cannot survive the idea of an alternative, let alone resistance, and, as even Machiavelli knew, there's a limit to what violence can do. -6/11/20. "Outcast of Civilization: Part Five" from Atlanta Saturday (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)