Another Galaxy For Another Life

Closed Doors Brings Open Minds

Life on this planet being, at best, an utter bore and, at worst, entirely grotesque — there remains to open-minded, irresponsible, thrill-seeking pro-revolutionaries only to disregard the government, build our own spaceships, and establish outer-space autonomous communities.

The world of Tomorrowland is already yesterday with the totality of capitalism complete. If the socialistic alternatives couldn’t defeat the capitalist system in its earliest stages, what hope is there in the present? Or worse, how much longer must one wait for the material conditions for a revolution to be appropriate? Accepting the existing order in one way or another is absurd. What is needed is an alternative to the alternative. A program that begins with the rejection of the spectacle’s permanence and holds no definitive end. An alternative that yields to individualist self-determination in place of concessions to reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries. The only alternative possible: autonomous astronauts.

“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism,” so says some benign theorist. But! We have no need to imagine either if we leave this planet. Let the capitalists fret over their sacred private property. Let the Earth cowards cling to their faith of monetary riches. Let these Terran revelers keep their third world, third rate, third class slum known as “America.” They can have this wretched heap they are so fond of, their patriotic submission. They can stay behind and suffocate on the noxious fumes of pollution while battling yet another carnivorous disease. Let them enjoy their skies cluttered by ugly fucking buildings and their repugnant light pollution that asphyxiates the night. Such archaisms are of no use to us. We won’t even give a minute of our life in the hope that the multitude will suddenly become aware and take off! If the gravitationally oppressed are not ready to raise the launchpad, this is a problem of the gravitationally oppressed.[1] Let us begin by detailing why we have abandoned the socialist alternative on Earth.

Assuming even a poor understanding of dialectics, with capitalism serving as the thesis and the socialistic tree as the antithesis — the synthesis is always a reinforced spirit of capitalism. Perhaps in some instances the abuses of the capitalist system against the working class lessen, but overall, the socialist and communist antitheses only serve as mere corrections and additives to the initial thesis of capitalism. Nothing truly changes. Not even in what you feel. In our hearts, we all know Earth will not be saved. Every revolt is cut off from its mode of success in advance. The empire squats solidly upon its own immunity! However, this does not mean the proposed systems in space will necessarily fail. What will a socialistic community look like without imperialism imposing on self-determination? What will anarchistic communities look like when freed of the threat of state violence? What objectives, what plans, what lives, what adventures are there when the oppressions are abandoned and we float away from the world; not disabled by disillusionment, but unburdened by it? No gods, no masters, no gravity – no problem!

Always Falling

Life on this planet is unsatisfactory. Yet we are not resigned to it. We refuse to be fooled. We fear nothing: being misunderstood, being criticized, being labelled ‘jokers’ or ‘insane’, suffering, life or death – nothing. We are neither dreamers nor idealists nor unrealistic… The AAA is an attitude of reaction, defiance, and distrust. A distrust of the illusory philosophies at the level of the naïve, a distrust of unctuous and sonorous morals…

No galaxy is obscure… So as not to be overloaded with rhetoric or cloying sincerity, the astronaut’s message is no less a song in which emotion’s modesty dismisses fine transports.

When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. And yet, it finds corners and crevices to build its place of rest, its source of nourishment. So it is with the AAA; before us is continually an empty space, and we are propelled by the conditions that lie behind us. What is going to happen? What will the future bring? I do not know, I offer no presentiment.

Those who consider our goals impossible to achieve will necessarily find our methods impossible to think. Trapped in the false permanency and ahistoricism of the spectacle, these “realistic” pro-revolutionaries are quick to assure our naivety and imploring failure. But why not fail?

Is the guarantee of dying from boredom recourse from the risk of dying from spaghettification?

Perhaps knowing there is no future is our greatest freedom.

Waiting With The Coffins Under Heaven

The AAA is not a strand of Posadism and does not share their helpless hopes of communistic Alien salvation or global collapse. Their yearning is the same as the pious Christians, waiting for Christ’s return and direction to a better place in a better time. The lathe of heaven does not exist. It must be built.

Nor does the AAA urge a resignation to one’s docile fate on this planet. However much it hurts to hope for the impossible, to imagine a future we don’t believe in (the Earth being saved, Global revolution, etc.), what matters is the strength we feel every time we don’t bow our heads, every time we destroy the false idols of civilization, every time our eyes meet those of our comrades, every time that our hands set fire to the symbols of Power. In those moments we don’t ask ourselves: ‘Will we win? Will we lose?’ In those moments we just fight. Even if we have no future on this planet, we can still find life on it today. One does not have to return to sleep after the alarm clock rings.

Most importantly, we are not advocating a definitive plan for leaving this planet or for what ought to be done in space. It is left to the self-determination of individuals and unions to decide what is appropriate and ideal for them. The accent is placed not on the content of a choice proposed, but the fact of choosing. Thus, the AAA decision is a decision to decide no longer (that is, the free activity of space without geography would be betrayed if it is subordinated to some conception beforehand.)

As I could sit here and lament about Stanford Toruses, O’Neill Cylinders, and my frothy daydreams of surgically implanting bonsai trees into lungs and dining at souvlaki space stations, but why burden this manuscript with frivolities? Better to go out without constraint later, when day is done, to perfect the design – grown greater in the uncertain twilight of mere dream – in that inward moment that turns upon itself, yet never repeats itself. The AAA is less of an organization than it is a network of individuals and unions cooperatively working toward a defined beginning – leaving this planet. All that can come from the AAA are tools, not answers.

Because as much as this reads as a manifesto, it isn’t one. It is an invitation.

I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon…

Astronauts of all determinations, unite! We have a world to lose, but a universe to gain!

[1] While it is true that the hyperbolic statement of capitalism’s totality ignores the areas of the world unaccosted by its imperialistic desires and the resignation of America to alleged patriots is ignorant of indigenous views, I maintain that one’s theories must be about their real life. I do not aim to provide a comprehensive and impervious blueprint for the AAA. A diverse range of voices is necessary to make the AAA the successful network it could be. Thus, if there is something I left out, that I am mistaken, or there is a correction to be made – write it yourself. The purpose of the AAA is to allow space [pun unintentional] for individuals and affinity groups to act with unrestrained ferocity against systems of domination, while still being connected to a network of people who are interested in similar ideas and who can act in solidarity with each others’ struggles.