Church of Euthanasia

The One Commandment:
"Thou shalt not procreate"

The Four Pillars:
suicide · abortion
cannibalism · sodomy

Human Population:
SAVE THE PLANET
KILL YOURSELF




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Chris Korda: The Church of Euthanasia and its leader

Text: Sascha Kösch aus De:Bug 02, Jan. 26, 2000

DEBUG: well, first question, that appears automatically, for me at last is: why no other record. (seen the cd on the pages, but what I mean is, why does no other record have the power in 97 (strange fact that too, track is from years back, and 97 nobody can live without it, sorry) to stand out among these hundreds of records released every week. and, why didn’t you produce a whole lot of tracks (maybe you did, and I don’t know?), that sound so manic? is that maybe linked to saying: the record is the church?

KORDA: There's only one record because there only needs to be one. The point isn't to be entertaining, or successful in the music business in any long-term way, or even to make good music. The point is to communicate the Church of Euthanasia's anti-humanist message effectively through every available mass medium, to every corner of industrial society. Techno-dance music is an excellent medium because it is international, highly decentralized, and reaches mostly young people. It is propagated by an underground network that values novelty. If I can supply something novel and exciting enough, there is no limit to how subversive the content can be: it will be disseminated quickly, at very little expense to me.

This stands in stark contrast to conventional media, like newspaper advertising for example, where the cost is enormous, content-based censorship is normal, and the actual readership is quite low. How many people actually read the entire newspaper? Most skim it or try to avoid reading it at all. They know it’s mostly fake news, and that if something important happens they’ll hear about it anyway.

On a side note, this is why the only media with any integrity at all is tabloid media (talk shows, gossip rags, etc.) The tabloids don’t care about being politically correct; you can say almost anything you want so long as it’s not boring. When the Church of Euthanasia was taped for the Jerry Springer Show we were completely outrageous. I wore a sperm dress, bit the leg off a fake fetus, and threw its head into the audience. Vermin squirted a Christian abortion clinic bomber in the face with a penis-shaped water pistol. We held up signs that said TURN OFF YOUR TV AND THINK FOR YOURSELF. None of this would be permitted on a “serious” local news show, where the only topic of importance is the weather. By comparison, when I appeared on PPS (public TV), I was given a list of words I couldn’t say–including “sperm”–to avoid offending the show’s corporate sponsor (Intel, of course).

Another reason there’s only one record is because it took so much out of me. I spent a year of my life doing nothing else just to create the A side, and then Kevin and I created the B side–the one most people like–in just one take. How ironic. I sent the tracks off to the record factory in Brooklyn, and when the test pressing came back, it was unplayable: the needle skipped right off the record, because the equalization was all wrong. This was a very hard time for me.

I found David Frangioni by chance–I ran across his ad in a local music magazine–and only later discovered that he works for Aerosmith, Elton John, Paula Abduhl, etc. He re-mixed the A side from scratch, by transferring each individual sound to ADAT. Then he did something to the B side, with his magic box–it’s the size of a shoebox with four knobs, and costs more than everything I own–and fixed it. He is a technical genius, a true artist at what he does, and I would trust him with anything. SAVE THE PLANET–KILL YOURSELF is popular in Germany now because it was way ahead of its time.

Germans, and Europeans in general, are more open-minded and receptive to new ideas than Americans. The record is still ahead of its time in the United States, where very few people can spell the word “euthanasia.” I pressed 1000 copies, and released it in June of 1994. It peaked in July at #39 on an alternative dance chart, with heavy rotation in Chicago and Detroit. I spent months trying to get a licensing deal, and I was treated like dirt, of course. I even went to New York City and pounded on the doors of every dance label I could find, but no one would sign it, because it was “too experimental.” One label lied to me for months, just to keep me from being signed by anyone else. What a disgusting business!

I had abandoned all hope when I ran into Benny Blanco at a party, and he told me DJ Hell was trying to reach me. I’d heard everything by then, and expected nothing, but Hell called, and when I heard his voice I trusted him: he was genuinely excited about the music, and it meant a lot to me.

DEBUG: Is there only one center? (Bit offroads that question, sorry)

KORDA: I’m not sure what you mean. Is there only one center for the Church? We’re based in Somerville, and most of our events have been in the Boston area, but many important members are elsewhere. Much of the Internet aspect of it is handled by Boboroshi in San Jose. He’s also our Satanic Outreach Coordinator. We’re trying to decentralize, because it’s less work and spreads more quickly that way. That is why we are anti-copyright: everything, and I mean everything we create or publish in any medium is yours to use in any way you like. You *should* give us credit and include contact information, and if you’re going to make lots of money you *should* give us some because, we are poor and need it. There are bootleg stickers and so forth, and that’s fine: it serves our purpose to have other people manufacturing our ideas, and it’s a compliment if our ideas are worth stealing. Most people are quite reasonable and respectful about these things.

DEBUG: The thing that is clear, is, that the track is the church in so far as it has all the great words in it, but how do you see the musical side of it explaining or signing, or even alluding to the Church of Euthanasia?

KORDA: I think I’ve mostly answered this above. The music is a skillfully crafted vehicle for the alien message, which is a desperate last-minute warning. The Being is saying, if you have to kill, don’t kill the planet, kill yourself. The Earth Summit is happening right now, and nothing is being accomplished. Meanwhile we are losing a species every forty minutes. There is very little time. It’s also personal. I see the destruction of the Earth and feel shame and suicidal rage. The music expresses my shame and anger. I feel powerless, and humiliated by industrial society. I’m unable to resist society except in small passive ways, such as not having children or eating flesh. All my skills, reading and writing and math and logic, are useful only to industrial society. I’ve been conditioned and indoctrinated to be part of the mass, but it hasn’t worked well enough. I’m sensitive enough to know what’s missing, what’s been traded for this world of standardized information and division of labor. I feel my control-lust, and it frightens me. I feel my separation from nature, and hate myself for it, but I’m too weak to change myself. I don’t want to be a human, and I can’t be an animal, so I’m lost in both worlds, an outsider.

DEBUG: Could you tell a bit about you and music describe the cd/mc? (looks gloomy)

KORDA: “Demons in My Head” is a forty-four minute one-track ambient sound collage partly based on Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” and Dante’s “Inferno.” It’s been compared to Zoviet France, and it should be listened to in one uninterrupted sitting. It’s subtitled “An Environmental Punishment in D Minor” because it was literally a punishment, and an exorcism; the demons are real, and on the CD where they belong, for the moment.

DEBUG: Have to look up now how cannibalism and complete veganism work together. Sorry to bother you with basics. Promise to find better questions soon.

KORDA: The best quote on this is in Snuff It #4’s “Ask Chrissy” section. Go take a look and you’ll see what I mean. Snuff It #4 is amazing stuff; I hope you read “The Age of Simulation” (my manifesto) and Lydia’s amazing “Politics of Daily Life.” Our sister organization the Gaia Liberation Front (GLF) describes Humans as “a hostile alien species, programmed to destroy the planet…The Humans evolved on the Earth, but have become alienated from it. They are conscious of their alienation, drawing a distinction between the Human and the natural, and proud of it.” When people see our slogan “Eat People Not Animals” they usually say, “but people *are* animals.” So we’ve tricked them into admitting something that they would normally resist. This brings us to confinement farming, by which I mean the raising of animals for food under conditions of extreme confinement, or to put it another way, in concentration camps. The European nations are beginning to regulate this somewhat, but it’s still increasing in the United States, where we slaughter five billion chickens a year (close to the total Human population of six billion). When animals are confined in concentration camps, they develop stress disorders, including antisocial behavior such as biting and cannibalism. The chickens have their beaks cut off, but they still drop dead from anxiety and trauma. One solution is to give the animals mood-altering drugs–like Prozac–but of course this taints the meat. The final frontier is to genetically modify the animals so that they are no longer capable of stress or anxiety. Thus the animals become meat machines. Am I saying this because we’re cruel to animals? NO. I’m saying this because Humans *are* animals, and every technology that’s developed for domesticating animals is eventually used to domesticate Humans also. This is why the Unabomber’s manifesto states that “man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.” “…industrial-technological society will be able to pass [the limits of human endurance] by modifying human beings, whether by psychological methods or biological methods or both. In the future, social systems will not be adjusted to suit the needs of human beings. Instead, human being will be adjusted to suit the needs of the system…That being accomplished, it does not appear that there would be any further obstacle to the development of technology, and it would presumably advance toward its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms.” -Unabomber’s Manifesto In short, WE ARE THE VEAL. I’m not advocating the destruction of industrial society, though I’m sympathetic to this point of view. I’m merely pointing out industrial society’s primary activity, which is the replacement of “wild” diversity with domesticated monoculture, both socially and biologically. I’m also pointing out the logical consequences of this, which are the total assimilation of biological life into machines, or the destruction of the surface of the planet, or both. Unlike the Unabomber, I identify the desire to wield tools as the essence of Human activity. I feel ashamed of myself, and of my species–see “Prayer for a Good Death” in Snuff It #3–and I seek to remove myself from the population, by non-procreation and possibly suicide.

DEBUG: Does Hell fear you a bit?

KORDA: I don’t know. You’d have to ask him. I don’t see why he would. I’m not going to eat him, I’m a vegan.

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