~Linus Bell~
INTRODUCTION
Linus Bell is looking forward to the future.
If you've ever felt there was something big going on, some kind of tension brewing just over the horizon, getting ready
to launch itself onto the world scene, then you're on our wavelength. It's happening
because the gap between what people can reasonably expect and what they are expected to bear in it's place is growing. It's happening on every front: musical, cultural, political, popular and personal. It's the backlash against the best that mainstream pandering to the lowest common
human denominator has to offer, and it's happening because we are finding we can do better for ourselves. There's a tidal wave of disillusionment and discontent out there, and Linus Bell intends to ride it all
the way to shore.
What you are reading is an attempt on our part to demonstrate that through our
music we can convince people to pay attention to the things we think everyone should participate in, as opposed to letting
their opinions filter down to them through established media. We have our own
thoughts on how the world should operate and where it's headed, and we want to make them heard.
We recognize that there are certain people who have a capacity to appreciate
our views; people who share our outlook and our optimism, and aren't afraid of a new idea.
This body of work is addressed to you. Those whose tunnel-vision prevails
on them to reject outright any information which comes to them grassroots style from the bottom up, instead of being fed to
them from the top down need not continue past this point. However, if you're
open-minded enough to listen to the tunes we play and the messages we sing, then you might decide that it's worth your time
to read this. You might even find yourself feeling the way we do about a lot
of things.
We would define ourselves as politically non-Euclidean, to borrow a turn of
phrase. Instead of the left/right, either/or logic trap of current political
discourse, we'd prefer to think of our leanings as upward.
ABOUT THE BAND
Linus Bell (the band) is a rather small group of people. Our album Waypoint was written and recorded over a period of eight months in 2001. The entire project was done for approximately $400, with the actual recording being done in our basements. So far, 500 copies of the CD have been pressed and distributed.
Our approach to music is the same as it is to everything else in life. Be anything. Experience and allow yourself
to be influenced by everything. Try to find what makes something unique, valuable,
and true and incorporate it into what you do. Neglect nothing; rely on nothing
to be right for every situation. Our music doesn't exist in a vacuum. It has meaning, at least to us. What we put into our music
is reflected in the ideas we hold, and vice-versa. It is the artistic side of
our take on life. It all comes from same the vision we have of what we imagine the world could be like, if given a shove in
the right direction.
It's called synergy.
Take some pure, willful music,
combined with some powerful ideas,
and make one unified effort
to wake people up to what they could be having from life.
Do you think this is the best of all possible
worlds we are living in? Do you think this is the only possible world? What would you like to see happen in the next
fifty years? The next hundred years? The
next thousand years? Our planet is
heading full speed towards the further integration of all disciplines and dissolution of all boundaries, making inevitable
a re-evaluation of our relationships with our environment, our technology, our energy sources, our plant and animal brethren,
and most of all, each other. Who will make the decisions that guide this evolution,
and what will they be based on? Greed - get while the getting is good? Fear - that there might not be enough to go around? Hope -
that everyone can be provided with the means to enjoy a decent standard of living? Respect
- for that thing we call "human dignity," which holds that each life is precious and deserving of nurture, and which is diminished
by poverty, injustice, suffering, and bigotry. Linus Bell asks the question:
what do you choose?
EVOLUTION OF THE MIND
Consciousness Expansion is definitely on the agenda for our us, using all means necessary.
"There is no governer anywhere." - Lao Tse
Some people are inclined to think, For all the big problems in life, there's
someone in charge up there, making sure that everything's going to be ok. Follow
the leader and don't ask questions. Our heads of state are wise and just,
and it must be the other guys who keep us a push of a button and 30 minutes away from a nuclear holocaust. Sure, global warming might be a problem down the road for somebody else, but by then scientists will
have figured out a way around it. Meanwhile, let's keep driving oversized, gas-guzzling
SUVs. And some people suggest, We may not be capable of deciding for ourselves
what constitutes moral and spiritual rectitude, but maybe theres someone else who's got God's cell phone number. Not the case. It's just us here, and
if we can't do it for ourselves, it isn't going to happen. Those at the top
of the ladder are no more or less flawed than the rest of us, so if you think that there's an infallible leader out there,
we have a question for you: who's leading the leader?
PRINCIPLES OF THE LINUS BELL PHILOSOPHY
In addition to those political freedoms which are safeguarded in the Constitution of this country, Linus
Bell would expand the idea of Human Rights to include:
The Right to Your Own Mind - The contents of your mind are your business,
and you can hold any idea without limitation or fear of retribution.
The Right to Your Own Body - Again, your body is exactly that: yours. You can do anything you want to your body, decorate it however you like, and put whatever
you want into it.
The Right to the Product of Your Own Labor - The things that you work
to create belong exclusively to you. Private property is the physical extension
of your will into the space you live in, and you have the right to shape your environment to your liking. It belongs to you the same as your body belongs to you.
Instead of another meaningless debate over the the pros and cons of
capitalism vs. communism, Linus Bell proposes an ideological synthesis. Given
that private property and public property are both valid and necessary for the maintainance of society, we suggest a reappraisal
of the boundaries of each. It is our view that the scales have been tilted towards
the private sector for far to long, while the public domain has been steadily eroded. (case in point: while you were busy
watching MTV, somebody else has been copyrighting your DNA.). Our remedy would be to shift the line of definition between the two, restoring the natural world to its
status as communal property, and thereby reestablishing balance, justice, and rationality to a social structure (which is
currently beginning to choke on its own excesses). As our awareness of our Earth
as the provider and sustainer of life deepens, this vital change in perspective can only grow more apparent.
The point of these changes is to create a society that can start to open up
to communal responsibilities. When our oil resources are totally consumed, choices
will have to be made to maintain our species. Production for sheer human value,
not personal gain, will be one of the options perhaps the most logical. Its a
practical progression, and our path will ease that shift. Eventually, well be
living in a society that boasts good will, personal accomplishment, and beautiful simplicity.
Also, for those who will say that communism doesn't "work," we'd like to point
out that the majority of the societies produced during the course of human history were anarcho-communist in form. Every indigenous people since the dawn of man has operated on a tribal or community economy. It's only with the advent of agriculture and urbanization that communal ownership of the means to sustain
life (historically, land) was replaced by private property.
It isn't even necessary to reach back into prehistory to find examples
of functioning communist cultures. On our own continent, Indians practiced this
way of life until they were expelled from the lands they had occupied for generations.
You've perhaps heard the story of how the island of Manhattan was purchased from such a culture for the price of a
few trinkets. That is not an honest representation of the facts considering that
these people had never heard of land ownership, the same way they had never heard of monotheism before both were introduced
to them by their European conquerers. So we can surmise that they accepted these
trinkets in good faith as gifts, as tokens of peace and friendship, from guests who were new-comers to this hemisphere and
wished to share the land. That faith was not kept. Everywhere in this country are places and things that still bear the names given them by the people who
once lived here, and they didn't surrender the land that the Natives ancestors inhabited peacefully
Elsewhere in the world, where our way of life hasn't penetrated, there are still pockets of the
old system intact, with people being born, living their lives, and passing along these values to their descendants before
they die - the same as has happened for ten thousand years.
THE DECLINE OF CULTURE
Somewhere between 1776 and now, a slow and steady decline of culture has emerged,
and it continues to snowball. As America incorporates more and more of the world
under the banner of consumer capitalism and shallow materialism, traditional values are derided, and entire cultures are rendered
irrelevant as progress marches on.
The cultural front is necessary for the political front to succeed.
Past
evolutionary movements, like The Renaissance, worked because every aspect of society was altered for the better. Evidence of the shift was prevalent in art, music, fashion, architecture, leisure activities, and homelife,
which all contributed to an ultimate shift in politics and worldview. The greatest
civilizations were founded on new ways of thinking and new ways of life. But
when those ways were infected by corruption, the civilizations fell, and that is the point at which we are at with our current
great society. The opportunity to exponentially advance to the next level should
be taken now, while only the surface cracks can be seen. Waiting much longer
could result in devestating consequences.
Realizing
this solution will take work at both micro- and macrocosmic levels. Individually,
we must reshape the ways we observe the world, and reassess our treatment of each other.
Socially, we must identify and amend the cancers that plague our culture and politics.
We must let go of those items in our society which truly do not matter.
[an example]
Advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry that contributes nothing to the
betterment of society. It neither sustains the body nor expands the mind. It's dedicated to tricking people into believing that the things they want, like happiness,
fulfillment, a sense of belonging, and self-esteem, can be purchased at retail price.
When you trade money for these things, you're really trading them away, and all you get in return is emptiness and
alienation.
Not that there aren't some very talented people employed in the field. Just by the law of averages, it's inevitable some contemporary Beethoven is spending
his life composing jingles for Coca-Cola, or some Van Gogh is creating the images that some Hitchcock will incorporate into
a visual montage in order to point out the importance of buying your clothes from Banana Republic. It's a painful irony to us, but a tragic hell for them, no doubt.
It's amazing that these positions command six-figure salaries. If all jobs that are superfluous to raising the quality of life were to be eliminated, "advertising executive"
would be among the first to go.
APPLICATIONS FOR EVERYDAY LIFE
Question what youre watching on TV. Question
what youre listening to. Question the news you hear and the sources you hear
it from. Do the things youve always wanted to do.
Travel and see the world (theres a lot of it out there). Keep your city
exciting and cultural, and keep your natural countryside clean and pleasing to the eye.
Next time you sit on the couch to watch your television, remember what youve read here.
There are dozens of things you know youd rather be doing.
The task set at hand for us will not be an easy one. Over six billion people to reach, and all we have is some bad recording equipment and word processor with
a printer. We need your help. Talk
to people. Talk to us. We need your
input, feedback, and questions in order to continue our cause. Envision a world-wide
network of people connected by the driving force of optimism, the dream of social paradise, and freedom.
Take a quick hour of your time to listen to our music and read our literature. We dont want your money. Its just that
everyone simply settles into their lives and forgets about their responsibility as humans to evolve their society. This is our first contribution to our movement to promote an evolution of consciousness, which will hopefully
lead to an evolution of everything.
Thank you.
Cheers. å
CONTACT INFORMATION
We have more than just this information and music to offer. If youd like more of our music & essays, if you want to keep up to speed with our progress and latest
news, or if youd just like to talk about some of the issues weve discussed, please send us an email. (For now, we are without a telephone number or postal address.)
Again, thank you
for taking your time with us. If nothing else, we hope to have properly outlined
our current agenda. Were also working to document the scientific and human fronts
of our movement, so that the Linus Bell college of ideas can be implemented at a more expansive level. Slowly, well get there.
þ ü ý
Light years to go. Return to what we know. Human kind is in the air.
Ill see you there...
