Manifesto The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
Vacation with pay. Want more
Of everything ready made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in yout head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
anymore. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
They will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So friends, everyday do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and
Embrace the flag. Hope to love that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise iggnorance for what man
has not encountered, he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the Millinium, plant Sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion, put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful,
though you have considered all the facts.
As long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: will this satisfy
a women satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
Of a women near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest to your thoghts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail. The way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox,
who leaves more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.