When Leonidas and his meager force marched to Thermopylae, they knew they would die. They had no illusions of merciful treatment should they be captured. Knowing this, they held nothing back. They fought fiercely against the odds against them and were able to hold back the invading army, if only briefly. These men fought to their deaths without even considering surrender.

Today, we celebrate the movie "300." The "This is Sparta" meme was born. We recognize the selflessness and bravery of Leonidas and the Spartans. We admire this and acknowledge them as heroes. We realize that because these men committed the ultimate sacrifice, they were able to change the world and live on as legends. Yet men have not approached battle with this spirit in over 100 years.

James Bowie wrote to Governor Henry Smith, "Colonel Neill and myself have come to the solemn resolution that we will rather die in these ditches than give it up to the enemy." When the Mexican army took Bexar, they raised a red flag signifying that no quarter would be given. The Texians responded by firing a cannon. At the start of the battle, William Travis is quoted as shouting, "Come on boys, the Mexicans are upon us and we'll give them hell!" These men knew there would be no surrender. They were all killed in battle.

Due to the bravery of these men, the phrase "Remember the Alamo!" has entered our vernacular. This was the battle cry which boosted morale during the Battle of San Jacinto, where the Texians finally defeated Santa Anna and Texas achieved independence.

In both battles, the defending armies were underdogs facing overwhelming odds of at least 10 to 1. They fought valiantly and died for their causes. Through their deaths, they achieved a victory. While the opposing armies may have won the battle, they were Pyrrhic victories. Both of these battles were decisive turning points that lead to the eventual defeat of the attacking armies. By committing themselves fully to battle, these men inspired their countrymen, showing what they could do if they only had the will to do so, while simultaneously destroying enemy morale.

There have been times in recent history, when it was preferable to be a prisoner of war of the enemy than a citizen of the country you were sworn to protect. Soldiers of countries with despotic leaders or high poverty levels who were cold and starving would find surrender a way to remove themselves from these discomforts, regardless of whether they had family in their native land or not. They knew the opposing army was obliged to protect them. We could see this happening in Desert Storm and now in the current conflicts in Iraq and Georgia.

When there is no alternative but death, you will give battle all of your energy. This is how heroic battles of the past have been fought that we celebrate today. Even in parts of life that aren't warfare, giving all that we have is the way to accomplish something, even if at personal cost. Whether raising a family, running a company, or helping a civilization expand, we sacrifice something of ourselves to get ahead.

As our time has turned to decay, and our civilization has begun to make collapsing noises from deep within, we see a different outlook, which is that we have censors overlooking our method. These censors come in the
name of Justice and Safety and they comprise the psychological component of the nanny state. Like children with BB guns, we are admonished to make sure no one gets hurt to the point where our ability to enjoy being
children is destroyed. We are told to pay more attention to correctness of method than the sheer power and accomplishment of having a goal, and that is why our society moves backward every minute.

Since we have robbed ourselves of valor, there is nothing for us to do but rebel like teenagers, decorating our rooms with posters that say "I may be forced to go to school, but I don't want to," in the many metaphors of rock music and absurdly impractical political stances. Our frustration, like stale sweat, grows on us until we hate ourselves, all because we cannot honestly strive for anything without succumbing to the neurosis of methodological, moral, humanist critique.

In the film Gattaca, the character Vincent engages his genetically superior brother in a contest to see who could swim the farthest from the shore. Vincent dedicates himself by exerting all his strength to win. His brother holds back, concerned about the return swim. Vincent achieves victory through sheer will alone, not concerning himself with the consequences. This is how valiant battles are fought.

Every type of method-based self-censorship we tolerate makes us weaker. Why should we have a Geneva Convention? War is hell, fight it to the maximum! Why should we have constant propaganda imploring us to stop smoking or wear condoms? Life is struggle, do what seems best! And so on: these little rules, made with the best of intentions, slowly deprive us of the ability to give our whole selves toward struggling for a goal, and while we may be safer, it is our spirits that have lost.

The controversial non-profit political organization Corrupt Inc. has become a dominant force in dissident internet culture. With their brutal and scarily accurate observations of our modern time, it's easy to see how its philosophy can make an impression on someone. And yet one senses that Corrupt is fundamentally different from its contemporaries, both in the optimism of its outlook and holistic view of modern neurosis.

Alex Birch is the volunteer Editor of Corrupt Inc. and its website Corrupt.org. We recently caught up with him to discuss the organization itself, activism, God, western decline, and of course, kipple.

1. What is Corrupt? What is its worldview?

Corrupt is a think-tank researching the problems of modern society and paving way for a new civil order based on traditional values and ideals. We spread information through blog commentary, web media, street activism and book publications.

Corrupt is neither left nor right, neither liberal nor conservative. Some describe us as futuristic traditionalists. We carry some fundamental political ideals from Platonism and uphold the values and the spirit of the ancients, fused with a perspective and focus on the futuristic. Our worldview can be compared to the music of Kraftwerk: technological romanticism. We want to create and live in a modern civilization, but we reject the design behind modern society, and believe we need to progress through organic culture and traditional lifestyles.

2. What are your particular duties as editor of Corrupt.org? What does a "normal day" entail when volunteering for such an organization?

My duties as editor are many; I receive all articles and column submissions, and edit them until they're ready for publication; I'm responsible for all staff members working with us, making sure they complete projects in time and develop their individual skills for the benefit of the organization as a whole; I send out all public communications; I'm responsible for what goes on the website and how it's published, including technical functionality.

In addition to this I have final responsibility for the content we produce and our progress towards our main goals. It's kind of like being in charge of a political party, keeping up with world news, motivating people, and addressing our ideas in public, although we're not big enough to qualify as a party yet.

We have two kinds of people working with us: the staff member and the contributor. Staff members have specific roles within Corrupt and their job is to develop that role within our main goals. They work in teams and maintain regular correspondence among one another, including me, to which they report in their weekly work. Contributors are people who don't have a permanent role within Corrupt, but help us out by responding to project requests.

All people who want to work with Corrupt start out as contributors. Most of them end up staying contributors, mainly because not many people are able to work consistently on a long-term project, and live fairly disorganized lives. It's a product of our society, so we don't hold it against them, although we've basically moved away from spending too much time on contributors in general, since the idea hasn't paid off. Instead we hope to bring people into the movement by keeping us updated with news, interesting articles and videos, and street activism.

3. How does Corrupt plan to balance the need for active contributers with the need for high quality content?

One of the first lessons you make as an editor is that most people don't have their act together. That means you can't rely upon contributors to sporadically finish important work for you. Because of this, Corrupt encourages contributors to participate in light tasks such as voting up articles and commenting on columns with a link back to us. Everyone who has got 5-10 minutes to spare after work/studies can help us out, without any obligations or tedious instructions. The content you see on the front page is produced by people who have proven to us that they can do more than others, and have therefore been promoted to a position equal to their ability. It's the most realistic and pragmatic option to make things happen with a group of dedicated volunteers.

4. Corrupt has internally and externally evolved since its inception. How have you witnessed Corrupt's cultural role change in your time as editor, and what was done to meet these shifts? What changes do you believe are imminent for Corrupt and its potential audience, and how do you foresee the organization adapting to these changes?

Like in most other cases in life, the external changes Corrupt has gone through, reflect internal changes. The people who have followed us since the beginning, have seen Corrupt go from a static-HTML site with simple design presenting the latest articles, to a professional-looking blog with articles, columns, and commentary on the latest news.

We've expanded into the blogosphere and social network world, creating awareness among a new audience of Corrupt readers. This external change reflects a consistent refinement of method in how we achieve our goals. Our first goal is to become an influential media central, and we decided early on to make that happen by utilizing the popular blog format for commentary, add the appreciated articles on topics like politics and lifestyle, and produce joyful, warlike columnists to assist that, communicating a critical but positive message to the thinking segment of the modern world.

As our readers have demanded more media-oriented functions and a possibility to create subcommunities under the banner of Corrupt, we spent a fair amount of time migrating to a brand new content management system, installing functions like the organic groups, user registration, ability to comment on our content, and future features that are still in progress. Before this I was editing HTML pages manually, which simply didn't work when we started to receive more readers. So technically, we've equipped Corrupt to meet the standards and demands of today's blogworld, which we intend to integrate with and succeed in.

As for the future changes, a lot of what we've done is to streamline the way we work. We've cut down on correspondence, administration and technical experimentation, and aimed to develop the fields we currently are doing well in. This is an essential change we've made, because being the few but dedicated individuals we are, there is simply no time and resources to play around with gimmicks. Our focus is on producing quality content and promoting it. As we gain more readers, we hope to expand, at which point we can refine the details I suspect some people wish we implement in the near future.

Another important aspect of our goal to become an influential media central is the publication of literature. By now I hope all of our regulars are aware of the English translation of ecophilosopher Pentti Linkola's latest book, which we will publish via our friends at Integral Tradition. As a matter of fact, Integral Tradition will function as our publishing arm, and we have more books in store for publication, but more on that in the future. What's essential to mention here is that Corrupt is establishing relationships across the web to close in on its goals, where our readers play an important role in spreading the message and suggesting us to friends and family.

5. Many readers who encounter Corrupt express concern at the arrogance or elitism associated with its philosophy. In a time of increasingly legalistic societies and sleazy politics, many citizens of the United States and elsewhere find it difficult to trust another political organization that says it has the answers. In the words of one reader "Well, who are you to tell us...?"

I want to start out by saying that while Corrupt rests on a meritocratic basis, which means that we believe individuals should be judged based on ability and character, we strongly reject the false elitism that we associate with modern behaviour. False elitism is based on ego or external things like clothes, cars and money. The reason to why false elitism is stupid is that the way we dress, talk, or drive, does not necessarily reflect who we are as individuals and what we are capable of achieving in life.

Therefore Corrupt wants to nurture people to develop their natural talents and make most out of themselves. It's unfortunate that some people confuse this for false elitism, but it should be noted that people who feel insecure or suffer from low self-esteem, inherently dislike any kind of system that affirms the inequality between individuals. Likewise, from over 2 years of experience from being an editor, I know that many people today have never been asked to voluntarily use their talents to a long-term project that requires dedication and effort. They can hardly finish a 2-week programming task.

That's why we might come off as "arrogant" sometimes: we've seen so many people flake out and leave us with all the work. Despite this fact, the spirit of Corrupt is in my opinion neither arrogant, nor bitter or negative. We're past all that, and approach everything as interesting challenges. It's an important part of our philosophy: to always appreciate conflict in life and move on.

In the past there have been people who have felt that we have no right to tell them how to live. There are two things I want to bring up here. The first is that we're not telling people how to live; we're pointing out common sense truths about personal health, lifestyle choices and psychological behaviour, confirmed by science, culture, history and religion. If I tell you that if you eat a lot of fast food and rarely exercise, you'll eventually become obese, that might offend some people. Their response might be: "It's my life, you have no right to tell me this."

My response to these people is: "Sure, no one's forcing you to listen to what I have to say. But that doesn't change the consequences of your lifestyle." Corrupt is NOT a big daddy, but that doesn't mean we think every lifestyle choice is sane, or that it doesn't matter if more than half of the people in a population is obese--it does matter. We allow lifestyle differences, just like we enjoy cultural diversity, but we also share the same reality; regardless of where you eat greasy food and spend 8 hours a day in an office, it's going to impact your health negatively.

Setting a healthier lifestyle direction is not about limiting people's taste in music, favourite DVD selection, car brand, or clothing. It's to point people in a general direction; it's about establishing agreement on general principles on how we should live our lives. If we disagree on the most fundamental issues of human existence, our society is going to continue degenerate, no matter how we much we discuss personal liberties.

The second thing is that we intentionally use a writing style that comes off to some readers as provocative and determined. This is part of how we present our ideas: we mock what we see as stupid, expose unpleasant truths without flinching, and point to a positive way out of negativity and ignorance. It's not meant to negatively offend, put off, or upset anyone. But we want to shake people up and show them that this is not a game.

The problems we face today are real. We don't have an exact lifestyle plan for people, but we emphasize general directions and ideas, which we believe are more or less essential to a healthy, productive life, no matter where you live. If you feel you don't need that inspiration--which is great, since it should mean that you already have good control over your diet, your exercise, and the way you spend your free time--we have more to offer that might interest you.

6. What do you believe sets Corrupt apart from other modern and anti-modern political organizations? From whence do you derive confidence in your purportedly functional philosophy? Do you believe you have a fundamental right to dictate how people should live, or do you believe that such an interpretation of your views is an unfortunate misunderstanding?

Corrupt is a unique organization, both philosophically and in regards to method. Our philosophy is called parallelism and suggests that there are several, parallel perspectives to approach reality, which means there is not one societal or cultural design that is superior or absolute, and can or should be applied everywhere to all people. This separates us from communists, neo-nazis, liberal democrats, capitalists, globalists and anarchists, who all believe in one system for all of us.

Our philosophy emphasizes relativity and the beauty of having different communities with different values. At the same time we avoid the pitfalls of pure relativism, since we believe that all societies and all perspectives ultimately must conform to the one and same reality. This means that while democracy remains a bad idea both in America and in Africa, because it fails to properly reflect the change in ability among people in a society, Corrupt may support one community that allows free drug use, and one community where it's banned. Parallelism is therefore a flexible philosophy, without diminishing the holistic aspect.

The Corruptian philosophy is reflected in the method we use to spread our ideas. Unlike most political organizations today, we're not only concerned with politics, and we're not dogmatically defending our view point as the Absolute Right perspective on things. Corrupt is trying to remake modern society, which you don't do simply by changing political direction. We work on all levels, including lifestyle and culture, the latter being a very important part. We want the modern people to embrace a new spirit. We don't think political policies, economical changes, cultural revival, or green activism alone can do it. We consider all aspects in our work.

The method we use to spread our ideas is called asymmetric activism, which means that instead of promoting our own message through a single political channel, and repeating it until we gain domination over other organizations, we want to primarily influence other groups. Therefore we don't have any real "enemies;" we work with leftists, libertarians, greens and separatists. We want these and other key groups to understand and change their point of view to fit the basic values and ideas we represent.

So a leftist could for example agree with us on globalization and come to agreement on certain key issues regarding how a government must operate. Libertarians agree with us on our policy on terrorism, drugs and power structure, where we defend a decentralization of power, and the freedom of individuals to do drugs and sodomy, as long as it's at home and not to any harm of the community as a whole. Separatists find us equally appealing, since we agree with them that pluralism (including variants like multiculturalism) doesn't work. Primitivists, survivalists and greens like our radical but realistic stance on how to deal with environmental problems, anarchists appreciate our instrumental view on power (if it doesn't serve a purpose, remove it), and traditionalists agree with us on the importance of ancient values and traditional spirituality.

Corrupt may therefore be one of the first organizations in modern time to not track down certain groups as enemies, but being geared at creating consensus among people, no matter what political, cultural or religious background they have, and point to a general direction which we believe is realistic and sane. Indeed, many describe us as pure realists, with a flavour of romanticism, meaning that while we remain critical and provocative, we also communicate a playful, adventurous message to our readers. Life should be interesting and we want society to reflect that.

7. Why do you believe what you propose will be better than what is?

I believe that Corrupt challenges the status quo by targeting the root causes for the decline of the modern civilization, analyzing its failures from a larger perspective that transcends all of those currently available today, and finding simple, realistic solutions that are concerned with both our ecology, our society, and our individual spirit.

I believe in Corrupt because no other anti-modern organization out there today addresses all the issues, and believes that we can change modern society without a bloody and useless revolution. Corrupt's reform plan of our politics, our culture, our spirit, our lifestyle, and our technology is all-comprehensive and pragmatic, in that it doesn't serve to spot enemies or blaming certain groups. There's no scapegoating and dogmatism. Quite simply, Corrupt is like the strong dad who comes home after work, finds his family in endless arguments about triviality, selfishness, ignorance and stupidity, and says:

"Listen up, the game's over. Stop fighting. Let's agree on how to move on with the current situation and let's do it now, with passion and adventure!"

8. Is there an objective ground of argument where we can resolve these issues?

This question can be answered both philosophically and generally.

Philosophically: I'm a Nietzschean at heart and therefore remain critical to the idea of pure objectivity. I don't think it's possible to escape viewing the world from a certain perspective, and as long as we're confined within the limits of our subjective perception, we can only come to conclusions with varying objective merits. This doesn't mean everything's relative; it's merely a philosophical note on the basis for our perception of reality.

Generally: If we are to place trust in science, tradition, and history, sure there is. Most issues today (environmental problems, ethnic conflicts, economic recessions, neo-colonialism, materialism, spiritual hollowness) are not new, nor are they so complex that we can't agree on basic ways of solving them and moving on. We face these problems today because humanity as a collective has lived in ignorance of the consequences of its actions. We overpopulated the planet, drained its resources, over-industrialized wild land, and then we asked: "Why do all fish contain cancer these days?"

We allowed multinational corporations to overthrow our governments in secret, importing millions of people as cheap labour to reduce production costs, and then we asked: "Why did the wages drop?" We privatized the economy and began replacing the production of domestic goods with pure financial speculation, and then we asked: "Why are we suddenly in a recession?" We decided to let national interests be controlled by corporate interests, so the hunt after natural resources and world power led us to a new age of colonial wars, and then we asked: "Why don't the Iraqis appreciate our freedom?" We exchanged the traditional values of heroism, honour, honesty, and transcendence for the hollow values of consumer materialism, and then we asked: "Why do our teenagers commit suicide?" We killed the myths and the religious wisdom because we failed to understand what it meant to us, and then we asked: "Why did God die?"

Yes, I believe we can resolve the main problems of modern civilization through fairly objective means, but it's not so much a question of objectivity, as it is about consensus. We have all the "proof" we need to change our civilization, now we need agreement on how to solve these basic problems. Think of it as the Kyoto protocol of all main problems we face today; for everyone it's obvious, the problems affect us all, so we need to sign the contract and work together to change the world. It's possible, but not as long as we keep our heads in the sand and prefer to watch whatever's on television instead. Escaping problems has never done anything good, but a handful of brave and idealistic people have through the history of mankind changed our world forever.

Change is possible, but it doesn't come about by waving a flag, voting on politicians, or donating $20 to Greenpeace every month. We need to change ourselves first, and then actively participate in society to live that change and influence people around us. I'm not so concerned about whether we scientifically can "prove" that we've polluted the groundwater, or "prove" that we live less interesting and healthy lives today. Empirically, for all people living in this age, it's the big elephant in the room. Address it, and we can finally move on to solve the real problems.

9. How do you know our civilization is in decline?

Every civilization is an organism; it has its birth, its growth, its highest ascendancy, its shrinking period, and its eventual decay into death. We place the Western civilization in its shrinking period, closing in on the eventual state of total decay. How we can confirm this? First, we look at history. We study previous civilizations; what gave birth to them, how did they grow, when were they in their prime years, when did they start to decline, and what killed them? We look for basic changes in society prior to their downfall, and find the same patterns in every human society, no matter where you go: leadership is overthrown and replaced by populist commerce rule, the traditional values are replaced by short-term materialism, and the lower segments of the population slowly take over society.

All of this has already happened in the West, and we are now beginning to experience the consequences. Notice that the historical scheme I outline for a civilization doesn't include apocalypses or total self-destructions. Rome didn't simply vanish into thin air when people began to pay more attention to sex and booze than to society and culture; all civilizations suffer a slow, long death, and consequences of bad decisions can take centuries to appear. For instance, we surpassed the number of people our planet can sustain a long time ago, but first now do we see the real horror effects of this in terms of biological extinction of species, mass poverty, and looming food wars.

Along with history, we've lost the connection with traditional culture and its values, which means we become directionless and therefore self-referential, meaning we no longer see society as connected to reality or nature, but as a separate space that exists according to its own norms and values. An idea like equality is one example; obviously no one seriously believes that people are born with equal abilities, but over time we've come to justify this idea by pointing to ourselves. We think we can master the world around us by manipulating ourselves socially, but sooner or later reality knocks on the door and then we act baffled. Science confirms a lot of degeneracy in terms of our health, our psychology, and how we function as individuals, mainly concerning individualism and the inability to think outside of our own immediate existence.

The spiritual aspect of the decline is perhaps the less mentioned but possibly the most important, because what the West, and those regions who are currently following in its tracks (China and Japan being two examples), really has missed is its vitality and forward-motion. We're no longer building great cathedrals, composing great symphonies, writing great literature, revolutionizing philosophy or winning fierce combats (bombing Arab cities to dust for material interests doesn't count). This is what we've really missed.

People live boring, miserable lives, and that's how the decay self-perpetuates itself. It's like one giant negative cycle; the more "modern" we become, the more CORRUPT we live. When something is not moving ahead, but is spending its time justifying its own mode of thought and making up excuses for failures, it's in stagnation, whether it is a political movement, a civilization, a family, or a group project.

10. From what do you derive certainty? Nature has been thoroughly promoted by Corrupt as representing an important level of objective reality outside the individual, but what about the other extrinsic logical designs, like the Infinite (GOD)?

We derive certainty from external, empirical observations and internal, introspective conclusions (intuition, logic, rational discussion). These two dimensions share a common function, so I want to stress that one cannot make an absolute distinction between the both. Regarding extrinsic logical designs, I'm personally critical of whether they actually exist outside of the realm of our world. As soon as we move these things beyond the realm of possible knowledge, we automatically devalue this world, which from a larger historical perspective has contributed to the decline of the Western civilization. To me, the soul, the infinite, God, and immortality, are all important and intrinsic concepts of this world. They are immanent properties of life here and now.

People who believe that these transcendent properties exist externally in another dimension, diverge philosophically from my own personal view point, but do not clash with the larger Corruptian picture. We have many Christians and Traditionalists who might disagree on certain points here, but ultimately we're striving toward the same goal: the creation of a traditional society, culture and spirit for the post-modern age. Part of the ancient traditional outlook is the emphasis on consensus, despite internal disagreements. So this is really a challenge for all of us to consider: Are we able to look beyond details of our individual beliefs and work together for a common future? Or are we still as dysfunctional as all the other moderns, who insist on doing it "my way or the highway," which often turns out being the road to Nowhere...

11. What is nihilism?

Philosophically, nihilism is the rejection of all values; a radical skepticism of moral and ethical systems. Historically it was pioneered by those who rejected authority, cultural norms, and religious dogmatism. It's a reductionist philosophy, which today (per Nietzsche) is often used to describe the modern age: the time of no values and ideals.

To me there are two ways of looking at nihilism: a) the absolute view (passive nihilism) and b) the instrumental view (active nihilism). Passive nihilism is what currently infests the psychology of most moderns today: a passive, self-defeatist and inherently negative view on life. Nothing is worth doing and nothing can be done. It's a self-referential outlook that eventually develops into depression; we begin to justify our lack of participation with life by referring to fear, doubt and confusion. To me, the modern spirit is one of passive nihilism.

Active nihilism takes an instrumental view on the rejection of all values, and turns it into a method of creating new values and new ideals. It's kind of like taking out the trash on Sunday morning, clearing your mind before a university test, or sorting out your emotions about a person that you like. Active nihilism is the view of the ancients who believed that creation, positive and constructive thinking, and fantasy, constitute eternal aspects of the human existence. While the passive nihilist keeps his paper white and says we should stop painting, because someone might be offended or someone might suffer from low self-esteem, the active nihilist shrugs and uses his imagination to paint, because he enjoys creating and playing with values.

If he fails, or dies (hopefully not from painting), oh well, that happens. What separates the active nihilist from the passive nihilist is that he always reevaluates the values and morals, to find the most realistic options and use them flexibly in life. Another way of describing this is to imagine values like tools ("Today it would be beneficial to use my fishing rod to catch some salmon in the river"), instead of absolute commandments ("Thou shalt always use your fishing rod as soon as you see a river").

12. What is parallelism?

Parallelism is the belief that there are parallel perspectives on reality, and that several societal designs therefore can exist without one being "The Right One," even though all designs fundamentally share the same reality. The best way to understand this is to think about religions. There are thousands of different religious and spiritual systems among humanity, but as soon as you begin to study the religious works and their respective traditions, you begin to see certain patterns emerging. Same with cultures and civilizations.

It's not a coincidence; like the cultural flora, humanity has responded to reality in different ways and expressed unique ideas about the world it's living in. Corrupt exists to defend that diversity because it believes there is meaning and beauty in it, and is dedicated to point these co-existing designs to pay attention to the one reality they all share. We can all be Swedes, Turks, Russians and Somalis, but we only have one planet, so let us preserve who we are and protect what creates and nurtures us.

13) What has Corrupt achieved?

There are a lot of fun and inspirational things Corrupt has achieved, these being my favourites:

Jokela High School Shooting Campaign

We managed to provoke mass media world wide by being the only organization in existence to support the ideas of Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the teenager who started a mass shooting at Jokela High School, later committing suicide. The idea behind the campaign was to give Auvinen right that society in the West had declined, and that the school shootings over the past years reflect a society not being able to offer young people the hope and stability they need to grow up as responsible adults. We spoke in French, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and American news about the tragedy in Jokela, and how society ultimately bore responsibility for what happened.

While other people were busy blaming it on a lonely individual, Corrupt chose to contextualize the high school shootings from a larger perspective and point out how they serve as wake-up calls for people who're living in ignorance and stupidity. This campaign received huge response just over a couple of nights and I remember not sleeping for more than 48 hours, just to be able to respond to all media requests and radio interviews. One of our staff members even appeared on an exclusive documentary on Finnish television about the school shootings. Our campaign video has been seen by more than 30,000 people on YouTube.

Corrupt Merchandise

Not so long ago we launched the very first Corrupt merchandise portal, where we sell t-shirts and stickers (more to come!). The "End Democracy" t-shirts were especially popular, so popular that we sold out the L-edition almost immediately and are now working on getting that back in stock. Through merchandise people are able to spread the message naturally by the kind of everyday awareness that stickers and t-shirts signal to people. In addition to the merchandise, we had several groups setting up promotion stickers in cities and at campuses. This, together with the growth of local Corruptian street teams around the world, is bringing us closer to a contact with mainstream society and normal people who want to change life by finding like-minded people and working together on common goals.

Cyberhit: Domination of Overpopulation Debate

We've conducted several so called "cyberhits," or promotion attacks, one on a mainstream article about overpopulation being our most successful. Thanks to a group of dedicated supporters, we placed comments on the article that appeared on one of Britain's largest news sites, and made it to a list of top comments, where we were in a majority. The influence that made is still clear on current environmental articles on the same site, where people now are commonly addressing overpopulation as soon as someone starts to talk about green politics. It was both fun and effective, and we hope to conduct more of these cyberhits in the future, as it's part of our main goals to spread our ideas on the Internet, before we move on to "real life" consensus plans.

Pentti Linkola Book

After Integral Tradition became our official publishing arm, we finished a large translation of ecophilosopher Pentti Linkola's latest book, "Could Life Win - And on What Conditions?" It's revolutionary for Corrupt, since it will be our very first book, hopefully to make it to the big media, and an important part of spreading our ideas about the ecology and what we can do to protect and save the environment. It will be a controversial release; an injection of realism in the green debate today. And, of course, this is only the beginning of Corrupt as publisher of literature.

Interviews: Part of General Consensus Strategy

In order for Corrupt to spread its ideas among other groups and establish general consensus on important issues, we've conducted a series of interviews and relationships with different individuals from different groups of the political spectrum. These interviews have been highly appreciated by our readers and very much so by us working at Corrupt as well. Lots of inspiration have flowed from environmentalist activist John Feeney, cranky tech geek John Dvorak, city reconstructor Michael Arth, and psychology professor Richard Lynn.

From each individual we establish agreement on vital ideas, reexamine our own views, and challenge those of others, to close in on a general agreement on environmental, political, cultural, religious, technological and scientific topics. We will continue to work with other groups and remain a provocative and influential media machine, or as one user commented about our strategy: "[The] policy of listening to everyone [...] and following no one." In other words, realism and determined open-mindedness.

14. The societal stagnation you expose seems to run in cycles. What is Corrupt's plan to prevent these crippling processes from becoming inevitable?

I'm glad you bring this question up, because I believe this is the key to understand how we're going to have to approach the decay we're seeing in the West right now. To start out, I want to begin by answering your question: we can't prevent this process from occurring. It's natural. Some might be acquainted with the second law of thermodynamics: energy movement within an isolated system always increases entropy. Another reference, less scientific and more cosmological, is what sci-fi author Philip K. Dick described as "kipple," and I will allow myself to quote straight from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" to really explain what I mean:

- Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers of yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more.
- I see.
- There's the First Law of Kipple, "Kipple drives out nonkipple." Like Gresham's law about bad money. And in these apartments there's been nobody there to fight the kipple.
- So it has taken over completely. Now I understand.
- Your place, here, this apartment you've picked - it's too kipple-ized to live in. We can roll the kipple-factor back; we can do like I said, raid the other apartments. But -
- But what?
- We can't win.
- Why not?
- No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment I've sort of created a stasis between the pressure of kipple and nonkipple, for the time being. But eventually I'll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It's a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.

Let's use this analogy to answer your question more in detail. The idea here is that kipple/entropy (crime, corruption, decay) is a natural part of an organism (and here we assume that civilizations function like organisms) and naturally increase over time. Think about great civilizations: born from a set of smaller communities, they grow, thrive, develop great art, philosophy and science, and after they've peaked, they slowly turn inward like neurotic teenagers and begin to sob over their own lack of greatness. Morons outbreed geniuses, culture gets hollowed out, life becomes boring, corruption thrives behind closed doors, and religion is reduced to empty symbolism. It's happened everywhere, all throughout time. You can compare it with something as simple as running: you start out slowly, then increase speed, but after about an hour, depending on your fitness and how fast you run, you'll begin to feel more and more tired. Eventually you have to stop. There's no turning back. When you've caught some fresh air and strength, you move on. This is the process of life: always onward (into countless battles).

This idea of entropy, or kipple, being a deterministic force in our world that keeps destroying what we build, may at first seem like an uncomfortable reality. Why? Because it seems like we can't do anything about it. The Western civilization is growing closer and closer to the state of "absolute kippleization," and with that in mind, many people today--especially smart people, feel depressed and angry. They ask themselves a question I think all of us at one time or another have asked ourselves: "What can I do about it?" Philip Dick provides us with a seemingly bleak answer in return: "We can't win." It seems to suggest some form of fatalistic attitude towards the process of entropy. But when we think about it, we come to realize that this is all it really is: an attitude. Even if every single civilization has, and will, go through a state of absolute kippleization, why would this mean that we should give up? We can't "win" in the sense that no one can prevent entropy from occurring. Even in the most brilliant of societies, there will be a small degree of corruption, selfishness and idiocy. That's why the Ancients believed in hierarchy and leadership: let only the brilliant of men rule, and have them control those who are less good at creating brilliance. But we can succeed with change by approaching negativity with a positive outlook. After all, if everything's bad, why spend time on pointing that out, when you can begin rebuilding and participating for a positive change? That possibility is always there, and that's your key out of depression and self-defeatism.

We can't turn back time and turn the West into what ancient Rome or Greece were thousands of years ago. It's impossible. We're already too far down the path of self-destruction. But it doesn't make sense to give up either. We have to fight back. Some people, like Theodore Kaczynski, decide to blow away the key proponents of the decay and inform the public through violence. Finnish school shooter Pekka-Eric Auvinen belongs to this category as well, when he began to shoot innocent people at high school in Jokela, as a cry for help and attention: "Your society is corrupt, please pay attention to the destruction around you." Without glorifying these people as heroes (most of them are not), they provide us with a different approach to decay. They accept it as a reality, but persist in what they believe in. They believe in change. And change, although publicly misused by popular democratic figures, is most certainly real. So while we can't prevent the process of entropy from occurring, we can make sure that we are in control of our own future, when the decay has been exposed and the light is separating from the darkness.

However, the change we believe in is not some kind of utopian master plan to save everyone from chaos and destruction. That's too late. We want to focus on the good-hearted, creative and assertive characters of our society. They must lead us into a better future. We can't save all of our civilization, neither is that wanted, since most of it today is all-decay. You don't save a fruit by spraying it all over with pesticide; you pick out the rotten parts and protect what's healthy. Most intelligent people I've met have been depressed simply because they've taken on the entire burden of our society and spent their free time trying to figure out how to save it all. They usually start to look positively at things when I tell them that they simply can't save it all. We shouldn't save it all. We should focus on what we want to save, which means our change includes selective parts of what we like about our civilization, that we believe can be saved. Think of our civilization as a burning house: if you try to save every single thing from burning up, both you and the things you wanted to save will burn up. Smart people run in, get the few things they really care about, and then run out as quickly as they can, before the whole thing falls apart. After that you can build a new house. You didn't "prevent" entropy; you escaped its self-destruction by actively participating in life.

Corrupt constitutes such a force. We accept entropy--in fact, we embrace it, because it's part of our natural world, but we refuse giving up. Depending on the structure and design of a civilization, it can last 100 or 1000 years. But even more important, I think, we have to look at the products of a civilization. What great art did it produce? How far did it take philosophy? How developed was its science? Did it defy any outside attacks? How noble and coherent was its cultural life? What was the essence of its spirit? Corrupt celebrates the ancient view that time is cyclic and this goes for civilizations as well. We're not trying to reach the ideal civilization that will never die, because such an idea would be a lie. No such civilization will ever exist. However, we do strive toward excellence and brilliance, which is not the same as perfection, because all it implies is that we make most out of the possibilities in life. First now do we understand what this means for us in the modern time. Yes, we live in an insane society. But let us not grieve. Think about the positive things we can contribute with. Entropy doesn't matter. We have to follow our inner voice. No matter if we'd be citizens of Rome during its peak era, or citizens of an America in absolute decline, our attitude and spirit should be no different. This is part of believing in the Tradition: it permeates all of life, and ultimately transcends its entropic limitations. That is the spirit of Corrupt and its answer to how to deal with your kippleized society.

---

Thanks to Alex and Corrupt Inc. for granting this interview conducted by Goluf of P.F.M.G. Publishing.

Read Alex Birch's columns here

The Patagonia, a geographic region in the southernmost part of South America, is one of the most pristine places on Earth. Wild, vast and rich in its unique attributes and biodiversity, it is one of the last unspoiled natural treasures on this planet. The Chilean government, throughout the history of the country, never actually worried to populate a location which was so remote from the physical and administrative centers (1,6% of the total population of the country live in the two southest regions, a territory which comprises nearly 21% of the entire continental part of the country [1], [2]). As it follows, this particular patch of land is virtually untouched by the hand of modern man, not to mention that the people there live a much simpler lifestyle compared with their fellow countrymen in the more industrialized central part of the country.

Part of this rich territory of unlimited value, namely the rivers Pascua and Baker, are now targeted for the construction of an undetermined (as of now) number of major dams, in a project known as "HidroAysen." This will inundate a total of 5910 ha (14597 acres) of land, including other major changes that will be made to the area. For what, you say? To face the ever increasing demand of the country's inhabitants for electrical power in a territory growing in consumption? Not that it would easily justify it, but no...the major recipients of the electrical power generated by this project will be the copper mines located in the central part of the country and run, at least two thirds of them, by transnational corporations. Meaning, not administered, and barely controlled by the local government, digging precious resources for the benefit not of the Chilean people, but for the ever-increasing pockets of foreign lobbies which adhere to no particular nationality. Not to mention, said transnationals don't pay taxes to our government, practically taking the copper out of this country for nothing. If there's ever a more obvious example of how monetary interests hold a tight grip over a society paralized by its incompetence, I'd like to hear about it.

That is not all. The physical distance between the projected dams and the copper mines mean the necessity to build a huge number of high tension towers (five thousand) for a total lenght of 2300 kms (1429 miles aprox.), in order to transport the generated electricity to its destination. The aforementioned construction would mean the cutting of several square miles of trees, impacting protected national parks and indigenous reservoirs for a great length of the country, and damaging the landscape in a way that has never been seen in the history of this country, and still very considerable when comparing to the world at large.

And that is still not all. The irreversible damage made to the wildlife would disturb the natural equilibrium of the zone for generations to come. Additionally, these plans would ruin the local economies of the few people living in the region, who for years have managed to make relatively secure incomes through agriculture, tourism and other activities. The HidroAysen project will give them virtually nothing in return (remember, the electricity is for the northern-central part of the country, not for the people in the area). Among the thousands of animal and plant species that currently inhabit the Patagonia (some of them still unknown) is the Huemul, currently an endangered specie and part of our National Emblem.

Many national and international organizations, as well as people working on their own, have taking conscience of the problem and are hurrying to work out a solution for it. Many of them have correctly pointed out the possibilities our long and climate-varied country offer for alternative sources of energy, including thermic and eolic. And, rightly so, point the government to these solutions as alternatives to the project which currently menaces the Patagonia.

However, as good as their intentions undoubtedly are, they are missing an important point: namely, the real focus of our national authorities. They may know or not about all of these alternative energy sources, what matters is that they will never even consider them. People in the Region of Aysen have been protesting ever since they knew their landscape would be raped by HidroAysen. They are barely listened to by the local and central authorities. This country has the richest production of copper in the world, and we give it away for nothing, practically. Chile hasn't tried to nationalize its copper for more than thirty years, at the relentless push of the international lobbies.

What does this tell you? Well, what everybody with a realist world view knows, and what everyone else tries their best to deny: our democratically elected leaders are completely and utterly unreliable in the face of international economical interests. Not just because of their sheer incompetence, but also because of their open willingness to surrender to said interests. I want each and every activist reading this and who is (rightfully) disgusted at the whole situation, to carefully consider this. Modern society is on the side of the political manipulators and the financial lobby interests--not those of the people and of our ecology.

The solution, therefore, does not lie in surrending to the good will of the authorities. Their public "good will" is completely irrelevant in the face of the tremendous power the transnationals hold and which mercilessly crush the governmental authorities, as well as the people, who are utterly fed up with the current government, but naively think that liberal democracy is still the best choice because is the only one available to the general public.

The chilean people need to realize they've been tricked from day one to believe in both a system and a lifestyle that isn't satisfying in the long run and which threaten to annihilate the fabric of our society for the financial gain of a minority. What to do, then? One effective way to counteract this is spreading awareness of it through the community. Most people get their information from the TV. Watch the local news in the presence of other people, try to offer a different point of view and encourage debate. Don't get pessimistic if things don't change immediately for the better. Remember that most changes start very small and then spread throughout the community until they influence the whole of the local society.

As for you, the people living in the chilean Patagonia, I can only say: keep up the fight and don't let yourselves be beaten, as there's a great number of people in your country and the world that believes in you, supports you and will do what is necessary to keep alive one of the last places really worth living in--your home.

Related links

Patagonia sin represas (In Spanish)

Aisen, Reserva de Vida (In Spanish, with some breathtaking images)

Patagonia Dams - Horseback Protest in Chile (In English - a great article about the subject)

Patagonia News - Chile Govt backs Patagonia Dam Project Again (Another article in English)

Felipe Serra is a Corrupt volunteer living in Chile. Today he is involved with the protection of the Patagonia, one of the world's most beautiful and interesting places left on this planet. Visit his blog here (in Spanish)

Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus at the University of Ulster, graduated in psychology and took his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge and has worked as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter, professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster. His research in intelligence, sex differences, race differences, and eugenics is highly regarded within the academic field, and his books and studies have been mentioned in numerous scientific journals and news publications.

1. Herrnstein and Murray’s “The Bell Curve” (p. 368) makes a statistical analysis showing that raising the average IQ by 3 points would result in radical changes in social behaviour, lowering poverty, health problems, welfare users, imprisonment rates, and children born out of wedlock. What barriers do you think prevent society from reaping the benefits of those attainable changes?

The eugenicists debated this question in the first half of the 20th century but were unable to produce any practical plans. The formidable problems are discussed in my book Eugenics.

2. Your recent book, ”The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ and Inequality Worldwide,” investigates whether the same racial hierarchies in IQ and socioeconomic status found in the Bell Curve, persist outside of America. Your findings suggest that they do. What impact do you think these findings can have on the way we look at social and economic equality between racial groups?

It would totally transform them because western societies base public policies on the myth that all people are equal.

Does the hereditary determinism pose a threat to the Western egalitarian ideals?

Yes.

3. New studies suggest that racial groups have evolved away from each other over the past 10,000 years, leading to more pronounced genetic differences. With greater movement and gene flow between the continents today, is it likely that we’ll see a stop to or even a reverse of this trend?

Probably not because there is not much inter-mating between racial groups.

4. Your study together with Paul Irwing claims that men are on average five points ahead over women on IQ tests, and that this gap increases within the higher intelligence scores. What evolutionary strategy may have evolved these sex differences?

Men have had a greater need for high IQs because they compete more against other men.

Are the genes for intelligence manifesting themselves differently in a woman who has an equivalent genetic potential for high IQ as a man?

No, but there are sex differences in different kinds of intelligence, eg men have higher spatial abilities & (as adults) reasoning abilities.

5. In your book “Eugenics: A Reassessment” you begin with the propositions that intelligence, health, and moral character are valuable and constitute the foundation of civilization. Given the long intellectual history in favour of this idea, beginning with Plato's Republic, why do you think civilization has been permitted to enter a dysgenic state where each generation has progressively diminished these positive traits?

This evolved because with the invention of reliable contraception in the 1870s it was inevitable that this would be used more efficiently by the more intelligent, & hence that fertility would become dysgenic.

What can be done to reverse this?

Only draconian measures such as ratioing the numbers of children people are permitted according to their IQs.

6. With a continued development within the field of genetic engineering, humanity might be able to simulate natural selection in the future via technology, such as embryo selection. Do you see this development as an inevitable product of the development in genetic science, or is it likely to be a conscious choice (on the part of the general public or the government) as a way to reverse the current dysgenic trend?

I argue in my book Eugenics that this will evolve spontaneously in free societies through embryo selection for desirable qualities. It might also be mandated by authoritarian states.

7. What dangers are involved with using technology to simulate natural selection?

None of any significance.

Do you believe ethical concerns are likely to interfere with the development and possible use of genetic engineering, or is the force of science and technology stronger?

Yes but they will not prevent it.

8. Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa was called irresponsible for saying that scientists were only responsible to the truth and bore no responsibility for the consequences of the knowledge they create. As a scientist, what do you think of the ethical issues involved in reporting truths that might offend some people’s beliefs?

I agree with Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa.

9. In what way would people’s everyday lives change for the better, if society would start to implement an eugenic policy to increase the average IQ within the population?

The quality of life would improve in many ways.

10. How does your ideal society look like, in terms of general intelligence, health, lifestyle, and moral character of its population?

Let’s say the whole population would be like physicians – competent and honest.

---

Interview was conducted by Alex Birch the 22th of July 2008.

Corrupt would like to thank Richard Lynn for kindly participating in the interview and sharing his views on general intelligence and genetic science.

Visit Richard Lynn's website

Lynn's books can be purchased from Washington Summit Publishers

Long ago, a kingdom between two others fell upon hard times. The people grumbled, the surly underlings who outnumbered their king and his soldiers, although each soldier could probably slaughter a thousand before he fell. "This king has let us suffer, while he lives well," they snarled. The priest -- who had only one King in some place called Heaven, rumored to be just over the next mountain range -- had to agree. Kings, he felt, caused men to suffer, and wasn't there enough suffering in life, as it is?

The king heard from the ear of kindly merchant, Mosai, who told him of the grumblings. "They're not going to hold much longer!" he said. "My shop, my life, is in danger. You have to do something."

The king faced three options -- he could send in the soldiers and nip this in the bud; he could give the people the palace reserves and the seed wheat; he could do nothing and hope it would pass. Mosai would be happiest with the first, the people happiest with the second, and the soldiers happiest with the third. As debate in the king's chambers reached fever pitch, he left, to the grumbling of even his subordinates. "Doesn't he take this seriously?"

Bareheaded, he went into his garden. This is a role I play, he reminded himself. There is the King, and there is the man. The man might want to hop on a horse and head over the mountains. The King might want to smite the interlopers. There being no gods except in stories -- the King was a pragmatic man, which is how he got to be King -- what higher force is there?

As he wandered lonely, the din of bloviation inside fading into the distance, he stopped by a tree where a starling sang. The tree, old and gnarled, had long ago tipped and now just waited to die. "Entropy," thought the King. "Everything must pass, and maybe it is our time to pass." But he stopped for the starling song.

This was no poetic bird. Missing an eye, several toes, and many of its feathers, it had clearly seen enough of the world to be tired of it, as the King now felt. Still it sang, as the wind rose over the trees and whipped parts of its song out, as it tired, as if daring the darkness to come in. And then it stopped. The King looked up.

A serpent, coils black with obsidian night, coiled down from the branches, above the bird, ready to strike. The King had seen this before, knowing that birds in panic rise, and so a serpent above a bird is guaranteed a strike.

Winking his one good eye at the King, the bird cocked his head, ruffled his wings as if ready to fly -- and then stepped off the branch and fell to the ground. The snake struck empty air; the King clapped his hands; the snake recoiled and the starling flew free, leaving a twitter of notes in a curlicue of north wind.

Walking back, the King made up his mind. He dispatched the debaters; he asked Mosai for the name of the three top agitators; he sent his servants to make a sacrifice of the intestines of pigs to his favorite
donkey, who should wear a crown. In the town, grumbling turned to puzzlement, then sleepiness, and the new day dawned early.

The three agitators and priest woke up to summons from the king, with messengers waiting in fine livery, taking them by the high road in coaches that were left smeared with the dirt of the field, the foundry
and the vestry. "Greetings, good friends," said the King. "You must dine with me!" He drew back his arm and they saw tables laid out with the finest food of the kingdom.

"It's a trap," whispered one of the agitators. "He's trying to buy us out."

"He's trying to make us look stupid," said another. "Does he think we can't see through this trick?"

"What a shame," said the Priest, "to dine on such fine foods as a nation starves."

The agitators talked, and then one, elected leader, came forth and said, "We reject your offer. We can't eat while the nation starves, and you can't make us look false by feeding us finery while others eat cow dung. We can't be bought."

"I know," said the King, and he turned to the food, and picked up a slab of beef, and dropped it on the floor. It shattered into many tiny pieces of plaster.

"This was not my offer. This was my test. But you have passed it, and so here is my offer: I will assume the responsibility of paying for your families from my own pocket. I will feed the people from the storehouse
of the King for this season. I also will demand nothing of what you produce. In exchange, you will assume responsibility for the fields and larders of the town, and you will rule yourselves, and eat only of what you produce."

The agitators were wary, but the Priest thought it was a wonderful idea, so they all signed up right away. When they went back to town, the people were shocked. "The mean old King is giving up," they said. "Hurrah! For our new leaders, who will not treat us like slaves." The agitators conferred, and decided on a great feast in the town, using the King's provisions. In the castle, the King smiled and dispatched his subordinates who flittered like flies. He sent away most of his court, or they now had no use to him.

In the neighboring kingdoms, war was planned for after the next year's snowfall, because they could smell weakness.

As the sun rose over the mountains the next day, the agitators shook hangovers from their heads and began to get the fields in order. "When do we plant?" asked one. "The King's overseer knows," said another, but when they went to his cabin, he was abroad.

"We plant about now," said the second agitator. "Let's do it."

"Which fields?" said another. "All the fields," came the answer. But here was not enough seed for all the fields and besides, people were getting tired. One agitator excused a friend, and an hour later, the people saw the family of another agitator leaving for home. "They're sick," came the reply.

The next day, more people were sick.

The third day, even more, and several others were caught eating the seed wheat.

The agitators conferred. "We can't take this lying down," said one. "We need to make an example."

"But we can't be like that nasty arbitrary king," said another. "We need a court."

The next day, no work was done in the fields; everyone was at the courthouse. An agitator dressed in lawyer's robes made his case. "This peasant has deserted his fields," he said. "He claims he was sick, but his ex-wife saw him drinking."

"That's not true," blurted the poor man. "I got markedly better after sundown!"

"Ass," said the agitator. He turned to the people. "This man should have been working to make you wheat, bacon and potatoes; instead, he was drinking. If you let him get away with it, others will follow. The sentence is 40 lashes."

Among themselves, the people talked. They all knew the man, but the thought of no food kept recurring in their heads. We can't let that happen. This man wanted that to happen. If we punish him, maybe it will not happen -- "Guilty," said the people.

The next day, no work was done, because all had to watch the lashing. "Come one, come all," said the Priest. "We are all equal in the eyes of God, and you will now see God's justice visited upon the selfish."

Generally, the King's warden would allow at most ten lashes, because they were done with a cane pole that cut deep into the skin. Even more, he knew when to check his stroke. The agitator who sentenced people did not know this, so demanded 40 lashes, and the person he appointed to lash did not check his stroke. As the sun went down, the people stood in a circle around the bloody remains of a man.

"That didn't work," said an agitator. "Tomorrow is a state holiday, for a funeral!"

So it went, and the day after, a lawsuit was brought from the family of the dead man, who now were starving.

The day after that, a group petitioned for less labor, because their fields were in the lee of the mountains, and so got less sun. And on and on.

Eventually, the King's overseer returned from vacation. The boy entrusted to watch for him raced to him and asked the question he had been told to memorize. "You haven't planted yet?" the overseer gasped. "It's well past time!"

The agitators sent out their officers to round up the people. "It's dusk, but we have found out that the fields we left half-planted have not prospered. You must work until dawn planting them." But when the people got to the fields, half of the plants were dead -- no one had been appointed to water them, and so they were scraggly, and sick.

"Going to be a starving season," said the crazy old woman who drank her pints from a shoe, and so they hanged her as a witch.

The people worked all night, and the next day, rigorous orders went out to ensure plants were watered. Two more died for not following orders.

"So they want us to water on pain of death," said one woman. "I'll do what they tell me, and nothing more." Heads around her nodded.

So when the agitators forgot to mention a field of peas, it dried up. "No one said to," said the people, and they were right.

"My field's farther away than yours," said one woman. "It's because your family has always had more power here."

"That's because they were the first to settle here," retorted a man. "They let you in out of pity and charity!"

"I don't need charity," said the first. "I want a field closer to the town." The next day was absorbed by her lawsuit.

And so it went, all season.

The agitators met on the eve of harvest day. "What a lot of work that was," said one.

"We'll do better next season," said another.

"You will," said the third. "I had better luck working a farm on my own. I can make my own crops thrive while these others screw it up, and that's what I've been doing all season. Each to his own. I don't need the town to approve."

The next day, all went out to the fields, but it was noticed that one man was slyly putting crops in his clothes and taking them home each time he got water. One woman started to object, and got clubbed with a bucket. Silently, the others began doing the same. "At least feed our kids for a week," grumbled one.

When it came time to count the harvest, the take was so small the agitators blinked. "We got planted late, and half the plants died, and yet we're still short for that amount," said one. Another came in the door, holding a small child. "She says her neighbors are hoarding -- the same neighbors who always get all the cold well-water each morning."

Another burst in the door. "Your third agitator has been worse than hoarding -- he's grown his own crops! The crowd hung him, and they took his food, and now his family is starving."

Lawsuits and persecutions wracked the land. Officers took bribes. The roads fell apart. Education was forgotten, but no one forgot to go each Sunday to the church. However, there was a new priest, formerly a
blacksmith. "No more fire and brimstone," he said. "God's word was misunderstood; he means we should all love and tolerate each other, and worry about nothing! God will feed us!"

In town, the people had looted a costume store, and were now dressed in "finery just like that evil King."

And the evil King? He had, like most practical people, taken action long ago. First, he stopped banquets and celebrations. Next, he ordered that enough fields to feed the castle and staff be cleared, and removed most of his staff, sending them to plant -- and going with them. "This work s beneath us," he said. "But we'll do it because we have to, and because nothing is beneath us when it's a question of survival."

The castle and soldiers and staff had food enough. They settled down each night to simple meals, enjoying them more than the banquets of yore, when they saw fire on the horizon in the town. "Something must have gone wrong," said one soldier.

"They're handling it," said the King. "We aren't needed."

"But they'll come here for us," said the soldier.

"That's right," said the King. "It's easier to defend than attack. Kill a few and the rest will run away, then they'll show up the next day begging for mercy."

Events happened as he said. One agitator died as did several dozen townspeople, which encouraged the rest, because that meant more food. The town was in ruins, burnt by riots and covered in graffiti for each of the two new political parties. The courts churned on, newspapers were sold with the latest drama of instability, and thin children wandered the streets selling their bodies.

The King turned to his people and said:

"You did not believe I served a role. I did. You believed you could rule yourselves. You could not. What I did to you was play a horrible trick on you, but I have saved us from a thousand years of not understanding this relationship. The King is the head, and you are the body. When the head is working, it protects you from things you can't see. When the body is working, it protects you from things that you can see. The two can never exchange places. I hope your chance to be Kings for a year has shown you that and, if the cost was terrible, it will be worth it."

Today is the national day of Québec. We call it national day but the fact is that, politically, Québec isn't a nation. A foreign government is still writing our laws, strengthening its foreign rule every day through immigration and the maintenance of a two official language policy. Because of this, Montréal will soon become an English speaking city. Québec doesn't directly face overpopulation--in fact, population numbers here are going down, like in Europe. Meanwhile, the immigrant/Québécois ratio is steadily going up. It's not hard to realize that multiculturalism currently is destroying our nation.

One might then ask: "So why do you celebrate?"

Like everywhere else, the Québecois don't like to face reality, and suffer from a profound lack of higher values. Add the fact that this is a good pretext to get drunk and have a day off from work, and suddenly there's a good reason to "celebrate." The fact that we as a nation has struggled to survive for 400 years doesn't interest them at all. Yes, 2008 is what we might call a "special" year as it marks the foundation of the oldest city of America. Québec city is 400 years old.

Samuel de Champlain was the founder; a man of courage, bravery and determination. Even at that time he had to fight against mercantilism; against the merchants who didn't want to see him establishing a colony, out of fear of losing a lot of money. With the help of the natives, he fought the merchants, the ocean and the winter--and he won. But, 400 years later, we're still a colony, because we like to think that way. We are afraid of taking the risk, afraid of thinking for ourselves and taking control of our own destiny, like a teenager who refuses to grow up. Unfortunately, de Champlain is no longer a hero, nor are our old patriots like Riel, Chevalier De Lorimier, Bourgault and Papineau. Our hero is a 50 goal scorer from the National Hockey League. People don't care about the past or the future, what they want is avoiding any adversity in the present.

All of this because of our profound lack of values. This lack of meaning in our lives has turned this nation into a place where courage and bravery have no importance. Is independence possible in a situation like this? I don't think so.

But, there's still hope for us. We didn't survive 400 years for nothing. Our ancestors were proud. They chose to live as French even when the money was controlled by the English. Colonized Québecois like to say that we are a bunch of losers because we lost the war against the English on the plains of "Abraham." The patriot's revolt had no result, the FLQ ("Front de libération du Québec") was crushed by the Canadian army, and we've lost two referendums on independence. To me this doesn't mean that we are losers, but that we are proud fighters who fight for our people. Independence will be possible if we remember the courage and the joy of life of our ancestors. 400 years of history is short compared to old Europeans countries, but this is our history and we have to fight for it. Vive la liberté! Vive l'indépendance!

André Audet is Editor and columnist of Société Nihiliste Du Québec, promoting philosophical nihilism and political independence for Québec

Michael Edward Arth, professionally experienced in building design, residential construction, and fine and commecial art, moved to DeLand, Florida in 2001 in order to rebuild a small slum neighborhood, today known as "The Garden District." Together with his daughter Sophie and his wife Maya, this is still where he lives today. Michael Arth is currently active with a new movie, "New Urban Cowboy: Toward a New Pedestrianism," addressing a complete reconstruction of the architectural design of the modern urban society.

1. Your major construction project, which you now call "The Garden District," was a complete remake of a neighborhood, formerly known as "Cracktown." Please explain your motivation and inspiration to take on such a great task and taking it to success?

The motivations were: 1. To find a project where I could try out some of my ideas about urban design in the real world; 2. Create a living laboratory for the book I've been working on for many years: The Labors of Hercules: Modern Solutions to 12 Herculean Problems, and; 3. Rebuild a historic neighborhood where my wife and I could live and raise a child.

Rebuilding an existing neighborhood was a partial fulfilment of a lifelong fantasy to design and build the perfect town. The next big project will probably be built from scratch, which is the best way to make sure that it embodies the principles of what I call New Pedestrianism or NP, for short. New Pedestrianism is a more pedestrian and ecology-oriented version of New Urbanism. NP segregates transportation for motor vehicles and pedestrians into two "separate but equal" networks—where the pedestrians and cyclists get to share a beautiful, tree-lined pedestrian lane in front of the houses and businesses. The cars go on a rear street, which is also tree lined and which has carriage houses with formal garden gates in the residential areas. The businesses also have entrances, front and rear, but the main entrance is on the front side—and front is always the pedestrian side.

2. In The Labors of Hercules you describe the system of corruption, which has polluted the American democracy and turned it into an oligarchy. What is the main reason why private interests have bought up public politics and turned it into a circus charade?

Even by the standards of the world's democracies, the American voting system is not very democratic, with the cards stacked in favor of private business interests, which in turn fuels the military industrial complex. Military-related expenditures are already over $700 billion in 2008, and comprise roughly half of all military expenditures in the world, even though Americans comprise only 4% of the world's population. Meanwhile, our law enforcement agencies, including the prison industrial complex, are bloated by the interminable war on drugs resulting in an incarceration rate 600% to 700% higher than Europe. There are also agricultural and oil related subsidies that are supporting unsustainable policies. These are only a few examples of policies influenced by non-proportional representation. We could improve the democracy and begin to address inequities like this in the system with these important voting rights reforms:

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for single member elections—where the voters rank their candidates in order of preference without fear of having to strategize their vote. Gore, and the liberal majority, lost to Bush in 2000 because Ralph Nader "spoiled" the vote. There would never again be a spoiler under IRV.

Get rid of the Electoral College, which is a relic from another era and gives voters in thinly populated states much greater representation than voters in densely populated states.

For multi-member elections (like the House of Representatives) trade gerrymandered districts in favor of large, semi-permanent districts with a field of representatives elected by Proportional Representation (PR).

Enact real campaign finance reform, where money is taken out of politics as much as possible. There should be very little private campaign financing; the election cycle should be shorter; and the information on candidates should be standardized in an official Internet site that would cost taxpayers a tiny fraction of what they spend now trying to influence a very restricted selection of candidates. Unless we vastly reduce influence buying, we will not have justice.

Having a more representative government has its own dangers. Currently only about 50% of Americans even bother to vote, partly because the field of candidates is only drawn from those politicians that support the status quo, for the reasons outlined above. That is why politicians are so maddeningly non-committal. With voter reform, you could have bright, informed candidates from different walks of life willing to state their real views and take a principled stand that anyone can understand.

If voters really mattered, we would then have to deal with the problem of the American electorate being poorly informed, superstitious, and easily manipulated. Apparently, many Americans suffer from selective exposure (where people listen more to those ideas which confirm their biases). For example, when it was shown that there were not weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (and even after Bush and Cheney admitted the lack of evidence) 50% of Americans in a 2006 Harris poll still believed Saddam had WMDs. Historically, it has served the powers-that-be to leave people in the dark, and it has served politicians to say little of substance.

3. The world population growth is critical in all areas of human expansion, but it is currently most problematic in the Third World. What is the responsibility, if any, of the West to help places like Africa to downsize their population – and which political policies should in that case be applied?

Another example of selective perception is the population explosion. Despite the vast range of problems related to increasing population—pollution, congestion, climate change, resource shortages, and resource wars, to name but a few—most people don't consider it worrisome that the population of our planet goes up by 211,000 people every single day! That is 77 million more people every year, which is roughly like adding the population of England, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand every year. We should be in panic mode about what to do about this, yet it is not even on the political agenda.

It is not just a problem with the developing world, which has the highest birth rate, but with developed countries as well. The U.S. has the highest growth rate of any industrialized country—mostly due to immigrants and their high birth rate. This is a disaster in the making, because when we are talking about the dangers of overpopulation the most critical factor is not sheer numbers, but carrying capacity (carrying capacity = how many people can the Earth sustain at a certain standard of living). A hundred Bangladeshis use as many resources as one American, so more Americans are potentially as bad for the planet as 100 Bangladeshis. However, people are not trees—they move around quite easily. So every Bangladeshi who moves to a developed country multiplies his effect on the planet up to 100 times. This is why immigration from poor countries to rich countries is aggravating the problem. I'm in favor of reversing population growth immediately across the board in all countries. Japan and some European countries are nearing zero population growth and this sh