November 2011
“…see the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures…”
—Jack Kerouac (Japhy Ryder/Gary Snyder of The Dharma Bums)
“My abstention from voting is specifically to refuse to participate in this government. To vote in an election is an explicit expression of one’s consent for both the system of government and all of its actions, regardless of which color lapel pin the victor is wearing. It is the inaction itself which is of importance. Deliberate refusal to comply. A deliberate refusal to do something is as much an action as capitulation to that action. I would say that is especially the case when the inaction is more difficult to accomplish than giving in to the action. My abstention from voting sends the specific message that I am refusing to grant the state this validation. Liken refusing to vote to a walk-out on an unjust proceeding. I am quite determined that my refusal to vote send a message. And that message is an unwavering ‘No.’”
—Couldn’t have put it better myself.
