The E Generation

by ph0sphene

This is a call to the neo-beats, the guerilla artists, the truth-addicts, the hacker, and the transcendentalists! This is a call to the black bloc, the anti-fascist, the business owner, the underground leader, and to all those in the general mass who still find beauty in the sunrise!

Lend me your ear!

We are members of the new generation, Generation E, who are banding together in the name of protecting those things we hold dear: freedom, joy, beauty, and true happiness. These things are in danger and we come to answer their call by building a firm foundation with steadfast members in the name of everyone who has a heart and mind to still enjoy them. Those who may stand against us recognize us, and call us the Empowered Generation. We are known by our passion and ability to say what we want to say and the quick beat of our heart when we know and understand our voices are being heard. We know they're being heard, and from coast to coast. We accept that there is an apathetic resistance to our voices within the generation itself and that we have been penalized for our belligerent nature since our early teens. But, we know that it is not the unmovable ways with which we speak that has birthed us such a reputation, but our boisterous passion for speaking of life, truth, and for love. We will not accept that these feelings are based upon teenage angst, or upon the fatal mixture of arrogance and ignorance. Nay, because we are educated and we know in our hearts the truth: these thoughts and emotions are here to stay.

We will not accept another bloody lash on our back, another biting word that tells us that we can't, or another person discarding us like so much trash if we don't conform to what they call standards. We will no longer accept that we are alone and we will no longer be without direction. We will, as a whole, join the free thinkers in history that have refused to accept the sorrows of the world and found a way to change them! As a whole, we will stand tall as our enemies realize they were wrong and they hold the broken chains that once bound us. Know us and fear, conformity. Shiver in dread as you clutch in vain to your holdings and realize we are picking away at your tower, molding it and making anew. We are here with our weapons of knowledge and voice and numbers, and we understand the beauty of diversified thought.

At times we fight amongst one another. We have black eyes in our driver's license photos. But we share a thirst for self sufficiency that separates us from you, even if we find enemies in our own generation. We bind our own books, make our own paper, and hunt and forage our own food. We build, we paint, we barter, we tailor, and we create and sustain loving communities. We're hotheaded, yeah, but we're passionate, and our voices will resonate in the cities and towns we gather. You will hear our feet upon the earth as we protest what you call the end of the story when we know there will never be an end, and there will always be much, much, more. You will hear our defiant roar to the heavens as we question those unquestionable things and stand strong and defiant in our chosen principles. You will know that we are here because we will make ourselves known and you will no longer ignore our potential.

We stand bruise-knuckled and moonlit with our teeth flashing in the night; our feet numb in the frozen, dewy grass that just a season before held our naked bodies as we made love and grasped sweaty passions that no one but we could ever understand. We've cooked feasts for one another and for total strangers and dined, and drank, saying toasts to warrior poets of the past and present. We've planted gardens with flowers so bright they might drown out the monotony of the fluorescent lights. We've painted buildings with images and messages so that the world might know the caress of our hand, the bend of our wrist, and the strength of our conviction.

This is not just about enemies, systems, or politics. This is about warfare. This is about every single battle. This is about the reclamation of true beauty. We will starve out globalization and push local marketing. We carry our lovers with us when their long hairs commingle with yarn in our scarves. We represent thousands of miles when we wear patchwork pants crafted from the clothes of a dozen wild hearts that walked from coast to coast.

We will meet and you will know us in both city and town by the flag we follow and the heat of the flames birthed of our spirits when we surround this letter with which we will now and forever know as a call to arms. This will be no fools mate. Our pieces will move into steadfast positions as our foundation continues to grow. We will wait, then, for the sound of the trumpet. For when it plays, on that day when beauty can truly reign again, you will know us for what we are, and we will conquer you and burn you out. And this hunt, and this war, may finally be over so that our new world may rise to take its first free breath.

Our enemies are the lethargic: those without direction that refuse direction. Those that wallow in pity and believe the world owes them something. They who refuse to do anything more than gorge themselves on the bloody milk of the world while staying blind to the issues that surround them. They who hold to their double standards, thinking their double thoughts, and complaining about their nine to five while accepting with a sigh that nothing could ever be changed or that no one would ever want to change it.

Our enemies are the driven: those with a narrow direction who rape the needs of their neighbors to make themselves wealthy. Those that crush the dreams and passions of others in order to benefit themselves. They who use fear or guilt to keep us under their thumb. Who threaten with fire and brimstone, lock and key, to ensure we never escape the world that has been built around us.

We clutch one another whispering things that we would never dare say outside our rooms. We've cried alone in open fields under a vast collection of stars with our knees moist from the soil and our faces wet with disbelief. So then hail to primal thought! Hail to building our foundation so that when the day has come to burn out the cancer that is your stubborn system we may seize the day in flawless victory! Hail then, too, intellectualism! Hail, too, oil on canvas! Hail your sweat as you defend your dying ways against us! This is an affirmation that your system has ended and ours has already begun! This is the truth of our foresight and actions with which we shall sweep out your remains. Our passion, perception, and grip upon our simplistic pleasures will pierce you as the sunlight pierces the undead. We will produce our own goods to starve out your empire. We will group in clans brought together by common means and ethics, under one unified generation, but under many names so that our leadership is strong and no swift strike can be made. We will meet in those high visibility places in our towns and cities with an encircled black E, on a yellow flag, high upon a tall pole, so that you may watch our numbers grow. We will bring too the flags of our clans so you will know them to be strong. We will bring our stories, our goods to trade, and the words of our aspirations and dreams, so that we may greet one another as what we truly are: brothers and sisters. May this manifesto meet you well, and may you heed its call, for this foundation that we are laying brick by brick will eventually lead to the final blow that is the empire's final fall.