The Monkey Takes Flight: A Declaration of Independence

July 4, 2008

When the course of current events compels a person to dissolve the political bands which have connected her, something the highly esteemed Founding Fathers declared unanimously that Nature and Nature's Deities entitle her to do, and form a nation unto herself, it seems reasonable and in keeping with historical, legal, philosophical, and literary precedent that she should outline the causes for her separation.

I agree with the basic tenets of the original Declaration (slightly revised and updated to include those people like me who did not fully count back in 1776): that all human beings are born into this world with equal opportunity to pursue Life, Liberty, and Happiness. In order to secure and defend these rights, individuals form governments that derive their powers from the consent of the governed. When governments fall short of their duties, individuals have the right to change, even abolish, those governments. Obviously, governments should not be overturned on whim, and, obviously, the original document was more of an ideal that the nation needed to continue striving toward than a fully constituted reality. However, as the decades and years wear on, and the nation moves so increasingly far from the goal that it mocks the very document itself, I cannot help but, in the words of one of the great political philosophers who started this whole trajectory into the abyss, "just say no."

I secede from the Madness of King George the Younger and Dumber.

I secede as well from Change We Can Believe In. Show me a Revolution We Can Believe In, and maybe we can talk.

I secede from an economy based upon worker exploitation, nationalist aggression, and environmental destruction.

I secede from hatred in all forms. But not anger.

I secede from violence against other people and animals. But not against property.

I secede from patriarchal oppression, and the economic, religious, educational, and social structures that support it.

I secede from cleaninglaundrycookingshopping, the mommy track, makeup, body enhancement surgery, little dresses, cute shoes, and pantyhose. I don't want a pedicure, but the whole world needs a Man-o-cure.

I secede from television.

I secede from Disney World. Especially those damn Princesses.

I secede from the Disneyfication of the world. I secede from McFoods and McMansions. I secede from the mind control that passes for public discourse in the media, from the control over information that passes for security, from the control over my body that passes for rights, and from the control over my food and water that passes for health.

Folks have been caterwauling for seven years (a magical number!) about terrorists hijacking planes to take down the big phalluses of globalization, but who has raised a peep about the terrorists who've hijacked language itself? Those who convince us that wrong is right, evil is them, injustice is constitutional, slave is free? Those who convince us that we need to live in fear every single day of our lives, lest the axis of evil get us, the sexual predators get us, the gangbangers get us, the e. coli get us, the Asian bird flu get us, the West Nile virus get us, the African killer bees get us, the hurricanes get us (they originate from the Dark Continent, too, you know). Maybe we should just stay inside our houses, where it's safe and climate-controlled, watching the shiny box with its smiling drones telling us what we can do to prepare. Can duct save us from the apocalyptic loss of freedom that we have suffered in this country? We did not lose it to Al-Qaeda. We surrendered our birthright willingly for a mess of cheap goods from Wal-Mart, cheap entertainment from Fox News, and cheap government from U.S.A., Inc.

Simply put: I quit. Like Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, I prefer not to.

I have retreated to the swamp to live off my wits and what I can beg, borrow, and steal. I would cast my lot with the Seminoles further south, but they won't have me. They know better than to trust white people. (And they're also too busy right now, taking back the land that was stolen from them, one blackjack game at a time.) The Miccosukees still haven't signed a treaty with the U.S. Like them, I am a nation unto myself. Where I am, you won't find me. Osceola led battles from the Second Seminole War from here. Before that, escaped slaves called Maroons lived hidden from prying eyes in this hammock. Before that, Timucuans led DeSoto's army on a fool's errand for fool's gold – in chain mail, in August (suckers!).

No, I don't have Internet access out here. I use the public library, although technically, I am no longer "public." (This is why my declaration, written on July 4, is posted on July 7 – had to wait for the library to be open.) I reach out through this blog because, like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, perhaps on the lower frequencies, I may speak to some of you. I cannot bring down a system by myself. I'm only one monkey flying under radar. But maybe a whole bunch of flying monkeys could wrench some real wizard ass.

Sometimes this blog will be serious. Sometimes stupid. I hope it always makes you think and frees your mind in some small way.

Come fly with me.