The Global Pastry Uprising
By Special Agent Apple, General Command, Ecotopia
"It is extremely difficult to get a dissenting message through the mass media filters and into the hearts and minds of the public. If we hold a rally in demonstration-jaded San Francisco, the media usually won’t cover it. If we write letters to the editor they don't get printed. However, the visual of a pie in the face makes a sizeable chink in the media armour through which we can then discuss the reasons why a figure deserved to be pied"
A political statement issued by the Biotic Baking Brigade.
As multinational corporations accelerate the plunder of our world during these last days before the millennium, a militant resistance has formed in response. Diverse in philosophy and targets, diffuse in geography and structure, the movement comprises freedom-loving people with a sense of aplomb and gastronomics. Fighting a guerrilla media and ground war with the titans of industry, these revolutionary bakers and pie-slingers have achieved in short order what can truly be called a global pastry uprising.
This uprising has its roots in the belief that our planet is not dying; it is being killed: and the ones doing the killing have names and faces. Since last October over 40 prominent corporate executives, politicians, economists and sell-out NGO leaders have received their just desserts for crimes against people and the land. The groups and individuals involved in this unique form of Pie-rect Action have declared their opposition to the neo-liberal platform: clear governments out of the way: deregulate financial markets: hoodwink citizens into trusting 'the invisible thumb' of the market to protect them: and legislate corporate dominance through such trade agreements as NAFTA, GATT and the MAI.
A SPANNER IN THE GEARS
As the Zapatistas have made clear, in a global economy, we all live in Chiapas. The Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) builds on that connection: under neoliberalismo, we all can throw a pie in the face of economic fascism. No bosses. offices. foundation grants, never-ending consensus meetings or CFLAs (Confusing Four Letter- Acronyms) are needed: as the Nike corporation says. "Just Do It".
I can only speak for the activists involved with the BBB, not for the other pastry militants active with l'Intemationale des Anarchos-Patissiers (the notorious Internationale of Pie-throwing Anarchists). However, I think most of my comrades would agree that pie-slinging is just one tool in a large toolbox of resistance to the dominant paradigm. They have tried everything within the spectrum of non-v iolent protest to effect positive change and will continue to do so. Pieing has broadened the scope of protest. not replaced other methods. Having said all that, we also believe that it's far better to pie on our feet than live on our knees.
NO PASTRY, NO PEACE!
BBB agents are experienced activists. The stunning array of targets on our 'Tried and Pied' list reflects the theory that it's impossible to have a healthy environment without social justice, and we can't have a sustainable society without intact ecosystems.
We direct most of our efforts toward ecological issues. Which causes some to wonder what the mayor of San Francisco has to do with wilderness defence. By pieing him, what the Cherry Pie Three as they came to be called) demonstrated through their background in social/ eco/animal issues is that we have in front of us one struggle and one fight. The same corporate forces behind industrial resource extraction are the same that make life miserable for humans in cities and animals in laboratories. An objective observer cannot dispute that the global market has brought the globe to the brink of economic collapse and the export-orientated 'free trade model has also been devastating for people and the environment alike.
When it comes to defending the Earth from the corporate universe, the pie's the limit
GUERRILLA MEDIA
If he were alive today, Sun Tzu might have written in his treatise "The Art War" that the twofold way of the modern warrior is no longer that of the sword and pen, but rather the pie and keyboard. We’ve found few things as effective to subvert an event (shareholders' meetings. legislative hearings, press conferences. keynote speeches. etc.) as a well-placed pie and a captivating press release.
On behalf of the corporations that own them, mainstream media outlets present a spectacle that bamboozles and distracts its viewers. To state the obvious, it is extremely difficult to get a dissenting message through the mass media filters and into the hearts and minds of the public. If we hold a rally in demonstration-jaded San Francisco, the media usually won’t cover it. If we write letters to the editor they don't get printed. However, the visual of a pie in the face makes a sizeable chink in the media armour through which we can then discuss the reasons why a figure deserved to be pied. It allows us to communicate our message to a greater extent than traditional means currently allow.
SPEAKING PIE TO POWER
One aspect of our campaign that distinguishes it from other Irregulars is that our weapons hurt nothing except the image and ego of our targets. We feel that at this point in time, given the hysteria over 'domestic terrorism'. this is the way to go. Although we don't claim to be 'non-violent' in the pro-active Gandhian sense, we do claim to be not violent. If the people pie the leaders will swallow, as the recent entartements demonstrate. Federal, provincial. state and local officials have all been creamed. With one county supervisor calling it an organised "attack on government", we couldn't have said it better ourselves. And as Dr. Martin Luther King once proclaimed. "If a man [sic] hasn't found something he will pie for, he isn't fit to live."
An advantage to our form of dissent is that over here, across the big pond in Yankland, pie-throwing enjoys an illustrious history... it's as American as apple pie, one could say. And satire has always been one of the last weapons of the dispossessed in England as well. Judging from Tesco plc's recent field tests to determine which of their pies are best to serve in an unconventional fashion, there is clearly widespread public support for this brand of pielitical pressure. Tesco spokeswoman Melodie Schuster concludes that custard beats lemon meringue and fruit largely because "the custard tart gives total face coverage", but she advises customers against using frozen ones.
LET SLIP THE PIES OF WAR
The technocrats who dominate industrial society may call us radical and unrealistic. but the dream of a biodiverse future is one we will fight for until the day we pie.
And as the Digger Gerrard Winstanley might have written to conclude this treatise:
"Here I end, having put my Arm as far as my strength will go to advance Righteousness: I have writ, I have Acted. I have Pied. I have Peace: and now I must wait to see the Spirit do its own work in the hearts of others, and whether Amerika shall be the first Land, or some others, wherein Truth shall sit down in triumph."
From somewhere in the mountains of Northwestern California. I remain faithfully yours,
Special Agent Apple
The best way to contact us is via email at bbb_apple@hotmail.com If you can contribute to our legal/media/jail/baking expenses, please send cheque/money orders to our treasurer Jeff Larson at: Friends of the BBB: 32SS 21st. #92. San Francisco. CA 94110. USA
Whispered Media recently announced the release of their latest activist video production, 'The Pie’s the Limit.' This 28-minute video features a cornucopia of political pie-throwings in San Francisco and beyond, including a brief history of consumable comedy and behind the scenes interviews with real underground pie tossers... Plus corporate media analysis and in-your-face politics.
TO ORDER a copy of 'Pie Pie’s the Limit, ‘please send US $18 ($15 donation + $3 for shipping and handling) by cheque or money order payable to:
Whispered Media, P0 Box 40130
San Francisco. CA 94140. USA +1(415) 789-8484
whisper@energy-net.org
http://www.videoactivism.org/