You’re already Dead

If at time we (CRASS) seem to have disappeared, it is because we have other work to do. If the band is not out working, you can be assured that the individuals within it are. WE DO NOT, AND WILL NOT, BE FORCED INTO BEING ‘just another cheap product for the consumer’s head’. Alone and together WE CAN, WILL AND MUST SECURE A FUTURE FOR THIS EARTH

PUNK, doo wah, or dot what ? Eiter way it’s become a part of the grand social circus. Danse music for dick-heads, or a genuine expression of our danger and our despair ? There’s such a fine line between that which simply adds to the plastiic crap that engulfs our lives and that which offers vision, hope dignity and a FUTURE. Can you tell the diffrence ?

We’re sold down the line by the music-press, the music business and, worst of all, the bands themselves. We’ve heard it allb efore, revolution at our back door and YES it has happened all over again. So many people mouthing the words, but how many of them really care ? It’s easy to appear radical in the pages of Sounds, but in the book that is our life it’s not so easy.

Punk has becore derivative, escapist and generally BORING. W don’t want rock stars, We don’t want glossy photos of our favourite hero. WE WANT LIFE AND WON’T SETTLE FOR ANYTHING LESS.

The future is ours if we are prepared to FIGHT FOR IT.

Was Punk ever protest ? Was it ever much more than anoter escape route ? Si years ago we were offered a deal with a large company ; deep-pile carpets, deep-pile shit. The arsehole who ran the company actually had the nerve to tell us that he could « market the revolution ». Just another cheap product for the consummer’s head. He’d « make our anger into a commodity », the « protest package ». We told him to grow up and he told us « we’d never make it » without him. MAKE WHAT?a sleazy office in Mayfair ? Full page interviews in NME ? Since that time he has gone on to manage Culture Club. Is THAT making it ? It’s certainly plastic enough,empty shallow, odious AND PROFITABLE enough. SO, he and they have MADE it, like all the other scum who think that money and fame are a measure of life’s success. For fucks sake, THERE IS LIFE BEYOND CONSUMERISM, BEYOND PRODUCT AND BEYOND THE PLASTIC. To find that life, we have to search hard within ourserlves and when we find that light, be prepared to fight for the right to keep it alight ?

From the bomb, neatly marketed as ‘THE DAY AFTER’, to the synthetic blob on our dinner plate, neatly marketed as « FOOD », we are sold consumerist product as a supplement for « THE REAL THING »

A shock horror movie of the after effects of the bomb will PREPARE us for the real thing, AND amuse us while we’re waiting for it to happen. MEANWHILE, millions and millions of dollars will have been made for the films producers. The government will not ALLOW us to see video-nasties because they may ‘deprevae’ us, yet apparently it’s OK to see a romantic portrayal of the ULTIMATE NASTY, that’s because THEY(VE got the bomb and we(ve only got black & Decker drills . All available evidence would suggest that those who have control of the bomb are ALREADY depraved, which is presumedly why they’re not at risk from exposure to bad Hollywood movies. It’s warming to think that if « THE DAY AFTER » had been made twenty years ago, it would probably have featured Ronald Reagan as the doctor. If « THE REAL THING » ever does happen, EVERYONE ca be a star, EVERYONE can be a hero, and EVERYONE can be THE SOLE SURVIVOR ….. JUST LIKE THE MOVIES.

Plastic crap like « THE DAY AFTER » sells us something that offers nothing but « apparency », just like junk food, 100 % chemical, just like our lives, 100 % illusions and pretence. While we’re being fed this PRODUCT, the wealthy elite are laughing all the way to the banks.

While we suck on a BIG MAC, they stuff up with venison and quail while we suck up the latest TV mind-number, they prepare for « THE REAL THING » and amuse themselves watching REAL snuff miovies and video sodomy, just like the elite of Beverley Hills.

NOW, WE DON’T WANT THEY’VE GOT, WHO NEEDS THAT KIND OF PERVERSITY ? AT THE SAME TIME, WHY SHOULD WE BE SOLD DOWN THE LINE BY WHAT THEY THINK WE NEED ?

We can make our own food and our own entertainment, we DON’T NEED their plastic replacements, BUT THEY DO. They need them so that they can continue to live in the GROSS manner to which they are accustomed. They viciously exploit Third World resources (both labour and raw material ) so that they can further exploit US with the PRODUCT of their theft. It’s all a part of the consumer ethic. All a part of the neatly packaged lie that we are forced to accept as « reality »

So where do we all belong in this circus ? Is OUR involvement in punk and it’s protest just another wing of that consumerism ? How many of us are really trying to grasp something beyond those Magic moments on the Hollywood Screen ?

If this is ‘just another gig’ and we’re just another set of monkeys in the same old zoo .. FORGET IT . Like the man said ‘you can market revolution’. Well, we DON’T WANT TO MARKET IT, WE WANT TO MAKE IT.

Since last Years squat gig at the Zig Zag, we haven’t gigged much because we(ve been looking for other ways in chich to extend the vision of how it could be. We are not prepared to go onto the road and merely be a part of the circus. WE WANT MORE THAN THAT

We have been looking inside ourselves and asking the whats, wheres and whys that were forced on us firstly by the Falkland’s War and then by Thatcher’s re-election. It wasn’t that a Labour victory would in itself made Britain a better place to live in, ALL GOVERNMENTS are concerned with power rather than people, no, the REAL SHOCK was that there was enough people to put a lunatic like Thatcher into power AND who actually believed that she might offer something worthwhile. If that isn’t a dramatic demonstration of just how bad things really are, what is ? We knoow that the rich get richer while the pooer get poorer, but there simply aren’t enough rich scabs to have accounted for Thatcher’s landslide, which means that the pooer must also have contributed to her victory. WHAT KIND OF MADNESS IS THIS ?

It’s no longer good enough to simply give up meat and turn up to a few demonstrations. The simple fact is that our daily lives are becoming MORE AND MORE RESTRICTED, THE SPACE IS RUNNING OUT. THERE’S NO POINT BEING A STRONG INDIVIDUAL IF THE ONLY PLACE YOU BE ONE IS A POLICE CELL

At the beginning of this month, Thatcher authorised the issue of plastic bullets to the police force, the same plastic bullets that have killed fourteen people, mostly teenagers, in Northern Ireland. For as long as any of us can remeber, the british state has been oppressiong the people of ireland with economic exploitation and the means by which it is achieved …. slavery over-seen by the army and the police. Now it appears that the authorities have realised that the people of England , Scotland, and Wales have HAD ENOUGH, that the only way in which they are going to maintain their slavery of us is with the threat of a gun barrel.z

The police have been armed for the simple reason that the government and the wealthy elite (mostly American) whom they serve, ARE SCARED. They’re scared that we are beginning to realise that REASON isn’t going to get us anywhere, scared that instead of humbly asking for our little slice of cake, WE ARE GOING TO START DEMANDING IT.

Why should we live as slaves so that an incredibly small number of people can live in disgusting wealth ? Why should we live drab, grey lives so that those scum can cruise around in the Bahamas sipping Tia Maria ? …. Nice idea ? No, it isn’t, it’s a fucking insult to the millions upon millions of starving people on this planet, an insult and THE CAUSE

How can people DARE to drive around in cars that cost more than the average Third World family would see in FIFTY LIFETIMES ? But don’t fool youserlf that around the industrial cities of modern Britain, knock on the door of a farm labourers cottage and you’ll find people living in the UTTER MISERY of deprivation, it might not show on the outside, but inside those four walls people are dying of starvation, physicial and SPIRITUAL

We hear so much from those in the authority about ‘the rising crime rate’, is it any wonder there’s ‘crime’ ?

For fuck sake, people who can barely afford a decent meal are confronted every day by the vile trappings of the filthy rich, whether it’s a Rolls Royce gliding down the high street, a billboard advertising the latest in HI TECH garbage, or the TV with its endless plugs for lifestyles tthat they KNOW very few can afford. As long as they can keep us striving to imitate THEM, they have US in TOTAL BONDAGE.Wages are LOW, prices are HIGH. Have you ever though what that simple phrase REALLY MEANS ? It means that we, the people, are producing huge profits for the wealthy elite. While we work for the next to nothing and are conned into wanting the crap that we produce, they win both ways. ALL WEALTH IS AT THE EXPENSE OF US, THE PEOPLE

The wealthy have been stealing our lives for centuries, they(ve stolen our lives, and our homes, our bodies and ou minds, but when one of us as much as nicks a loaf of bread because we haven’t eaten for a day, they DARE to call it a CRIME. IT IS THEY WHO ARE REAL CRIMINALS. They profit by our labour, profit by our passivity, profit by our suffering, profit, profit, profit. They expect us to work in their filthy factories and their garish shops, to go hundreds of feet beneath the ground to mine their wealth, to die of cancer working in their nuclear plant, you dig their holes, build their homes, lick their arse, FOR WHAT ? For a fucking pittance. They expect us to CHAIN OURSERLVES to their greedy morality and then when they decide that they want More, they send us to fight in their endless war. How many for us have to die for them before we realise that is ONLY THEY WHO GAIN BY THE EFFORTS ? No matter if we die, there’s plenty more of us where we came from, like the pawns in a chess game, endless deaths to maintain the position of the ruling elite … still, the poor breed like bloody flies, don’t they ?

It isn’t enough to simply oppose war. Nuclear bombs are nothing but the logical extension of a way of life that sees it as reasonable that one person should have control over the lives of thousands. Throughout history the ordinary people have passively accepted the domination of the few ruling/wealthy elites, have passively accepted bondage and slavery.

With this passive support behind them, the wealthy have been able to build up MASSIVE stock of money, arms, property and POWER. The bomb itself is an inanimate object, it’s the NUTTERS behind ti who are the real thread. Do YOU SERIOUSLY BELIEVE THAT THEY WOULD BE LESS OF A THREAT SIMPLY BY GIVING UP THE BOMB ? Of course they wouldn’t be, they’ll hang on their power and control as long as we let them. We have to DEMAND AND FIGHT FOR the COMPLETE removal of ALL GOVERNMENT, left right or center. It just isn’t enough to imagine that by removing one small brick from a castle that the whole lot will tumble. WE HAVE TO DESTROY THE WHOLE BUILDING AND THE INSTITUTIONS THAT IT REPRESENTS. It’s time to realise that THE BOMB is to some extent A RED HERRING, as long as our energies are used up opposing that SINGLE ISSUE, the ruling elite can carry on their TOTAL EXPLOITATION of us in ALL THE OTHER AREAS OF OUR LIVES THAT THEY CONTROL. It serves them well that we are afraid of their bomb, THEIR BOMB IS THE ULTIMATE STATEMENT OF HOW FAR THEY ARE PREPARED TO GO TO MAINTAIN THAT AUTHORITY

Before the bomb, the ruling elite had the OMNIPOTENT GOD to hold over the heads of the people, threatening death and damnation. Things haven’t changed muych, only GOD now looks more like UNCLE SAM than FATHER CHRISTMAS

While we’re outside an American airbase, the wealthy happily carry on their privileged life unhindered, yet it is THEM that the airbases protect because the airbases are simply ONE PART in the hierarchy of authority. OF COURSE we should maintain pressure at the bases, but we should ALSO be looking for ways of widening our actions to affect the wealthy on ALL LEVELS. The REAL centers of power are the banks and the multi national corporations who FINANCE WAR. IT IS WEALTH THAT IS THE ERAL ENEMY. As long as the greedy few dominate our lives, there will be no REAL PEACE.

While we are obsessed with ONE SINGLE PART OF THE WHOLE, Thatcher and ger gang of ghouls will close down hospitals, schools will becomre more like prisons than they already are, there’ll be more and more unemployment and poverty, wider powers will be given to the army and police, the working people will become more and more isolated in their battle for equality (Warrington), the vicious oppressions of ‘minority groups’ (black, gypsies, gays, etc) will continue, the streets will be build to house US, THE DISSIDENTS. WHY ARE WE ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN ? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT ?

Any act of subversion and sabotage weakens the State, from disrupting operations at work or school, to direct attacks on the institutions of oppressing as made by the Women of Greenham or the Animal Liberation Front. Why should we stop at sabotaging hunts ? There are hundreds of institutions that deserve our attentions and could be effectively sabotaged ; from business conferences to race meeting, army recruitement offices to banks, anywhere in fact where the wealthycongregate and do business

Whatever we decide to do, and wherever we decide to do it, we MUST think first and act second. Mindless vandalism is pointless and selft-destructive. We must plan our actions to make them clean and EFFECTIVE and we must let the authorities know WHY we are doing these thing (via the media perhaps). We must also be careful not to be persuaded into taking actions that we are nto ready for, that can be suicidal. It’s not worth getting the shit beaten out of you in a police cell for an action that has failed because of lack of forethought. We must always remeber that the enemy have at their command massive forces of oppression and that they will not hesitate to use them against us.

As the Third World increasingly refuses to play third part in world affairs things will get tighter, not for the rich, but for US. When the Arabs finally refused to supply cheap oil to the western world economies came close to collapse, prices rocketed while wages stayed the same BUT THE RICH STAYED RICH … AT ALL COSTS.

Massive unemployment means millions on the dole. Signing on, signing in and being exposed to constant degradation. The government is running out of monney, our monney there isn’t long to go for US. They have plenty of fat stashed away for when the going gets rough, so who’s going to get it in the ear ? WE ARE.

Nearly four million people unemployed, a lot of them with other people who are dependent on them, people living on mean pensions, people who are sick, people who are too young to be considered as ‘part of the labour force’. How does a country support that many our consumer society ? The answer is that they pay off less, they rip-off cheap labour and resources from others around the world, or they live off their massive stores of reserves.

BUT ….

1. The country is spending massive amounts on war materials.

2. The number of places around that can be plundered is getting smaller and smaller.

3. The rich are getting richer an richer, and know it, while the poor don’t even get a look in, AND KNOW IT.

SO, there’s going to be shortages. The poor, old and sick, the young, the minorities, in fact ALL OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON THE INNER CIRCLE OF WEALTH, are going to be up Shit-creek. The government will see to it that the wealthy are protected, they always will. They won’t spend less on arms or cut back in any of the areas that maintain their power. What WILL happen is the collapse of the social services, it’s happening already. The ‘dole’ is financed at the expense of the ‘health service’ and in reductions to pensioners and tother relatively helpless groups. They are paying people the dole to keep them quiet. The unemployed, especially the young, are seen by the government as a potentially very dangerous group. They have time to think, have fewer, if any investements in the system and are beginning to realise the TRUTH. The goverment will firstly try to control us with money and when that runs out, with force. The workhouses, forced labour caps and interment camps are being prepared for us NOW.

We are going to have to learn to look after ourselves and find other ways of surviving in what is increasingly becoming a hostile environment. We’re going to have to find alternatives to Dr.Drug M.D and invent new ways of existing and being with each other. We’re going to have to share and, if need be, barter our skills and enegeries. But above all, we are going to have to knock shit out of this corrupt system. The ystem KILLS, it’s killing half the world’s population already, starved so that WE CAN HAVE NUCLEAR DEFENCE. If need be, the system will destroy the other half without a thought. Learning to survive only matters if its make us more effective, more willing to use our skills and knowledge AGAINST THE SYSTEM. FOR TOO LONG OUR ENERGIES HAVE BEEN USED TO MAINTAIN THAT GROUP OF CORRUPT PERVERTS WHO CLAIM TO BE OUR MASTERS. WE CAN NO LONGER PRETEND THAT WE DIDN’T KNOW THE FACT, FOR SEVEN YEARS PUNK PROTEST HAS BEEN SUPPLYING THOSE FACTS …. NOW IT’S TIME TO ACT.

So, like the man said « let’s market revolution » but let’s remeber that the real revolution has NO LEADERS and starts INSIDE YOUR OWN HEAD. Until you’ve at least begun to deprogram yourself from the shit that school, parents and other agents of the system have crammed into your head, it’s dangerous to throw yourself in. If it’s revenge you’re working with, FORGET IT, the motive behind REAL REVOLUTION is LOVE you can keep hatred for the politicos who can’t see beyond the sacred quotes of their political gurus.

So, why all this anger ? What is it we’re after ? Why should we do anything ? The answer is so simple …. THE WORLD COULD BE A BEAUTIFUL PLACE , LIFE COULD BE EXPERIENCED AS THE MIRACLE THAT IT IS. Most of us know that beyond the wirefences of authority there is the WONDER OF LIFE that was our BIRTHRIGHT. We are, each one of us, unique creations, each different, each perfect and each precious, BUT HOW MUCH OF THAT ARE WE EVER ALLOWED TO SEE BY THOSE WHO WOULD HAVE US AS SLAVES ? From the very start we are forced into submission, belittled and assured of our worthlessness. How rare it is that anyone survives this savage conditioning. Those who think that they know better, who imagine that they have some kind of divine right to determine OUR future, deprive us of the right to make our OWN decisions, our OWN values and moralities, deprive us of the right TO BE OURSELVES. YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE, IT IS PRECIOUS AND UNIQUE , LEARN TO LIVE IT … YOUR WAY. YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE TO EXPERIENCE THE BEAUTY OF OUR PLANET EARTH. The wonderful sea rolling and swelling, joining nations and peoples. Moutains touching the sky and falling in folds to the plains. Fields of golden wheat and barley blowing in the summer wind. The soft rgey dust being lifted into the air and swirled around in spirals. Clouds of insects hovering above damp patches in the grass. The strong spears of daffodil and crocus freing their way throught the lorries cease to thunder on the endless, hideous miles of grey motor. The sudden thought, illumination that tells us that THERE IS SOMETHING BEYOND THE SLAVERY IN WHICH WE LIVE. WHEN, FOR SOME OBSCURE REASON WE ARE THROWN BACK TO EARLY CHILDHOOD WHEN THE NIGHTMARE HAD NOT BEEN FULLY IMPLANTED IN OUR HEADS. Life is such a profound miracle, IT IS A TOTAL TRAGEDY THAT SO FEW PEOPLE WILL EVER TRULY EXPERIENCE. THE SHEER DEPTH AND WONDER OF IT. Why should the wealthy elite waste this one glorious chance that we have ? Why should we be deprived of JOY and ECSTACY because of THEIR UGLY GREED ? It is quite probable that what we DEMAND and will FIGHT FOR will not benefit us directly. As our struggle intensifies, it is highly probable that we will suffer even more vicious oppression, but what we are fighting for is a future, hope and the sincere wish that THOSE AS YET UNBORN MAY HAVE A BETTER LIFE THAN WE WERE ABLE TO. ALL OF US, SINCE BIRTH, HAVE LIVED UNDER THE THREAT OF TOTAL DESTRUCTION, WE HAVE BEEN USED AND ABUSED TIME & TIME AGAIN BY THE WEALTHY ELITE …. FOR THE SAKE OF THE FUTURE, WE HAVE TO SAY ‘NO’

Everything has been stolen from us, WE MUST RECLAIMT IT. We must reclaim our land and our homes, our langages and our voice, our vision, and our culture. Britain is completely in the grip of American economic and military imperialism. The british government is a puppet to America, it simply CAN’T SAY NO … BUT WE HAVE TO

Britain has become dumping ground not only for the plastic crap consumable of Mickey Mouse land, but for the nuclear garbage that the Americans themselves will not have in their own country. From powerstations that the American government has declared unsafe for their own use, to cruise missiles that are unsafe, FOR ANY USER, this ‘green and pleasant land’ is being made into a toxic jungle

As long as American capital dominates Britain, the wealthy elite will be able to use it as a protective umbrella. Already we are seeing British police and army being used to protect American interets, ordinary people being used to SECURE THE PRIVILEGE OF THE VERY FEW.

We DON’T want a world where movement is limited to those who belong to the elites. We KNOW that it is our right, as inhabitants of this planet to live and move AS WE WANT. There is NO argument between the ordinary people of the world except the one IMOSED ON US BY LEADERS. It is the leaders of nations who created disagreements and war. IT IS UP TO US TO DISARM THEM BEFORE THEY DESTROY EVERYTHING THAT WE KNOW IS WORTHWHILE AND GOOD.

We don’t want war, violence and conflict. We want peace, freedom and harmony. We DO NOT ACCEPT that people are inherently evil, if they appear so, it is because of the horrific situation into which they are forced by those who claim that ‘they know better’.

There is enough wealth, food and resources for ALL the people of the world to live simply, honestly and happily, BUT , as long as the wealthy elite consider that it is their right to tuse up the world ressources to produce consumer garbage with which to exploit the world’s population, tehre can, and will be NO EQUALITY AND NO HOPE OF REAL CHANGE.

In our own lives, we msut be prepared to reject the consumer ethic and to realise that the BOMB is PART of that ETHIC. THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY IS ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST POWER SOURCES THAT EXISTS, IT’S THE ULTIMATE CAPITALIST DREAM. THE BOMB AND THE ROLLS ROYCE ARE CONNECTED IN MANY MORE WAYS THAN THE OBVIOUS

We must refuse to be a part of the MARKET PLACE. It is our job to reclaim beauty and intelligence, dignity and truth. For too long we have been living in the FALSE REALITY CONSTRUCTED AROUND US BY THE WEALTHY ELITE. NOW IS THE TIME TO CONSTRUCT OUR OWN REALITY.