From ‘Regeneración’, English Section, Jan 13, 1917, Los Angeles, California, edited by Enrique Flores Magón, having appeared in Spanish as ‘Telarañas’ in the February 5, 1916 issue
The people are flies; but stupid flies that fall by the thousands in the cobwebs. The ruler, the bourgeois and the priest need do nothing else than to lay their cobwebs and the human flies immediately fall into them.
The flies, the real flies, flee from the cobweb; the human flies seek it. What a stupid fly the human fly is!
Listen to that sound: it is the buzz of the human flies who make haste to fall in the cobweb. They go to bed thinking of the cobweb, they dream of the cobweb and dress up in a hurry to go in search of the cobweb.
The cobweb of the ruler is a great cobweb to which all the flies are attracted. They know that the governmental spider shall devour them. But they come anyway, and one fly rings all her blood for the Administration of Rents, so that the spider may sustain itself; another signs an electoral ballot to name a new spider, when the old one has sucked enough, for, justice above all, there are some lean spiders, and it is necessary for them to get fat; that spider sweats building walls to lock up the unruly flies who grumble at the spider; another patches the old cobweb over and over again, reforming it, that it may not rot with old age, for, as the flies say, what could we do without a cobweb? And the flies all buzz, sacrificing themselves for the spider.
And here, another cobweb: the cobweb of the bourgeois. The flies trample upon each other to fall in it. They even rise early to reach the cobweb-factory quicker, that the spider may suck their blood! And once squeezed, they return toward the cobweb-movies and toward the cobweb-theater to leave what juice they have left and where they learn to respect the spiders of all sizes and denominations, and if they still have a little blood left, they return buzzing toward the cobweb-stores where they lose the last particle of vital juice; but, say the imbecile flies, what could we the flies do without the spider and his cobweb? And the flies sweat, toil and die to give life to the spider.
This cobweb is the priest’s. The hairy and big-bellied spider that inhabits it, likes the juice as well as the brains of the flies. To leave the flies without brains, is, however, his greatest delight, because, stupefied that way, they shall meekly allow the spiders to suck their blood. The human flies are attracted like real flies to this cobweb, and while the spider sucks them, they dream of a greater cobweb suspended from the stars, and inhabited by a greater spider that contents itself with eating from the flies the chaff cast to him by the spiders of the Earth; but as the idiotic insects say, what would become of us without the spider? And there they go, buzzing, on their way to the cobweb-temple, the stunned flies, to sacrifice themselves for the spider.
Oh, you broom! It is time for you to shake your indolence and clean the cobwebs from this old Earth.
Ricardo Flores Magón
Also:
Manifesto to the Workers of the World, by the Mexican Liberal Party (1911)
Fighting On, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1911)
Manifesto of the Organizing Junta of the Mexican Liberal Party to the People of Mexico (1911)
The Mexican People are Suited to Communism, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1911)
Rebellion Spreads, Expropriation on Every Tongue, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1911)
The Social Revolution in Sonora, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1914)
Skirmishes, by Juanita Arteaga (1916)
My First Impressions, by Enrique Flores Magón (1916)
The Roundup, by Enrique Flores Magón (1917)