Tiqqun

The Great Game of Civil War

rule no. 1
Until further notice, all your rights are hereby suspended. Naturally you should keep the illusion that you still have some for a little while. That way we can violate them one by one, case by case.

rule no. 2
Be nice. Don’t mention laws, the constitution, or any of the lucubrations of another age to us anymore. Some time ago, as you will have noticed, we passed certain laws that put us above the laws, and the rest of the so-called “constitution.”

rule no. 3
You’re weak, isolated, stupid, abused. We are numerous, organized, strong, and enlightened. Some might say we’re a mafia; that’s a lie — we are THE mafia, the one that’s won out over all the others. We alone are able to protect you from the chaos of the world. And that’s why it pleases us so greatly to make you think you’re weak, to make you believe you are “insecure.” That’s what makes our racket profitable.

rule no. 4
For you, the game will consist in you escaping, or at least trying to escape. By escaping we mean: going beyond your dependent state. For now, it’s true, you do depend on us in all aspects of your life. You eat what we produce, you breathe what we pollute, you’re at our mercy for the slightest tooth decay and above all you can’t do anything against the sovereignty of our police forces, which we have given the full range of powers both in terms of discretion and action.

rule no. 5
You’ll never manage to escape alone. You’ll therefore have to start by building the necessary solidarity. To make the game a little harder, we’ve liquidated all forms of autonomous sociality. We’ve only let one thing survive: work; that is, controlled sociality. This will be what you’ll have to escape from, through theft, friendships, sabotage, and self-organization. Ah, by the way: all the ways of escaping have been made into crimes.

rule no. 6
We’ll always say it again and again: criminals are our enemies. But from that you should understand this: all our enemies are criminals. As potential escapees, each of you is also a potential criminal. That’s why it’s a good thing that we keep our lists of the numbers you call on your phones, and that your cell phones allow us to locate you at any time, and that your credit card lets us get to know your habits so easily.

rule no. 7
In this little game of ours, anyone that escapes their isolation will be called the “criminals.” As for those who have the gall to protest this status, we will call the “terrorists.” The latter may be shot to death at any time.

rule no. 8
We are quite aware that life among our society contains almost as much joy as a suburban train ride; that capitalism has up to now produced, in matters of wealth, nothing but universal desolation; that there are no arguments left to defend our worm-eaten “order” besides police flash-balls. But what do you expect, that’s the way it goes! We’ve disarmed you mentally and physically, and we have the monopoly over what we prohibit to you; violence, collusion, and emergence. And after all, frankly speaking, would you do otherwise if you were us?

rule no. 9
You will know prison.

rule no. 10
There are no more rules. All assaults are permitted.

signed,

YOUR GOVERNMENT