From an "Anonymous Foreign Correspondent"

An Outlaw Speaks Out

"To live outside the law you must be honest..." - R. Zimmerman

Outlaws first become outlaws by refusing to be victims.

Outlaws are not bandits. An outlaw ignores thievery as a base human impulse. Outlaws never steal...unless it is necessary. Criminals are victims. To break a law out of frustration or for greed or vengeance is the act of a victim. Revolutionaries who strive to overthrow the laws in order to replace them with revolutionary laws are also victims.

Outlaws cannot be victimized by the law because they live beyond the letter of the law, as do the police, politicians and corporations. Outlaws go FURTHER, they live outside the spirit of the law, and they live beyond society. Outlaws turn the tables on the nature of society. It's fun when they succeed. It is even fun when they fail.

Outlaws hate war, as do many others. War is a nightmare for so many victimized by its senselessness, its brutality. Outlaws change the nightmare; they knock it off its base, to be rearranged artistically, poetically. They bring beauty and love to the nightmare of war.

One of the great loves of the outlaw is the love of trinitrotoluene. Outlaws love the feel of its erect potential. They adore the sound. The clap, then the rumble, deep, an orgasmic moan, instantly rising to the sound of the blast; a chorus of ejaculated glass and the roar of architectural rearrangement. After the sound and the fury, there is the beauty of it all. Slow motion, glass that bulges then breaks. Bricks try to fly, only to flutter earthward, unable to escape. The walls that sag into a grin, melt and crumble into themselves. Then the smell, acrid sulfur mixed with the sweetness of teen-age sex, Lucifer ravaging a band of willing angels. Outlaws make public buildings truly public, the doors flung open and the walls breached to permit all to see their scrambled guts. Free at last!

In the last moment, before escape consumes the soul there is the feeling of perfection, the knowing at that instant: they are the perfect outlaw. One last sniff and trembling legs begin to run hauling the outlaw ass, no longer constricted, down the street like a rubber ball that has escaped the last attempt to be caught.

TNT is only one of the many loves of the outlaw. They love the outlaw myth that only they can make real. They love the black outlaw clothes, and the smile that only another outlaw can penetrate. They love tequila, Colombian coffee and the unity of people in the presence of weed. They love the sound of the word "outlaw" when the enemy sneers and spits it out or when young women gasp at its sound. Ladies love outlaws like a banker loves gold.

The outlaw boat goes FURTHER, always against the flow; it got there first, but has already left before the other boats arrive.

Bush/Ashcroft has outlawed freedom; now only outlaws are free. Outlaws do not wait for society to change; they live everyday as if it already has. The criminal government hopes to build a wall around them; that's why outlaws always carry matches and a handcuff key. No wall is safe, inside or out from the outlaw with TNT. It is just their way of saying, "SURPRISE!"

Outlaws do not have an important role in society, they are not in society at all, but they are important to society. While poets and psychoanalysts record and explain your dreams, outlaws are the ones who act them out.

Always support your local outlaw, remember he is the one with the can opener in the supermarket of life. However, beware; the outlaw will not go quietly! Bandits ridden with guilt are the ones who go quietly; outlaws are pure and repurified by their resistance. A revolutionary can be pardoned; an outlaw can never let himself or herself be victimized by a pardon or an amnesty.

Outlaws are not heroes, except to themselves, save the outlaw-in-chief, the head honcho of all outlaws, the only one all outlaws follow slavishly, the outlaw they all aspire to emulate; the name of that outlaw is LOVE. Love never follows any rules; it is the guardian of bliss and the dealer of the deepest sorrows. Outlaws are LOVE's accomplices, sworn to aid and abet it, to spread the message over the earth...by any means necessary!

The Rag Blog