I’ve been mostly moving house this week, and trying to write for other areas of on the internet, so no Simple Ways to Save the World this week! If you have any that you’d like to submit, drop me an email at sw2 @throwawayliterature.com. (Without that gap, naturally.)

Instead, here’s a little round-up of other writing I’ve been doing.

@Wholestyle

Chick Media Messages: Introduction

Chick Media Messages: The Men

These are the start to a series on the gender sterotypes and lazy plotlines inherent in most chick-lit and chick-flicks or ‘rom-coms’. It’s so important that we view all media with a critical eye, even ‘funny’ films. Everything we surround ourselves with reinforces out world view, so even casual relaxing brain-switched-off times can lull us into a false sense of insecurity. Read it, get mad, send the link to all your friends. Go go go!

@AmeliasMagazine

The Climate 9; Climate criminals?

These guys are curently in court, defending their action of setting up a mini golf course on Aberdeen airport runway and stopping flights for a day. Criminals or justified? What do you think?

Zine Symposium Review & An Interview with Edd Baldry who organises the event. Zines are amazing! They’re anarchy at its core. Do It Yourself, make your own magazine if you’re fed up with the shit we’re force fed in the media (GET SKINNY. BE PRETTY. LOVE SWIMSUITS. Whatever.) There was a talk at the event from people going out and doing just that, and more, so check them out for inspiration.

The Yes Labs are the creation of The Yes Men in order to help more people more better to perform daring feats of activism. Got anything you want them to change? Drop them a line (and a donation) and see what happens! Also remember, they they were just two guys with an idea, once, and so could you be. Y’know?

Democracy Village what up? I went along on the date of the general election, all of two months ago, and hung out among the anarchists who are occupying the space to draw attention to their refusal to get behind the ‘war effort’ and all the other shit the government does in our name.

@That FuckingHippy

My uncomfortably, personal blog which I’ve finally decided to reveal to the world, and have started tweeting links to where I rant about everything that pisses me off and take no prisoners. Here, I try to be nice and couch things in terms which don’t offend people too much. There, I don’t really care if you’re offended, I’m probably right. If you think I’m not, let’s talk! I am always up for a massive discussion.

So, there you go. A whole heaps of bits and bobs to trawl though. Have fun!

As well as improving your hand/eye co-ordination and providing a hugely satisfying challenge as you learn more tricks and add more balls, you also get to make constant genitalia jokes! Flashing balls, dropping balls…it’s endless fun! So…where does the saving the world part come in?

Juggling is all about getting together with other people, sharing skills, teaching those who want to learn and encouraging them to do better. Hanging out with like-minded people who are happy to help you out trying to get to grips with Mill’s Mess promotes a non-hierachical way of learning and removes the dynamic of teacher/student since no-one has to be verified ‘expert’ before they can begin teaching or sharing their tricks with another and it’s well noted that the best way to learn something is, in fact, to start trying to teach it! As soon as you’ve picked up the basics with juggling (and any derivative thereof, say poi, devil stick, diablo &c) you can turn around and help somebody else learn. Even though there are set patterns and tricks to practice with all the above, it is possible and positively encouraged to come up with new tricks, easier ways of making tricks look flashy, basically using the toys however you feel comfortable and in whatever manner you have fun with them, and so you can learn from people who have been playing for less time than you, people who have developed different styles…the possibilities are endless!

For me, juggling has also meant that I get to go and volunteer in Peru later this year, where I’m going to teach children how to make and play poi and juggling balls in the Sacred Valley, which is a bit fantastic!

Skill-sharing and non-hierachical thinking are a part of what the world needs more of if we are to leave capitalism behind and enter into a new way of living, and, for now, juggling groups encourage and promote these ways of thinking. So hop to it!

I wrote last year about how to make sock poi and the Internet Juggling Database is a bit good for finding juggling groups in your area! Otherwise, head over to YouTube for a few tutorials, although that rather defeats the object of the social, skill-sharing aspect! If you live in the UK, then I’ll be travelling the country during August! Don’t be afraid to drop me an email and I might just drop by for an impromptu workshop!

Got a Simple Way to Save the World you’d like to share? E-mail me at SW2 @throwawayliterature.com or tweet me!

Resistance is educating people about their options, about the consequences of their actions, about the truth of the havoc our luxury lifestyle plays out in the rest of the world, about the self-serving nature of politics and the realities of advertising.

Resistance is saying NO to disrespectful behaviour and the subjugation of ‘others’, petitioning against slavery in all its forms, striking over working conditions, marching for an end to the war, picketing arms manufacturers, boycotting unethical companies.

Resistance is standing together, using our voices and actions to let the money grubbers know that we can see what they’re doing and we don’t like it.

Resistance is pushing back, slowly but surely. Reapportioning ’power’ so we all have an equal share, so that we can decide if we need a 4×4, eyelash extensions, nuclear war, carbon capture technology, exams every year, a national deficit of billions. Resistance is readdressing equality for all and bringing our global system to the point where we finally realise that to harm our brothers and sisters is to harm oneself.

I’ve heard a few arguments for violent revolution (mostly the Socialist Worker’s Party pamphlet What Do We Mean by Revolution?, oh, and Marx) and they seem to boil down to this; impatience. Impatience with cloth-eared, unchanging, uncaring governments. Impatience with people who don’t understand or don’t want to listen. Impatience in getting a movement together, and learning to work together. Impatience with themselves and the subjugation they still must undergo until the system changes.

Violence speeds things up. After all, the ruling classes, the political oppressors, managerial subjugators can’t rule, oppress and subjugate when they’re burning in their beds. The sheep pen and muzzle the wolves; death, imprisonment, exile, toil, torture. There must be punishment. The oppressed must exhibit their new power by pushing the ex-leaders down in the mud with cries of ‘We can do it too!’ and ‘How do you like that?!’ A violent revolution negates any pretence that the oppressed believe in equal rights for all people. A violent revolution says ‘equal rights for our sort, for people we deem worthy’. A violent revolution encourages US versus THEM mentality. The oppressed become the oppressors.

What of those as-yet uneducated by the revolutionaries? As their system crumbles around them and the new leaders fumble with the country’s mechanics, jerking it along, will they understand the needs to be supportive or will they demand the despots return – those who enabled X-factor and cheap microwave ovens? How will they be dealt with? Since they don’t yet understand for themselves that we need to become self-sufficient and work our own land, what will the process of re-education be for them? Will they be forced to change their ways by the anarcho-hippys in power? Made to reduce fuel consumption and give up porn which subjugates and objectifies women? Without understanding of why these are necessary changes it will only appear as though extremists are out to steal their fun and make life difficult. A new resistance will be created; swooping power stations to turn the turbines back on, demonstrations with bouncing placards bearing bleached bottoms, cows being kept in secret for slaughter…The system, the idea that we deserve this lifestyle, is so well ingrained in people’s minds that they would feel oppressed, not freed, were they to be forcibly unshackled from it. And rightly so, for it would not have been their choice.

The nature of the system is such that revolution can only come about through resistance. Resistance is to exert an equal amount of force to the force upon you. There will, and is, fighting. Some of it violent. When people push at you, PUSH BACK, but aiming to overpower and thus deprive others totally of power, will breed resentment on their side. Whether politicians, police, post office workers or poi spinners, we all have equal power over ourselves and none over others. Resist arrest, but if you don’t fancy being beaten bloody by a cop, don’t fucking do it to them.

Resistance is a long and slow process, starting with one person making a decision, taking an action, encouraging others to consider their lives. A vegetable patch will not grow at the click of a finger. Most people don’t give up meat in a day. Dropping out of the system and working towards another takes time, but each person who commits themselves to it does so whole-heartedly and with full comprehension. They find a niche to fill; farmer, educator, builder, facilitator, and we each have a role to play.

We need to resist. We need to make these changes for ourselves, by ourselves, together. We need to show others that it can be done, ALL others. We need to work outside the laws and trust ourselves. We need to get in people’s faces with our actions. We need to keep this revolution going one garden, one house, one street, one village, one town, one city, one county, one country, one continent, one world at a time.