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THESES FOR A **NEO-LUDDITE UNION-MILITIA
SECOND INSTALLMENT
(a food disaster or, we've got those BHT Blues)

"We see of what important ethical significance
the doctrine of food has for the people. What
is eaten turns to blood, the blood to heart
and brain, to the stuff of thought and
temperament. Human fare is the foundation of
human culture and disposition. Do you want to
improve the people? Then instead of preaching
against sin, give them better food. Man is
what he/she eats."

--Feuerbach Selected Works,
vol II

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or
writing an essay, or painting a picture, or
doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so
leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind,
courteous, restrained, and magnanimous."

--Mao Tse Tung The Red Book

No, the cantaloupes are not the kinder and
gentler fruit they used to be, are they? Just
a few years ago, it seemed our humble melon
tasted like fruit should taste: somewhat
sweet, not too sweet, had an actual flavor
that we could recognize as resembling fruit,
it had a good, firm texture and the color was
as an artist's rendering of the shade of
"cantaloupe." Now, we bite into a cardboard
cantaloupe--perhaps, not so with the
independent fruit stand variety--however, in
many cold climes this opportunity is limited
to a few fruit growing months. Yet, what of
those other climates that supply the Nation
with this fruit year-round? Well, we feel it
just doesn't taste the same. When we begin to
see signs in our semi-favorite sub-shops that
read "please excuse our lack of lettuce--there
were floods (or desertifications) in
California or Guatemala," will we unwittingly
excuse and then, excuse again? How many
excuses will it take for the grammatical
Nation to realize that we reside within a
dying ecosystem, disconnected and seriously
fraught with imbalance? We will not be able
to attend these fast-food complexes of our
pollution-filled dreams, chomping these two-
foot sandwiches when we come to these
realizations--sans ou avec lettuce.**(We
believe that citizens of hate-language
national entities should cease stuffing those
caged cows, piggies, and en masse-produced
fowl into their mouths because this earth
cannot support the amount of energy,land and
resources it requires to fortify the thousands
of _partial-food_ franchises w/such beasts of
the field and forest).
And the shrimp estuaries have been
disconnected, as well. Look back to your
first shrimp cocktail with its piquant red
sauce for dipping: it did taste somewhat
sweet (like the fruit?), had a nice plump,
pinkish, shrimp texture. This first-cocktail
of yours felt, smelt and tasted like something
from the sea, albeit, a fresh and sweet sea, a
fresh salt pond. Now, in 1995, we buy our
shrimp in groceries or "special" fish markets
(we think will make it fresher) and it is as
if we were eating cardboard, again, like that
gentle cantaloupe. The 1995 variety of shrimp
has an off-color smell, it smells as if
domestic violence has entered its home. We are
able to detect this problem within the walls
of the shrimp farm even though these wee
crustaceae have travelled thousands of miles
to reach our plates. We read, that, in
Louisiana, many shrimp beds are diseased and
hence, we realize a vital link within the
ocean environment has been severed. We also
read, that in Ecuador, our little pink friends
are being harvested in "shrimp tanks" within
the mangrove swamps. These "ecologically
sensitive" swamps are being destroyed because
of the tank farming. So far, twenty percent of
the mangrove swamp has been completely
destroyed and eighty percent, spoiled. We
could agree with the Ecological Action folks
by boycotting shrimp exports from Ecuador and
Louisiana, but is it enough to focus solely on
the capital aspect of preserving the shrimp
ecology? Is the way to a better-environment's
heart through its pocket book? We, at the
union-militia, feel differently (but are
certainly not adverse to beginning with
boycott), because it harkens back to the
presence or not-presence of necrotized hate-
language constructions. Because the pocket-
book method is a continuation of a grammar
wielding axes and pitchforks--seemingly
effective, but remaining simply, chimeraic.
We see the ruse as being affected through the
positive-ruse; fighting chimera with shadow.
Presence with alter-presence. Food is a
presence that could be contended with or
_bannerized_; food as a _presence_ that
furthers a positive-neo-luddite awareness. It
is a shadowy weapon on the stormfront of
disease. It does not need to be necrotized or
eroticized (although, erotic food could be
valuable in this engagement), but can be
whole, disease-free, taste like it "used to,"
fortify the minds of a previous _nevermind_
(Neverland?) generation(s).
**General disclaimer**: we, at the union-
militia realize that the above verbosity and
demi-socially-ameliorative ramblings are not
all-inclusive of the many, many hate-language
issues. It is therefore suggested that the
reader find paths of investigation to
_further_ his/her understanding of the many
ecological catastrophes and the potential
solutions to these--remembering that this is
not a _war_ against sin, or the current
political/world/national situation, but must
be revolutionary w/some common health and
nutritional goals in mind. Afterall, life is
not a _dinner party_.

--Capt. USRDA