| A break I'm telling you! The Untakens are taking a break for a while. I'm going out of the country for a while. But I am still looking for renegades to help me in my tasks. You have any ideas, topics for blogs? Let me know! 5:16 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| No update update. Dear consiracologists friends, 7:41 - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Giant Demonstration tomorrow organized by Le Collectif Echec à la Guerre Le Collectif Échec À La Guerre organised a demonstration to denounce the illegitimate occupation of the Canadian troops in Afghanistan tomorrow, saturday @ noon. @ Dorchester Square. (corner Peel and René-Lévesque) 5:29 - >0 Comments> - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Recent crisis of conscience... Warm air blows in a wind that reminds me of my latest lack of carefulness... Forgot to live my life through what I call a brand new sane life style. 5:59 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| FIRST TRIBULATION: THE ECONOMIC GROWTH FIRST TRIBULATION: THE ECONOMIC GROWTH 5:19 - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Angie is faced to several problems. The departure of Manifausto is rather a mess,but we manage to come back in force in a couple of weeks. It's hard with my 40 and more hours a week job to keep up, but i have great help and back up now. 5:36 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | A New Member for The Untakens! Yesterday, has join The Untakens, Landvättir. Student in History, I sincerely think that our new friend will actively participate to our activities! 5:50 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Untakens split! Because of several fights over few things, Manifausto's participation in The Untakens is now over. 8:49 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Teams problems in The Untakens are being fixed! Stand by for more blogs! 5:18 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | 11 Octobre L'Avis d'urbains au Bistro Sanguinet
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| Citizens of the world, express yourself to the US Department of State! The US Department Of State created a blog where you can express yourself on different subjects, so don't miss that opportunity, go and express yourself! :D 5:51 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | Message to our conspiracologists friends! Thank you for your support! In a short periode of time i see The Untakens on the map! 7:50 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Greek fire is up to something The Greece, the Greece, the Greece is on fire... 9:19 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | People from Quebec: FSQ this weekend! Nous participerons toute la fin de semaine au FSQ (forum Social Québécois). 5:14 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| US Army highest suicide rate in 26 years speaks up against it's own cause. Please read the article here. Now lets analyze the situation in a realistic way. Michael Moore, by traveling around on the land at war question of American soldiers in Iraq, in his movie Fahrenheit 9/11, gave America (as well as all The Occident) the start for race to a collective guilt trip! He brought the problems on different angles, but forgot to tread that tricky approach on the issue. Again the US patches the gaps left behind by the missing in the report, by hiring more psychologists, when they should change the whole course of things, stop all this mess! It's obvious that The Untakens are anti-war activists (a term we hear more and more in the media nowadays), but this is out everyday reality and since it's our job as anti-war activists to do so, lets questions the war in Middle-East; it's real purposes and meanings. What are the Bush administration points of view? I will be honest with myself first, I don't own the Universal knowledge, my conclusions might sometimes sounds too simple. However I feel that truth lies in simple things, obviousness. If ironically most of people share The Untaken's points of view on the subject of the war in Iraq, there are still few, and all that upon their pretended knowledge who believe that the US will gain from that war. ME, with my humble ignorance, truly, strongly even, disagree! I might not be aware of all economical and political issues, but I recognize human distress when I see it. First, it's not that the main purpose of this war hasn't been stated clearly by the President Bush himself, more that it changed versions several times, versions that all lied alternately bathing in a vicious hypocrisy. To bring democracy in Iraq." When did he state it? Oh yes! That was right after "he" realised the world's population found out that the massive destruction arms was an utter scam! "No! True! I meant, I wanted to bring democracy in Iraq! Yeah! That's it! I want to bring to the Iraq peace of mind!" We all know that he meant more personal economical profit. More power gained on the expense of the US citizens' life, pretending in the end all that was for their own sake. A better, richer country, best fed with hydrocarbons, money, pride and… and what again? Best fed with lies, wounds, fears, loss, gaps, needs, missing. Flooded by tears, feeling of utter powerlessness before an eminent doom, fated to fall bleeding country buried under shame and a decreasing economy. Alright then, stay in your country! Never cross our borders ever again to buy our natural resources. I'm sorry?! You want us to buy US? And what if we can survive without you, with all our natural resources? Will you declare war on more countries if you come to the conclusion that you can no longer feed your people with your own waning or with more lies? Will they buy it this time? Do the US soldiers commit suicides? It's not exactly true; they were murdered by your mistakes and lack of consideration for human life and anything else but your personal bank account credit. By nothing else but your vile and all assumed tendency to avarice! What war can't do for a nation in need?
Angélique Calypso 2:29 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| TWO DAYS BEFORE THE GREAT ECONOMIC SABOTAGE! Here we are, at two days from the big economic sabotage on Turtle Island (North America). Read here . 11:33 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Farewell, my old activist! Last Friday, Irene Morgan Kirkaldy died of complications of Alzheimer's disease. 8:17 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Hierarchy carries more weight than ethics! Conscience, Liberty of thoughts, Free Will, we could expect a minimum of this in our democracy. We should expect that people from the outside who are willing to join us have access to the same rights. That right is now contested by the Bureaucracy of the same System some cherish. 11:59 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Bush's New Executive Order: A Perfume Of World War II And once again, The president of the United States Of America only had to stretch his arm to extend his power, doing directly against the current crushing the wave of democracy, burning down the bridges between sanity and humanism. Giving the war in Iraq a perfume of good old World War II. Is it that our friend George cares to carry on the family traditions? Yes, that he proved us, by following his father's steps. However, you might want to know how Geroge's grand-daddy helped Hitler's rise to power? If you are curious, click here. 8:21 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | Machiavelli would turn in his grave... "Canada is the more best country in the World" -Jean Chrétien 2:29 - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
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..[endif]-->| Our Featured Movie of the month: The Simpsons Movie Review on The Simpsons Movie 10:43 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | theuntakensfr I know I promised that the French version of The Untakens MySpace would be done by the end of the weekend, unfortunately I got sick. This will be done by the end of the week, hopefully. 12:23 - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Attention French version of MySpace The Untakens. I am working on the French version of MySpace The Untakens. It should be done by tomorrow night. :) 11:40 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | Interview With An Activist: Bryan Becker a.k.a DEFENDER OF PITBULLS! The Untakens interviewed Bryan Becker a.k.a THE DEFENDER OF PITBULLS and we desire to introduce you to a real activist with a noble cause: To open people's eyes and bring them to the understanding the myths on pittbulls is distorted by some media-staged propaganda. The myth cause severe damages to the breed when human beings should be punished for raising them as warriors. The animals are more numerous to suffer from that situation. Example: Bryan is currently following every steps of a legal proceeding against Michael Vick, NBA player accused if breeding pitbulls for dogfights. Accuse of cruelty on the animals, you can load your mind with horrible pictures of beaten up dogs that gives you a little start and alarms you. You find yourself in a state of mind that might bring you to do the same with the responsible of those acts of cruelty! 11:57 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| What can you do for yourself? Can you do it for the rest? = recruitment Difficult to choose a category for that blog, I hesitated 30 seconds between hope, plans, goals and Jobs, work, career. Anyway, my point is, that what I am asking of you will surely take a life time, a lot of energy and work and above all that a true heart and guts! 10:48 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Arctic sovereignty: what for? Male Chauvinism? This is it: the opportunist dude from Ottawa, Harper, gonna buy some additional ships to protect the sovereignty of our valorous Country of Canada. 1:53 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | Atheists against the law? "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." -Albert Einstein The scientific method is held in high esteem by most atheists and it is composed of the following parts... .. Careful observation of a phenomenon. . . . .. ..has ever observed a molecular cloud collapse or any planet form. ..Nobody has ever observed abiogenesis. .. Evolutionists are excellent at Step 2 - Hypothesizing. The only problem comes on Steps 1, 3 and 4 - Observation, Experimentation and Validation. (humans are limited by their 5 senses are previous experiences. God worshipers prefer to blame their God for those myseies instead of bringing valid hypothesis. They limit their reserch on only conclusion: an supernatural intervention) We read about their theories and the conclusions of the failed experiments they performed in an effort to validate their opinions about a phenomenon that has not only never been proven scientifically but has never even been observed. The definition of a miracle is an event which is inexplicable by the laws of nature. The fact is there are zero generally accepted scientific explanations on these issues. If you want to believe in naturalism it is fine with me but please don't make the erroneous claim that "science" is on your side. 7:45 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Black mark of the hand of the United States Paramilitary From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "...Designates forces whose function and organization is similar to those of a professional military force, but which do not serve under the formal command of state or government military bodies. They may or may not serve the interests of the State, and may include police, mercenaries, non-military guards, death squads, or private groups....Or private army / private militias."As the new century began, the concept of war has changed. The "enemy" are now called terrorists and are no longer follow the rules of a standard army. The Bush administration have decided also the take a new turn of their own. To hide their hideous schemes from the media and the people, the U.S. are now using some military contractors instead of their own army. 8:28 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Siege City's citizens' wallets again under attack! Here is what we are discussing of these days. 10:20 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Happy Unanniversary Day! Every Year as the Confederation Day draws near, Canada's anguish rise a level. Is it because we don't want to remember our historical issues or is it that the train of doom of the 4th of July is rushing towards our deffenceless Nation? |
| Our Feature Film of the month: Children Of Men Children of Men. Children of men is more than just a movie, it is about a whole concept. In this universe not very far from now, humanity is agonizing and the director Alphonso Cuaron shows the long process of this sickness. The photographs, for example, are rich of pinpoints of the timescale this world has saddly taken. The long sequences filmed like a documentary just add flavor to this specific time of crisis, the exact purpose of it is to give us Theo's particular impression of longing in a situation of crisis (ex: the scene of the Uprising). The infertility problem is the main topic of the movie, however if we look beyond that, we figure out that this perception is only the peek of the iceberg. Theo says at one point in the movie that even without the infertility problem the world was doomed. While he is one kind of anti-hero we like, we face this incontestable truth: Immigration control, environment disasters, propaganda, and restriction of human rights, extreme violence, and terrorism. Those are scourges that plague this earth more that we can see. And those same scourges are beginning to show their ugly heads at our steps at the moment we speak. Quietus, an all new concept or an over exploited one, is distributed like ration tickets amongst the population. While nowadays we do prevention in our school against suicide, later the government suggests it to the population in an advertisement that would remind you of one for any type of allergy medicines. Fix the problem in the end instead of fixing the source of the problem. It's such a reality that it is scary. By the same token, what we know as illegal drugs (ex: marijuana) are STILL illegal for political (economical) reasons (they sleep together anyway, which one is at the top? Hard to tell! It's a "by default" faithfulness.) Quietus, reminds us of the birth control in China and also that a social entity has no moral whatsoever and fills up our minds with needs to make money of it. What brings us to the concept of the Boat Tomorrow, to cut our deeply grounded roots, set the sails of a new perception and get ready to travel the possibilities on different seas, to find solutions to stop the vicious dripping of the all mighty corrupted source of Humanity's problems.
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| Total Refusal Refus Global (Total Refusal) by Paul-Emile Borduas 2:01 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| The ground of our countries is sticky with nonchalance.
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| Why Art is important. Why art is important to our humanity, to our civilisation and why the system wants to control it? Here's one explanation for you, my fellow conspiracologists! 6:15 - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Big Brother has manga eyes or a theory about a new science In the Antiquity, the savants were forced to think how the universe works by their own head and experiences. That's what we call the empiric method. Some were completely off course and others don't. The theories that were the most popular at the time were the ones that sounded the most logical. 1:47 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| Selling my soul to the CCP for cold hard cash? Chinese Official Served Lawsuit, but Questions Remain
While visiting Chinese official Bo Xilai was served with legal papers Monday, questions remain as to why the Chinese Commerce Minister accused of crimes against humanity was allowed to enter Canada in the first place. Despite the fact that Bo was one of a number of high-ranking Chinese officials who have been on an RCMP watch list, he freely entered the country with a trade delegation from China last Friday. An unnamed individual served Bo in an elevator at Ottawa's Westin Hotel after he returned from a visit to the Foreign Affairs Department. The RCMP, who had earlier threatened to arrest anyone who serves a lawsuit on Bo, witnessed the service but did not interfere. Bo is accused of overseeing a systematic campaign of torture against adherents of Falun Gong, a Chinese meditation practice, in the northeast Chinese province of Liaoning, where he was governor from 2001 to 2004. Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Lingdi says she's shocked that someone who has been sued for crimes against humanity in over 10 countries could have been welcomed to Canada, especially in light of the fact that the government was aware of the charges against Bo. "Bo is a criminal," says Zhang. "He's responsible for lots of crimes against Falun Gong practitioners. He shouldn't have been invited here in the first place—Canada should have barred him." Zhang's father is Professor Zhang Kunlun, a Canadian citizen who was tortured by the authorities in China for his belief in Falun Gong. Thanks to the efforts of fellow practitioners and the Canadian government, Prof. Zhang was able to return to Canada. In September 2003, the RCMP accepted a watch-list of high-ranking Chinese officials accused of torture and crimes against humanity pertaining to Falun Gong practitioners in China. Bo Xilai was among the first 15 names on the list, which now numbers 45. The RCMP had agreed to look into their alleged criminal actions if any of the officials on the list enter Canada, while Citizenship and Immigration Canada would consider barring listed individuals from entering the country. Bo was scheduled to visit Canada along with Chinese leader Hu Jintao in 2005 when Paul Martin was prime minister. After protests over Bo's planned visit, however, he was notably absent when the delegation arrived. Bo is known to be a close ally of Jiang Zemin, the former communist leader who started the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999. When Jiang stepped down in 2004, Bo was among the members of the Jiang clique to be catapulted into top positions in the government. Earlier on Monday, Falun Gong practitioners held a rally outside the Foreign Affairs office in Ottawa to protest Bo's visit and to express outrage regarding the RCMP's high-level orders to arrest anyone who serves Bo legal papers. "By welcoming Bo to Canada, and by stopping Canadians from exercising their right to seek lawful, legal redress for horrific crimes, the Canadian government is in fact providing a safe haven for one who has committed atrocities, continuing the cycle of impunity. Our government must not allow Bo Xilai to further stain the history of Canada," says Li Xun, president of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC). Bo was a leading figure in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) persecution of Falun Gong. He is accused of being responsible for a brutal campaign of persecution of adherents of the spiritual practice during the time he was governor of Liaoning, resulting in more than 100 confirmed torture deaths. The civil lawsuit served on Bo today, filed by Toronto resident Jin Rong in the Ontario Superior Court, states that Bo used his powerful position as governor to "force or compel" other CCP members and local government officials to participate in her persecution when he was governor. Bo acted "without any legal authority and outside and contrary to Chinese and international law. He thus acted in his private capacity ... and is not entitled to immunity from suit in Canada," Jin's statement of claim reads. Twenty-seven year old Jin is seeking $6.25 million. Jin's lawyer, Ottawa human rights attorney Lawrence Greenspon, says that while he doubts Bo will ever end up behind bars for his crimes, the primary purpose in bringing the action was to make people aware that "Canada is hosting part of the apparatus of torturing Falun Gong." "We have a Canadian citizen who was over there and was arrested, detained and tortured on two separate occasions, and she's got the right to bring a civil action against Bo Xilai." According to a U.N. Special Rapporteur report, more than 1,500 Falun Gong practitioners were detained in the Masanjia Labour Camp in Liaoning. Between 2001 and 2004, U.N. Special Rapporteurs contacted Chinese authorities with concerns regarding at least 15 cases of abuse against Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning. The most appalling was a report that 18 female Falun Gong adherents had been stripped naked and thrown into the cells of male criminals at Masanjia Labour Camp in an effort to force them to renounce their belief in Falun Gong, and that high-level officials had actually encouraged this abuse. Zhang says Bo attended at least four persecution "strategy sessions" in Shenyang City, the capital of Liaoning province, in 2001. "He didn't just oversee the persecution—he was directly involved." FDAC says that there have been more than 318 documented deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning province as of April 2007. The actual numbers are thought to be much higher, especially taking into account the findings of the Kilgour/Matas organ harvesting investigative report, Bloody Harvest, which documents evidence of large-scale organ seizures from murdered practitioners in Liaoning province. FDAC has called for Canadian officials to cancel all further meetings with Bo and to take "immediate action" to expel him from Canada. "In the formality of shaking hands with Bo, please remember the victims of his campaign of torture and killing, and choose to stand on the side of moral conscience and integrity as the representatives of the Canadian people," says Li Xun. Calls requesting comment from the Department of Foreign Affairs were not returned by press time. Read Original Article Here 5:06 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove |
| | FP-45 Liberator Information provided by Wikipedia The FP-45 Liberator was a pistol manufactured for the United States military during World War II. The pistol was designed for the United States Army in 1942 by the Inland Guide Lamp Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. Interestingly, the army designated the weapon the Flare Projector Caliber .45 hence the designation FP-45. This was done to disguise the fact that a pistol was being mass produced. The original engineering drawings label the barrel as "tube", the trigger as "yoke", the firing pin as "control rod", and the trigger guard as "spanner". The Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, Indiana assembled a million of these weapons. The Liberator project took about 6 months from concept to end of production with about 11 weeks of actual manufacturing time, done by 300 workers. The weapon was a crude, single shot pistol designed to be cheaply and quickly mass produced. The Liberator had just 23 parts. The weapon largely used stamped and turned steel parts that were cheap and easy to manufacture. The weapon fired a .45 caliber pistol cartridge from an unrifled barrel. Due to the unrifled barrel, maximum effective range was only about 25 feet (less than 8 m). In reality, the actual effective range was closer to about 10 feet (3 m). After that, the oblong .45 ACP bullet (designed for a rifled barrel) would begin to tumble out of control and impact sideways ("keyholing"). The Liberator was shipped in a cardboard box with 10 rounds of .45 ACP ammunition, a wooden dowel to remove the empty shell casing, and an instruction sheet showing how to load and fire the weapon. Excess rounds of ammunition could be stored in the pistol grip. After production, the Army turned the Liberators over to the OSS. A crude and clumsy weapon, the Liberator was never intended for front line service. It was originally intended as an insurgency weapon to be mass dropped behind enemy lines to resistance fighters in occupied territory. The resistance fighters were to recover the weapons, sneak up on an Axis occupier, either kill him or knock him out and retrieve his weapon(s). Many resistance fighters called the FP-45 "a great weapon to get another one with". The weapon was valued as much for its psychological warfare effect as its actual field performance. It was believed that if vast quantities of these weapons could be delivered into Axis occupied territory, it would have a devastating effect on the morale of occupying troops. The plan was to drop the weapon in such great quantities that occupying forces could never capture or recover all the weapons. It was hoped that the thought of thousands of these unrecovered weapons potentially in the hands of the citizens of occupied countries would have a deleterious effect on enemy morale. In reality, the OSS never saw the practicality in mass dropping the Liberator over occupied Europe, and only a handful were ever distributed. Only the Chinese and resistance forces in the Philippines received the Liberator in any significant quantity. The Liberator was never issued to American or Allied troops and there is no known instance of the weapon ever actually being used in combat. The original delivered cost for the FP-45 was $2.10/unit ($26 in 2005). A Liberator in good condition today can fetch approximately $2500, with the original box bringing an additional $1500, with an original extremely rare paper instruction sheet the value could exceed $4500 to a collector of rare World War II militaria. An interesting fact about the Liberator is that the factories could produce one faster than the weapon could be loaded and fired. Building the pistol took about six or seven seconds whilst loading took about 10 seconds. The Liberator was replaced with the Deer gun in the 1960's.
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Total Refusal
Current mood:
Category: Art and Photography
Refus Global (Total Refusal) by Paul-Emile Borduas
Descendants of modest French Canadian families, labourers or petit-bourgeois, from our arrival on this soil up to the present day kept French and Catholic by resistance to the conqueror, by an irrational attachment to the past, by self-indulgence and sentimental pride and other compulsions.
A colony trapped and abandoned as long ago as 1760 beneath unscalable walls of fear (familiar refuge of the vanquished) -- its leaders taking to sea or selling themselves to the conqueror, as always when the time is ripe.
A little people, huddled to the skirts of a priesthood viewed as sole trustee of faith, knowledge, truth and national wealth, shielded from the broader evolution of thought as too risky and dangerous and educated misguidedly, if without ill intent, in distortions of the facts of history, when complete ignorance was impracticable.
A little people, grown from a Jansenist colony, isolated and cowed; and defenceless against the horde of clerics of France and Navarre -- out to perpetuate in this fear-ridden place (fear-as-the-beginning-of-wisdom!) the prestige and advantages of a Catholicism despised in Europe. Heirs of a mechanical papacy, invulnerable to redress, great masters of obscurantism, their institutes of learning still hold sway through an exploiting use of memory, static reason, and paralysing intention.
A little people, that multiplied in generosity of flesh, if not of spirit, in the north of this immense America, with its sprightly band of golden-hearted youth and its superficial morality; spellbound by the annihilating prestige of remembered European masterpieces, and disdainful of the authentic creations of its own oppressed.
Our destiny seems harshly fixed.
But, revolutions, foreign wars, disturb the most efficient blockade of the spirit, however disarming.
Some pearls slip through, inevitably.
Political struggles become bitter. Against all prediction, the clergy acts rashly.
Rebellions follow, executions result, and impassioned first ruptures occur between the church and some of the faithful.
The breach widens, shrinks, then widens further.
Travel abroad increases. Soon, Paris is the rage. But, too far in time and space, too volatile for our timorous souls, it is often only the occasion for time off to complete a retarded sexual education and to acquire, on the basis of a stay in France, facile authority for improved exploitation of the crowd upon return. For example, the conduct of our doctors, with very few exceptions, is scandalous (after all, those-long-years-of-study-have-to-be-paid-for, whether they have travelled or not!).
Revolutionary works, when by chance they come t o hand, seem but the sour grapes of a few eccentrics. The academics acquire prestige from our lack of information.
Exceptionally, among these travels, some produce awakenings. The normally unthinkable is found increasingly. Forbidden readings circulate, spreading solace and hope.
Minds are enlightened by discovery of the poètes maudits: those who, without being monsters, dared express loud and clear what the unhappiest among us stifle quietly within, in shame and in terror of being overwhelmed. Illumination comes from the example of these men -- the first to acknowledge contemporary anxieties, so painful and pathetic -- whose insights prove of greater value, in their disturbing precision and freshness, than the interminable litanies charmed in the land of Quebec, or in all the seminaries of he globe together.
The limits of our dreams become no longer what they were.
We are dizzied by the fall of tawdry finery so recently obscuring truth. The shades of hopeless bondage gives place to pride in a freedom obtainable by vigorous struggle.
To hell with the goupillon and the tuque. They have seized back a thousand times what once they gave.
Beyond Christianity, we attain the burning human brotherhood on which they have closed the door.
The reign of hydra-headed fear has ended.
In the wild hope of effacing its memory, I enumerate: - fear of facing prejudice -- fear of public opinion -- of persecutions -- of general disapproval; - fear of being alone, without the God and the society which isolate you anyway; - fear of oneself -- of one's brother -- of poverty; - fear of the established order -- or ridiculous justice; - fear of new relationships; - fear of the superrational; - fear of necessities; - fear of floodgates opening on one's faith in man -- on the society of the future; - fear of forces able to release transforming love; - blue fear -- red fear -- white fear; links in our shackles.
From the reign of debilitating fear we pass to that of anguish.
One would have to be of stone to remain indifferent to the grief of deliberately feigned gaiety, of psychological reflexes of the cruellest extravagance: transparent disguises of poignant, present despair (how is it possible not to cry out on reading the news of that horrifying collection of lampshades made of tattoos stripped from unfortunate captives, at the whim of some elegant woman; not to moan at endless accounts of torment in the concentration camps; not to chill to the marrow at descriptions of Spanish prisons, unjustifiable reprisals and cold-blooded revenge?) How can one not quiver before the cruel lucidity of science?
Overwhelming anguish is replaced by nausea.
We are sickened by the apparent inability of man to correct evils, by the uselessness of our endeavours, by the vanity of our past hopes.
For centuries, the bountiful products of poetic activity have been doomed on the social level; violently rejected by the upper strata of society, or warped irrevocably by them and falsely assimilated.
For centuries, splendid revolutions, their hearts high in hope, have been brutally suppressed after a moment of delirious optimism -- scarcely noticeable interruptions in our slighter to headlong descent:
- the French revolutions - the Russian revolution - the Spanish revolution
aborted in international confusion, despite the wishful thinking of os many simple souls around the world.
Death triumphing over life, again.
How can one not be nauseated by the liars, by the forgers, by the makers of the stillborn objects, by the tricksters, the obsequious, the opportunistic, the false prophets of humanity, the polluters of springwater, or by rewards obtained for brutal cruelty?
By our own cowardice, impotence, fragility and lack of understanding?
By the disasters of our loves....
By the constant preference for cherished illusion over objective mysteries. Where is the source of all the cursed efficiency which man imposes on himself, but in his fury to defend a civilization shaping the destinies of dominant nations?
The United States, Russia, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain: sharp-fanged inheritors of a single decalogue, and identical gospel.
The religion of Christ has dominated the universe. What has been done with it when sisterhoods become exploiting little sisters?
Remove the motivation of competition for raw materials, prestige and authority, and nations might live harmoniously. But grant supremacy to whom you wish, give world control to whom you please, and the same deep-rooted patterns will emerge -- although perhaps with different details.
They signify the end of Christian civilization.
The next world war will witness its collapse, by destroying any possibility of international competition.
Its state of decadence will even strike those eyes that are still closed.
Its decomposition, begun int he XIVth century, will nauseate the most insensitive.
Its loathsome exploitation, effective for so many centuries at the cost of life's most precious qualities, will be finally revealed to all its victims, docile slaves, the more eager to defend it as they were made more miserable.
There will be an end to putrefaction.
Christian decadence will have dragged down in succession all the peoples, all the classes it has touched, from first to last, from top to bottom.
It will end in shame at the inverse of its achievements of the XIIIth century.
In the XIIIth century, when the peak of moral evolution had been reached, intuition gave way to reason: gradually, to preserve a supremacy which had once been spontaneous, acts of faith gave place to calculation. Exploitation began in the very bosom of religion through it s self-interested use of petrified sentiments and through the rational study of glorious texts.
This exploitation of reason spread to all society's activities, in response to demands for maximum production.
Faith, taking refuge in the heart of the crowd, became its only hope of revenge and ultimate compensation. But there,also, expectations were dulled.
In high places, mathematics succeeded obsolete metaphysical speculation. The spirit of observation succeeded that of transfiguration.
The method hastened some impending progress in limited fields; it encouraged the birth of our versatile machines with their vertiginous speed, it allowed he straight-jacketing of our tumultuous rivers -- and decadence seemed amiable and necessary, even if inviting the destruction of the planet. Scientific instruments brought us unanticipated means to investigating and regulating what was too small, too quick, too vibrant, too slow, or too huge for us. Our reason enabled us to over-run the world, but a world in which our harmony was lost.
The rending of psychic from rational faculties is close to paroxysm.
Material progress, reserved for the propertied classes but elsewhere held in check, has allowed political evolution with the guidance of religion (later without it), yet without renewal of our sensibility, our subconscious -- without allowing the emotional evolution of the crown -- which alone could have rescued us from the deep Christian rut.
Society, born in faith, will perish by the weapon of reason: intention.
The inexorable regression of collective moral power to a strictly individual and sentimental level has helped to weave an amazing cloak of abstract knowledge -- behind which society hides to devour at ease the fruit of its crimes.
Two world wars have been necessary to bring us to a recognition of this absurd state. The terror of the third will be conclusive. The H hour of total sacrifice is close upon us. Europe's rats already try to build a bridge of frantic escape over the Atlantic. But events will catch up with the greedy, the satiated, the self-indulgent, the appeasers, the blind and the deaf.
They will be put down without mercy.
A new collective hope will be born.
Already it commands the ardour of exceptional lucidities, anonymously bonded by a new faith in the future and the collectivity to come.
Magic booty, magically wrested from the unknown, lies at our feet. It has been gathered by the true poets. Its power to transform is measured by the violence shown against it and by its resistance in the end to exploitation. After more than two centuries, de Sade is still not found in bookstores, and Isidore Ducasse, dead for more than a century of revolutions and carnage, remains too virile for flabby contemporary consciences, in spite of the cesspool customs of today.
The items of this treasure reveal themselves, inviolable, to our society. They remain the incorruptible, sensitive legacy for tomorrow. They were ordained spontaneously outside of and in opposition to civilization, and await freedom from its restraints to become active in the social scheme.
Therefore, our duty is simple.
To break definitively with all conventions of society and its utilitarian spirit! We refuse to live knowingly at less than our spiritual and physical potential; refuse to close our eyes to the vices and confidence tricks perpetuated in the guise of learning, favour, or gratitude; refuse to be ghettoed in an ivory tower, well-fortified but too easy to ignore; refuse to remain silent -- do with us what you will, but you shall hear us; refuse to make a deal with la gloire and its attendant honours: stigmata of malice, unawareness or servility; refuse to serve and to be used for such ends; refuse all intention, evil weapon of reason -- down with them, to second place!
Make way for magic! Make way for objective mysteries! Make way for love! Make way for necessities!
To this global refusal we contrast full responsibility.
The self-seeking act is fettered to its author; it is stillborn.
The passionate act breaks free, through its very dynamism.
We gladly take on full responsibility for tomorrow. Rational effort, once in its proper place, will be available again to disengage the present from the limbo of the past.
Passions shape the future spontaneously, unpredictably, necessarily.
The past is contingency of birth, it thus cannot be sacred. We are always quits with it.
It is naive and misleading to consider the men and things of history through the magnifying glass of fame, which lends them qualities beyond the reach of clever academic monkey tricks, although such qualities come automatically when man obeys the deep necessities of being -- when he elects to become an new man in a new age (the definition of any man, of any time).
End the cascade of blows from the past which annihilates both present and future.
It is enough to disengage yesterday from the needs to today. A better tomorrow will be but the unforeseeable consequence of the present.
No need to concern ourselves with it before it comes.
Final Settlement of Accounts
The organized forces of society reproach us for our eagerness to work, our inflated anxieties, our excesses; such things insult their tolerance and gentleness, and their good taste (generous and full of hope and love, merely from habit).
Friend of the present regime suspect us of supporting the "Revolution". Friend of the "Revolution" call us merely rebels, saying we "pretest against what now exists but only to transform it not to displace it." As delicately as this is put, we think we understand.
It is a question of class.
We are credited with the naive intention of wanting to "transform" society by exchanging the men in power with others of the same kind -- and of ignoring the friends of the "revolution"!
But the only distinction between these "friends" and those presently in power is that they belong to different classes -- as if a change of class implied a change of civilization, a change of desire, a change of hope!
They would devote themselves at fixed salary (plus a cost-of-living bonus) to the organizing of the proletariat. So far, so good: the trouble is that, once in power, besides low wages they will foist on the same proletariat always, and always in the same manner, a renewable levy of supplementary charges, without discussion.
We recognize, nevertheless, that they might still be serving history. Salvation will come only after the most excessive exploitation.
And this excess they will achieve.
They will achieve it naturally, with no need of special talents, and the feasting will be lavish. We have refused to participate, already.
Therein lies our "guilty abstention".
For them, the rationally organized spoils (and everything in the affectionate bosom of decadence); for us, the unpredictable passion; for us, the risk of all in global refusal.
(Inevitably each social class will succeed to the government of the people, unable to avoid the path of decadence. And, equally for certain, as history affirms, only a full blossoming of our faculties and a perfect renewal of their emotional sources will extricate us -- directing us towards the civilization impatient to be born.)
All of them, those in power, and those who want the power, would pamper us, if we agreed to overlook their crookedness by wilfully restricting our activities.
Integrity depends on pulling down our visors, plugging our ears, lacing our boots and boldly clearing a way through the pack of them, whether of left or right.
We prefer being cynical spontaneously, without malice.
Nice people smile at the meagre success of our exhibitions. They are amused to think themselves the first to spot some bargain prices.
If we continue to hold such shows, however, it is not in the naive hope of making fortunes. We know the wealthy stay away from us. They could not with impunity make contact with incendiaries.
In the past, misunderstanding of exactly that has generated sales.
We believe this text will help dispel misunderstandings for the future.
If our activities increase, it is becuse we feel the urgent need for union with others.
It is there that success has been gained.
Yesterday, we were alone and indecisive.
Today, a group exist with wide, courageous branches that extend beyond frontiers.
A magnificent duty falls on us: history elects us to preserve the precious treasure it bequeaths.
Real things require relationships repeatedly renewed, or challenged, or put to question: relationships impalpable, exacting and dependent on the vivifying force of action.
Our treasure is poetic resource: the emotional wealth on which the centuries to come will draw. It cannot be passed on unless it is transformed, and lacking this it is deformed.
Let those who are inspired by this endeavour join us.
We foresee a future in which man is freed from useless chains, to realize a plenitude of individual gifts, in necessary unpredictability, spontaneous and resplendent anarchy.
Until then, without surrender or rest, in community of feeling with those who thirst for better life, without fear of set-backs, in encouragement or persecution, we shall pursue in joy our overwhelming need for liberation.
Paul-Emile Borduas
Total refusal «Refus global» signatories:
Magdeleine ARBOUR, Marcel BARBEAU, Bruno CORMIER, Claude GAUVREAU, Pierre GAUVREAU, Muriel GUILBAULT, Marcelle FERRON-HAMELIN, Fernand LEDUC, Thérèse LEDUC, Jean-Paul MOUSSEAU, Maurice PERRON, Louis RENAUD, Françoise RIOPELLE, Jean-Paul RIOPELLE, Françoise SULLIVAN.
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