I’m really nobody, you know, but memes happen. I wrote that speech, the one that started everything, and I put the video up on YouTube. I can’t say I expected the reaction it got but I can’t say I’m completely surprised either.
It didn’t even seem to matter that I read it poorly or that the video came out dark. People took the message to heart. Something was in the air and I must have hooked into it.
You remember. Somebody forwarded you the link on Facebook. You clicked and you saw me, and I stared into the camera and talked:
Hi!
I’m gonna tell you something, something you already know but don’t really think about. After today, you won’t be able to ignore it any longer.
You work 40+ hours every week, maybe a lot more—unless you can’t find work. Either way, your time is your life and you have sold the best hours, days and years of it—if you’re lucky—to your employer.
If your employer is a publicly traded corporation, you’ve given your life to a legal entity—something we just invented out of thin air—that is single-mindedly and amorally dedicated to maximizing shareholder return.
In other words, your life has been given over to shareholders who don’t know or care about you and would cheerfully kill you for an additional nickel in dividends.
This is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. It is literally true. And it’s not a secret—it’s a bedrock principle of the system you—no, we—live under.
Don’t like it? Want your life back before it’s over? Easy. Very easy.
Don’t follow. Don’t even listen. Demand that YOU are the primary beneficiary of your work. And then, just stop.
The “powerful” people are an illusion. In reality, they are exceedingly weak people and they are completely dependent on people like you. Completely. Without you, those business leaders have nothing to lead, nothing to plunder, and no way to enforce their authority. The same goes for government officials. They are instantly exposed as impotent frauds.
These leaders—impotent smoke and mirrors leaders—are comparatively few in number. They aren’t workers, police, soldiers. They produce nothing and aren’t able to enforce anything without the active support of police and other paid enforcers. But the enforcers are ordinary people collecting a paycheck. The enforcers have more in common with you then they do with the phony leaders.
They actually work. And many of them will abandon their leaders and stop following orders rather than shoot at neighbors and friends and family who’s only crime is saying “no” and refusing to do what the bosses want at less than a living wage.
We want to live, to have more time for friends and family and reading and painting. We want enough money to live decently and we want the time to live. We want someone to watch our backs and help us when we are sick.
Think about it. We can’t afford to support shareholders and CEOs and politicians who create nothing and who actually hinder our work. We can easily produce more then we need in far fewer hours this we work. The technology, engineering and management systems exist for a world of plenty.
We’ll stop making crap. We’ll stop importing crap made by near-slaves in places like China.
It starts today. Tell everyone:
The game is over. We produce everything and we are free. We will not obey. We create and we consume and we ensure that nobody goes hungry and everybody gets help when they are sick.
Near utopia is in reach. Nobody can stop us. The enforcers will join up. The first general strike starts Monday. And the new order a week later.
See you in the streets.
Okay. It turned out a little bloodier than I expected. But it was easier than you imagined and we won. How cool is that?