Controlled Chaos
There’s a band that went viral recently named Angine de Poitrine. They seemingly came out of nowhere and have been polarizing to say the least which is why I feel their existence, and the response of the general public, is a great analogy for the current political environment.
To those unfamiliar with music theory, the music they play seems random and chaotic. To those who only operate in a 4/4 time signature, counting four beats counted four times, they seem to be off tempo and completely uncoordinated. Moreso, should someone be in the beginning stages of being a musician, the guitar and bass will sound out of tune. It’s not until one learns about different time signatures and notes between half steps, known as microtones, that the chaos begins to make sense not just for Angine de Poitrine, but artists such as Joe Satriani, Dreamtheater, and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard to name a few.
All this to say, politics can be understood in the same way. What are seemingly complex and unrelated policies and events from the perspective of the uninterested can be recognized as causal and directly connected events, movements, and policies. There have been so many developments occurring in such a short amount of time to the point it’s become difficult to formulate a response, which fire do we put out first?
The short answer is simple: literally any, it’s all a great place to start because there are simply so many fires to put out with many small efforts adding up rapidly. Regularly visit a library, shop at a local market, move from subscription software and services to free open-source options, start or join a mutual aid group or network, buy used and refurbished goods, or simply educate yourself on humanities and STEM. The more one connects with the community in which they live, the less these systems that are designed to extract as much capital from us are able to benefit from our exploitation because there’s power in numbers.
If interested in starting with where we are as an operation, we recommend helping in our effort to gather different kinds of technology (contact us at info@cipactlan.org for more information). Recent and projected changes to state and federal policy have been concerning: deregulation of AI, ID verification requirements to access the internet and devices, and the shrinking availability of new RAM and hard drives for the general public, among other developments, paint a sobering picture of the future: the weaponization of surveillance to limit our community’s access to information and resources that can improve our material conditions.
With your help, we can refurbish devices and get them in the hands of people who need them most in the short term, laying the foundation for more autonomous community operations in the long term. While we don’t expect any of the previously mentioned concerns to ultimately come to fruition, we believe it is better to be prepared and have overreacted than to realize we didn’t respond appropriately until it’s too late.
We believe in the drive, ingenuity, and passion of our community to come together to establish a better future for ourselves and future generations. We know that no challenge is insurmountable when we support each other and we look forward to seeing you alongside us in the future!
Tlazocamati huel miac.
