Malik recently shared an audio essay over a call. A rough transcript follows — any errors are the editor’s own.
audio file link: https://malikspeaks.noblogs.org/files/2024/08/malik-speaking-2024-08-15.mp3
Transcript:
Democracy, as defined by Oscar Wilde: “The bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people” — in other words, a system that offer everyone the opportunity to rule everyone else but renders none free. The critical founding fathers overthrew kings and tyrants but didn’t do away with the mechanisms of control that allowed kings and tyrants to rule, they just democratized them. So whoever operates the levers of control — be they kings, presidents, electorate or politicians — the experience from the receiving end is the same. Pigs, law and bureaucracy all existed long before democracy. They only serve to interrupt self-determination, but because we get to cast ballots about how they reply, we regard them as powers, even when they are used against us.
This brings me to the peculiarity of the prisoner who still proudly votes, “I’m an American, I love my country, we’re going downhill, we need *insert* (whatever charismatic narcissist they would vote for if they could, but they can’t ’cause they’re a felon)”. This typical prisoners is also likely the same one that says, “We are going to the Superbowl”. See, ‘we’ may sound egalitarian and collective, communal and participatory, but more often than not, it’s referring to hierarchical constraints in societal configurations. Let us remember that fascism is also a form of collectivity. Let’s examine if you are the ‘we’, shall we?
“‘We’ will never give up our homeland, ‘we’ will defend it to the death” — all the while, they’ve never seen a battlefield. The executive ‘we’: “‘We’ve’ gotten productivity up 25% percentage here, ‘we’re’ gonna see a real return in profits” — meanwhile, what was their part in the ‘we’? Cutting hours, layoffs, shortening breaks, maybe? Certainly not working! The bosses’ ‘we’: “‘We’ need to [indistinct] half an hour, [indistinct]”. We often reference the sports fans: “‘You’ guys really are going all the way this year?” — you and your respective team, do send me a postcard and take pictures, tell me how many rushing yards you personally attained. Some forms of we are entirely fictional: the patriots’ ‘we’. That ‘we’ includes everyone who happens to have citizenship in any given nation. Identity politics ‘we’: seeking to create subconscious social bodies by premising a mythical common [indistinct] based on circumstantial evidence, something like Biden saying, “If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black”, or moreso.
I could go on, but there’s only two proper forms of the word ‘we’ for anyone to use, but specifically for prisoners: editors can use it, and people with tapeworms. And of course, in situations where, like in situations that Lone Ranger and Tonto find themselves in, when being set upon by so-called Indians, where with Lone Rangers saying, “Looks like we’re in trouble, old pal,” and Tonto would say, “what do you mean ‘we’, white man?”
To bring it back to the prisoner: you’re no more American than the kids in cages at the border, I’m afraid, ’cause believe me, when they say ‘we’, they certainly don’t mean you. The average “good citizen”, such as the one who only circumnavigates the laws they find inconvenient and can get away with, isn’t given a shit about. So you can consider yourself damn sure so outside of the ‘we’, so insignificant to the establishment, that the Eagle’s fans, with the time-honored traditions and superstitions, are more relied on and cared about by that sports team, than the government you
praise so highly — one that revokes your rights, freedom, self-determination, individuality and humanity all on the day you’re born, then just so happens to put you in a cage in the name of “justice” and “protecting society”.
This “democracy” you love so much isn’t working for you. Look around. And for those of you who are free, not incarcerated, don’t [indistinct] yourself too much. Democracy oppresses you too. It grinds you down with the time-honored capitalist tradition of work for wages to afford you the ability to fill your own personal self-styled prison (i.e. home) with things the media touts and purports to sell to you to make you happy. Yet happiness is always a thing just out of reach, because they made us hate ourself and love their wealth. You people who are free and think ‘we’, what if you’re just enough of a ‘we’ to be the ones that ‘we’ send to die for profits, or ‘we’ employ to oppress and subjugate a class of people that you could quite easily, even accidentally, fall into yourself? You’re in the [indistinct] just enough to vote, live in your own self-styled prisons, consume, buy, work and die, but you’ll never be the ‘we’ that benefits from anything you do. Yup, even you see those who walk around counting how much money you made this year, $200,000 for 7 days of your life, for 12 hours a day for 365 days — wow, fuck, you know what you deserve? A reward! How about you get to vote who ‘we’ are? Problem solved! Here’s another treat: things! Have fun, fill your prison with them, be comfy, but don’t you dare say there’s not enough time to enjoy your little things, you gotta work.
The same way we can buy little things for our little prison cells to be comfy awaiting our deaths, so you do the same with just a few more allotments. You’re not ‘we’, though. I compare you more to Kratos in Greek mythology, actually. In the story where Kratos, the Greek god who literally embodies force, is leading Prometheus to prison for the quintessential act of [indistinct], dealing fire for humanity, he ruthlessly follows Zeus’s order even to the contempt of his fellow jailer, for the [indistinct] between them says, “you were made for any tyrant’s act”. See, Kratos can bind Prometheus, punishing and suppressing his creative impulse, but cannot free him.
This is what autocracy, democracy, and all systems of power have in common In establishing power over, they can only hobble their subjects, never ennoble them. The institutions of coercion, the legal apparatus, the police, military, jailers and such, have changed little in the transition from feudalism to democratic capitalism. It’s made to impose tyranny, whether kings, presidents, bureaucrats, or the people themselves.
If that wasn’t enough to get you thinking, ’cause while [indistinct] to work here, you don’t have to be the sharpest tack in the drawer, so let me break it down to you [indistinct]-style:
Three wolves and six goats are sitting down to decide what to have for dinner. One boldly proclaims, “Let’s put it to a vote!” And the rest of the goats fear for their lives, but the wolves acquiesce. While everyone is casting their ballots, the wolves pull aside three goats and say, “Vote with us to eat the other three goats; otherwise, vote or no vote, we’ll eat you”. After the ballots were counted, the remaining goats were aghast that three of their comrades voted for them to be eaten. This caused a commotion. The goat who originally asked to put it to a vote says, “Hey hey hey, calm down, at least ‘we’ got to vote!”
Now if you still haven’t got there yet, substitute goat with sheep, and know that you are not the wolf.