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PRDCESSED 


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PRDCESSED  LUDRLD 


The  material  ^Processed  World 
reflecti  tbe  ideas  and  fontasies  of 
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Winter/Spring  1992-93  •  Issue  30 
ISSN  0735-9381 


\^ 


footers- .  ^  ^ 

Line  AT         *'''*P»e6Ve  ^ 

k5h(i     ^'^ 

?MCiSSef>  SHIT'    ^i'^l 
CAflTMISM, 

RACISM  f  eNTRoPi^  n  30 

>    J)O^JNT-; HC  /  ^  CJ 

o-  A      /-  "3'  ^ 

ROiTsetT  AKcHieetAGo       ?" 


^     S^— 


U<4^ 


Other  Contributors  to 
Processed  World  MO: 

Jennie,  Aunt  Muriel.  Ace  Back- 
words,  Doug  MinkJer,  I.E.  Nelson. 

Tom  Tomorrow,  Joven  K., 
Angela  Bocagc,  S.  Devaney,  Cory 
Pmu,  Hugh  D'Andrade,  Social 
Club,  Typesetting  Etc.,  Totally 
Normal,  J.F.  Batdlier,  Solly  Malulu, 
Komoilon  for  the  great  benefits, 
M.N.,  Francesca,  Med-o,  Bret, 
— '  — y  others. . . 


SHITTINQ  HEADS 


After  two  centuries  of  na- 
tionhood and  four  decades  of 
cold  war  and  hysterical  mili- 
tarism we've  become  one  sick 
society.  The  military  empire 
built  officially  to  combat  for- 
eign threats  has  produced  a 
domestic  society  committed  to 
police,  prison,  and  control  as 
its  solution  to  social  ills.  From 
the  rapid  proliferation  of  "se- 
curity" jobs  to  the  increasing 
criminalization  of  ever  wider 
groups  of  people,  the  militari- 
zation of  our  daily  lives  pene- 
trates deeper  than  ever. 


On  April  30,  1992,  San  Francisco 
underwent  an  abrupt  sea  change.  Re- 
sponse to  the  Simi  Valley  acquittals  of 
the  cops  who  beat  Rodney  King  blazed 
across  San  Francisco  too.  There  had 
been  a  continuous  flow  of  rumors  and 
coffee  breaks  that  day;  on  May  1st  work 
almost  ground  to  a  halt  while  people 
talked  about  the  verdict.  Discussion  of 
looting  led  to  talk  of  poverty  and 
racism  — topics  usually  off-limits  in  cor- 
porate America.  The  late  afternoon 
financial  district  was  spookily  quiet  and 
empty.  The  public  transit  system  had 
closed  early.  Bay  Area  "Rapid"  Transit 
had  locked  its  gates  to  "immobilize 
looters." 

Confrontations  with  police  erupted 
around  the  Civic  Center  and  spread 
through  downtown.  Scattered  looting, 
some    planned,    some    random,    began 


SAN  FRANCISCO 


ONE  NEAT  CITY 


blocks  away  from  the  "political"  riot;  in 
other  places  an  orgy  of  looting  was  in 
progress. 

By  the  next  day  the  mood  had 
shifted  — more  fear,  more  condemna- 
tion, more  footage  on  the  violence 
against  passers-by  in  Los  Angeles,  more 
portrayals  of  the  rebellion  as  racial 
thuggery.  But  people  were  still  talking. 
At  least  some  of  the  racial  barriers  had 
eroded  — black  and  white  people  talking 
about  race  and  rebellion!  Together! 
There  was  much  excitement  about  a 
demonstration  planned  in  the  Mission 
District  (a  neighborhood  of  Latinos, 
Asians,  and  students)  that  night. 

The  police  swept  the  Mission,  netting 
hundreds  of  people,  hauling  them  off  in 
groups  large  and  small,  then  processing 
them  in  a  pier  warehouse.  Most  were 
released  36  hours  later,  after  being 
hauled  to  another  county  and  subjected 
to  standard  prison  abuses.  It  was  an 
eye-opening  experience  for  many,  a 
civics  lesson  not  included  in  your  "good 
citizen"  curriculum;  police  are  petty- 
minded  thugs  and  inept  bureaucrats. 
One  angry  white  protester,  threatened 
with  arrest  if  he  didn't  stand  on  the  side- 
walk, screamed  back,  "This  is  a  fascist 
state!"  A  young  black  woman  wryly  com- 
ments, "Welcome  to  America,  honey." 

Across  the  bay,  Berkeley  is  in  a 
chronic  state  of  alert.  Last  year  the 
University  of  California  renewed  its 
25-year  assault  on  People's  Park  and 
built  a  swank  volleyball  court  —  allegedly 
for  the  students,  but  clearly  with  an  eye 
towards  removing  street  people,  con- 
certs, and  other  unwanted  disturbances 
to  public  order.  Since  then  there  have 
been  many  clashes,  some  sabotage,  and 
a  little  bit  of  volleyball  played  in  what 
the  county  sheriff  called  "the  world's 
largest  catbox."  Police  helicopters  over- 
head announce  confrontations  louder 
than  the  media.  Telegraph  Avenue, 
judging  by  its  copious  plywood  barriers 
over  windows  and  squads  of  riot  cops,  is 
prepared  for  low-level  insurgency.  The 
authorities  demonstrate  once  again  that 
a  heavy  police  presence  can  "maintain 
calm." 

Recent  civil  disturbances  — a. k. a.  "ri- 
ots"—are  the  steam  escaping  from  the 
pressure  cooker  of  modern  urban  life, 
^as  Vegas  (notably),  Toronto,  New 
:'ork,  Seattle,  Atlanta,  and  Washington 
)G  have  all  erupted.  In  San  Francisco 
lere  was  rage,  much  of  it  misdirected, 
lost  of  it  inarticulate,  but  not  blind, 
/hite  people  did  not  fear  attack  at  the 
mds  of  a  "wilding"  black  mob  as  the 


Pi=M=IEZE55EE]   hJJCIF^h_D    3C3 


media  would  have  us  believe;  anger  was 
directed  where  it  belonged,  at  the  cops. 

As  the  disparity  between  worlds  ("1st" 
and  "3rd,"  rich  and  poor)  grows  we  will 
"need"  more  police  and  jails.  "We"  will 
explore  new  dimensions  of  the  national 
security  state.  "Our"  Army,  too,  may 
find  its  greatest  use  at  home,  even  while 
the  Pentagon  is  lusting  to  be  Texas 
Ranger  to  the  world. 

This  militarization  of  everyday  life  — 
surveillance  cameras,  new  technologies, 
US  army  raids  on  marijuana  patches, 
loss  of  basic  rights  (most  notably,  4th 
Amendment  protections  against  search 
and  seizure)  — affects  us  all.  Fearing 
theft  and  assault,  people  become  suspi- 
cious of  one  another.  We  are  driven 
apart  when  authority  is  internalized. 
The  old  joke  about  "Help  the  Police: 
Beat  Yourself  Up"  is  closer  to  reality 
than  fantasy.  Pressure  to  snitch  on 
neighbors,  family  and  co-workers  will 
continue:  because  they  have  a  TV  they 
didn't  have  before  the  riots,  because 
they  smoke  funny  stuff,  because  they 
have  unapproved  sexual  preferences. 
And  at  any  minute  the  police  may 
arrive.  Even  the  wrong  address,  or  a 
lying  call  from  a  vindictive  neighbor  can 
bring  the  "innocent"  into  abrupt  — even 
fatal  — confrontation  with  the  forces  of 
Law  'n'  Order. 

The  people  of  Rio  know  what  it  is  to 
be  confronted  by  such  forces;  the  tanks 
were  called  out  to  protect  Ecocrats  from 
rccility  at  the  recent  "summit"  confer- 
ence. In  addition  to  soldiers  lining 
roads,  the  government  literally  swept  up 
many  of  the  street  children  that  inhabit 
Rio,  who  are  subject,  even  in  "ordinary" 
times,  to  death  squads.  Giving  us  in- 
sight on  the  June  '92  Earth  Summit  is 
Jon  Christensen  and  associates,  who 
voyaged  there  carrying  PM^  credentials. 
He  has  also  provided  reviews  of  "Books 
that  won't  save  the  earth."  He  and 
Primitivo  Morales  cross  words  in  an 
exchange  on  Intellectual  Property 
Rights  and  their  utility  in  the  "develop- 
ing" world. 

On  a  related  ecological  front  we 
interview  Judi  Bari,  long-time  labor 
agitator  and  Earth  Firstler  in  "A  Shit 
Raiser  Speaks."  Those  who  ponder  the 
possibility  of  death  squads  in  this  coun- 
try might  consider  the  vicious  bombing 
(and  press  campaign)  directed  against 
her  and  Daryl  Cherney,  a  bombing  still 
unsolved  but  clearly  linked  to  her  politi- 
cal activity  — as  she  explains.  In  addition 
to  exploring  her  current  organizing,  she 
talks    about    her    time    served    in    the 


PROCESSING . 


n 


/I. 


regimented  factory  of  the  post  office. 
"Avon  Calling"  is  a  factory  Tale  of  Toil 
which  looks  at  a  slightly  different  role 
that  "temps"  play  in  the  modern  econo- 
my. "God's  Work"  examines  the  world 
of  paid  care  for  the  elderly  and  resis- 
tance to  work  abuse  in  Jeff  Kelly's  Tale 
of  Toil. 

Dehumanizing  and  pointless  work 
(illustrated  on  our  cover  by  JRS  — 
returning  from  his  "Vacation"  on  issue 
#25)  is  also  analyzed  at  some  length  in 
other  articles.  Chris  Carlsson's  "What 
Work  Matters?"  calls  for  a  new  ap- 
proach to  organizing,  moving  from  an 
attack  on  traditional  unionism  to  a 
reevaluation  of  the  work  being  done.  He 
also  reviews  "American  Dream,"  the 
documentary  on  the  '86-'87  Hormel 
strike  in  Austin,  MN.  Mickey  D's 
review  of  "The  Overworked  American" 
also  probes  the  weak  points  of  "labor" 
critiques:  which  work  is  worth  doing? 
"91 1"  gives  a  fictional  (we  hope)  account 
of  how  overwork  stymies  "family  val- 
ues." "The  Rustbelt  Archipelago"  (by 
P.M.,  the  author  of  Bolo-Bolo  —  see  issue 
#17)  looks  at  the  reinvention  of  former 
factory  cities,  with  particular  attention 
to  the  former  Soviet  Union  and  "time  on 
the  job." 

Adam  Cornford's  "Processed  Shit,"  a 
trenchant  dissection  of  American  racism 
and  cultural  definitions  of  good  and 
bad,  reveals  that  the  recent  LA  riots  are 
not  some  isolated  event,  but  part  of  our 
legacy.  The  "Martian  View  of  Looting" 
lightheartedly  looks  at  consumerism, 
work  and  deprivation.  In  "Thrifters: 
Second  Hand  Shit,"  Marina  Lazzara 
takes  us  into  a  surreal  Sunday  sidewalk 
sale. 

Iguana  Mente's  "Confessions  of  a 
Sperm  Donor"  recounts  one  of  the  more 
curious  jobs  we've  reported  on.  D.S. 
Black  proffers  a  double-fistful  of  reviews 


of  sex  magazines.  Our  "Downtime" 
section  introduces  the  Time  Thieves 
Corner,  and  more.  Our  excellent  let- 
ters—thanks all  you  writers  — offer  a 
glimpse  of  the  connections  percolating 
out  there.  Also  from  our  mailbox  is  a 
paean  from  The  Chicago  Surrealists 
Group  to  the  recent  Chicago  floods.  An 
expanded  section  of  poetry  utilizes  di- 
verse styles  in  exploring  equally  diverse 
topics,  ranging  from  old  women  to 
People's  Park  to  the  office  — and  beyond. 
And  Primitivo  drags  the  Old  Crow  into 
the  (almost)  21st  century  in  his  parodic 
"The  Ravin'." 

Thanks  to  the  great  response  by 
readers  to  our  pleas  and  improved 
circulation  at  the  newsstand,  PW  is 
almost  not  broke!  Note  our  increased 
size  — a  direct  reflection  of  the  wealth  of 
printed  material  we  have  received. 
Many  thanks  to  adl  who  contributed  to 
this  issue  through  work,  money,  word- 
of-mouth,  or  general  subversion!  We 
couldn't  do  it  without  ya! 

It  looks  like  "Education"  is  happenin' 
in  our  next  issue .  .  .  we've  got  a  number 
of  educational  articles  and  short  stories, 
and  are  hoping  for  more  analyses  and 
Tales  of  Toil .  .  .  Write  to  Processed  World, 
41  Sutter  St  #1829,  SF,  CA,  94104  Fax 
us  at  (415)  626-2685  E-Mail  us  at 
pwmag@well.sf.ca.us.  Future  issues 
might  also  include  Voluntarism  and  the 
Service  Economy;  The  21st  Century:  A 
Two-Tiered  Future;  Millennial  Blues; 
the  Urban  Utopia  — what  kind  of  city 
would  we  like  to  live  in?  What  changes 
would  we  make?  Past  topics  are  still  very 
much  alive  — comments,  rebuttals  and 
new  explorations  of  sex,  biotech,  exile, 
"The  Good  Job,"  etc.,  are  all  welcome. 
Write!  Draw!  Enjoy! 

—  Primitivo  Morales,  et.  al. 


PF^OEZEaSECJ    kJJClFSk_El    3CD 


WHY  NOT  HERE? 

Dear  Editors: 

I  am  only  in  the  middle  of  my  second  issue  of 
Processed  World.  Oh  how  I  wish  I  had  foimd  your 
magazine  earlier!  Maybe  I  could  have  escaped  my 
materialistic  consumerism-driven  middle  class  (max- 
ed  out  on  my  credit  cards)  existence  a  little  earlier. 
But  to  do  what?  I  hungrily  devour  everything  in  your 
magazine,  but  all  it  does  is  come  back  up  in  a  kind  of 
wet  burp-  I've  read  the  letters  from  people  of  my 
generation— yes  we're  all  aimless,  seemingly  apathe- 
tic, brain  dead  from  years  of  watching  the  Brady 
Bunch  and  thinking  life's  problems  would  always  be 
solved  by  mom  and  dad's  neat  little  catch-all  phrases 
(Mom  always  said,  "don't  play  ball  in  the  house!"). 
We  should  have  known  better— I  mean,  did  you  ever 
see  Mike  or  Carol  Brady  actually  working  at 
anything?  Of  course  they  were  good  parents,  not  hke 
our  own  that  slaved  away  to  provide  us  with  our 
Barbie  Dolls  and  our  G.I.  Joes,  then  took  their 
work  frustrations  out  on  us  without  realizing  that 
Barbie  Dolls  didn't  spiritually  satisfy  us,  anyway 
(they  were  too  busy  thinking  the  swimming  pool  in 
the  backyard  and  the  station  wagon  in  the  driveway 
would  make  them  happy).  All  of  this  throbbing 
pulsating  energy,  all  of  this  dissatisfaction  just  eating 
away  at  our  insides — can't  we  channel  it  somehow? 
Are  we  that  impotent  or  have  we  just  been 
brainwashed  by  the  powers  that  be  to  believe  we  are? 
The  government  wants  to  get  rid  of  radical  art, 
eradicate  mind-expanding  drugs,  abolish  anything 
that  will  actually  make  us  more  aware  and  wake  us 
up  to  how  we're  being  screwed,  but  the  question  is: 
Will  anything  wake  us  up? 

Let's  look  at  L.A.  and  the  recent  riots.  All  of  the 
pent-up  frustrations,  the  anger,  the  fear  that  these 
people  have  been  living  with,  the  disempowerment 
they've  had  to  deal  with  erupted  with  one  foul  swoop 
of  an  unjust  verdict.  But  instead  of  channeling  that 
anger  towards  the  people  and  institutions  that 
deserve  it,  the  rioters  and  looters  destroyed  their  own 
community!  I  bet  Buchanan,  Bush  and  the  fascists 
that  run  our  country  got  a  big  chuckle  over  that  one. 
For  years  they've  been  allowing  guns  and  crack  to 
circulate  freely  through  big  city  minority  communi- 
ties, just  waiting  for  them  to  wipe  themselves  out. 
now  they  make  a  token  effort  by  pouring  money, 
ever  the  capitalists'  solution,  on  the  problem.  You 
can't  buy  self-esteem.  The  children  of  the  middle 
class  learned  that  lesson  the  hard  way.  A  very  wise 
friend  of  mine  believes  L.A.  was  just  the  foreshad- 
owing of  a  future  civil/race  war.  To  me,  that  would 
be  a  misdirected  revolution!  How  would  those  of  us 
who  are  white  and  therefore  represent  the  power 
structure  let  the  other  side  know,  "Hey!  We're  with 
you\"  Any  full-scale  revolt  needs  to  be  organized 


and  with  full  cooperation  of  blacks  and  whites,  rich 
and  poor,  anyone  who's  sick  and  tired  of  what  our 
system  has  become  (and  don't  fool  yourself  into 
thinking  a  vote  for  Ross  Perot  is  truly  an  attempt  to 
overhaul  the  system!). 

This  country  is  a  powder  keg  ready  to  erupt,  and  I 
am  ready  for  it.  It  can't  happen  soon  enough  for  me. 
I've  been  watching  the  events  in  Eastern  Europe, 
wondering  why  it  can't  happen  here.  Citizens  sat 
back  for  too  long  while  their  leaders  ran  amuck, 
oppressing  them  by  instituting  controls  over  every- 
thing they  saw,  said,  did,  heard,  while  at  the  same 
time  bestowing  special  favors  on  themselves  (look  at 
the  Congressional  check  kiting  scandal)  and  breeding 
corruption  (see  Contragate,  the  S&Ls,  BCCI, 
Clarence  Thomas  hearings)  JUST  AS  OUR  OWN 
GOVERNMENT  IS  DOING  NOW.  Finally  the 
corrupt  Communist  governments  got  their  comeup- 
pance. Just  because  we  live  in  a  so-called  "Democra- 
cy" don't  think  "It  can't  happen  here."  I'm  hoping 
that  Processed  World  can  go  further  than  you  do 
now  (and  I  know  this  is  an  awesome  responsibility 
for  one  publication  to  bear— /no  kidding!— eds.]) 
and  help  organize  the  revolt  when/if  it  comes. 
Grumbling  about  your  crappy  jobs  and  the  state  of 
our  society  is  fine,  but  when  push  comes  to  shove 
you'd  better  be  ready  to  make  a  change. 

I  just  quit  my  job  last  Friday.  I  spent  a  year  (any 
more  and  I  would  have  been  brain  dead)  working  for 
a  big  business  trade  association,  doing  things  like 
xeroxing  memos  to  business  owners  telling  them  why 
they  needed  to  support  the  styrofoam  industry  (never 
mind  that  if  the  environment  goes,  we  all  go  with  it, 
and  then  where  will  you  relocate  your  business?  To 
the  moon,  maybe?)  and  lobby  against  national  health 
care,  etc.  At  first  I  thought  it  didn't  matter  that  I 
didn't  believe  in  anything  my  employer  represented, 
but  the  constant  stomach  aches,  headaches,  and  depres- 
sion I  felt  told  me  otherwise.  Your  job  can  be 
detrimental  to  your  health— I'm  living  proof.  I'm  not 
sure  what  I'll  do  now  but  I  do  know  I've  never  felt 
better  in  my  life. 

I  almost  didn't  write  this  letter.  I  had  to  overcome 
the  fear  that  now  the  FBI  will  put  my  name  in  some 
kind  of  "radical"  file  and  when  they  implement  the 
internment  of  radical  thinkers  (like  some  kind  of 
Soviet  gulag),  I'll  be  the  first  to  go.  But  I've  realized 
that  that  kind  of  fear  will  accomplish  nothing.  1  say, 
more  power  to  Processed  World  and  its  readers— go 
forth  without  fear,  my  children. 

S.W.— Richmond,  Virginia 

POLL  TAX  SABOTEUR 

Dear  Process  Worid(ers), 

I've  been  impressed  by  several  back  issues  which  a 
friend  lent  to  me.  One  of  the  most  interesting  and 


heartening  features  oiPW  is  the  letters  page:  it's  so 
good  to  see  that  there  are  people  out  there  trying  to 
fuck  over  "the  system."  I  thought  I  might  add  a  new 
voice  to  the  saboteurs'  chorus. 

I  moved  to  the  U.S.  from  Liverpool,  England  in 
1987,  after  spending  most  of  my  time  since  leaving 
school  in  dead-end  jobs:  factories,  clerical  etc.  In 
1990  I  returned  to  Britain  for  a  few  months, 
reluctantly  in  search  of  a  job.  All  I  could  find  was  a 
temp  job  sending  out  the  first  Poll  Tax  bills.  Along 
with  about  ten  other  people  I  was  expected  to  take 
addresses  and  ID  numbers  off  a  computer  printout, 
and  copy  it  onto  the  forms  which  would  then  be  sent 
to  the  victims.  The  recipients  of  the  forms  were 
advised  to  quote  the  ID  number  in  future  correspon- 
dence. I  happily  spent  seven  hours  a  day  writing  the 
wrong  numbers  on  all  of  the  forms  whilst  getting 
paid.  Toward  the  end  of  the  contract  I  went  for  a  few 
drinks  with  some  of  my  co-workers,  and  discovered 
that  they  had  been  doing  the  same  thing.  Our 
combined  efforts  must  have  created  about  50,000 
future  problems  for  the  poll  tax  system.  This  one 
could  run  and  run...! 

I'm  now  back  in  the  U.S.  and  trying  to  destabilize 
everything. 

Yours  frater(mi)nally, 

M.L.— Lewiston,  Maine 

MASTER  ELECTRICIAN:  HIGH  PROLE 

DearPff, 

What  a  delightful  magazine!  From  it  I  discovered 
how  un-unique  I  am.  It  seems  I've  stumbled  into  a 
beehive  of  malcontents,  that  is,  frustrated  artists  and 
intellectuals.  What  a  treat!  Bohemia  is  alive  and  well, 
though  processed  through  the  postal  system. 

I'm  a  blue-collar  worker  by  accident.  After 
attending  a  college  prep  school,  with  four  years  of 
Latin,  French,  and  English,  I  wanted  to  be  an 
interpreter.  After  a  couple  years  in  college,  I  joined 
the  navy  with  the  hopes  of  more  schooling  and 
eventual  duty  hobnobbing  in  global  circles  as  a 
translator.  Instead  they  decided  I'd  make  a  better 
electrician,  and,  26  years  later,  I'm  still  an 
electrician.  However,  I'm  a  high  prole,  or  as  Paul 
Fussel  described  us  in  Class:  "...they're  not 
consumed  with  worry  about  choosing  the  correct 
status  emblems,  these  people  can  be  remarkably 
relaxed  and  unself-conscious.  They  can  do,  say, 
wear,  and  look  like  pretty  much  anything  they  want 
without  undue  feelings  of  shame,  which  belongs  to 
their  betters,  the  middle  class,  shame  being  largely  a 
bourgeois  feeling." 

As  a  master  construction  electrician,  I  have  certain 
liberties  not  found  with  lower  proles  and  middle 
class,  namely,  I  don't  have  a  supervisor.  I  supervise 
myself.  Nor  do  I  go  to  the  same  building  every  day 
and  punch  a  clock.  I  wire  buildings  and  leave  when 
I'm  done.  Two  years  ago,  for  instance,  after  wiring  a 
district  educational  building  for  neariy  a  year,  I  left 
for  Eastern  Europe  for  a  month. 

I  get  no  benefits,  such  as  medical  insurance,  sick 
days,  paid  vacation  and  the  like.  Instead  they 
begrudgingly  pay  me  $27.09  an  hour.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  tell  the  boss  for  how  long  and  when  I'm 
going  on  vacation.  Sometimes  I  don't  show  up  for 
work;  maybe  it's  simply  too  cold  outside,  or  perhaps 
I  have  a  bad  hangover.  I  never  use  an  alarm  clock. 
For  eight  years,  from  9-  to  17-years-old,  I  delivered 
the  Chicago  Tribune  at  the  beck  and  call  of  an  alarm 


PE^OCESEiECI    LJJCIi^h_E]    3CD 


••IN  YOUR  FACE  BRUTAUTY! 


,)<mI  SipRel,  GOOD  MORNINC.  AMERICA 


"A  POWERFUL  FILM  THAT'S  NOT  BASED  ON  ONE 
TRUE  STORY,  IT'S  BASED  ON  MILUONS  OF  THEM." 


-SISKKI-   &    EBEHT 


clock.  In  snow,  sleet,  and  darkness,  I  delivered  like 
clockwork.  I  promised  myself  that  when  I  became  an 
adult  I'd  never  use  an  alarm  clock,  and  I  don't.  If 
I'm  late  for  work,  I  readily  explain  that  my  body 
refused  to  wake  up  at  the  anointed  hour,  sorry.  They 
get  used  to  it  in  a  short  time.  They  learn  that  I'll 
show  up,  eventually. 

More  importantly,  however,  is  not  what  I  do,  but 
rather  where  I've  been  and  what  I've  seen.  My  work 
has  not  only  taken  me  into  the  homes  and  offices  of 
every  strata  of  American  society,  I  have  also 
witnessed  first-hand  the  daily  bowel  movement  of 
America,  the  sewage  treatment  plant.  And  then 
there's  work  that  I  simply  refuse  to  do,  wire  a  house 
for  a  wealthy  person,  for  example.  I  find  wealthy 
people  obnoxious  and  consumed  with  conspicuous 
gluttony.  To  install  a  $5,000  fixture  from  the  20  foot 
ceiling  in  the  entry  of  some  lawyer's  palatial 
mansion,  while  poor  people  fill  the  jails,  goes  against 
my  grain.  The  incarcerated  paid  for  that  dangling 
brass  and  crystal  with  60  some  flickering  candle-like 
bulbs  (the  bulbs  alone  are  over  $300).  Of  course 
there's  also  the  hot  tub,  pool,  sauna,  and  the  dumb 
waiter  to  carry  firewood  to  the  second  and  third  floor 
fireplaces,  to  name  but  a  few  of  the  luxuries. 

Interestingly,  in  the  past  year,  I've  seen  the  inside 


just  babysitters.  Most  of  these  guys  are  harmless 
drunks  and  drug  users." 

Yours  Truly, 

J.A.— Portiand,  Oregon 

EXISTENTIAUST  WHINING! 

To  Whom  It  May  Concern: 

Please  cancel  my  subscription  to  Processed 
World.  Your  magazine  has  a  good  premise- 
alienation— but  the  execution  falls  short.  It's  the 
Revenge  idea  that  bothers  me.  I'm  experienced 
enough  to  know  that  in  revenge,  make  sure  the 
screwing  that  you  give  is  worth  the  screwing  that  you 
will  inevitably  get. 

It's  hard  to  be  optimistic  in  modem  society- 
managers  that  don't,  friends  that  aren't,  take-home 
pay  that  can't,  but  JESUS  why  make  it  worse?  If  you 
hate  that  job  so  badly,  quit.  If  your  boss  is  a  jerk, 
welcome  to  the  club. 

Your  'zine  shows  a  lot  of  talent.  Too  bad  it's  hard 
to  see  it  through  all  the  weird,  existentialist  whining 
about  wage-slavery. 

Sincerely, 

C.H.— Aspen,  Colorado 

SURVIVING  THE  DULL  HOURS 

Processed  Dudes— 

You  guys  &  gals  are  so  great— you've  been  such  an 
inspiration  to  me.  I'd  never  have  survived  my 
dead-end  job  at  the  University  of  California  without 
your  moral  support. 

During  the  dull  hours— the  especially  dull  hours 
—I  cranked  out  propaganda,  such  as  the  sticker 
[reprinted  below].  I  then  used  UC's  campus  mail 
system  to  send  them  to  Regents,  university  presi- 
dents, cafeteria  dishwashers,  and  executive  secretar- 
ies. For  a  while  they  sprouted  like  beautiful  weeds  on 
campuses  from  San  Diego  to  L.A.  &  beyond. 

Keep  it  up! 

R.F.— Berkeley,  Caiifornia 


of  the  jail  as  both  an  inmate  (ten  days  for  drunk 
driving),  and  as  an  electrician  wiring  a  new  guard 
station  within  the  laundry  facilities.  The  contrasting 
viewponts  exhibit  a  vivid  portrait  of  class  distinction. 
There  were  no  lawyers,  doctors,  accountants,  or 
advertising  executives  in  jail.  I  was  processed  through 
the  system  with  other  drunk  drivers— overwhelmingly 
blue  collar  workers— and  drug  dealers.  We're 
considered  the  scum  of  society  and  treated  as  such. 
The  guards,  or  corrertion  officers  as  they  like  to  call 
themselves,  display  tyrannical  attitudes  and  enforce 
petty  rules,  such  as  proper  bed-making,  with  the 
utmost  seriousness. 

To  enforce  their  rules,  there  are  a  half  dozen  jails 
in  town,  each  one  worse  than  the  next.  The  already 
bad  food  gets  worse  as  does  the  confinement  and 
rules.  People  who  consistently  violate  the  rules  are 
sent  down  the  ladder  till  eventually  they're  in  solitary 
confinement  with  little  more  than  bread  and  water. 

A  few  months  later,  as  an  electrician  going  to  jail 
every  day  to  do  construction,  the  view  was  much 
different.  Instead  of  inside  looking  up,  now  I  was 
outside  looking  down.  The  guards,  no  longer  masters 
of  my  destiny,  became  bottom  of  the  barrel  unskilled 
proletarians.  As  one  guard  told  me  after  I  asked  him 
if  he  experienced  much  inmate  trouble,  "Naw,  we're 


UP  AGAINST  IT! 

DearPff, 

I  just  picked  \ipPlV  and  I  really  want  you  to  know 
how  much  I  enjoyed  it.  Unfortunately,  my  partner 
and  I  are  truly  "UP  AGAINST  IT."  I  spent  most  of 
yesterday  agonizing  about  whether  to  engage  our 
family  in  the  teeth  of  federal  and  state  bureaucracy 


F^E^ClCESBiEE]   hXIOG^h-D   3C3 


and  apply  for  aid  at  Social  Services.  We  don't  want 
"aid,"  we  wantyote,  but. .  .oh  hell. 

After  reading  several  of  the  articles  in  PW,  I 
noticed  that  I  was  feeling  things  I  hadn't  felt  since 
High  School!  There  was  an  idealism  about  changing 
our  society  that  existed  within  me  when  I  was  much 
younger,  and  I  guess  I've  lost  it  along  the  way 
without  even  realizing  it.  (Scary!)  So  I  stand  in  your 
debt  for  turning  my  consciousness  upside  down  and 
backwards  (towards  my  own  past)  although  I  can't 
say  yet  where  this  might  lead.  Survival  presses  and 
leaves  little  room  for  any  thought  or  feeling  about  the 
Bigger  Picture,  at  least  for  now. 

My  favorite  PfV  item  remains  Tom  Tomorrow 
cartoons,  especially  the  one  on  page  38  (#29),  with 
the  guy's  watch  beeping.  I  laugh,  but  it  hurts. 

Anyway,  here's  to  the  future,  however  dark,  and 
thanks  again  for  allowing  me  to  plug  into  PW.  I 
applaud  your  efforts. 

Faye  Manning— Springfield,  OR 
P.S.  If  75%  of  PfV's  budget  comes  from  subscrip- 
tions, where  does  the  25%  come  fTomll  /distributor/ 
bookstore  sales,  the  occasional  donation  and 
loan— Many  thanks  to  the  5  people  who  recently 
bought  $150  lifetime  subscriptions.  It  made  a  big 
difference  in  financing  this  issue— eds.J 


ABSOLUTE  SILENCE 


from  Adbusters  Quarterly.  1243  W.  7th  Ave., 
Vancouver,  B.C.  V6H  1B7  Canada. 
The  liquor  company  threatened  to  sue  for  this 
subversion  of  their  advertising  campaign,  but 
has  not  done  so  as  yet. 

RESPONSIBILITY. .  .A  Winning  Solution 

Yo,  Fellow  PoMo  Proles! 

I  came  aciois  Bad  Attitude:  The  Processed  World 
Anthology  while  browsing  in  a  local  alternative 
bookstore.  I  knew  instantly  that  it  was  some  kind  of 
chop-busting  satirical  masterpiece,  cast  in  the  blithe 
spirit  of  the  Church  of  Bob.  But  it  took  me  a  couple 
of  leavings  and  retumings  before  I  finally  got  a  fix  on 
your  politics,  and  it  all  made  sense. 

A  week  later,  I  heard  an  editor  interviewed  on  the 
radio.  That  interview  nailed  it.  I  took  a  deep  breath, 
coughed  up  the  $20,  and  reeled  in  this  queer  fish,  still 
heaving  and  panting  on  the  deck.  I've  discovered  that 
as  long  as  I  store  it  in  the  freezer,  I  don't  have  to 


continue  holding  my  breath! 

But  seriously... thanks  for  one  of  the  most 
uproarious  and  xeroxable  fonts  of  wit,  wisdom, 
mayhem,  mischief  and  subversion  that  I've  ever 
blundered  upon  by  happy  happenstance.  You  might 
be  curious  to  know  something  about  my  situation 
(Tough  tuna. .  .I'll  tell  you  anyway!): 

I  have  two  college  degrees,  including  a  graduate 
degree  in  literature  from  Yale,  and  I  spent  the  last 
twelve  years  working  as  a  professional  typesetter  and 
freelance  writer.  15  months  ago,  my  full-time  paying 
gig  with  a  once-pohtically-alteraative  newspaper, 
where  ten  years  ago  we  used  to  smoke  pot  on  lunch 
break,  but  which  now  supports  itself  by  running 
pages  of  phone  sex  ads,  finally  fell  apart.  I  spent  the 
following  year  trying  to  get  a  simple  clerical  position, 
preferably  at  one  of  the  five  colleges  here  in 
depression-wracked  western  Massachusetts. 

With  two  college  degrees,  100  wpm  typing,  high 
computer  literacy,  and  12  years  full-time  office 
experience,  I  was  nevertheless  LITERALLY  UNA- 
BLE TO  LAND  A  JOB-ANY  JOB  WHATSOEV- 
ER—for  15  months.  We're  talking  about  hundreds 
of  custom  tailored  resumes  filed,  with  about  six 
interviews  actually  obtained  for  all  that  wasted  effort. 

My  most  memorable  interview  was  with  the  lady 
who  runs  the  Hampshire  County  Registry  of  Deeds. 
She  had  advertised  for  what  amounted  to  a 
"gofer/photocopier"  position.  Embarrassed,  she 
held  up  a  huge  stack  of  more  than  a  hundred 
resumes. 

"I  really  felt  I  owed  you  an  interview,"  she  said. 
"But  I'm  embarrassed  to  be  talking  to  you."  Almost 
all  of  the  applications  in  her  stack  were  from  college 
graduates.  A  minority  were  from  starving  Ph.D.s, 
clamoring  to  become  gofers  in  the  photocopy  room. 

Needless  to  say,  this  profoundly  harrowing  and 
sobering  experience  has  re-colored  my  political 
complexion  from  PC  pink  to  deep  burning  red.  I  am 
furious  as  hell  about  the  way  we're  all  being  pushed 
and  shoved  and  drawn  and  quartered  by  the 
leverage-driven  corporate  restructuring  of  our  planet. 
If  I  believed  in  the  death  penalty,  I  would  have  no 
trouble  arguing  that  Ronald  Reagan  ought  to  be  shot 
for  high  treason. 

Just  to  provide  some  closure  on  my  personal 
Odyssey,  I  was  rescued  from  the  brink  of  ruin  at  the 
last  possible  minute.  I  managed  to  land  a  job  as  an 
administrative  paralegal,  for  an  attorney  who 
specializes  in  transportation  law,  with  a  large 
national  client  base.  It's  all  civil  and  contract  law, 
it's  a  completely  clean  practice,  and  the  dude  himself 
is  a  distinguished  old  school  gentleman  with  a 
GREAT  attitude  toward  his  three  paralegals.  It's 
more  like  a  family  office  than  an  adversarial 
battlefield.  There  is  absolutely  no  backstabbing 
politics  going  on  among  the  staff,  and  we  even  have 
paid  medical  insurance  and  profit  sharing! 

So  I  lucked  out.  My  humanist  background,  Yale 
degree  and  exceptional  computer  skills  put  me  on  top 
of  this  particular  stack.  But  it  still  took  15  months 
for  me  to  get  there.  And  the  year  I  spent  pounding 
the  streets  among  the  jobless  has  permanently 
changed  my  life.  It's  not  only  deepened  my 
compassion  for  the  folks  who  are  getting  screwed  to 
death  out  there,  but  it's  given  me  a  new  resolve  to  try 
to  DO  something  about  it,  to  the  best  of  my  ability. 

There  is  the  further  telling  irony  that  at  a  point  in 
my  life  cycle  when  a  typical  Yale  grad  should  be 
making  a  salary  in  at  least  the  50  to  60K  range,  I'm 


celebrating  my  ability  to  land  what  amounts  to  an 
entry  level  position  in  a  new  field,  at  a  salary  level 
(20K)  which  would  be  considered  low  end  for  a 
BRAND  NEW  college  graduate  with  no  work 
history. 

Still,  a  lot  of  people  would  kill  for  the  relatively 
modest  job  I  finally  managed  to  land.  I  mean,  shit, 
in  the  crumbling  cities,  people  kill  for  SNEAKERS 
and  JACKETS— never  mind  what  they'd  do  for  a 
job. 

Into  this  challenging  frame  of  reference  in  my  life, 
your  book  suddenly  drops,  like  a  sinister  angel 
appearing  on  my  left  shoulder.  And  it  sets  me  to 
thinking  about  the  degree  to  which  your  political 
message  pertains,  or  does  not,  in  these  horribly 
depressed  times. 

Although  I  enjoyed  your  book  immensely,  it  also 
bemuses  me.  In  the  office  where  I  work  now.  Bad 
Attitude  makes  no  sense.  When  you're  treated  with 
genuine  decency  and  respect,  and  as  a  valued 
member  of  a  team  effort,  what  possible  incentive  can 
there  be  to  sabotage  this  feeling  of  trust? 

Am  I  going  to  blame  this  attorney  for  the  fact  that 
I'm  only  making  20K,  when  I  should  be  making  60? 
Hell  no.  I  made  a  choice  to  bypass  the  high-pressure 
career  track,  and  opt  for  a  human-sized  lifestyle, 
many  years  ago.  I  stand  by  my  decision,  even  though 
the  upturned  corporate  economy  of  the  New  World 
Order  (didn't  Hitler  call  it  "Mein  Karapf?")  now 
makes  it  likely  that  I  will  end  up  penniless  and  bereft 
of  support  in  my  old  age. 

I'm  certainly  not  the  only  one  though.  Just  wait 
until  all  the  hell-on-wheels  poUtical  activists  of  the 
'60s  reach  retirement  age,  and  discover  how  badly 
they're  being  screwed  and  shoved  around  by  their 
government.  I  predict  here  and  now  that  we  wiD  see  a 
sudden  wrathful  last-burst-of-glory  rekindling  of 
their  youthful  social  agitation,  activism,  and  organi- 
zational savvy,  turned  against  an  entirely  new  set  of 
social  grievances  in  the  year  2010.  Count  on  it!  The 
baby  boomers  are  not  about  to  trudge  meekly  down 
the  path  of  impecunious  oblivion  plotted  for  them  by 
the  junk  bond  bandits  who  looted  our  treasury. 
There  will  be  blood  in  the  streets  when  they  find 
themselves  65  and  starving. 

Finally,  from  my  own  office  experience,  past  and 
present,  I  think  I  can  say  that  the  impulse  to  assume 
Bad  Attitude  lies  not  in  the  inherent  nature  of 
process  work  itself,  but  in  the  particular  quality  of 
one's  human  relationships  with  both  employers  and 
peers. 

What  I  hear  again  and  again,  as  I  read  through 
Bad  Attitude,  is  the  degree  to  which  the  contributing 
workers  are  treated  abominably  by  fellow  humans, 
who  insist  on  acting  as  though  they  were  robotic 
agents  of  some  extraterrestrial  force.  The  problem  of 
alienation  is  not  inherent  with  the  new  technology. 
The  problem  is  inherent  with  human  beings  who  have 
simply  forgotten  how  to  ACT  like  human  beings— if 
they  even  learned  that  human  role  as  children  in  the 
first  place. 

Human  beings  at  their  best  are  irreverent, 
humorous  and  caring,  as  well  as  justly  proud  of  their 
natural  competence,  and  hungry  for  a  community  of 
mutual  support.  When  any  or  all  of  these  tendencies 
are  crushed  by  the  debased  nature  of  an  employment 
situation,  that  situation  becomes  diabolical.  And  if 
Bad  Attitude  is  the  most  natural,  gut-gratifying 
response,  I  hardly  think  it's  the  most  fulfilling  or 
productive  approach  to  making  this  planet  human 


F^PiOEZESSEE]    kJJITIE^lL-E]    ^C3 


and  whole  again. 

I  do  find  it  at  once  supremely  ironic,  and 
supremely  hopeful,  that  so  many  of  your  contribu- 
tors who  find  themselves  stuck  in  "dead-end"  or 
"meaningless"  jobs  turn  out  to  be  such  gifted  and 
eloquent  writers,  in  so  many  different  genres— from 
acute  political  analysis  to  side-splitting,  pants-wetting 
comedy!  It's  clear  that  your  contributors  are  not 
bubble-gum-snapping  functional  illiterates,  conde- 
mned by  paucity  of  wit  or  genetic  endowment  to  a  life 
of  minimum  wage  slavery.  There  is  just  an 
ENORMOUS  pool  of  creative  talent  in  this  nation, 
begging  to  be  put  to  work  on  a  worthy  human 
enterprise. 

It  seems  as  though  we're  waiting  for  the 
charismatic  leadership  we  badly  need  to  turn  this 
American  community  around.  We  are  all  leaders,  of 
course.  As  a  devout  Buddhist  myself,  as  well  as  a 
humanist-oriented  bisexual  man,  I  might  find  it 
somewhat  easier  than  a  Marxist  ideologue  to  see  the 
lurking  potential  for  human  personhood  in  even  the 
most  mind-numbed  bureaucratic  buttfuck,  if  one  can 
just  locate  the  resonant  frequency  where  his  or  her 
humanity  can  be  accessed. 

I'd  say  your  book  is  a  clarion  call  to  our  troubled 
humanity,  sounding  an  alarm  on  all  known  hailing 
frequencies!  I'm  glad  I  found  you.  And  I'm  glad  I 
finally  found  a  job  that  put  the  20  bucks  in  my 
pocket,  which  I  could  spend  on  such  a  guilty  and 
unjustifiable  piece  of  discretionary  pleasure,  in  these 
depressed  and  starving  times. 

Bad  Attitude,  of  course,  would  prompt  a  bitter 
prole  to  "Steal  This  Book."  And  how,  pray  tell, 
would  you  folks  feel  about  being  ripped  off  like  that, 
considering  what  you  invested  to  write  and  publish 
Ml  [Well,  we're  more  interested  in  people  reading  it 
than  paying  for  it,  if  we  have  to  choose— eds.J 

You  see,  that's  my  point.  Bad  Attitude  solves 
nothing  in  the  long  run.  Responsibility  for  each 
other,  and  for  the  consequences  of  our  actions,  and 
for  the  quality  of  our  commitments,  has  got  to  be  the 
winning  solution  that  brings  us  home  to  our 
humanity. 

In  the  meantime,  and  on  your  own  terms,  you're 
one  of  the  best  reads  I've  encountered  in  years.  Your 
book  is  a  wonderful  meal  to  nourish  the  spirit  of 
compassionate  mischief  that  keeps  our  humanity 
alive.  Write  on! 

In  love  and  solidarity, 

D.D.B.— Amherst,  Massachusetts 

A  TIME  THIEF  VS.  THE  PAPER  SLUT 

DearPffCrew: 

I'm  (still)  a  secretary  in  a  sales  office  located  in  a 
beautiful  brownstone  building  in  Lx)isaida  (Lower 
East  Side,  or  "the  East  Village"as  the  trendies  term 
it),  Manhattan.  I'm  not  compartmentalized  in  a 
cubicle,  I  mostly  work  on  my  own  (though  not 
always  at  a  leisurely  pace)  and,  although  I  work  long 
hours,  I  manage  to  "steal  back"  enough  time  and 
resources  (use  of  my  computer,  the  fax  and 
photocopier,  etc.)  to  make  up  for  a  somewhat  fair 
but  (subjectively)  low  salary.  I  manage  to  put  out 
various  'zines  for  four  amateur  press  alliances 
(A? As)  to  which  my  husband  and  I  currently  belong, 
and  I  put  out  two  newsletters— one  for  ten  years,  one 
for  six— largely  on  "office  time." 

I  was  raised  with  a  good  work  ethic,  which  means  I 
take  care  and  pride  in  everything  I  do,  whether  it's 


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DIAL  1-800-WAA-COUGH 


editorial  letters  and  "APAzines"  or  drone-work  for 
The  Corporation.  I'm  known  for  the  speed  at  which  I 
get  my  job  done,  and  through  my  nine  years  here 
I've  been  given  steady  raises  and  more  diversified 
responsibihties  (i.e.,  not  just  mindless  typing)  as  well 
as  perks  (free  books,  free  invites  to  various 
yuppie-affairs,  etc.)  and  a  credible  reputation.  I'm 
usually  relatively  discreet  about  my  hobbies,  which 
has  let  me  get  away  with  a  lot  without  pissing 
anybody  off.  I  come  from  a  frugal  family,  and  I'm 
anal-retentively  organized,  which  means  I've  saved 
the  company  lots  of  money  on  things  like  office  and 
household  supplies  (all  of  which  I'm  now  in  charge) 
and  can  therefore  splurge  on  supplies  for  myself  now 
and  again  (I'm  not  a  conspicuous  consumer,  so  there 
aren't  a  lot  of  material  things  I  crave). 

I'm  also  in  charge  of  hiring  temps,  sometimes  to 
replace  me  if  I  take  a  mental  health  or  actual  sick 
day,  which  brings  me  to  the  main  reason  I'm  writing: 
the  story  in  your  DOWNTIME!  section  called 
"Paperslutting"  by  Stella.  This  really  pissed  me  off, 
and  started  me  to  wondering,  if  her  Bad  Attitude  is 
what  PW  readers  are  supposed  to  admire  and 
emulate,  maybe  PW  and  I  have  grown  apart  in 
recent  years;  the  thought  saddens  me. 

Stella  is  correct  in  thinking  of  herself  as  a  paper 
slut.  Despite  the  good  folks  at  COYOTE  [Call  Off 
Your  Old  Tired  Ethics,  a  prostitute's  rights  group], 
and  people  like  Jane  in  your  Sabotage  section,  I 
would  think  many  prostitutes  have  rather  low  images 
of  themselves,  and  this,  obviously,  contributes  to  the 
already-low  image  others  have  of  them.  Perhaps 
Stella  was  attempting  to  "reclaim"  a  word  that 
commonly  has  a  negative  connotation,  but  it  didn't 
seem  like  it  to  me.  It  seemed  like  she  just  didn't  give 
a  shit  about  anything  other  than  pride  in  what  she 
could  get  away  with  by  being  nasty  and  "subversive" 
to  some  faceless  corporation. 

Let  me  tell  you  something,  Stella— I'm  not  a 
faceless  corporation.  I'm  a  cog  in  the  machine  just 


like  you.  My  machine  happens  to  be  shinier  than  a 
lot  of  others  I  know,  and  believe  me,  I'm  happy 
about  that.  It's  nice  not  to  have  a  totally  shitty  job, 
to  get  four  weeks  plus  sick  time  plus  medical  bennies 
plus  "stolen  back"  time.  It's  not  cushy,  it's  not 
earth-shaking,  but  it's  a  decent  living.  When  I  hire  a 
temp  to  help  me  or  sub  for  me,  I'm  the  one  who  has 
to  "clean  up"  after  her/him.  If  he/she  fucks  up  the 
system,  they're  not  fucking  the  corporation,  they're 
fucking  me.  My  corporation  may  be  paying  for  a 
good  time  (i.e.,  an  8-hour  day)  from  Stella  Slut,  but 
I'm  the  one  getting  abused  in  the  end. 

It's  hard  for  me  to  attempt  common  courtesy  with 
someone  apparently  out  to  treat  her  peers  as  shiftily 
as  she  expects  (and  wants?)  to  be  treated  herself,  but 
come  on,  Stella.  I'm  not  your  enemy.  I'm  not  a 
bureaucrat,  I'm  a  flesh  and  blood  person  just  like 
you.  I  don't  treat  temps  like  dirt;  when  I  call  a  temp 
agency,  I  expect  intelligent  people  with  common 
sense  to  help  me  out  with  my  overflow.  If  I'm  in,  I'll 
give  temps  a  tour  of  the  house,  sometimes  I  go  to 
lunch  with  them,  and  I  don't  assign  people 
monumental  tasks  (I  leave  those  for  myself).  A  temp 
isn't  working  for  me,  she/he  is  working  with  me. 
You,  however,  are  working  against  me,  and  it's  just 
not  fair  for  me  to,  say,  come  back  from  vacation  and 
have  to  clean  up  your  shit.  I  don't  deserve  it.  And 
you,  Stella,  deserve  a  better  self-image.  But  do  all  us 
workers  with  civility  a  favor— get  out  of  temping 
first. 

Thanks  for  letting  me  say  my  piece. 

E.W-C— Brooklyn,  New  York 


JUST  GO  OUT  OF  BUSINESS! 

DenT  Processed  World, 

Thanks  for  PW,  which  made  good  holiday 
reading.  I  regret,  however,  that  I  must  turn  down 
your  appeal  for  a  subscription,  since  I  note  that  PW 
makes  no  provision  for  paying  writers. 


r>E^OEZE55ED   kJJCIF>bh_EI    3C3 


l^. 


^sfe^ 


v>>' 


^^6^^-^^ 


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\%ic^2  0^ 


^t' 

^:^^<'^ 


If  you  and  your  collective  wish  to  go  unpaid,  I 
have  no  objections.  But,  as  one  who  must  struggle 
constantly  to  make  a  marginal  living  with  his  pen,  I 
will  not,  on  principle,  send  any  of  that  hard  earned 
cash  to  a  publication  that  has  no  money  for  its 
writers.  I  have  been  doing  this  work  long  enough  to 
know  that  writers  seldom  receive  large  sums,  but  the 
notion  that  they  are  to  give  their  services  for  nothing, 
while  printers,  postmen,  landlords,  etc.  are  paid,  is 
simply  unacceptable  to  me. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  certainly  wish  you  and  PW 
well.  I  found  the  magazine  worthwhile,  but,  as  a 
member  of  the  National  Writers  Union  as  well  as  the 
I  WW,  I  feel  unable  to  go  against  my  principles  in 
this  matter. 

Sincerely, 

J.G.— N.  Miami,  Florida 

OBSCURE,  CONFUSING,  DISTURBING 

'^€\q  Processed  World, 

Your  publication  is  obscure,  confusing  and 
disturbing.  In  short,  I  love  it.  My  experiences  with  a 
sporadical  APM  demonstrated  the  difficulty  of 
producing  worthwhile  material  of  a  periodic  nature. 
At  any  rate,  you  guys  do  it  well.  I'm  glad  to  see  you 
don't  pay  for  your  material.  I  agree.  It's  the  only 
way  to  get  anything  that's  worth  something.  I  know 
it  may  seem  untrue  sometimes,  but  there  really  are 
still  people  who  read.  What  you  have  reassured  me 
about  is  that  there  are  still  people  who  can  write. 

Smiling  Holocaust— P.O.  Box  3297,  Berkeley, 
California  94703 

AUCTION  BLOCKS  IS  THE  FUTURE! 

Yk2i\  Processed  World: 

Loved  issue  29!  An  especially  fine  and  trenchant 
selection  of  toons.  My  favorite  was  on  p.  4  by  J.F. 
Batellier— the  workers  on  the  auction  blocks— this  is 
the  future,  baby!  Also  enjoyed  the  Wobbly-PfF 
dialogue— won't  get  that  in  any  damn  Time-Life 
pubs!  But  the  best,  the  very  BEST  thing  of  all  was 
the  piece  on  Sabotage  in  the  American  Workplace. 
I'll  have  you  know  I  proudly  word-processed  and 


,^o^«  ^^^*^''^ 


faxed  this  while  at  "werk"  ((sic)k)  at  a  government 
think-tank.  Keep  putting  out  the  best  damn  magazine 
around  about  modem  work  and  me  and  my  friends 
will  keep  buying  it. 

Good  luck  to  you,  senores! 

B.E.,  Process  Resistor,  EUicot  City,  Maryland 

TL  HILL  FIRES  BACK 

Dear  friends  at  Pff; 

Thanks  to  Chris  Carlsson  for  reviewing  our 
Questioning  Technology  in  #29.  While  he  seemed  a 
little  too  bent  on  slamming  Zerzan  for  past  wrongs  to 
always  read  what's  there,  I  thought  the  review  useful, 
especially  his  reminder  (which  Zerzan  and  Games 
would  fully  agree  with)  that  choosing  how  we  hve, 
including  what  technology  we  depend  on,  is 
ultimately  a  collective  decision— in  fact  a  matter  of 
collective  power  stmggle. 

As  the  writer  of  the  much-mahgned  publisher's 
note,  I'm  pleased  that  Ghris  was  provoked  to 
respond,  if  also  sad  that  my  note  and  the  brackets 
were  so  annoying  that  he  missed  my  points.  They 
were  (to  try  again): 

1)  that  like  patriarchy,  the  "logic"  of  the 
technology  we  all  depend  on  is  largely  invisible,  the 
result  of  some  historical  choices  (of  the  powerful) 
and  pernicious.  The  sort  of  technology  we  hve  with  is 
in  no  way  inevitable,  but  it  does  have  lots  of 
momentum  and  power  behind  it— and  one  of  the  first 
steps  towards  collectively  choosing  what  technologies 
we  want  is  to  recognize  the  pervasive  logic  and 
powerful  proponents  of  the  current  dominant  form. 
The  brackets  were  chosen  precisely  to  provoke  and 
reveal  (not  remedy),  just  as  Questioning  Technology 
provokes  and  reveals . .  .and 

2)  that  organic  farming  is  a  well-developed 
example  of  a  different,  richer,  more  liberating  and 
more  human  relationship  with  both  technology 
and  the  natural  world.  It  is  an  example  of  a  way  of 
living  that  acknowledges  limits,  that  sees  humans  as 
part  of  the  fabric  of  life,  not  somehow  free  of  or  superior 
to  hfe.  Using  our  human  ingenuity  to  understand  (how- 
ever dimly)  and  to  work  with  natural  forces  is  much 


more  likely  to  enable  us  to  survive  drought,  storms, 
etc.— and  the  human-made  disasters  (famine,  flood 
damage)  they  often  trigger— than  ignoring  or  trying  to 
simplify  (in  the  guise  of  transcending)  such  complex, 
subtle  and  powerful  forces.  Developing  urban 
examples  of  sustainable  and  appropriately  scaled 
technologies,  economies,  cultures  and  the  like  is  a 
wonderful  challenge  to  our  collective  ingenuity  and 
power.  It  requires  stubborn  hope  and  fierce 
determination,  something  quite  different  from  the 
despair  that  Garlsson  reads  into  Questioning  Tech- 
nology. 

Best, 

T.L.  Hill  for  New  Society  Publishers,  Philadel- 
phia, Pennsylvania 


TALK  ABOUT  THE  VOID 

DearPfF, 

So  many  things  I  have  on  my  mind  are  in  your 
magazine— i.e.  biotechnology.  I  especially  liked  the 
pieces  by  Kwazee  Wabbit.  The  circular  reasoning 
and  step-wise  exaggeration  in  "Sleazy  Research 
Tricks"  just  made  me  laugh  out  loud.  One  hideous 
responsibility  of  the  editor  at  a  pharmaceutical  ad 
agency  (which  I  sometimes  am)  is  to  fact  check  the 
articles,  which  means  obtaining  the  original  articles 
the  writer  and  company  neglected  to  obtain,  reading 
them,  only  to  find  great  leaps  of  faith,  inaccuracies, 
or  references  to  previous  articles  published  in  foreign 
countries  in  1969,  or  completely  unrelated  data. 
There  is  only  so  far  you  can  go  in  this  thankless  task, 
with  everyone  wanting  you  to  give  the  OK  without 
taking  the  time  to  do  the  job.  I  knew  the  facts  in  the 
New  York  Times  were  approximations— merely 
arranging  the  information  requires  a  point  of 
view— and  that  photos  were  more  biased  even  than 
news  stories,  but  I  thought  statistics  were  inviolate! 
Little  did  I  know  what  an  existential  horror  they  can 
be.  Talk  about  the  Void. 

Perhaps  an  issue  oi Processed  World  on  process  is 
in  order— the  process  involved  to  put  forth  the  final 


F'F^aEZEaSEC]    LJjaF^h_a    3C3 


THIS  M«»fclll  W«IL» 


by  TOM  TOMORROW 


WITH   OUR  ECONOIYir  COMT1NUIN6  TO  FALTEK, 
OUR  iNFR^STPUCruPE  COLLAPSING,  AMD  OUfi. 
LEADERS  UMABLETO  DiSriNOUiSH  3Er\*JE£M 
SOONO  BIT£$   AND  SOLUTIONS,  THESE  AK£ 
UNDENIABLY  DIFFICULT  TIMES  IM  AMECiCA... 


\Ti  ALL  THE   F'AULT 
OF  THE  LIBERALS 
IN    C0N&RES5.' 


things  v^ere  certainly  different  last 
year;  the  nation  was  swept  up  in  a 
wa>je  of  self-(on&ratolatory  euphokia 
in  the  aftermath  of  the  gijlf  war'. 


documents  at  law  firms,  ad  agencies,  government 
departments,  and  corporate  offices,  including  termi- 
nal meetings  and  bins  of  word  processed  paper,  to 
the  internal  process  temps  develop  to  make  it  through 
the  day,  i.e.  stolen  paper  clips,  long-distance  phone 
calls,  clandestine  xeroxes,  printer  time,  and  mental 
notes  made  in  spare  moments.  The  creative  process  is 
included  too,  which  is  perhaps  the  strangest  and  most 
interesting  of  all. 

Your  friend  from  the  East  Village, 

L.W.-New  York,  New  York 

TATER  COUCH  RAVE  #1 

Dm  Processed  World, 

It's  not  something  that  comes  immediately  to  mind 
as  I  sit  on  the  couch  watching  the  latest  network 
rerun  or  the  Lawrence  Welk  show  on  my  local  PBS 
station,  KQED.  I'm  even  less  apt  to  consider  it  while 
checking  out  the  late  night  sex  shows  like  Studs  or 
Love  Connection.  And  I'm  much  too  busy  studying 
the  newscaster's  receding  hairline  during  the  nightly 
news  to  remember  this  little  piece  of  trivia.  But  it's 
written  into  the  law  books,  and  I  should  be  thinking 
about  it  a  lot  more;  for  that  matter,  everyone  within 
earshot  of  any  broadcasting  outlet  should.  The 
airwaves  are  public  property. 

This  place  we  call  America,  where  the  bonds  are 
breaking  down  faster  than  a  commercial  break,  and 
people  are  frustrated  and  ignorant  (unless  they  make 
an  extra  special  effort  to  find  information,  and  who's 
got  the  time?),  lest  we  forget,  this  place  is  the  only 
one  most  of  us  have  got.  Regardless  of  how  we  got 
here,  most  of  us  have  nowhere  else  to  go.  And 


regardless  of  our  assets,  we  have  been  taught  that  we 
have  certain  inalienable  rights,  like  free  speech,  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  Hberty,  all  that. 

Well  what  good  is  free  speech  if  nobody  can  hear 
me?  And  how  can  I  ever  pursue  happiness  if  I  don't 
have  enough  money  for  a  new  car?  And  liberty?  We 
won't  even  get  into  that... The  fact  remains: 
television  is  warping  me  and  it's  already  gotten  to 
most  of  my  friends. 

It  is  only  through  ongoing  struggle  by  educators 
and  other  early  activists  that  the  imperative  to  serve 
the  "public  interest"  has  been  considered  in 
broadcast  regulation  in  the  U.S.  The  creation  of  PBS 
and  the  allocation  of  radio  stations  for  educational 
use  was  the  result  of  people  organizing  and 
demanding  that  the  airwaves  be  used  constructively. 
It  was,  again,  through  people  organizing  at  the  onset 
of  cable  television  that  public  access  television  came 
into  being.  And  it  will  be,  again,  through  people 
organizing  that  we,  as  a  public,  will  have  the  right  to 
decide  what  is  going  to  come  at  us  through  the 


airwaves  that  belong  to  us. 

With  the  incredible  advances  in  technology  of  the 
last  decade,  and  the  equally  swift  advances  in  the 
monopolization  of  the  media  industry,  the  time  may 
be  upon  us  to  start  thinking  of  how  we  would  like  to 
see  our  media  landscape  progress.  The  networks  have 
lost  much  of  their  power  and  many  of  their 
departments— most  notably,  news  departments— are 
in  decline.  Is  it  really  that  far  out  to  consider  public 
access  to  the  broadcast  airwaves?  Why  should 
General  Electric,  Westinghouse  and  the  rest  of  those 
big  bad  companies  control  our  major  communication 
arteries?  They  told  us  in  elementary  school  that  this 
was  a  democracy,  so  we  ought  to  demand  that  they 
allow  us  to  inform  one  another,  the  way  that 
participants  in  a  democracy  must. 

Yours  truly, 

later  Tot— San  Francisco,  California 

NOBLE  EFFORTS 

DcarPW: 

I  just  picked  up  #29  and  especially  liked  the 
excerpts  from  the  Sabotage  book.  How  creative 
people  at  work  can  be!  I've  worked  as  an  underling 
in  so  many  capacities,  I  definitely  find  that  working 
class  jobs  are  more  humane  than  office  jobs.  When  I 
was  working  a  printing  press,  all  that  counted  was 
my  skill  and  output.  Now,  in  my  present  job,  I  must 
dress  and  act  "right"  which  really  drives  me  up  the 

-  wall.  It's  almost  like  skill  and  output  are  secondary 

-  in  the  office  worid.  Well,  you've  heard  it  all  before. 
Luckily,  I  have  and  have  had  many  fine  managers 
who  think  like  I  do  on  this  point. 

Thanks  for  your  often  noble  efforts. 

Sincerely, 

L.M.— San  Francisco,  California 

SEEKS  ALTERNATIVE  WORK 

DearPff; 

I'm  seeking  an  alternative  work  environment.  I 
was  working  downtown  doing  temp  work,  word 
processing,  etc.  (which  I  detested,  but  the  pay  was 
decent).  I  decided  to  get  away  from  that  type  of  work 
situation  entirely  and  got  a  job  working  in  a  cafe.  I 
liked  the  cafe  job  very  much  at  first  and  in  contrast  to 
the  other  work  I  had  been  doing,  because,  although 
the  work  was  demanding  in  different  ways  and  the 
pay  was  low,  there  seemed  to  be  much  more  freedom 
to  just  be  myself  and  not  to  have  to  dress  up  and  play 
a  role  that  wasn't  authentic.  But,  unfortunately,  I 
had  to  quit  that  job  recently  due  to  sexual 
harassment  from  the  owner  and  other  unfair  and 
humiliating  practices.  So  I  thought  this  would  be  a 
good  time  to  write. 

Thank  you. 

B.M.— San  Francisco,  California 


Cn  the   WftKE    OF  THE  RODNEV 
KllJfr  VERDICT,    RloriMfi.  ANt> 
tOOTINlG    SOftST  OUT  flMON&ST 
MftRftUDlNG  S*L  BANKERS, AT 
ft    COST   OF    6ILLI0KIS  TO  THE 
ftMERICflM   PUBLIC 


by   Ace  Backwords  ©w" 


''^Ti  A  TOTAL  BREflKDoWM 
OF  lM  Mb  ORDER/.'"  OPINED 
JOE  CITIZEU,  AS  WALL  STREET 

JONK  Bond  HOotiSAigs  kapeE 

AND  PlLLAGEDTOEJCWOMV/' 


(Presidemt  bosh  reaches  out 
with  a  heartfelt  appeal  : 


,^WE  MUST  PUT  AN  END  TO  "N 

7HE  a\J\L  DISOBEDIENCE  BEFORE 
IT  ESCALATES  INTO  50METHl^J& 
DRhSTlC  LIKE  THE  SLAUSHTEI?  Of 
HUNDREDS  Of  THOUSANDS  of  ftR£l6NCfSj 
TO  CONTROL  TWAT  COUHTW'S  OIL  'j/, 


Meanwhile,  America  comcluks 

THAT  TT4E  BEST  WAV  ro  DEAL 
WITH  THE   RA&E  THAT  6LflCIC5 
FEEL  ABOOT  TWE  KIN&  POLICt 
BEATING-  15/  OF  COURSE, TD 
N&  IN   MORE  POLICE 


PF^OEZESSECI    kJJOF^h_C]    3CD 


m^i 

'i^ 


AITBHTION   MART/AN   INSTITUrE. 
for    social   rcsearchf  this  is 
Flyinc  3Auce:r   captain  zorcH 
ke.p(?rtin€i   oh  mass    o^^ct^ 
SBiTiNCi    IN  i^rtu  American 

^AFTH   CtriBSf 


■^ 


^ 


From  April  29  to  May  2,  1 992  (Earth  calendar),  my 
crew  and  I  observed  thousands  of  earthlings  seizing 
and  redistributing  goods  from  public  display  stations, 
especially  in  the  Los  Angeles  cityplex. 


Earth  society  is  peculiarl  The  inhabitants  produce 
everything  they  need  in  their  factories  and  famis, 
but  these  products  are  not  simply  passed  out 
to  everyone. 


Instead,  the  goods  are  enclosed  in  stores  whose  front  walls 
are  made  of  windows  (thin,  transparent  membranes). 


The  earthlings  also  spend  five  hours  every  evening 
viewing  images  of  their  objects  on  televisions  (thin, 
opaque  membranes),  which  keeps  them  further 
tantalized  between  visits  to  the  windows. 


The  windows  separate  the  products  from  the  creatures 
while  Iceeping  them  continually  tantalized. 


LCD 


PF^bOiZESiSEEJ    kJjai^lL.CI    3CD 


The  creatures  engage  in  a  roundabout  lifelong  ritual  to  obtain  the  goods  from  the  stores,  instead  of  simply 
breaking  the  \A/indows,  which  are  made  of  the  most  brittle  material  on  the  planet  I  They  typically  spend 
sixty  years  at  Jobs  (repugnant  involuntary  activity)  in  exchange  for  money  (thin  cellulose  strips)  to  trade 
for  the  things  in  the  stores. 


Eariier  Martian  expeditions  had  observed  infants  in 
stores  grabbing  for  objects  until  a  parent  earthling 
trained  them  with  bizarre  vocal  spasms  about  the 
universal  money-object  relationship. 


However,  during  the  festive  events  of  April  29  to  May  2, 
the  creatures  reverted  to  a  sensible  form  of  tDehavior— 
they  communal^  seized  the  goods  through  the  windovy^^ 
instead  of  submitting  to  money-shopping. 


TWe  PRBSEHT  Jb&S'MOHef'SHorpiNei  sociau 

ORDCR    HAS    TURHEO    THB    SARTH    INTO    AN 
AUBN    PUAfiBT  WHBt^e.    THE    fAKTHUtfCiS    ff£VSR 

Feeu  AT  HoMel   me.   looting    fb^tivals 

4KE    A    f^ATtONAL,    NATURAL.    CHALlBNC^S- 
TO    AH   mPATIONAL,  ONNATVRAL    SOCIETY  f 


W,' 


'^: 


In  conclusion,  the  creatures  are  gradually  creating,  as 
our  VUlcan  friends  would  say,  a  logical  existence. 


WHAT   TH£  £YE   SECS 

AND   cov^erSy  L£.r , 

THE     HANV^CiRASpL 


onuL.  IVmvi         A    i 

Y'MA 

'U 

■'-^ 

\a  1H 

^ 

^'  V,v 

\:iiVi.iii'iiV>^ 

1                      ^  IP' 

UIQU 


This  space  message  was  intercepted  and  decoded  by 
the  Social  Club.  Send  two  first-class  stamps  to  us  at  2 1 40 
Shattuck  Avenue,  Box  2200,  Berkeley,  CA  94704  for  copies 
of  our  other  outbursts. 


E^F^OEZESSECI    kJUCHF^h-EJ    3CD 


our  OF  LINE 

AT  THE  EARTH  SUMMIT 
A  Processed  Diary 


RIO  DE  JANEIRO -Saturday, 

May  23:  Having  forgotten  he 
needed  a  visa,  the  Special  Agent 
had  a  hard  time  getting  past  Bra- 
zil's policia  federal  at  the  airport. 
Two  $20  bills  tucked  in  his  pass- 
port didn't  help.  But  a  wake  up 
call  to  the  consul  general  cleared 
things  up.  Then  it  was  "Sim  senhor, 
right  this  way,"  after  that.  The 
Special  Agent  was  on  a  special 
mission  for  the  Friendly  Govern- 
ment. 

After  he  got  out  of  the  shower,  we 
had  a  few  beers  and  watched  Copaca- 
bana  roar  to  hfe  on  the  streets  below  the 
apartment  we  had  rented  for  the  dura- 
tion. A  thin  spray  of  surf  was  visible  at 
the  end  of  a  deep  chasm,  the  avenida 


leading  to  the  beach. 

The  Special  Agent  got  on  the  horn. 
Our  first  order  of  business  was  a 
powwow  with  Indian  leaders  over  at  the 
Hotel  Novo  Mundo.  When  we  got 
there,  they  demanded  fax  machines, 
computers  and  printers.  Lucky  for  us 
the  Special  Agent  had  been  authorized 
to  bring  cash  from  the  Friendly  Gov- 
ernment. We  would  be  welcomed  to  the 
Indian  village,  Kari  Oca. 

We  went  over  to  the  Hotel  Nacional 
to  adjust  our  gut  microflora  by  immer- 
sing ourselves  in  a  grand  "feijoada," 
Brazil's  national  dish  of  black  beans  and 
all  the  pork  that's  not  exported,  rice, 
kale,  yucca,  and  above  all,  caipirinha, 
cane  liquor  with  lime  juice,  the  key 
digestif. 

As  night  fell,  we  strolled  along  the 
beach.  Suddenly  we  were  surrounded 
by  three  whores.  One  started  rubbing 
my  crotch.  While  I  protested,  another 


lifted  my  wallet.  It  was  a  crash  refresher 
course  in  street  walking  in  Rio  de 
Janeiro. 

I'm  up  late  watching  looters  emptying 
supermercados  on  TV  news.  "We  are 
hungry,"  says  one,  "we  have  to  sack." 
Children  are  waving  pistols  at  the 
camera.  The  guns  have  names,  says  one 
teen  with  a  revolver  in  each  hand,  and 
they  have  killed  many  times. 

What  will  the  environmentalists  who 
are  here  for  the  big  U.N.  Conference  on 
the  Environment  and  Development 
have  to  say  about  all  this?  What  do  the 
environment  and  development  mean  in  a 
city  like  Rio  or  Los  Angeles,  cities  of  the 
future?  People  want  what  they  see  on 
TV.  And  they  are  willing  to  riot  to  get 
their  rights  — not  necessarily  at  city  hall, 
but  at  the  mini-mall.  Television  is 
beaming  this  message  'round  the  globe. 

The  Blade  Runner  just  called  from  a 
pay  phone.  He  is  on  his  way  over.  So 
we're  all  here  now.  The  Special  Agent, 
the  Blade  Runner  and  me,  the  Scribe. 
Oh    yeah,    and    the    Bodyguard.     He 


Nobody  talks  about 
movements  anymore. 

The  latest  line  in 

social  engineering  is 

that  ecological 

principles  should 

organize  the  economy. 


watches  over  us  so  mercifully,  I  almost 
forgot  him.  Our  assignment:  the  Earth 
Summit.  Like  everybody  else  here,  we 
are  on  a  self-inflated  mission  to  the 
greatest  meeting  in  human  history,  and 
our  handles  were  chosen  accordingly. 
The  Blade  Runner  got  his  from  the  ease 
with  which  he  cut  through  the  set  of 
Rio,  just  like  it  was  his  very  own  movie. 

Monday,  May  25:  We  finally  had  to 
get  down  to  business  today.  The  Special 
Agent  asked  us  to  cover  him  while  he 
ran  money  to  the  Indians.  And  we  had 
to  get  credentialed. 

First,  we  learned  how  to  walk  the 
streets  again.  The  Special  Agent  showed 
us  his  urban  gunslinger  wzdk,   mental 


La 


F'E=^aE:E55ECI   UJOFSh_i3   3CD 


pistol  in  the  shoulder  holster,  eyes 
roving  like  a  cool  lazy  radar  dish,  taking 
in  everything  while  slinking  around  the 
city  like  some  kind  of  post-ecological 
Billy  the  Kid.  Soon  we  were  all  doing  it. 

The  offices  for  the  Worldwide  Indi- 
genous Peoples  Encounter  and  the  offi- 
cial United  Nations  conference  were  in 
the  same  government  tourism  building 
downtown.  At  the  UNCED  office, 
Bronx-speaking  guards  and  interna- 
tionally accented  secretaries  ushered  us 
quickly  through  the  steps  producing 
small  white  laminated  photo  ID  cards. 
For  the  Indians,  we  had  to  run  down  the 
block  to  get  photos,  have  lunch  at  a 
nearby  bar  while  we  waited,  and  finally 
we  were  issued  a  big  orange  medallion. 

Anybody  who  is  somebody  here  it 
seems  has  at  least  three  different  cre- 
dentials hanging  around  the  neck.  Every 
meeting  has  its  own  symbolic  totems  of 
access.  Like  crossing  borders,  you  need 
a  passport. 

At  the  consulate  of  the  Friendly 
Government  this  morning,  when  the 
Special  Agent  stacked  money  for  the 
Indians  in  a  raggedly  old  bag  given  to 
him  years  ago  by  an  Amazon  shaman,  a 
consular  functionary  intoned  like  a 
robot:  I've  never  seen  anything  like  this 
before.  Neither  had  we. 

We  rented  a  car  and  drove  out  to  the 
Indian  encampment  on  the  edge  of 
town.  Every  couple  of  blocks  we  asked 
directions  and  finally  found  the  site  in 
an  unused  corner  of  a  mental  asylum, 
tucked  in  a  lush  forest  under  the  sur- 
prising granite  monoliths  that  rise 
around  Rio.  At  the  insistence  of  the 
Indian  leaders,  the  city  is  stringing 
electricity  out  here  so  that  indigenous 
people  from  around  the  world  can  meet, 
party,  and  type  their  agendas  and 
statements  into  laptops  late  into  the 
night.  It  is  a  local  demonstration  of  their 
global  clout. 

I  retreat  to  the  Kari  Oca  bar  to  jot 
down  notes.  Desperately  seeking  any 
new  angle,  like  most  of  the  7,000 
journalists  here,  a  Brazilian  friend  stops 
by  and  gets  after  me  for  a  quote  about 
the  scene.  It  is  a  favorite  shortcut, 
quoting  other  journalists. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  she  asks. 
I  try  to  explain  Processed  World  but  there 
is  no  adequate  translation.  "Processed" 
in  Portuguese  is  beneficiado,  benefitted  or 
improved.  But  what  if  a  process  does  not 
improve? 

Thursday,  May  28:  I  was  in  the 
Jornal  do  Brasil  yesterday.  It  seems  the 
Kari  Oca  bar  is  the  hottest  new  spot  in 
town.  The  proof:   your  faithful  Scribe 


from  Processed  World.  "It's  a  tranquil 
place.  You  can  even  relax  there  among 
the  confusion,"  said  I. 

I  find  myself  agreeing  more  and  more 
with  a  bumpersticker  we  saw  here  the 
other  day:  Everybody  has  to  believe  in 
something.  I  believe  Fll  have  another  beer.  It 
could  be  the  unofficial  motto  of  Brazil. 

The  usually  fresh,  even  if  only  slightly 
cool  Antarticas  slide  down  our  throats  one 
after  the  other  as  we  reflect  on  Zoo  92, 
as  one  wag  dubbed  this  happening.  "Eco 
92,"  as  most  people  call  it  here,  is  a  many 
ring  circus.  Everybody  is  putting  on  a 
big  show  to  demonstrate  their  power. 
It's  like  Amazon  headsmen  who  vie  to 
throw  the  biggest  party.  They  have  to  be 
here  to  be  heard,  to  command  resour- 
ces in  the  New  World  Order.  The  roles 
are  set  in  advance.  What  remains  is  to 


We  wondered  why  the  Indians  set  up 
camp  on  the  outskirts  of  town  in  a 
mental  asylum.  "The  Indians  and  pa- 
tients have  a  lot  in  common,"  explained 
a  nurse.  "They  are  both  marginalized. 
They  don't  have  their  liberty.  They  are 
wards  of  the  state." 

But  the  Indians  also  seem  to  have 
marginalized  and  folklorized  themselves 
here,  mainly  it  seems  to  satisfy  their 
supporters  who  want  to  feed  their  own 
fierce  primitive  images.  Maurice 
Strong,  the  oilman  who  heads  UNCED, 
came  out  to  smoke  a  peace  pipe  and  get 
his  picture  in  the  paper  with  the 
Indians. 

We  heard  the  Yanomami  took  one 
look  at  Kari  Oca  and  said  no  thanks. 
The  so-called  last  stone-age  people  in 
the  world  preferred  to  stay  in  a  hotel 


play  them  out. 

Our  first  view  of  this  was  the  stockade 
fenced  replica  of  an  Indian  village  they 
call  Kari  Oca,  a  play  on  carioca,  the 
nickname  for  the  urbane  residents  of 
Rio,  and  oca,  an  Indian  word  for  lodge 
or  hut.  The  Indians  are  on  display  at 
Kari  Oca.  They  have  built  great 
thatched  lodges  where  they  meet  and 
rest  in  hammocks  during  the  heat  of  the 
day.  But  later  there  is  plenty  of  feathers 
and  folklore  for  photographers  with 
frequent  dances  and  war  party  whoops. 
A  blonde  woman  dressed  like  Jane 
parades  with  her  Tarzan-like  Indian 
sidekick,  a  painted  exotic  dancer  who 
has  toured  Europe  and  America,  who 
hands  us  his  business  card.  When  it 
comes  time  to  eat,  the  reputedly  fierce 
Kayapo  are  always  first  in  line. 


downtown. 

Tonight  we  were  invited  out  with  our 
informants  among  the  upper  class  cari- 
ocas.  They  took  us  to  a  chic  new 
restaurant,  Mistura  Fina,  the  first  stop  on 
a  rarefied  view  of  Rio.  The  rich  are 
nervous  these  days.  Not  only  has  the 
Presidente  been  denounced  as  a  corrupt, 
drug-sniffing. megalomaniac  by  his  own 
brother,  shaming  all  who  voted  for  him, 
but  the  Little  Prince  has  been  kidnapped 
from  Petropolis.  The  heir  to  the  Brazil- 
ian monarchy,  if  there  still  were  one,  is 
being  held  for  $5  million  ransom.  The 
country  can't  pay.  (Brazil  is  scheduled  to 
hold  a  national  referendum  in  1993  on 
what  type  of  state  they  will  have: 
presidential,  parliamentary,  or  mon- 
archy!) 

"This  is  Brazil,"  said  the  daughter  of  a 


PF^aczEsaEEJ  kjjaphh.ci  3C3 


L3 


Rio  newspaper  magnate,  "Just  today,  I 
was  robbed  of  my  purse  at  gunpoint 
while  stopped  at  a  red  light." 

Yet  when  one  of  us  innocently  agreed 
that  you  have  to  stay  on  your  toes  in 
Rio,  she  protested  vehemently. 

"Everywhere  is  violent!  The  same 
thing  could  happen  in  St.  Moritz  or 
Monaco!  My  poor  country,"  she  sighed, 
as  if  the  burden  of  the  image  was  even 
greater  than  that  of  reality. 

We  ended  up  at  a  party  thrown  by  the 
youngest  member  of  the  Brazilian  parli- 
ament. We  looked  down  on  the  swim- 
ming pool  of  the  Copacabana  Palace 
and  debated  how  much  smoked  salmon 
to  eat,  as  champagne  was  poured  down 
our  gullets  by  waiters  in  black  and 
white.  We  had  hoped  that  the  bowls 
circulating  through  the  crowd  might 
contain  some  of  Rio's  famous  Brizola, 
the  state  governor's  name  which  has 
become  slang  for  cocaine.  We  were 
about  to  dip  in  when  the  Special  Agent 
reminded  us  just  in  time  about  the  stur- 
geon general's  warning  about  inhaling 
caviar.  It  doesn't  matter.  We're  starting 
to  ride  a  current  of  energy  that  seems 
like  the  pulse  of  this  city. 

Saturday,  May  30:  We  woke  up  late 
to  find  that  the  Army  has  occupied  Rio 
with  6,000  soldiers  posted  every  100 
meters  along  the  beachfront  avenues. 
And  today  we  had  to  carry  more  money 
and  jugs  of  hallucinogens  to  the  Indians. 
The  Specieil  Agent's  mission  is  getting 
out  of  line.  We  crammed  into  a  bor- 
rowed car  with  a  few  friends  we  have 
picked  up  along  the  way  and  drove  out 
to  Kari  Oca.  The  car  smelled  of  alcohol 
fuel  — even  the  machines  run  on  cane 
liquor  — and  backfired  every  block.  We 


were  afraid  we  would  be  shot  at. 

It  turned  out  the  orange  liquid  in  the 
jugs  was  ayahausca  bound  for  the  Sami, 
the  blonde,  blue-eyed  indigenes  from 
Norway  who  were  dressed  in  red  and 
blue  wool  outfits  and  sweating  profusely 
when  we  arrived.  Last  night,  they  said, 
some  of  the  Indians  had  hopped  around 
clucking  like  chickens.  They  wanted  to 
try  some  of  whatever  that  was. 

I  was  about  to  do  the  same  when  the 
Special  Agent  pulled  me  '  aside  and 
showed  me  the  little  pieces  of  paper 
printed  with  lightning  bolts  that  a  friend 
had  slipped  to  him  in  trade.  "Berserker 
medicine,"  he  said,  "for  the  beer  and 
wool  tribe."  We  decided  to  get  out  of 
town  and  leave  the  indigenous  people  to 
their  own  hallucinations. 

We  headed  south  along  the  coast  past 
the  Club  Med  to  a  hotel  on  a  bluff  with  a 
chairlift  descending  to  the  beach  below. 
Prevailing  on  a  waiter  to  keep  the  bar 
open,  we  sipped  caipirinhas  and  stared  up 
at  the  stars.  We  couldn't  find  the 
Southern  Cross.  We're  becoming  dis- 
oriented. Or  maybe  we  never  had  our 
bearings. 

Monday,  June  1:  Dawn  over  Copa- 
cabana. We're  barely  holding  on  at  our 
favorite  juice  bar  on  Nossa  Senhora  de 
Copacabana  as  Rio  starts  a  new  week- 
day. The  Blade  Runner  turns  from  his 
orange  juice,  nods  adeus,  and  disap- 
pears into  the  cacophony. 

We  spent  the  morning  yesterday 
sitting  by  the  pool  like  experts  analyzing 
the  Earth  Summit,  which  begins  today. 

"The  name  itself  always  struck  me  as 
a  little  pretentious,"  said  the  Blade 
Runner.  Could  you  really  expect  128 
heads    of    state    to    solve    the    Earth's 


problems  during  a  weekend  in  Rio? 

Caught  with  thousands  of  other  cars 
in  a  tunnel  on  the  way  back  into  town, 
we  started  making  up  headlines  for  the 
big  event.  Traffic  Jam  at  the  Earth 
Summit.  Green  Gathering  Produces 
Global  Gridlock  and  Greenhouse 
Gases.  UNCED:  Better  Left  Unsaid. 

We  turned  off  at  Ipanema  Beach  and 
decided  to  escape  even  further  with 
those  lightning  bolts.  Then  we  headed 
for  the  Universidade  do  Chope,  the 
university  of  draft  beer,  and  the  Acade- 
mia  de  Cacha^a,  the  academy  of  cane 
liquor,  to  get  in  shape. 

We  left  our  car  in  the  care  of  the 
Guardian  of  the  Universe  until  we  were 
primed  to  race  with  the  rest  of  Rio.  We 
roared  down  the  beachfront  like  Emer- 
son Fittipaldi,  belching  alcohol  out  our 
tailpipe.  We  dined  late  with  the  Queens 
of  Copacabana  in  a  little  trattoria  by  the 
beach.  We  closed  down  Caligula  and 
went  vainly  in  search  of  a  late  night 
Bossa.  We  followed  a  tip  about  a  Dada 
'n'  Zen  bar  to  a  curtained  door  in  an 
anonymous  office  building.  Inside  they 
were  showing  urban  pastoral  animation 
on  the  wall,  cities  turning  into  butter- 
flies, and  mixing  passion  fruit  caipir- 
inhas. We  ended  up  back  at  the  apart- 
ment, trying  to  stay  out  of  trouble, 
listening  loud  to  world  music  and 
dream-like  pop  that  sounded  like  the  last 
wave  played  backwards  until  the  dawn 
rose  over  Copacabana. 

Tuesday,  June  2:  We've  been 
shopping  for  a  better  world.  The  future 
of  ecology  is  on  scde  at  the  Global 
Forum,  a  huge  flea  market  of  eco-gear 
and  ideology.  Outside  Flamengo  Park, 
street  vendors  hawk  everything  from 
nylon  bags  to  beach  towels  emblazoned 
with  Eco  92  and  pictures  of  parrots  and 
scantily  clad  women.  Inside  environ- 
mental organizations  sell  everything 
from  t-shirts  and  books  to  crystals  and 
rainforest  powders. 

Dubbed  an  Eco-Woodstock  by  the 
local  press,  the  diversity  reflects  the 
inclusivity  and  relativity  of  ecology.  Not 
only  are  the  predictable  environmental- 
ists and  developmentalists  here,  from 
Greenpeace  to  the  Global  Environmen- 
tal Fund,  but  scientists,  technocrats, 
businessmen,  and  spirituadists  are  in  on 
the  action  too.  It  is  a  view  of  the  new 
ecological  global  village  where  every- 
thing is  seen  through  green  lenses.  Here 
everything  seems  open  to  debate  in 
ecological  terms. 

"Still  there's  more  talk  about  preser- 
vation than  about  cities,"  complained 
Silvia  Barbosa  Muniz,  a  social  worker 


LI-. 


F^FNOEZESSEE]    LJjaE^h_C]    3C3 


who  like  us  was  touring  the  more  than 
600  booths.  "The  worst  degradation  is 
in  big  cities,"  she  said,  seeming  to  sum 
up  Rio's  message  to  the  Earth  Summit. 
"And  it  has  to  do  with  misery.  How  can 
we  improve  the  environment  unless  we 
make  human  relations  better?  The 
world  can't  equilibrate  until  there's 
more  of  a  human  equilibrium.  Our 
problems  are  not  separated.  People  can't 
be.  Nature  has  us  intimately  tied." 

I  wanted  to  get  together  with  her  on 
that.  But  the  Bodyguard  pulled  me  away 
just  in  time.  Who  is  he  watching  out  for 
anyway?  I'm  beginning  to  think  it's  my 
wife. 

Wandering  around,  we  came  across  a 
blue-and-white  tent  where  the  World- 
watch  Institute  was  holding  an  opening 
day  press  conference.  The  blue-blazer- 
khaki- slacks- loafer-and-open- shirt 
crowd  seemed  to  be  assembling  for  a 
news  feed.  It  looked  like  a  gathering  of 
the  new  ecocrats  of  the  global  village, 
presumably  the  future  rulers  of  the 
world.  We  couldn't  miss  out! 

"This  is  a  turning  point  in  history," 
proclaimed  Gro  Harlem  Brundtland, 
the  Norwegian  prime  minister  and  chair 
of  the  commission  that  led  to  UNCED. 
WorldWatch  head  Lester  Brown  claimed 
no  less  modestly,  "This  is  an  event  that 
will  separate  two  distinct  eras.  What  the 
future  will  be  like  will  be  decided  here." 

The  Worldwatch  cadre  appears  to  be 
an  especially  assertive  crossbreed  of 
environmental  doomsayers  and  eco- 
policy  wonks  eager  to  sit  in  the  driver's 
seat  and  save  the  world  — or  at  least 
make  the  obligatory  warnings  from  the 
back  seat.  "We  must  reverse  direction  in 
the  next  decade,"  said  Brown.  "Or  we 
will  face  a  spiral  of  economic  and 
environmental  decline.  And  future  gen- 
erations will  have  no  chance.  Whether 
this  conference  leads  to  the  social  mo- 
mentum to  bring  about  the  necessary 
transformations  will  be  the  measure  of 
its  success,"  Brown  allowed. 

The  dream  of  conference-goers  and 
think-tankers  like  these  is  that  by  par- 
laying with  the  media  and  policymakers 
they  will  be  able  to  build  social  momen- 
tum for  change.  Nobody  talks  about 
movements  anymore.  The  latest  line  in 
social  engineering  is  that  ecological 
principles  should  organize  the  economy. 

"To  reconcile  human  activities  with 
the  laws  of  nature,  nothing  less  is  what 
must  be  done,"  said  Bruntland.  But 
what  are  the  laws  of  nature?  And  do  we 
really  want  our  social  life  organized 
according  to  the  science  of  ecology, 
which  aside  from  some  very  large  gen- 


eral theories  and  some  very  small  spe- 
cific findings  is  still  mainly  a  rhetoric 
easily  appropriated  by  many  ideologies? 

It  sounded  like  survival  of  the  fittest 
to  me.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that 
eco-pundits  will  survive.  While  the  au- 
thorities talked,  beer,  orange  juice, 
mineral  water,  and  guarana  (the  Coke  of 
Brazil)  were  free-flowing.  A  buffet  table 
was  laden  with  platters  of  roast  beef, 
quiche,  pate,  eggplant,  fresh  salad, 
papaya,  guanabana,  kiwi,  pineapple,  and 
strawberries. 

Meanwhile  Lester  Brown  was  saying, 
"Chateaubriand  said  forests  come  before 
civilization,  deserts  after.  The  equation 
is  simple:   the  more  people,   the   more 


poverty,  the  more  pollution."  I  was 
getting  confused.  Did  he  say  something 
about  steak?  I  was  reminded  of  Maurice 
Strong's  wish  for  us  all  to  live  lives  of 
elegant  simplicity.  Would  we  all  be  able 
to  have  our  Chateaubriand  and  eat  our 
desserts  too? 

We  ducked  out  after  lunch  and  went 
to  catch  the  opening  ceremony  of  the 
Global  Forum.  On  the  beach,  we  met 
up  with  a  friend  from  the  World  Bank, 
which  also  has  a  small  stand  here,  too. 
"This  is  great.  It's  wonderful,"  he  en- 
thused. "All  these  little  groups  getting 
together." 

But  didn't  he  feel  awkward  or  threat- 
ened,   walking   around   with   a   World 


ADAPTING   YOU    TO    THE 
BUSINESS    ENVIRONMENT 


Many    hands    makes 
less    workers 

FREE  APPLIANCES 

IF  YOU  REGISTER  NOW! 

NEW    WORLD    ORDER    INC. 

Bio-engineering    for   business 


fF^acESSEa  kjjciF^h-a  3C3 


THIS  M«»fctH  W«ILB 


by  TOM  TOMORROW 


LAST  N\ONTK,  SOUTHEKN  CALIFORNIA  WAS  ROCXED 
BV  TWO  POWERFUL  EAKTWqo^kES-- • 


•m^^^^Mi 


so  OME  'MENTIONED  -rWE  FACT  T^^PO"  A  VJEEC 
PRIOR  T6  THEaOAKES,THE  U-S.  OOVERNMENT 
CEVlDENUY  UNAWARE IWAT  THE  COLTi  WAR  UA^ 
SNOeb)  EXPIC&ED  TWO  20-KlL0Tt)N  MU CLEAR 
WEAPOMi   ONDEUGRoUNfi  IM  NEIGHBORING 


Tj   Kfier  IMPORTMT  Foe  0^  T^  KEEP 
SL0WIN16JJPJWESE  S0M8S... 


woRar- 


Bank  name  tag  on  his  chest?  "I  haven't 
been  attacked  yet,"  he  rephed  cheerful- 
ly. "What  are  you  doing  here?"  he 
asked.  "Sounds  like  processed  cheese," 
he  laughed,  when  I  told  him  of  our 
assignment. 

A  helicopter  circled  overhead  as  we 
waited  in  a  huge  crowd  for  the  arrival  of 
Gaia,  a  replica  Viking  boat  carrying 
messages  from  the  children  of  the  world. 
But  Gaia  seemed  to  be  stuck  offshore. 
Brazilian  girl  scouts  were  whining 
through  an  unintelligible  song  about  the 
Earth  when  the  crowd  started  getting 
unruly.  A  mob  of  journalists  rushed  the 
celebrities  on  stage.  I  pushed  my  way 
through  the  commotion. 

A  couple  of  ruddy  hippies  were 
standing  in  the  waves  with  a  big  banner 
strung  between  them.  "GAIA  GO 
HOME!  5  MILLION  S  RICH  MEN 
SHO  W  OFF.  Give  the  Money  to  the  Favelas 
(&  solve  ecological  problems  there), "  the 
banner  read,  with  each  phrase  diminish- 
ing across  its  length.  "I  am  Bruntland's 
green  warrior,"  shouted  one  of  the  pro- 
testors from  the  Society  of  Nature  Con- 
serv'ists  of  Norway.  Soon  a  group  of  street 
kids  jumped  in  on  the  action  with  a  ban- 
ner reading  "The  children  of  Brazil  are 
abandoned.  " 

We  decided  it  was  time  to  clear  out. 
Heading  for  the  exits,  we  ran  into  an  an- 
gry young  American  smashing  a  coconut 


FOR  A  FEW  PATS  AFTERWARD,  THE  AlRWAVE^ 
WERE  FILLED  WITH  5C1EMT1ST5  PI$60^i'N& 
THE   COMPLETE  UNPREt)iCTA9iLiTy  OF  S\iCH 
EVENT3... 


WE  JUST  DOMT  HA-JE  any  WAY  OF  <NOW-| 
1  IN6  WHAT  CAUSES  THESE  THINGS. 


"BECAUSE.  OF  COOWE,  MoW  COOLD  THERE  POS- 
S/BLY  8E  ANY  roNNECTiON  BETWEEN  UNCett- 
GROOND  MUCLEAe  EXPLOSIONS  AnO  5U8SE- 
(30ENT  EARTHOUAICE  ACTIVITY  OK    NEAR.SY 
PAULTtlNES.' 


THftTi  XlGfiT- 
IT'S   51MPLY 
Not  SctiHTlfiC! 


on  the  sidewalk  to  get  at  the  white  meat 
inside.  The  Special  Agent  offered  his 
Swiss  Army  knife.  "What  are  you  doing 
here?"  we  asked. 

"I  came  to  participate  in  the  process," 
he  glowered.  "But  business  and  govern- 
ment are  up  there  screwing  each  other 
and  we're  here  wallowing  in  the  muck. 
This  is  the  biggest  farce,  totally  paid  for 
by  Coke,  3M,  and  Arco,"  he  averred, 
waving  the  coconut  at  the  stands  and 
tents  all  around  the  Global  Forum. 
"They've  got  the  right  to  put  their  label 
on  this  thing,"  he  said.  "It's  gone  a  step 
beyond  greenwashing,  you  know.  They're 
not  just  putting  a  facade  on  it.  They're 
owning  it." 


Wednesday ,  June  3:  A  day  of  official 
events  began  in  darkness  at  the  Earth 
Parliament.  Somebody  was  blowing  a 
panpipe  while  a  monotone  voice  droned 
something  about  his  mother  earth  and 
another  body  danced  in  the  shadows. 
This  was  the  show  Darrell  Posey  organ- 
ized to  demonstrate  the  wisdoms  of 
tribal  people. 

Posey  has  been  credited  with  pointing 
out  in  recent  years  that  indigenous 
knowledge  is  just  as  valid  as  western 
science.  But  this  show  seems  designed  to 
blur  the  idea  into  an  insipid  blend  of 
new  age  spirit  pap. 


The  Earth  Parliament  is  sponsored  by 
The  Body  Shop.  Posey  is  pushing  a 
new  line  of  androgynous  perfumes 
made  from  jungle  ingredients  and 
named  for  Indian  tribes.  Now  you,  too, 
can  smell  like  indigenous  people! 

When  we  asked  where  this  latest 
rainforest  marketing  idea  came  from, 
Posey  replied,  "Well,  I'm  an  anthropol- 
ogist and  a  botanist."  But  before  he 
could  continue,  the  Special  Agent  said, 
"Well,  I'm  a  man  and  a  gardener.  So 
what?"  I  had  to  pull  him  out  of  there 
before  they  got  into  a  fight. 

Over  at  the  National  Museum,  where 
the  intellectuals  were  meeting,  we 
picked  up  some  hard  numbers.  From  a 
linguist  we  learned  that  only  half  of  the 
world's  6,000  languages  are  currently 
being  taught.  Only  300  languages  are 
sure  of  being  in  use  a  century  from  now. 
While  everybody  is  bemoaning  biodiver- 
sity loss,  he  said,  there  is  little  being 
heard  in  favor  of  cultural  diversity. 

Back  at  the  Global  Forum's  Interna- 
tional Press  Center,  we  decided  to  play 
journalists  and  spend  the  rest  of  the  day 
at  press  conferences.  "The  greatest  ene- 
my of  the  environment  is  poverty,"  said 
an  economist  of  the  World  Bank,  re- 
flecting the  new  universal  line.  "Envir- 
onmental damages  are  not  inevitable. 
Governments  have  it  within  their  hands 
to  turn  these  unwanted  results  around. 
We  believe  in  a  win-win  policy." 

"There  will  be  problems,"  acknow- 
ledged another  official.  "But  if  we  make 
errors  we  will  remedy  them." 

"The  World  Bank  is  greener  than  the 
trees,"  the  Special  Agent  whispered.  So 
is  big  business  these  days.  The  Business 
Council  for  Sustainable  Development 
has  come  to  Rio  to  announce  its  strategy 
for  internalizing  environmental  costs. 
Of  course  they  didn't  mention  passing 
on  the  costs  to  consumers.  Greenpeace 
counterattacked  with  a  slick  press  kit  of 
its  own  denouncing  the  greenwashing  of 
big  bad  business. 

The  Indians  too,  held  a  press  confer- 
ence. "Yanomami  is  people  too,  gente, 
povo, "  announced  Davi  Yanomami. 
"Yanomami  knows  how  to  talk,  to  think. 
I'm  talking  here  without  a  paper.  I'm 
talking  from  my  own  knowledge.  You 
can't  find  my  path." 

He  had  a  warning  for  Bush.  "Don't 
come  to  town  with  a  bad  heart." 

"If  the  market  is  the  new  religion," 
said  the  Special  Agent,  "then  I'll  stick  to 
my  animist  guns." 

Next  we  learned  that  the  Global 
Forum  is  bankrupt.  Since  we  arrived, 
there  have  been  noises  that  the  event  is 


F>i=^aEZE5aECI    hJJCIFSh_CI    31CD 


$2  million  short.  Now  they're  threaten- 
ing to  pass  one  of  Bella  Abzug's  hats 
around.  We  decide  to  apply  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand  and  make  ourselves 
scarce. 

Friday,  June  5:  We  ran  around  town 
all  day  looking  for  the  ballyhooed  bio- 
diversity treaty.  None  of  the  environ- 
mental groups  in  their  public  relations 
trailers  at  the  International  Press  Center 
had  a  copy  of  the  treaty  they  were 
excoriating  the  U.S.  for  refusing  to  sign. 
So  we  took  our  first  trip  out  to  the 
official  UNCED  conference  for  the 
signing. 

The  road  to  Riocentro,  a  new  con- 
vention center  built  especially  for  the 
Earth  Summit,  shows  the  whole  story 
here.  The  route  goes  by  the  famous 
beaches  and  high-rises,  past  the  infa- 
mous Rocinha/aw/a  [slum].  Army  tanks 
are  poised  with  turrets  trained  on  the 
hillside  shantytown  said  to  be  controlled 
by  druglords.  Although  Rio  has  been 
spruced  up  para  Ingles  ver  (for  the  English 
to  see),  the  ragged  edges  are  always 
apparent. 

Riocentro  is  a  big  warehouse-like 
structure  built  on  marshes  south  of  the 
city.  A  favela  has  already  sprung  up 
across  the  street  and  tapped  into  the 
water  and  electricity  lines  going  to  the 
convention  center.  These  neighbors 
have  complained  that  sewage  from  the 
official  delegates  is  discharged  into  their 
front  yards. 

When  I  asked  at  the  U.S.  delegation 
for  a  copy  of  the  biodiversity  treaty 
President  Bush  has  refused  to  sign,  a 
delegate  intoned,  "that  would  not  be 
appropriate,"  but  finally,  a  diplomat  at 


the  Brazilian  delegation  was  persuaded 
to  make  us  a  copy. 

More  than  any  other  document  at  the 
summit,  the  treaty  on  biological  diversi- 
ty reflects  the  thicket  of  controversies 
confronting  any  attempt  to  equitably 
administer  global  ecology.  And  the 
biodiversity  treaty  has  become  an  in- 
stant rhetorical  battleground  between 
North  and  South,  the  presumed  poles  of 
the  New  World  Order.  "By  making 
Third  World  countries  buy  clean  tech- 
nology from  the  First  World,"  a  Third 
World  journalist  explained  to  us  later 
that  night,  "the  First  World  maintains 
its  domination  in  the  name  of  ecology." 

Oh,  now  we  get  it,  we  nodded. 

The  biodiversity  treaty  attempts  to 
make  the  First  World  countries  share 
technology,  patents,  and  profits  with 
Third  World  countries.  Nevermind  that 
it's  hard  to  tell  who's  on  first  and  who's 
on  third,  not  to  mention  what  n«rth  and 
south  have  to  do  with  it.  Late  into  the 
night,  we  get  into  arguments  defending 
the  refusal  to  sign  such  a  mess,  on  the 
grounds  that  perhaps  mutual  respect  of 
property  rights,  as  the  Indians  insisted 
at  their  meeting,  is  a  better  place  to 
start. 

But  everybody  is  getting  burned  out 
on  arguments  already.  They  want 
things  to  move. 

"I  was  waiting  for  this  moment,"  said 
a  young  Brazilian  reporter  at  the  Rock 
and  Roll  Bar.  "How  do  you  feel  now?" 
we  asked.  "Empty,"  she  sighed. 

Monday,  June  8:  At  the  Earth  Walk 
protest  on  Copacabana  beach  yesterday, 
the  Americans  took  the  front  row  with 
their  trenchant  critique  of  George  Bush: 


with  a  human  face. 

"eco-wimp,"  they  taunted.  It's  beginning 
to  grate  on  us  that  Americans  are  always 
so  insistent  on  taking  the  lead,  even  if 
they  have  nothing  to  lead  with.  So  what 
did  they  expect?  And  why  can't  they  just 
shut  up  and  follow  the  rest  of  the  world 
for  a  while? 

Later  at  the  Circo  Voador,  at  a 
performance  club  called  the  Flying  Cir- 
cus, the  Earth  Parliament  held  its  clos- 
ing ceremony.  After  Indian  leaders 
made  long  speeches,  the  press  exploded 
with  elbows  and  glee  when  the  U.S. 
Congressional  delegation  entered  for  a 
powwow. 

Congressman  Porter,  of  the  House 
Human  Rights  Subcommittee,  told  the 
Blade  Runner  that  he  became  aware 
there  were  human  rights  violations  in 
the  world  when  his  wife  was  strip 
searched  at  the  Moscow  airport.  The 
delegation  had  its  picture  taken  with  the 
Kayapo,  naturally,  whose  macaw 
feather  headdresses  make  them  the  most 
photogenic.  Al  Gore  had  his  own  film 
crew  documenting  this  culmination  of 
his  transformation  from  Mr.  Military 
Appropriations  into  an  environmental 
visionary.  It  was  a  vision  we  found  hard 
to  believe. 

We  had  to  get  away.  At  dusk,  we 
crossed  the  bridge  to  Niteroi,  the  Oak- 
land of  Guanabara  Bay.  In  a  small 
garden  house,  we  joined  a  gathering  of 
Indians  and  rubber  tappers  who  were 
passing  around  whiskey  bottles  filled 
with  that  bright  orange  acrid  liquid  — 
the  vision  vine  of  the  iorest  —  ayahausca. 


F'F^OEZESSEE]    kJJOE=Nk-C]    3C] 


fcV 


A  Kaxinawa  shaman  calls  the  spirits 
to  the  ceremony.  As  he  chants  softly, 
dogs  at  the  far  end  of  the  town  begin  to 
bark,  the  sound  coming  closer.  Soon 
every  dog  in  town  is  yapping.  Suddenly, 
a  giant  anaconda  appears  across  a  night 
sky  of  neon  colors.  Later  a  rubber 
tapper  sings  a  soothing  vision  into  our 
brains  of  an  orange  tree  loaded  with 
beautiful  orange  fruit  shaking  in  the 
breeze.  Then  he  sings  of  his  niece,  she's 
a  daughter  of  the  stream,  pretty  Janaina, 
still  a  little  girl,  nearly  a  woman. 

Then  the  Santo  Daime  people,  urban 
adherents  of  the  jungle  juice,  begin  their 
ethereal  ballads.  In  minor  keys,  they 
sing  us  into  quiet  green  groves,  to  see 
the  light  and  secrets  of  the  imaginary 
forest.  We  go  deeper  and  deeper  into  a 
night  lit  like  day.  As  dawn  comes,  we 
talk  of  the  visions  we  shared  over  a  quick 
coffee  and  then  head  back  into  the 
maelstrom  strangely  revived. 

Tuesday,  June  9:  As  the  days  go  by 
there  are  more  people  in  our  apartment. 
We  wake  up  beside  strangers  and 
scrounge  through  the  fresh  fruit  for. 
breakfast.  We're  sleeping  less  and  less. 
We  stay  up  late  and  get  up  early.  But  it 
doesn't  matter.  CNN's  camera  com- 
mandoes are  here,  therefore  the  whole 
world  is  here,  therefore  this  is,  at  least 
for  now,  the  center  of  the  world, 
therefore  there  is  no  time  to  sleep.  And 
the  less  we  sleep,  the  more  this  becomes 
obvious. 

Today,  a  busload  of  50  Brazilian 
Indians  drove,  with  military  helicopter 
escort,  to  Riocentro  to  deliver  a  state- 
ment to  the  official  U.N.  delegations. 
Raoni,  the  Kayapo  chief  and  friend  of 


Sting,  rode  shotgun.  His  wooden  lip 
disk  and  bottle-glass  prescription  glasses 
gave  him  the  curious  look  of  a  modern 
primitive.  But  the  Indians  remained  on 
the  bus,  while  anthropologists  and  ac- 
tivists answered  questions  about  them 
from  the  press.  Just  like  in  the  good  old 
days. 

Later  back  at  the  Global  Forum,  we 
run  into  chief  Mario  Juruna,  an  Indian 
elected  to  Congress  to  represent  Rio 
during  the  waning  days  of  the  military 
dictatorship.  He  was  arguing  with  offi- 
cials of  the  government's  environmentzd 
protection  agency  who  were  insisting 
that  he  take  down  a  jaguar-hide  hung  by 
one  of  his  tribesman  on  the  side  of  a  tree 
hopefully  to  sell  to  a  tourist. 

"What  are  you  so  concerned  about?" 
Juruna  protested. 

"This  skin  will  turn  to  dust.  It  is 
nothing.  Meanwhile  you  whites  are 
killing  all  the  trees,  all  the  animals,  all 
the  fish.  You  are  also  killing  Indians. 
Yet  you  worry  about  this  skin,  which  is 
already  dead." 

The  nongovernmental  organizations 
here  have  started  acting  like  govern- 
ments. They're  meeting  late  into  the 
night,  composing  their  own  alternative 
treaties  on  forests,  biodiversity,  and 
cooperative  agreement.  No  doubt  they 
will  fare  at  least  as  well  as  the  official 
treaties.  Not  that  is. 

The  official  organizers  of  this  thing 
have  set  up  a  people's  newspaper  called 
Da  Zi  Bao.  We're  starting  to  compose 
messages  for  it  like  "I  M  N  NGO,  U  R 
N  NGO,"  "The  market  is  the  future  of 


Hey,  come  back  !  I  have  sole 
rights  to  Historical  Truth  ! 


ecology  and  ecology  is  the  future  of  the 
market." 

On  our  way  home,  we  stopped  by  the 
juice  bar. 

"Here  there's  no  ecology,"  the  owner 
told  us.  "It's  all  artificial.  This  city,  the 
capital  of  ecology,  is  all  screwed  up.  For 
foreigners  they  make  it  easy.  But  for 
patriots  not.  It's  a  big  bureaucracy." 

"Ecology,  what  does  ecology  mean?" 
asked  his  friend  who  owned  a  bookstore. 
"We'll  still  work  12  hours  a  day." 

"Brazil  is  a  rich  country,"  the  juice 
man  said.  "But  the  administration  is  the 
worst." 

"We  need  a  dictator,"  the  men  agreed. 
"A  Fujimori.  A  Perot!"  they  laughed. 

Friday,  June  12:  We  have  begun  to 
hear  ominous  stories  of  reality  returning 
to  Rio.  A  story  is  going  around  about 
two  policemen  who  dropped  a  bag  of 
grass  in  an  American  environmentalist's 
lap.  One  of  the  cops  pointed  a  gun  at  the 
criminal's  head  and  ordered  his  friends 
to  hurry  to  their  hotel  and  bring  back 
$1,000  if  they  wanted  to  see  him  alive. 
The  terrified  environmentalists  hastily 
complied. 

To  make  Rio  safe  for  ecologists, 
police  reportedly  have  rounded  up  street 
kids  for  the  duration  of  the  Earth 
Summit.  Everybody  wonders  what  hap- 
pened to  them.  Even  so,  each  night  we 
step  over  the  bodies  of  sleeping  people 
OH  our  way  here  and  there. 

The  facade  of  order  seems  to  be 
crumbling  before  the  big  event  is  even 
over.  Today,  after  witnessing  the  third 
car  accident  in  the  morning,  we  decided 


F^FNOiZESSEED    lLJjai^h_E]    3C3 


it's  time  to  bail  out.  The  driver  of  the 
first  car  was  bumped  by  a  truck.  He 
took  a  tire  iron  to  the  truck's  windshield, 
then  sped  away.  Meanwhile,  our  cab 
ran  into  a  bus. 

We're  beginning  to  think  too  much 
like  Rio  taixi  drivers  ourselves,  making 
left  hand  turns  from  the  right  lane  and 
vice  versa.  We're  starting  to  take  our- 
selves too  seriously,  believing  our  own 
monikers,  and  acting  like  rhetorical 
gunmen  shooting  down  absurdities.  We 
got  into  a  verbal  duel  with  a  man  from 
RAN,  the  Rainforest  Action  Network, 
over  dinner  tonight.  We  were  cruel.  We 
made  him  admit  that  he  had  never  been 
to  a  rainforest.  Then  we  revealed  that 
Rio  is  in  the  midst  of  a  rainforest. 

The  Blade  Runner  came  back  from 
the  bathroom  announcing  that  some 
guy  had  asked  him  to  take  some  space 
age  navigation  devices  to  the  rubber- 
tappers.  The  hand-held  receivers  in- 
stantly calculate  a  position  on  earth  via 
satellites  orbiting  above.  The  guy  said 
they  were  used  in  the  Gulf  War  to 
pinpoint   bombing   targets   and   maybe 


s^-Moof  Silly  ^oc'ai-    , 
Jpc^iOMq  v/,\Y,>./»W 

FReeLoAOeJ^S   o^r  op 

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the  rubbertappers  could  use  them  to 
locate  their  territories  in  space.  The 
Blade  Runner  said  he  would  have  to 
check  with  them  next  time  they  met  on 
the  astral.  "Guns  and  Roses!"  our  cabbie 
yells  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  as  he  squeals 
through  a  red  light  into  the  night. 

Monday,  June  15:  Some  things  have 
to  be  believed  to  be  seen.  An  Inuit  wise 
man  said  that  on  the  cover  of  the  Earth 
Parliament  brochure.  It  could  have  been 


the  motto  of  the  Earth  Summit. 

The  Worldwatchers  say  they  can  see 
the  future.  "We  can  actually  see  what  an 
ecologically  sustainable  global  economy 
will  look  like,"  said  Lester  Brown.  "And 
we  could  build  it  now  with  available 
technologies.  But  time  is  running  out." 

You've  got  to  believe  it  to  see  it.  As 
the  millenium  approaches,  people  seem 
to  be  obsessed  with  deadlines  for  the  end 
of  the  world.  Not  us.  At  Eco  92,  we  felt 


Nine  Guides  to  Saving  the  Planet  (Not!) 


Reviewed  by  Jon  Christensen 

Pity  the  poor  soul  who  embarks  here.  You  could 
spend  the  rest  of  your  life  reading  about  saving  the 
planet.  I  only  wasted  a  summer. 

In  these  books,  the  reader  floats  uneasily  in  the 
ocean  of  facts  that  make  up  our  ever  more  crowded 
world,  with  its  temperature  rising,  its  ozone  layer 
balding,  its  biological  and  cultural  diversity  vanish- 
ing. Remarkably,  for  such  a  complicated  and 
controversial  subject  as  the  future  of  the  world,  these 
books  share  many  of  the  same  views,  with  a  couple  of 
notable  exceptions.  Maybe  that's  why  we  need  a  sea 
change  in  environmental  consciousness. 

The  school  of  global  ecological  management  rules. 
What  it  is. 

1.  OUR  COMMON  FUTURE.  The  World 
Commission  on  Environment  and  Development. 
Oxford  University  Press:  Oxjord,  1987. 

This  was  the  document  that  enshrined  the  notion 
of  sustainable  development  and  set  the  tack  for  the 
Earth  Sunmiit.  It  reflects  the  positivist  perspective  of 
believers  in  the  United  Nations.  Chaired  by  the 
vice-president  of  the  Socialist  International,  Gro 
Harlem  Brundtland,  the  commission  reports  that 
poverty  is  the  principal  cause  of  environmental 
degradation.  Equity  is  the  answer  to  the  tragedy  of 
the  commons.  But  we  must  face  the  limits  to  growth. 
It  is  all  there,  the  entire  basic  argument  for 
worldwide  solutions  to  the  crisis  of  the  environment 
and  human  misery.  Comprised  of  blue-ribbon 
representatives  from  28  countries,  the  commission 
eschews  confrontation.  It  is  not  that  there  is  one  set 
of  villains  and  another  of  victims,  they  say.  While 
giving  good  lip  service  to  public  participation,  the 


model  promoted  here  is  global  governance.  The 
Commission  enshrines  Public  Hearings  as  its  trade- 
mark. But  one  gets  the  worrying  feeling  that  all  of 
this  might  be  a  mere  sideshow  to  the  real 
consolidation  of  power  under  green  regimes,  not 
unlike  the  relationship  of  the  Global  Forum's 
eco-bazaar  to  the  Earth  Summit  in  Rio  92. 

2.  THE  GLOBAL  PARTNERSHIP:  A  Guide  to 
Agenda  21.  United  Nations  Conference  on  Envi- 
ronment and  Development.  United  Nations  Publi- 
cations: New  York,  1992. 

UNCED's  megaglobalmaniac  agenda  for  the  21st 
century  was  to  be  signed  by  world  leaders  at  the 
Earth  Summit.  This  guide  to  Agenda  21  boils  the 
lofty  goals  down  to  seven  priority  areas:  Revitalizing 
Growth  with  Sustainability  (The  Prospering  World!), 
Sustainable  Living  (The  Just  World!),  Human 
Settlements  (The  Habitable  World!),  Efficient  Re- 
source Use  (The  Fertile  Worid!) ,  Global  and 
Regional  Resources  (The  Shared  World!),  Managing 
Chemicals  and  Waste  (The  Clean  Worid!),  and 
People  Participation  and  Responsibility  (The  Peo- 
ple's World!).  It  sounds  like  an  overly  stimulated 
cross  between  the  Comintern  and  Exxon.  No  doubt 
there  are  some  good  ideas  here.  But  when  it  came 
down  to  negotiating  the  actual  800-plus-page  agenda, 
all  the  controversial  parts  were  simply  bracketed. 
Finally,  the  document  was  adopted  by  acclamation 
^ans  controversial  sections  and  any  budget  commit- 
ments). Hailed  as  a  blueprint  for  the  planet,  the 
vacuously  wordy  result  goes  to  show  that  the  future  is 
not  likely  to  be  decided  by  consensus.  What  is 
interesting  about  this  huge  undertaking  is  what  has 
been  taken  out  since  Our  Common  Future.  Sections 
on  population  and  the  military  were  essentially 


gutted.  The  ongoing  adaptation  of  Agenda  21  to 
political  exigencies  was  captured  on-line  by  Econet. 
Also  available  are  the  Rio  Declaration  (a  short 
homily  to  U.N.  cliches),  Forest  Principles,  Treaty  on 
Biological  Diversity,  and  the  Convention  on  Global 
Climate  Change. 

3.  BEYOND  THE  LIMITS:  Confronting  the 
Global  Collapse,  Envisioning  a  Sustainable  Future. 

Donella  Meadows  et  ai  Chelsea  Green:  Post  Mills, 
Vermont,  1992 

Twenty  years  ago,  in  The  Limits  to  Growth ,  the 
authors  predicted  that  we  only  had  20  years  to 
change  our  ways.  Now  the  sequel  to  the  international 
bestseller  proclaims  that  we  only  have  20  years  to 
change  our  ways.  Would  it  be  safe  to  predict  that  20 
years  from  now  the  dire  predictions  will  continue?  Or 
will  millenial  fever  die  down  when  the  planet  soars 
past  the  year  2000?  It  seems  unlikely.  We've  already 
overshot  our  limits,  warn  Meadows  and  company. 
And  don't  say  we  didn't  warn  you.  This  is  the  basic 
premise  behind  the  whole  worldwide  debate  for  which 
the  Earth  Summit  was  supposed  to  be  the  apotheosis. 
The  word  comes  from  a  computer  program  called 
Worid3.  In  computers,  we  trust.  Tellingly  for  the 
times,  however,  the  number  crunchers  conclude  that 
saving  the  world  will  require  changes  in  conscious- 
ness and  spirituality.  This  is  the  mantra  of  the  New 
Age  Order,  which  seems  destined  to  be  ruled  by 
ecotechnocrats  using  the  rhetoric  of  religion. 

4.  ONLY  ONE  WORLD:  Our  Own  to  Make  and 
to  Keep.  Gerard Piel.  W.H.  Freeman:  New  York, 
1992. 

The  author  was  the  founder  oi Scientific  Ameri- 
can .  His  earnest  balancing  act  strives  for  the  middle 
of  the  road,  carefully  weighing  historical  evidence, 
tendencies  to  environmental  hysteria,  and  the 
apparent  limits  to  management.  But  in  the  final 


F>i=^aEZEEiaEa  kxiaF^h_a  =bCD 


k<=i 


we  could  live  forever  and  never  have  to 
sleep.  But  our  bodies  said  fuck  you. 
After  the  Earth  Summit  comes  the 
global  hangover. 

While  the  new  ecocrats  ride  the  green 
wave  we  all  hope  will  never  break, 
post-Earth  Summit  ecology  seems  to 
have  become  not  a  new  way  of  thinking 
that  will  save  us  all  but  a  somehow 
familiar  terrain  for  old  struggles.  The 
security  forces  took  a  day  at  the  beach 
today.  The  street  kids  were  back  on  the 
streets.  And  it  seemed  the  Earth  Sum- 
mit would  quickly  fade  into  that  cate- 
gory of  megaspectacles  and  events  pop- 
ulated by  Earth  Days  past,  Live  Aid, 
and  Hands  Across  Whatever. 

As  Eco  92  broke  over  Rio,  we 
wondered  whether  ecology  might  be 
spent.  These  ecologists  were.  The 
Bodyguard  rounded  us  all  into  a  cab  to 
the  airport  and  what  seemed  like  the  last 
flight  out. 

The  Special  Agent  woke  from  a 
nightmare  haze  somewhere  over  the 
Amazon.  He  had  dreamed  of  global 
elephants,  stomping  through  the  jungle 


like  they  owned  it,  yet  mortally  terrified 
of  the  local  mice  they  were  squashing 
underfoot.  Hyenas  yapped  from  the 
sidelines  and  vultures  craned  their  necks 
at  the  scene  from  their  perches  in  the 


trees.  This  was  the  vision  that  he  took 
from  the  Earth  Summit.  He  knew  which 
side  he  was  on. 

—Jon  Christensen,  with  Jeremy  Narby  and 
Glen  Switkes 


analysis,  Pie!  demonstrates  how  the  scientific  estab- 
lishment has  been  the  driving  force  behind  the  effort 
to  enshrine  ecological  management  as  ihe  ne  plus 
ultra  of  global  governance  in  the  future.  Naturally, 
since  scientific  technocrats  have  much  to  gain  in  that 
revolution,  if  we  may  be  so  bold  as  to  call  it  that. 
Piel  eschews  the  spiritual  dimension  in  favor  of  hard 
facts.  And  he  is  more  optimistic  than  many  of  the 
others.  He  puts  his  faith  in  economic  growth  and 
human  development  so  he  fears  not  a  doubling  of 
world  population,  projected  for  the  end  of  the  21st 
century.  But  then  we  will  have  reached  the  limits,  he 
asserts.  We  have  not  much  more  than  a  century  to 
find  our  way  to  the  steady-state,  Piel  warns.  Listen 
good  now. 

5.  SAVING  THE  PLANET:  How  to  Shape  an 
Environmentally  Sustainable  Global  Economy. 

Lester  Brown  et  al.  W.  W.  Norton:  New  York, 
1991. 

Today's  politically  correct  policy  wonk  hews  to  the 
WorldWatch  line.  The  Institute  seems  perfectly 
positioned  for  the  next  think-tank  wave  inside  the 
Washington  belt  way. /4;7rej  I' American  Enterprise 
Institute,  nous.  Worldwatchers  were  the  darlings  of 
the  Earth  Summit  circuit  (and  they  had  the  best 
lunch  for  the  press).  It  all  seems  so  simple  when  they 
speak.  For  the  most  part  plain  spoken  and  relatively 
jargon  free,  Worldwatch  is  widely  read  and  quoted. 
We  can  see  the  future,  they  say.  Best  beheve.  Place 
your  bets.  As  advertisers  are  fond  of  saying,  they 
say,  this  is  a  limited  time  offer.  It  will  soon  expire. 

6.  TOP  GUNS  AND  TOXIC  WHALES:  The 
Environment  and  Global  Security.  Gwyn  Prins  and 
Robbie  Stamp.  Earthscan:  London,  1991. 

Another  popular  line  for  the  most  up-to-date 
pundits  sounds  more  than  a  little  like  ecology  for 
Rambo.  If  the  environment  is  a  security  issue,  why 


not  let  the  security  forces  handle  it?  Gung-ho  military 
men  can  now  embrace  their  new  mission:  saving  the 
earth.  That  way  we  can  save  the  military  too.  The 
peace  dividend  should  be  invested  in  the  environ- 
mental-security agenda,  the  authors  argue.  Prins,  a 
security  don  at  Cambridge,  imagines  a  Green  War 
Room,  monitoring  environmental  crises  worldwide. 
A  computer  program  called  CASSANDRA  tracks 
these  security  threats.  And  a  Green  Police  Force 
under  the  United  Nations  is  deployed  to  enforce 
rules.  This  book  was  designed  as  a  companion  to  a 
TV  show  by  Ted  Turner's  Better  World  Society.  And 
it  reads  Uke  a  TV  show,  with  lots  of  pictures,  graphs, 
computer  screens  and  boxes. 

7.  EARTH  IN  THE  BALANCE:  Ecology  and 
(he  Human  Spirit.  Senator  Al  Gore.  Houghton 
Mifflin:  New  York,  1992. 

Here,  the  wanna-be  environmental  vice-president 
lays  out  his  vision  for  the  new  age  in  excruciatingly 
earnest  prose.  Talk  about  family  values.  Gore 
analyzes  the  world  as  a  dysfunctional  family  that 
must  heal  itself  to  save  itself.  He  seems  an  apt 
personification  of  this  moment  in  ecology.  He  seems 
to  have  fashioned  his  line  in  an  encounter  group  of 
the  worid's  trendiest  environmentalists.  He  rubs 
elbows  with  Ted  and  Jane,  Shirley  and  the  Dalai. 
This  globe-trotting  parliamentarian's  bottom  line  is 
personal  change.  And  his  Global  Marshall  Plan  for 
saving  the  environment  is  a  market  basket  of  hip 
proposals  including  carbon  taxes,  virgin  materials 
fees,  full  life-cycle  costs,  efficiency  standards 
throughout  the  economy.  Look  at  how  Mr.  Military 
Appropriations  has  transformed  himself  into  the 
Green  Candidate! 

8.  CHANGING  COURSE:  A  Global  Business 
Perspective  on  Development  and  Environment. 

Stephan  Schmidheiny  with  the  Business  Council/or 


Sustainable  Development.  MIT  Press:  Cambridge, 
1992. 

This  is  the  new  face  of  green  capitalism.  While  the 
stereotype  continues  to  be  of  industries  keeping  costs 
low,  the  smart  money  bets  on  passing  on  costs  and 
garnering  profits  from  environmental  regulation.  The 
themes  of  this  new  business  environment:  the  polluter 
pays,  open  markets  are  crucial  for  sustainable 
development,  environmental  costs  are  internalized 
and  reflected  in  prices  and  within  the  evaluations  of 
capital  markets.  The  report  analyzes  how  these 
changes  can  be  managed,  and  what  the  implications 
are  for  production,  investment  and  trade.  The  BCSD 
calls  for  broadening  and  deepening  the  relationships 
between  buyers  and  sellers  and  long-term  partner- 
ships to  boost  both  economic  development  and 
environmental  standards  in  the  developing  world.  So 
this  is  s'posed  to  be  the  new  worid? 

9.  ENVIRONMENT  AND  DEMOCRACY.  Or- 
ganized by  Henri  Acselrad.  IBASE:  Rio  de  Janeiro, 
1992. 

This  collection  of  essays  by  the  Brazilian  Institute 
of  Social  and  Economic  Analyses— the  country's 
preeminent  NGO— was  produced  to  reflect  the  Third 
World,  and  more  specifically  Brazilian,  perspective 
on  the  Earth  Summit.  It  is  an  excellent  example  of 
the  adaptation  of  the  left-wing,  anti-imperialist, 
popular  movement  line  to  the  changing  times.  In  an 
era  when  the  rhetoric  of  ecology  reigns  supreme,  this 
book  and  the  Brazilian  experience  show  that 
socialists  are  not  going  to  be  left  out.  The  right  is  not 
wrong  in  pointing  out  how  quickly  red  has  turned 
green.  Shifting  rhetoric  and  jargon  included  in  these 
essays  provide  a  trenchant  Third  Worid  take  on 
current  environmental  debates  about  poverty  and 
development,  energy  and  timber,  Indians  and  the 
Amazon,  GATT  and  free  markets,  global  govern- 
ance and  the  grass  roots. 


aczi 


PE=SaEZES5Ei3    LJJIZIFSh_i3    3C3 


OWNING  IDEAS:  A  Debate 


TREATY  FAVORS TNCs 

Despite  being  cast  as  the  lone  villain  in  a  global 
village,  the  United  States  had  a  surprising  ally  in 
opposing  the  controversial  biodiversity  treaty  at  the 
Earth  Summit.  Indigenous  people  from  the  tropical 
forests  of  the  world  took  a  similar  position  against 
the  treaty  in  a  meeting  just  before  the  official  summit. 

Like  the  United  States,  the  Indians  want  a 
guarantee  of  respect  for  "intellectual  property 
rights"  or  patents.  This  convergence  highlights  a 
fatal  flaw  in  the  convention  on  biological  diversity. 

The  treaty  will  be  signed  by  governments  seeking 
control  of  burgeoning  markets  and  profits  in 
biotechnology.  But  it  will  bypass  the  only  players 
who  really  count  in  the  production  and  marketing 
process— indigenous  people  who  know  how  to  tap 
the  great  diversity  of  the  tropical  forests,  and 
industries  that  can  bring  forest  products  to  market. 

Treaty  advocates  in  Rio  cited  what  they  call  a 
clear-cut  case  of  "bioiraperialism."  The  multina- 
tional pharmaceutical  giant,  Merck  &  Co.,  manufac- 
tures a  treatment  for  glaucoma  based  on  an  alkaloid 
extracted  from  jaborandi,  a  bush  found  exclusively  in 
the  Amazon.  Kayapo  and  Guajajara  Indians,  who 
first  used  the  plant  as  a  medicine,  now  harvest  and 
sell  the  leaves  to  Merck  under  conditions  some  anthro- 
pologists describe  as  "near  slavery."  In  Germany,  the 
alkaloid  is  refined  and  made  into  eyedrops  that 
Brazil,  among  other  countries,  imports. 

The  most  effective  way  to  undercut  this  bioimperi- 
alism  would  be  to  make  sure  that  those  who  first 
brought  the  jaborandi  to  the  attention  of  interna- 
tional chemists— the  Indians— receive  patents  and 
royalties.  Instead,  the  biodiversity  treaty  compels  the 
industrialized  nations  to  compensate  Brazil  and  other 
governments  of  developing  nations  where  the  raw 
materials  are  found. 

Advocates  portray  the  treaty  controversy  as 
another  round  in  the  battle  between  North  and 
South.  The  North  seeks  to  protect  biological  patents 
and  profits  while  insisting  that  the  South  preserve  its 
tropical  forests.  And  the  South  protests  attempts  to 
lock  up  its  genetic  resources  in  patents  and  preserves 
while  insisting  that  the  North  share  the  wealth 
generated  from  these  raw  materials. 

Ironically,  what  this  debate  ignores  is  the  new 
common  ground  that  has  emerged  between  the 
"North  of  the  North"— the  biotechnology  and 
pharmaceutical  industries  of  the  developed  world— 
and  the  "South  of  the  South"— the  indigenous 
people  of  the  tropical  forests. 

Roughly  three-quarters  of  the  compounds  in  the 
modem  global  pharmacopoeia  originally  derived 
from  plants  "discovered"  through  research  on  the 
use  of  plants  by  indigenous  people.  The  value  of  such 
genetic  resources  is  predicted  to  reach  $50  billion  by 
the  year  2000.  Yet  it  is  estimated  that  only  2%  of  the 
plants  in  the  Amazon  alone  have  been  studied  by 
scientists.  The  indigenous  people  of  the  tropical 
forests  hold  the  keys  to  much  of  the  rest. 

Ethno-botanists  and  pharmacologists  have  only 
begun  to  tap  the  complex  data  base  of  indigenous 
empirical  knowledge.  When  their  knowledge  is  used 


for  profit,  indigenous  people  say  they  should  have 
just  as  much  right  to  a  patent  for  "intellectual 
property  rights"— knowledge  of  how  to  use  or 
process  a  plant— as  the  pharmaceutical  companies 
now  enjoy. 

To  be  successful,  a  treaty  on  biodiversity  would 
have  to  include  not  only  the  governments  of  the 
North  and  the  South,  but  also  indigenous  people  and 
companies  that  use  their  biological  resources  and 
knowledge.  By  giving  all  the  power  over  biodiversity 
to  governments— many  of  which,  like  Brazil,  have  a 
dismal  track  record  of  honoring  either  patents  or 
indigenous  property  rights— the  biodiversity  treaty  is 
set  up  to  fail. 


U.S.  objections  to  the  treaty  cover  only  half  of  the 
equation— the  "intellectual  property  rights"  of 
biotechnology  companies.  The  other  half  involves 
recognizing  indigenous  people's  demand  to  those 
same  rights. 

Respecting  the  patent  rights  of  both  would  provide 
a  financial  incentive  for  conserving  and  developing 
biodiversity  at  the  ground  level  in  the  South.  And 
royalties  on  patents  would  provide  the  return  flow  of 
hard  cash  from  the  North  to  the  South  that  new 
markets  for  genetic  wealth  will  generate. 

Many  delegates  protested  that  it  is  too  late  to 
amend  the  biodiversity  treaty.  But  a  fundamentally 
flawed  treaty  should  not  have  been  siped  in  a  rush 


columbuste; 


C®LUMBUSTERS 

nULcSC    Spin  Columbus,  move  to  designated  color 

^H      Gtve  back  all  native  land 

'"^y:^l      Lose  all  slaves 

Mjl      Receive  molten  gold  throat  treatment  to 
^^      relieve  treasure  lust 

Busted  lor  incompetence  Go  back  to  Spam 


Cholera  infected  blankets  meant 
tor  native  people  kills  all  your  soldiers 

Ak;ohol  meant  to  stupefy  native  peoples 
intoxtcates  crew,  your  ship  sinks 

SSc      Forced  on  white  reservation  for  own  good. 

GOAL;  Try  to  get  from  1492  lo  1992  keeping  the 
mythical  viston  of  brave  Columbus  Ihe  discov- 
erer locked  in  your  mind    The  winner  receives 
an  American  flag,  and  a  Support  Ihe  Troops 
bumper  sticker 


PF^OEZESSEa    hJJOFSh_ED    ^CD 


aL 


to  save  the  appearance  that  something  was  being 
accomplished  at  the  Earth  Summit.  Mutual  recogni- 
tion of  property  rights  would  do  more  concrete  good 
than  all  the  high-minded  rhetoric  about  preservation 
and  equity  in  the  current  biodiversity  treaty. 

—Jon  Christensen 

INTELLECTUAL  PROPERTY  RITES 

There  has  recently  been  a  flurry  of  discussion 
around  Intellectual  Property  Rights  (IPRs,  in  the 
jargon  of  the  day).  At  the  recent  Earth  Summit  the 
United  States  refused  to  sign  a  treaty  on  biodiversity 


because  of  proposed  restrictions  on  patents  of 
pharmaceuticals  derived  from  plants.  Curiously, 
however,  the  advocates  (e.g.  the  anthropologists  of 
Cultural  Survival)  are  not  limited  to  the  profit- 
hungry  corporations;  there  are  those  who  see  IPRs  as 
a  possible  tool  in  giving  indigenous  people  more 
control  over  the  use  of  traditional  lands. 

It  is  not  an  auspicious  time  for  the  idea  of 
intellectual  property.  Computer  programs  and  data 
which  can  be  copied  and  distributed  electronically; 
the  ubiquitous  copy  machines  and  faxes;  audio  and 
video  (re-)recording  devices;  and  countries  which  are 


They  say  the  '90s  will  make  the  '80s  look  like  the  '50s,  but  what  with  the  '80s  also 

looking  like  the  '20s,  which  inandof  themselves  were  quite  similar  to  the '10s  (which 

were  nothing  at  ail  like  the  '50s),  we  say  the  '90s  will  start  out  looking  like  the  '60s, 

begin  looking  like  the  '40s  after  just  one  year,  then  wind  up  being  just  like  the  '70s.  So .  .  . 

THIS  IS  WHERE  THE  NINETIES  BEGIN! 


A  CALL  FOR  FREEDOM  RIDERS  TO 

THE  GRAND  CANYON 

This  summer,  students,  civil  rights  activists,  environmentalists,  ranchers,  Tupper- 
ware  activists,  workers,  computer  programmers,  colorists,  post-modernists, 

industrialists,  labor  leaders,  retired  army  generals,  insurance  fraud  detectors,  truck 
drivers,  yuppies,  and  everyone  else  for  that  matter,  will  be  piling  into  busses, 

freight  trains,  tractor  trailers,  and  cattle  trucks  to  make  that  ultimate  symbolic  and 
final  direct  action  statement.  In  an  ultimate  act  of  coalition  building,  we  will  all 

unite  to  become  one,  one  whole  cosmic  entity,  one  whole  mass  of  metal  and  bodies 

in  a  pile  at  the  bottom  of  the  greatest  canyon  on  earth.  So  let's  shoot  our  war  guns 
in  '91 ,  send  Columbus  to  Timbuktu  in  '92,  and  let's  make  North  America .  .  . 

Human-Free  by  '93! 


not  members  of  various  treaty  conventions  on 
copyrights  and  the  like  (India,  China,  etc.);  and  the 
use  of  "sampling"  in  music  and  "reverse-engineering" 
in  manufacturing  have  made  a  mockery  of  the  exten- 
sion of  property  relations  into  the  realm  of  intellectual 
creation. 

Even  within  the  United  States  there  is  much 
conflicting  law  and  practice.  The  original  concept  of 
copyrights  has  its  origin  in  the  idea  that  ideas  must 
not  remain  the  exclusive  property  of  the  "inventor," 
for,  as  Jefferson  wrote,  "one  may  take  another's 
idea  without  leaving  the  first  poorer"  (his  analogy  of 
one  candle  lighting  another  comes  to  mind).  Such 
"ownership"  was  limited  to  the  author's  life  plus  a 
fixed  number  of  years;  patent  law  explicitly  requires 
the  public  statement  of  the  invention  and  (often)  the 
best  way  of  producing  the  object,  and  allows  the 
inventor  a  limited  period  of  control.  Some  of  the 
basic  concepts  of  patents  included  denying  patents 
for  natural  products,  for  inventions  which  were 
obvious  or  commonplace,  and  for  other  people's 
creations. 

Recently,  however,  there  has  been  a  burgeoning  of 
US  patents  and  copyrights  on  more  subtle  concepts: 
processes  and  methods,  as  well  as  naturally  occurring 
chemicals  and  substances.  People  (usually  corpora- 
tions, or  their  proxies)  have  recently  been  awarded 
patents  on  algorithms  (which  previously  have  been 
regarded  as  "discovered"  rather  than  invented),  and 
on  "new"  biological  organisms  and  species  (which 
are,  in  fact,  only  new  combinations  of  previously 
existing  genetic  material).  The  relentless  drive  for 
profit  and  control  has  even  led  to  such  absurdities  as 
the  "look-and-feel"  law  suits  of  Apple  and  Microsoft 
dealing  with  concepts  of  controlling  computers  which 
neither  party  devised  (Xerox's  Palo  Alto  Research 
Center  has  that  distinction).  And  in  an  apparent 
reversal  of  the  idea  of  not  patenting  natural  products, 
two  corporations  have  been  granted  patents  on 
chemicals  (one  derived,  one  synthesized)  from  the 
Brazilian  Neem  tree.  Many  of  the  uses  of  chemicals  ft'om 
such  plants  have  long  been  known  to  natives  of  the 
area  for  exactly  the  same  reasons;  granting  patents 
would  seem  to  violate  the  principle  that  common- 
place uses  may  not  be  patented.  Although  the  US  has 
always  regarded  the  rest  of  the  planet  as  its  hunting 
ground,  this  usurpation  of  indigenous  discoveries 
would  also  seem  to  be  patenting  someone  else's 
work. 

Some  recent  advocates  of  IPRs  argue  that  because 
many  of  the  biological  products  are  derived  from 
plants  known  by  indigenous  people  (and  sometimes 
used  by  them  for  the  same  purpose)  the  original 
"discoverers"  (and  often  inventors,  for  the  use  of 
these  drugs  is  often  the  result  of  generations  of 
effort)  should  be  rewarded  commensurately.  Some 
have  also  argued  that  food  crops  may  be  seen  this 
way:  the  result  of  centuries  of  refinement  and 
experimentation  by  indigenous  people  around  the 
world.  Some  even  see  this  archaic  legal  concept  as  a 
possible  reinforcement  of  these  people  in  their  fight 
for  survival  and  control  over  their  lands. 

Perhaps... but  this  begs  the  question  of  whether 
such  "rights"  are  legitimate.  It  can  be  argued  thai 
even  as  such  ideas  are  being  hailed  in  the  "third'' 
world,  they  are  being  shown  as  outmoded  impedi- 
ments in  the  techno-sphere:  information  moves 
faster,  and  with  more  ambiguous  ownership  all  the 
time.  Indeed,  given  that  human  knowledge  is  such  an 
enormously  socialized  (and  historical)  creation,  no 


invention  can  be  said  to  be  independent.  The  need 
for  capital  to  harness  such  creations  to  maice  a  profit 
is  indisputable,  and  we  should  never  forget  the 
crucial  question:  ''quo  vadisV  ("who  gains?"). 

Nor  am  I  hopeful  about  the  possibilities  of 
enforcing  such  putative  rights  as  may  be  won  by 
whatever  collective  group.  The  ability  to  enforce 
such  contracts  is  a  precise  measure  of  social  power; 
groups  with  no  power  will  find  those  rights 
insupportable.  Countries  like  Brazil,  with  its  long 
history  ofmistreatment  of  indigenous  peoples,  no  less 
than  the  US,  which  has  a  long  and  almost  unbroken 
record  of  ignoring  its  treaties  with  North  American 
Indians,  are  not  promising  arenas  for  indigenous 
people  to  play  out  power  relations.  When  one  side 
writes  the  laws,  owns  the  courts,  and  licenses  the 
lawyers,  as  well  as  allows  the  vast  budgets  of  the 
corporations  free  play,  the  other  side,  ev^n  if  it  is 
able  to  buy  a  few  attorneys,  cannot  be  said  to  be  an 
equal.  Bakunin's  comment  is  relevant:  "The  law,  in 
its  majestic  impartiality,  forbids  the  rich  as  wellas  the 
poor  from  sleeping  under  bridges,  begging,  and 
stealing  bread." 

Casting  the  importance  of  nature  in  terms  of 
property  relations  strengthens  the  abhorrent  concept 
that  wilderness  and  primal  nature  deserve  protection 
because  they  are— or  might  be— useful. 

There  are  further  problems  with  imposing  this 
western  model  on  traditional  societies:  just  as  some 
North  American  tribes  were  never  granted  recogni- 
tion by  the  US  government  because  they  had  no 
leaders,  the  requirements  of  marketing  and  legal 
representation  of  IPRs  will  impose  unique  stresses  on 
indigenous  communities.  Given  movements  towards 
control  of  traditional  music  and  copyrighting  mate- 
rials, etc.,  the  only  aspects  of  traditional  life  that  will 
survive  may  well  be  corporation's  names,  and  a  few 
patented  commodities.  Imagine  a  scenario  in  which 
some  village  elder  sues  another  for  copyright 
violations  for  performing  a  traditional  song;  perhaps 
in  the  name  of  ancestral  spirits. 

Such  talk  of  "rights"  also  ignores  some  crucial 
questions  about  what  the  concept  means:  such 
"rights"  are  certainly  not  immutable  things  handed 
to  us  by  nature;  to  the  extent  that  there  are  any 
rights,  it  is  because  the  common  folk  have  fought  for 
them.  They  were  not,  and  never  will  be,  given  to  us 
by  benevolent  masters.  Those  rights  have  always 
proved  to  be  worthless  in  the  absence  of  people 
willing  to  defend  themselves  (often  outside  of  any 
legal  process). 

To  frame  our  thinking  about  the  exploitation  of 
the  other  parts  of  the  world  in  terms  of  ethics  among 
property  owners  is  to  ignore  the  imperative  of 
business:  to  make  money.  To  try  to  use  the  very  tools 
of  business  (law,  property  rights)  to  stop  business, 
can't  work. 

It  seems  most  unlikely  that  the  road  to  human 
freedom  and  dignity  passes  through  a  courtroom  and 
patent  office.  I  regret  that  I  have  no  better  ideas  for 
helping  the  poor  people  of  such  "developing"  parts 
of  the  world  as  Brazil,  but  the  idea  that  the  concept  of 
property,  extended  to  more  parts  of  the  world,  and 
to  new  "objects,"  will  help  preserve  the  parts  not  yet 
destroyed  by  the  world  capitalists,  is  not  a  sensible 
one.  Perhaps  this  can  be  a  tool  of  limited  use,  but  to 
present  it  uncritically  does  us  all  a  disservice. 

—Primitivo  Morales 
See  Cultural  Survival,  Summer  1991,  "Intellectual  Property 
Rights"  for  more  on  IPRs. 


REPLY  TO  PRIMITIVO  MORALES 

Maybe  this  is  not  a  very  auspicious  time  (or  place) 
to  speak  in  favor  of  intellectual  property.  Of  course, 
the  argument  could  be  extended.  Across  the  political 
spectrum,  we  seem  to  be  facing  the  21st  century  with 
ideas  inherited  from  the  19th  century.  It's  fun  to  run 
in  ideological  circles,  dancing  with  romanticism, 
communism,  anarchism,  nihilism,  capitalism,  post- 
this-and-thatism,  careering  from  optimism  to  pes- 
simism and  back  again,  and  throwing  up  our  hands 


"Sampling"  in  music  and 
"reverse  engineering"  in 
manufacturing  have  made  a 
mockery  of  the  extension  of 
property  relations  into  the 
realm  of  intellectual  creation. 


when  pressed  for  direction.  But  have  we  learned 
anything  in  the  20th  century?  Perhaps  something 
about  pragmatism. 

In  the  first  place,  the  argument  in  favor  of 
recopizing  the  intellectual  property  rights  of  indi- 
genous people  was  made  by  them,  not  us.  Of  course, 
one  can  trace  the  concept's  history  to  the  door  of 
capitalism.  But  it  is  a  system  most  indigenous  people 
have  trucked  with  quite  extensively  over  the  last 
century  or  more. 

Intellectual  property  rights  may  be  an  argument  of 
the  moment.  More  likely,  indigenous  people  see 
property  as  a  tool  they  can  grasp  to  increase  their 
own  power.  In  any  case,  the  demand  for  intellectual 
property  rights  emerges  logically  from  their  demands 
for  recognition  of  their  property  rights  in  land  as 
well,  which  have  also  been  an  inconvenience  to  some. 


Now  they  seek  recopition  of  their  knowledge,  which 
until  lately  usually  has  been  devalued  even  as  it  has 
been  used  by  profiteers. 

Unfortunately,  pharmaceutical  companies  such  as 
Merck  and  national  governments  such  as  Costa  Rica 
are  quickly  cutting  deals  leaving  out  the  local  people 
who  live  in  the  tropical  forests  that  are  the  sources  of 
much  of  the  worid's  biodiversity.  And  why  not?  The 
messy  world  of  people  vying  for  life  in  some 
backwoods  is  really  just  so  much  trouble.  You're  so 
right.  There  are  too  many  practical  problems  with 
identifying  the  "inventors"  of  traditional  knowledge, 
not  to  mention  compensating  often  fractious  commu- 
nities. 

But  indigenous  people  have  an  inconvenient  way  of 
asserting  themselves,  especially  it  seems  as  we 
confront  the  millennium  with  such  an  intense 
love-hate  relationship  with  technology  and  the  nation 
state.  Even  as  many  late  20th  century  thinkers 
continue  to  see  indigenous  people  somehow  repre- 
senting a  state  of  society  outside  the  market  system, 
their  demand  for  property  rights  presents  a  nagging 
problem. 

Perhaps  global  positions— such  as  worshipping  or 
demonizing  the  market  in  all  cases— attempt  to  reach 
too  far.  Property  rights  can  be  a  basic  means  of 
preserving  local  control.  But  property  rights  are 
clearly  not  a  panacea,  as  history  shows. 

Information— and  for  that  matter  all  kinds  of 
property— may  want  to  be  free,  as  they  like  to  say  in 
Silicon  Valley  at  the  end  of  the  20th  century.  But 
property  has  costs  and  consequences  and  if  you're 
lucky  maybe  benefits  and  profits.  As  a  writer, 
marketing  my  words,  I  stand  on  the  side  of 
intellectual  property  rights,  even  though  I  will  write 
for  free.  There  are  more  important  things  than 
money  and  property.  But  that  doesn't  mean  we  have 
to  turn  our  backs  on  them. 

—Jon  Christensen 


,^  ©    ,.^   M£LSoN 


graphic  by  I.B.  Nelson 


PE^aszEsaEa  kiJOE=sh-a  3CD 


Judi  Bari  was  born  in  Baltimore  in  1949. 
She  attended  the  University  of  Maryland, 
where  she  majored  in  anti-Vietnam  War 
rioting.  Since  college  credit  is  rarely  given  for 
such  activities,  Judi  was  soon  forced  to  drop 
out  of  college  with  a  political  education  but  no 
degree.  She  then  embarked  on  a  20-year  career 
as  a  blue  collar  worker.  During  that  time  she 
became  active  in  the  union  movement  and 
helped  lead  two  strikes  —  one  of  1 7, 000  grocery 
clerks  in  the  Maryland/D.C. /Virginia  area 
(unsuccessful,  smashed  by  the  union  bureau- 
crats) and  one  (successful)  wildcat  strike 
against  the  U.S.  Postal  Service  at  the 
Washington  D.  C.  Bulk  Mail  Center. 

In  1979  Judi  moved  to  Northern  Califor- 
nia, got  married  and  had  babies.  After  her 
divorce  in  1988,  she  supported  her  children  by 


working  as  a  carpenter  building  yuppie  houses 
out  of  old-growth  redwood.  It  was  this 
contradiction  that  sparked  her  interest  in  Earth 
First! 

As  an  Earth  First!  organizer,  Judi  became 
a  thorn  in  the  side  of  Big  Timber  by  bringing 
her  labor  experience  and  sympathies  into  the 
environmental  movement.  She  built  alliances 
with  timber  workers  while  blockading  their 
operations,  and  named  the  timber  corporations 
and  their  chief  executive  officers  as  being 
responsible  for  the  destruction  of  the  forest. 

In  1990,  while  on  a  publicity  tour  for 
Earth  First!  Redwood  Summer,  Judi  was 
nearly  killed  in  a  car-bomb  assassination 
attempt.  Although  all  evidence  showed  that  the 
bomb  was  hidden  under  Judi's  car  seat  and 
intended  to  kill  her,  police  and  FBI  arrested  her 


(and  colleague  Darryl  Chemey)  for  the  bomb- 
ing, saying  that  it  was  their  bomb  and  they 
were  knowingly  carrying  it.  For  the  next  eight 
weeks  they  were  subjected  to  a  police  orches- 
trated campaign  in  the  national  and  local 
press  to  make  them  appear  guilty  of  the 
bombing.  Finally  the  district  attorney  declined 
to  press  charges  for  lack  of  evidence.  To  this 
day  the  police  have  conducted  no  serious 
investigation  of  the  bombing,  and  the  bomber 
remains  at  large. 

Crippled  for  life  by  the  explosion,  Judi  has 
returned  to  her  home  in  the  redwood  region  and 
resumed  her  work  in  defense  of  the  forest.  She 
and  Darryl  are  also  suing  the  FBI  and  other 
police  agencies  for  false  arrest,  presumption  of 
guilt,  and  civil  rights  violations.  Judi  now 
lives  in  Willits,  California  with  her  two 
children. 


A  SHIT  RAISER  SPEAKS! 

An  Interview  with  Judi  Bari 


Chris  Carlsson:  Where  do  you 
stand  on  the  Work  Ethic? 

Judi  Bari:  Totally  against  it:  It  is 
absolutely  sick! 

CC:  What  do  you  think  of  as 
"human  nature"  when  it  comes  to 
work  and  useful  activities?  How  does 
the  existing  order  encourage  or  ob- 
struct this  "nature"?  How  does  work- 
place organizing  tap  into  this  "na- 
ture"? 

JB:  I  think  people  like  to  work  if  work 
is  not  alienated,  not  artificially  con- 
strued by  the  system  that  makes  it  pure 
hell,  that  goes  against  every  instinct. 
But  I  think  that  work,  meaning  like 
what  you  need  to  do  to  provide  suste- 
nance, that  in  itself  as  a  concept  is  not 
something  that  people  mind.  I  think  that 
working  ridiculous  amounts  of  hours 
including  8  a  day  or  40  a  week  is  not 
"natural,"  but  I  think  working  is  some- 
thing that's  natural  and  enjoyable  and  I 
think  that  without  any  work  people  in 
general  would  not  feel  comfortable.  But 
work  needs  to  be  completely  redefined 
from  what  it  is  right  now.  Now  it  is  pure 
oppression.  What  did  you  say,  80%  of 
work  is  unnecessary?  Absolutely 
TRUE!  Not  only  is  it  absolutely  unnec- 
essary, but  the  method  by  which  it's 
organized  is  horrible.  It  goes  against 
everything,  you  have  to  suppress  every 
instinct  of  enjoyment  that  you  have  in 


your  being  to  go  and  put  yourself  in  one 
of  these  stupid  jobs,  [laughter] 

CC:  And  workplace  organizing? 

JB:  Hey  it  makes  work  fun.  I  only 
had  one  job  when  1  actually  liked  the  job 
itself  and  that  was  being  a  carpenter.  I 
enjoyed  the  job,  I  enjoyed  being  able  to 
build  something  that  was  beautiful  and  I 
was  proud  of  myself  for  being  able  to 
read  the  plans  and  figure  it  out.  But  all 
the  other  jobs  I  had  I  hated.  Physically 
standing  at  a  cash  register,  or  unloading 
a  truck  or  whatever,  or  standing  at  a 
bottling  line,  making  the  same  motion 
over  and  over  all  day  long.  The  jobs 
totally  sucked,  but  organizing  was  really 
fun.  It  gave  me  something  to  think 
about  and  do  at  work.   I'm  not  saying 


You  have  to  suppress  every 
instinct ...  to  put  yourself 
in  one  of  these  stupid  jobs .  . 
.  .  Working  ridiculous  num- 
bers of  hours,  including  8  a 
day  and  40  a  week,  is 
not  "natural." 


"would  the  end  result  of  organizing 
under  capitalism  be  an  enjoyable  job?" 
—  No!  We  have  to  completely  rearrange 
the  way  we  work  and  what  we  call  work 
before  it  would  be  enjoyable.  But  what 
do  we  do  in  the  meantime  while  we're 
waiting  for  the  revolution?  The  only 
way  to  be  able  to  stand  a  job  is  to  raise 
shit  there.  That's  just  personal  experi- 
ence, that's  not  political  theory,  [laugh- 
ter] 

I  [had]  a  job  at  a  post  office  factory. 
Everybody  worked  under  one  roof  and 
the  conditions  were  outrageous.  It  was 
85%  black,  mostly  from  the  inner  city, 
right  across  the  Maryland  line  in  the 
inner  suburbs.  We  didn't  even  bother 
with  any  of  the  three  different  unions  or 
their  meetings.  We  did  direct  action  on 
the  workroom  floor,  put  out  an  outra- 
geous newsletter  [Postal  Strife]  that  was 
real  funny,  lampooning  management. 
We  weren't  allowed  to  strike  against  the 
government,  that  was  illegal  and  we'd 
get  fired,  so  we  had  a  "walk-in"  where 
we  met  on  both  shifts  and  wcilked  into 
the  manager's  office.  We  had  sick-outs 
and  slow-downs  and  trash-ins  and 
sabotage  days,  and  we  got  control  of  the 
whole  factory  — it  also  took  about  one- 
and-a-half  years.  It  peaked  in  a  wildcat 
strike  which  was  actually  successful. 

[Postal  Strife]  wasn't  just  reporting  on 
things.  .  .     it    was    instigating    things. 


SL. 


F^S^aEZESSEE]    hJjaEbh_E]    3CD 


When  we  first  started  to  get  power,  at 
one  point  "Miz  Julie"  decided  to  be 
generous  and  offer  us  all  a  Xmas  party. 
So  on  company  time  we  were  forced  to 
attend  this  party.  We  weren't  allowed  to 
go  outside  and  smoke  pot  or  to  go  out  to 
lunch,  and  this  was  her  big  generous 
thing.  Then  it  turned  out  that  it  was 
illegal,  because  on  company  time  she 
wasn't  allowed  to  do  that  because  we 
would  have  to  work  all  this  overtime 
because  the  machinery  didn't  work,  so 
she  was  going  to  get  in  a  lot  of  trouble. 
So  she  changed  her  mind  and  decided  it 
was  off  the  clock,  and  she  was  going  to 
dock  us  all  for  two  hours  because  she 
had  forced  us  to  go  to  this  party.  People 
were  really  pissed.  She  called  in  the 
union  to  break  the  news  to  them,  to  tell 
them  "this  is  the  problem,  and  what  can 
we  do  about  it?"  and  the  union  rep  said 
"oh,  it's  ok,  you  can  have  the  hour."  But 
then  Miss  Julie  realized  that  that 
wouldn't  mean  anything.  So  she  did 
something  completely  illegal  in  a  plant 
with  a  recognized  bargaining  unit,  she 
called  in  the  leaders  of  Postal  Strife  [our 
newsletter/group]  because  she  knew 
that  if  we  didn't  agree  to  it  that  it  wasn't 
going  to  fly.  We  came  in  as  dirty  as  we 
could  and  sprawled  on  her  white 
couches.  She  said  she  wanted  her  hour 
back,  and  we  said  "well,  what  are  you 


Take  Stock 
in  America! 


i 

O'rli- 


going  to  give  us?  How  about  15  minute 
breaks?"  We  had  no  authority  to  bargain 
at  all.  So  she  said,  "OK,  I  can't  officially 
give  you  15  minute  breaks  but  unoffi- 
cially we  won't  make  you  go  back,  we'll 


give  you  an  extra  5  minutes,  but  it'll  be 
under  the  table."  We  said  we  can't  talk 
for  people  on  the  shop  floor,  and  we  had 
to  talk  to  them  and  see  what  they  would 
say.  So  we  walk  out.  Then  she  discovers 
that  she's  made  another  mistake:  it's 
totally  illegal  to  bargain  with  us  when 
there's  an  exclusive  bargaining  agent. 
So  she's  pleading  with  us  not  to  tell 
anyone,  and  we  wrote  the  whole  story 
up  and  drew  a  picture  of  her  crying, 
"please  give  me  my  hour  back!"  [laugh- 
ter] We  really  began  to  erode  their  power 
and  gain  power  way  before  we  gained 
official  power. 

CC:  That's  a  question  I  always  find 
interesting.  Don't  you  think  there's 
actually  more  power  at  that  moment 
than  what  you  had  with  formal  con- 
trol? 

JB:  No,  the  most  power  we  got  was 
afterwards,  because  first  we  did  this 
actual  real  work  — there  was  a  peak  and 
an  ebb  —  first  there  was  this  peak  of  real 
live  worker  control  because  — We  had  a 
quote  of  the  month  in  the  paper,  which 
was  "the  way  I  look  at  overtime,  is  the 
first  8  hours  I  got  to  put  up  with  them, 
the  last  2  hours  they  got  to  put  up  with 
me."  That  really  was  the  truth.  They 
couldn't  get  anyone  to  do  any  work  on 
overtime,  and  not  much  the  rest  of  the 
day  when  they  were  giving  us  overtime. 


Counter-demonstrator  at  July  21,  1990  Redwood  Summer  rally  in  Fort  Bragg,  Calif. 


E  VEHICLES  ONLV 


,fto  mm- 


One  time  the  safe  was  locked  (with  our 
paychecks)  and  we  were  on  night  shift, 
and  the  only  key  was  at  Miss  Julie's 
house,  she  lived  in  Virginia,  so  we 
formed  a  posse  in  the  middle  of  the 
workroom  floor,  and  we  were  about  to 
walk  out  and  drive  to  her  house  at  1 1 :30 
at  night,  and  they  suddenly  found  the 
key.  [laughter]  We  had  real  raw  power, 
OK?  When  we  had  the  strike  and  after 
we  walked  out  on  strike  the  union  fell 
apart  and  we  got  the  control  of  the 
union.  That's  when  we  really  got  power. 
Then  we  had  the  official  power,  and  the 
respect  of  the  workers,  which  was  based 
on  real  direct  action  and  real  self- 
empowerment,  so  we  started  substan- 
tially changing  the  working  conditions, 
including  sneaking  a  Jack  Anderson 
reporter  in,  and  got  two  national  articles 
written  about  the  place. 

I  didn't  have  to  work  anymore.  I  used 
to  spend  my  whole  day  on  the  shop 
floor.  I  used  to  have  to  sneak  out  to  do 
these  little  things,  but  then  when  I  was 
Shop  Steward  I  could  spend  the  whole 
day,  8  hours  a  day,  raising  hell,  it  was 
great!  I  got  paid  for  it!  We  really 
changed  the  working  conditions,  we 
changed  the  personnel,  and  they  weren't 
getting  away  with  shit.  And  what  hap- 
pened is  that  the  working  conditions  got 
better. 

I  was  the  Chief  Shop  Steward  and  the 
coalition  began  settling  for  things  and 
selling  out  and  things  began  to  fall 
apart,  so  now  we  worked  40  hours  a 
week  instead  of  60-80,  the  supervisors 
weren't  as  nasty  to  us,  it  wasn't  as 
dangerous  and  the  new  people  that  came 
in  started  to  be  more  conservative. 
Some  of  the  real  radicals  started  to  be 


:a  ^m 


less  radical.  I  knew,  the  manager  didn't 
know,  but  I  knew  that  we  no  longer  had 
the  support  on  the  shop  floor.  So  I  was 
living  on  a  shell,  I  could  get  this  guy  to 
give  up  grievances  because  he  thought 
that  I  could  mobilize  the  workroom  floor 
with  the  snap  of  a  finger.  The  fact  is  I 
couldn't  anymore,  because  people  had 
gotten  way  conservative  because  work- 
ing conditions  were  better.  I  quit  to 
move  to  California  before  he  figured  out 
that  we  didn't  really  have  rank  and  file 
power  anymore.  But  we  really  did,  and 
the  peak  was  when  we  assumed  official 
power  after  the  strike,  before  it  got  so 
soft  that  people  got  conservative. 

CC:  In  retrospect,  do  you  imagine 
you  should  have  gone  in  a  different 
direction  after  you  got  official  power 
to  avoid  this  "bourgeois-ification"? 

JB:  I  don't  know.  The  problem  is  that 
our  goals  were  limited.  It  doesn't  matter 
how  good  we  were,  the  biggest  thing  we 
were  asking  for  was  better  working 
conditions  for  our  factory  that  employed 
800  people.  We  weren't  asking  to  over- 
throw the  wage  system,  we  didn't  have  a 
political  context  in  which  we  were 
operating,  other  than  using  very  radical 
tactics  to  win  workers'  demands.  Maybe 
it  would  have  moved  someplace  else, 
maybe  another  factory  that  we  were 
working  with,  or  maybe  it  would  be 
another  issue,  but  we  would  have  had  to 
have  some  kind  of  thing  that  went 
beyond  those  narrow  demands. 

CC:  Because  those  are  satisfiable, 
essentially? 

JB:  Yeah,  without  changing  the  basic 
problem,  y'know,  which  is  this  whole 
industrial  organization,  etc. 


CC:  Did  you  keep  in  touch  with 
this  place  after  you  left?  Did  they  go 
through  a  big  wave  of  automation  and 
restructuring? 

JB:  I  still  have  some  friends  there, 
but  no,  it's  still  the  same  old  machinery. 
They  combined  some  of  the  functions, 
but  it's  basically  the  same  structure.  All 
of  the  gains  that  were  made  were  all 
lost.  The  bulk  mail  wave  of  restructur- 
ing was  in  the  '70s,  I  don't  know  what 
happened  in  the  '80s  except  that  we  lost 
all  the  gains.  All  the  bulk  mail  centers 
had  these  really  bad  working  conditions, 
and  throughout  the  history  of  them 
there  were  lots  of  spontaneous  walkouts, 
that  never  led  to  better  conditions.  The 
difference  was  that  our  effort  did.  There 
were  3  places  that  went  on  strike  when 
we  did:  New  York,  Richmond  Califor- 
nia and  us,  and  we  were  the  only  ones 
that  didn't  get  fired.  The  rest  of  them  all 
got  fired.  They  lost  their  demands. 
Since  we  were  not  even  part  of  a  larger 
postal  group,  we  weren't  even  part  of  a 
TDU  [Teamsters  for  a  Democratic 
Union].  We  were  just  a  single  factory, 
we  communicated  with  the  other  ones 
that  went  on  strike,  but  there  wasn't  any 
larger  organization  at  all,  there  wasn't 
even  a  way  of  spreading  it  throughout 
the  postal  workers,  much  less  expanding 
it  to  larger  demands.  1  think  that's  one  of 
the  reasons  why  it  was  so  easy  and 
successful,  is  that  it  was  such  a  small 
movement  with  limited  demands.  But 
that  doesn't  mean  it  wasn't  a  good  thing 
to  do  because  it  gave  people  the  experi- 
ence of  successful  collective  action, 
probably  the  first  in  their  lives. 

CC:  Maybe  their  last. 

JB:  Yeah,  right.  Now  it's  this  legend, 
this  thing  that  happened  in  the  past,  and 
everything  settled  back  to  the  way  it 
used  to  be .  .  .  and  the  postal  workers 
have  lost  a  lot  of  ground.  The  postal 
workers  had  a  nationwide  wildcat  strike. 
It  was  the  most  recent  nationwide  wild- 
cat and  that's  when  they  won  collective 
bargaining  rights,  believe  it  or  not,  it  was 
1970.  They  didn't  even  have  integrated 
unions  in  1970.  The  US  Post  Office  had  a 
black  union  and  a  white  union!  Isn't  that 
amazing?  There  was  a  spontaneous  rebel- 
lion against  really  bad  conditions,  but 
back  in  1970  the  postal  workers  had  a  lot 
of  power,  a  lot  more  than  they  knew, 
■because  at  any  one  time  25  %  of  the  U.S.'s 
monetary  supply  was  tied  up  in  the 
mail,  OK?  When  they  called  in  the 
Army  to  break  the  strike  (the  postal 
workers  have  an  inordinate  number  of 


Pi^aEZESSED    hJjaFSlL.El    3C] 


Army  veterans  because  they  give  you  a 
10  point  preference  on  the  test  if  you're  a 
veteran),  a  lot  of  them  were  sympathetic 
because  of  the  other  Army  people  that 
worked  there.  So  the  Army  people  that 
were  brought  in  — well,  the  workers 
sabbed  [sabotaged]  the  stuff  as  much  as 
they  could,  and  a  lot  of  the  Army  people 
contributed  to  sabbing  it,  and  fucked 
everything  up.  So  they  got  really  fucked 
up  in  a  very  short  time,  it  was  like  a  one 
week  strike,  and  the  whole  mail  was  tied 
up  in  knots,  and  a  big  piece  of  the 
monetary  supply,  so  they  had  to  settle 
the  strike,  and  they  recognized  bargain- 
ing power  in  1970  for  a  national  union. 
I  don't  know  of  any  other  national  union 
that  was  first  recognized  in  1970,  or 
even  anywhere  near  that.  Now,  with  fax 
machines  and  electronic  funds  transfer, 
the  postal  workers  have  much  less 
economic  power  than  they  did  in  1970. 
They  wouldn't  even  have  the  capacity  to 
pull  off  such  a  strike  if  they  wanted  to. 

CC:  Get  ready  for  the  privatization 
of  mail. 

JB:  Oh,  absolutely! 

CC:  The  fact  is  that  most  of  what 
we  do  is  a  waste  of  time.  Our  politics 
has  to  really  emphasize  the  useless- 
ness  of  work.  That  has  to  be  upfront. 

JB:  We  really  do  our  political  work  in 
different  cultures.  Yours  is  one  that  is  at 
the  forward  end  of  the  techological 
bullshit,  in  the  evolution  of  the  society 
from  industrial  to  technological.  But  I'm 
working  with  retro,  with  what's  left  of 
the  old  industrial  proletariat.  So  1  think 
there's  different  value  systems  at  play. 
The  work  ethic  is  very  important.  One 
of  the  reasons  why  the  timber  workers 
will  relate  to  me  more  than  most 
environmentalists  is  because  they  know 
I  am  by  career  a  blue  collar  worker.  The 
idea  of  not  working  is  really  offensive  to 
them,  in  fact,  that's  the  big  thing  they 
always  say  to  the  hippies,  "why  don't 
these  people  get  a  job?"  So  what  do  we 
say?  "Cut  your  job,  get  some  hair!" 
[laughter]  1  live  in  a  place  where  they 
shaved  hippies'  dreadlocks  in  jail,  I 
mean,  what  year  is  this?  We're  living  in 
a  time  warp.  Really,  we're  talking  about 
different  centuries  here,  certainly  dif- 
ferent decades. 

Med-o:  Chris  and  I  have  talked  about 
this  a  lot:  How  do  you  organize 
people  to  get  rid  of  their  jobs?  How 
do  workers  get  organized  with  their 
main  purpose  to  eliminate  their  jobs? 

JB:  There  needs  to  be  some  other 
vision  of  what  there  is  to  do.  1  don't 
really  see  us  at  that  stage  yet.  We  know 


this  is  wrong.  We  know  that  this  is  NOT 
it,  whatever  it  is,  it's  not  this,  [laughter] 
And  I  think  people  can  relate  to  that, 
and  it  gives  them  room  for  their  own 
creativity.  I  think  1  have  a  problem  with 
organizers  feeling  like  they  have  to  have 
all  the  answers,  NOW.  Part  of  the 
problem  is  that  we  have  to  think  collec- 
tively and  figure  it  out,  and  it  has  to  be 
based  on  our  collective  experience.  And 
we  haven't  even  had  that  experience  yet! 
CC:  How  do  you  feel  about  the 
average  person's  ability  to  participate 
in  a  process  like  that?  I  think  every- 
body's got  a  great  capacity  for 
thought,  but  I  don't  think  very  many 
people  have  much  experience  or 
practice  or  natural  native  talent  for 
cooperative  group  processes. 

JB:  Well,  I  don't  know  about  native 
talent,  it's  certainly  been  bred  out  of  us. 
It's  a  problem  trying  to  organize  in  this 
society  — 1  don't  think  there's  ever  been  a 
society  as  brainwashed  as  this  one.  The 
whole  workplace,  the  way  it's  set  up  is 
designed  to  make  you  into  an  automa- 
ton. It's  hard  but  those  little  glimmers 
that  we  do  get  ARE  so  much  more  fun 
and  so  much  more  fulfilling  than  any- 
thing anybody's  done  in  their  life. 

CC:  A  lot  of  time  the  things  that 
cause  people  to  band  together  in 
union,  whether  it's  a  legal  institution 
or  not  (I  personally  favor  the  infor- 
mal approach)  —  I  think  a  lot  of  times 
the  impulses  that  get  people  motivat- 
ed to  take  that  kind  of  action  are 
somewhat  conservative.  They're 
worried,  they're  afraid,  they  want  to 
defend  themselves.  They're  not  really 
looking  at  the  big  picture,  and  saying 
"well,  jeez,  this  whole  way  of  life  is 
ridiculous  and  some  bigger  change 
has  to  happen."  Now  I'm  not  saying 
some  kind  of  religious  transformation 
has  to  take  place  across  the  planet  — 
all  of  a  sudden  everybody  agrees  that 
it's  all  bullshit  and  let's  stop  and  do 
something  else,  but  I  don't  see  much 
hope  for  a  political  movement  based 
on  worker  organizing  that  doesn't 
have  at  least  its  eyes  set  on  that  goal. 

JB:  Yeah  because  the  whole  way  we 
work  is  ridiculous.  People  are  really 
alienated  from  the  way  that  they  work 
because  it's  ridiculous. 

CC:  People  are  pretty  afraid  to 
embrace  that  kind  of  vision. 

JB:  Because  you  don't  just  start  from 
that.  You  have  to  start  where  people 
are.  You  have  to  have  one  eye  on  where 
people  are  and  one  eye  on  where  we 
wanna  be.   To   try   to   start   from   way 


THIS  M*»fctH 

by  TOM  TOMORROW 


THE  U.S.,  WITH  5*  OF  THE  WORLDS  PoPVLATlOM. 
uses  air.  OF  TME  WORLD  .»  ENeROr  AMD  EMITS 
22'>  of  ALL   COi  PROOUCeo. . . 


PRoFLISATt  CONSUWPTIOM 
OF  THe  PLANETS  NATtiBAL 
PESO0RCE5  1^  one.  BIRTH- 
RIGHT! 


t>CSP\T£  TVESE  F/Kas,  PRESIDENT  BOSH  RE 
FUSED  To  EVEN  ATT£ftD  T>^E  RIO   EARTH  iVHf 
mir   UNTIL  PUNS  FOR  A  TREATY  PUTTING 
SPECIFIC  CAPS  ON  C0»  E/AISSIONS  WERE 
SeuTTLEO... 


RATMER  THAN  A5X  AMERICANS  TO  SACRIFICE, 
MR. BOSH   VJOULD   PREFER  THAT   UNDERDEVEL- 
OPED TM/RP  WORLD  COUMTRIgS  6EAR  THE 
ECONOMIC  eRuKT  OF  &REENWOUSE  GAS  REPOC 
TlONS... 


WELL,  ir  mAK£5 
[SENSE!. 


AFTER  ALL, THEIR, 
STANDARDS  Of 
LIVING  ARE 
L0WE2  TO  BE- 
GIN VtlTH' 


...LEAVING  C\T1IEN5  IN  THIS  COUNTRY  FREE 
TO  LIVE  IN  THE  fftANNER  TO  ^^»\CH  THEY  ARE. 
ACCUSrOMED... 


jrp  LIKE  SowE  M0)^£  Tf//M6S,  P>LgASE  '  I 

\r * 


PE^OiZESSEC]    LJja(FSh_D    3(Z) 


av 


here,  that  may  scare  people  oft.  But 
after  they  have  a  Uttle  experience  with 
self-empowerment  through  a  move- 
ment, then  more  broad  ideas  come  up 
and  begin  to  be  discussed,  and  people 
become  more  open  to  more  ideas  when 
they  start  seeing  change  and  start  seeing 
that  they're  able  to  make  change.  It 
doesn't  mean  you  have  to  start  within 
these  little  narrow  confines,  but  you 
can't  be  so  miles  out  in  front  of  people 
that  they  can't  relate  to  what  you're 
saying. 

CC:  I  agree  with  that,  but  often 
times  an  idea  as  simple  and  direct  as 
"most  of  the  work  we  do  is  a  waste  of 
time  and  no  one  should  do  it"  is 
treated  as  an  out-of-bounds  idea. 

JB:    No,   people  love   it!    Everybody 
agrees.  But  after  that  idea  comes,  you 
have  to  ask  "can  we  do  anything  about 
it?" 
CC:  Right. 

JB:  I  guess  that's  where  it's  an 
out-of-bounds  idea,  it's  that  they  don't 
think  that  there's  anything  they  can  do 
about  it.  I  think  that's  because  people 
haven't  experienced  collective  action. 

CC:  You  said  that  we  have  to  go  to 
where  people  are.  Now  that's  often  a 
code  expression  for  bread  and  butter 
issues. 

JB:  No,  I  didn't  say  we  have  to  go 
where  people  are,  I  said  we  have  to  keep 
one  eye  on  where  people  are  and  one  eye 
on  where  we  wanna  be,  that's  different 
than  saying  we  have  to  go  where  people 
are. 

CC:  You're  still  in  a  perspective 
where  you're  making  certain  analyti- 
cal judgments  about  where  people 
are,  and  trying  to  reach  to  that 
position  from  another  position  that 
you  don't  think  they're  ready  for  yet. 

JB:  No,  it's  not  that  I  don't  think 
they're  ready  for  my  vision  of  a  perfect 
world,  since  I  don't  even  know  my 
vision  yet.  I  gotta  interact  with  the 
people  to  find  out  WHAT  we  are 
collectively  capable  of  doing.  It's  not  just 
my  ideas  to  be  imposed  on  the  group, 
it's  that  we're  gonna  get  this  group 
together  and  see  where  our  collective 
ideas  take  us. 

CC:  The  incredible  power  of  recu- 
peration. .  .  That's  why  I  keep  stum- 
bling around  these  questions  of  vi- 
sion, what's  going  to  inspire  people  in 
a  passionate  way  to  get  out  of  the 
box?  The  logic  of  immediate  issues, 
whatever  they  might  be,  tends  to  be 
rooted  in  a  conservative  impulse,  a 
defensive  strategy.  The  notion  that 
people  are  gonna  somehow  engage  in 


a  "process"  around  that,  and  that's 
going  to  lead  to  a  day  when  they  have 
a  broader,  more  assertive  life.  .  .  I 
don't  see  why  one  would  lead  to  the 
other  at  all. 

JB:  OK.  Well,  let's  look  at  it  up  here, 
because  this  is  a  different  situation,  it's 
much  less  a  traditionzd  workerist  kind  of 
thing.  What  we  have  is  this  dual 
economy  and  dual  culture  — marijuana, 
timber,  hippies,  stompers,  so  we  have 
these  two  kind  of  parallel  things.  The 
most  significant  thing  that  this  small 
group  that  I  work  with  has  done  is  to 
link  the  two.  We've  got  this  back-to-the 
-land  movement  grown  up  20  years,  a 
whole  generation  older  now  with  adult 
kids.  People  have  experimented  with 
"simple  lifestyles,"  and  ended  up  in 
hippie  palaces.  There's  kind  of  this 
vision  of  ecotopia,  of  a  society  that  lives 
in  harmony  with  the  earth  and  with  each 
other,  and  offers  a  new  way  of  relating 
and  organizing  the  whole  of  society, 
right?  It's  a  larger  vision.  The  shorter 
thing  we've  fought  life  and  death  battles 
over  is  the  survival  of  the  ecosystem  — 
really  trial  by  fire  out  here.  We've  won 
some  really  important  victories,  but  by 
and  large  the  county's  been  clearcut. 
Now  what's  happening  is  that  the  timber 
companies  are  leaving,  they're  done, 
they're  packing  up  and  leaving.  Nor- 
mally what  happens  at  this  stage  is 
gentrification  comes  in,  the  wineries 
and  the  yuppies,  and  all  that  stuff,  and 
marching  behind  that  comes  real  estate 
development. 

So  now  we're  at  a  turning  point,  and  I 
am  absolutely  not  predicting  that  this  is 
going  to  happen  because  we're  up 
against  tremendous  forces,  including 
the  fact  that  they're  willing  to  kill  and 
use  sophisticated  psychological  opera- 
tions and  all  this  other  stuff.  So  now 
we're  at  this  place  where  the  timber 
companies  are  leaving,  and  what  is 
there  in  their  place?  Well  there's  this  big 
movement  now  for  some  economy  based 
on  restoration.  The  money  of  course  is 
going  to  have  to  come  from  outside, 
because  our  resource  base  has  been 
removed  via  clearcutting.  There's  lots  of 
poverty  pimp  money  being  thrown  for 
other  things,  they're  talking  about 
spending  $200  million  to  buy  forest 
parcels  from  Hurwitz,  and  we  say  he 
doesn't  own  it,  he  crashed  an  S&L  to  get 
the  money  to  work  with  Michael  Milkin 
to  take  over  Pacific  Lumber,  so  debt- 
for-nature  swap  — don't  give  any  money 
to  Hurwitz,  the  same  money  you've  got 
to  pay  off  Hurwitz  should  go  to  the 
community  to  fund  an  economy  based 


on  restoring  the  forest.  In  the  process  of 
restoration  there's  some  products  that 
can  come  out  of  it,  but  I  don't  think 
there's  enough  to  base  an  economy  on. 
But  some  kind  of  alternative  economy 
—  Willits  calls  itself  the  Solar  Capital  of 
the  World,  and  they  have  all  these  little 
solar  experiments,  and  solar  cars.  Then 
there's  the  marijuana  economy,  and  the 
hemp  movement.  So  now  we're  at  this 
juncture  where  it  can  either  go  the 
traditional  way  of  moving  into  gentrifi- 
cation or  we  could  seize  the  initiative 
here  at  this  particular  juncture  to  turn 
away  from  the  traditional  capitalist 
model  and  try  to  find  another  way  to  do 
it.  Then  I  think  it  could  be  theoretically 
possible.  I  think  the  only  way  it  could 
happen,  what  I  think  I  got  almost  killed 
for,  is  you've  got  all  this  timber  land 
that's  totally  trashed  out,  and  if  it  isn't 
held  in  trust  for  a  long  time  the  whole 
ecosystem  is  going  to  collapse.  The  only 
way  that  [getting  the  land  into  trust] 
could  happen  would  be  if  the  county 
used  its  power  of  eminent  domain  to 
seize  all  the  corporate  timberlands.  .  . 
Well,  I  guess  they'd  come  in  with  the 
tanks,  it  would  never  happen,  would  it? 

CC:  So  what's  going  to  excite  peo- 
ple now?  Certainly  it's  not  because 
they're  workers  that  they're  going  to 
get  involved  with  anything.  On  the 
other  hand,  as  we  know  perfectly 
well,  the  real  social  power  that  exists 
to  really  fuck  with  the  system  is  found 
in  the  workplace.  So  there's  strategic 
power  there,  but  it's  not  necessary 
that  there  be  this  psychological  iden- 
tification .  .  .  It's  basic  to  Wobbly 
philosophy  and  to  most  proponents  of 
labor  organizing,  that  you  have  to 
somehow  act  on  your  social  function 
as  a  worker,  as  opposed  to  thinking 
about  taking  advantage  of  the  strate- 
gic power  at  work  as  a  part  of 
something  else  — 

JB:  We  worked  with  the  workers  on 
workplace  issues,  and  we  formed  alli- 
ances on  broader  issues,  and  pretty  soon 
the  workers  that  we  were  defending  on 
the  PCB  spills  were  defending  us  on  the 
destruction  of  the  forest.  So  the  people 
in  Earth  First!  who  say  I'm  a  sell-out  for 
wanting  to  work  with  workers  in  extrac- 
tive industries,  well,  I  call  it  the  "Future 
Ex-Logger  Coalition"  because  by  the 
time  that  they're  ready  to  work  with  us, 
they've  had  it  with  the  job. 
-  CC:  So  do  you  think  they  really 
embrace  an  ecological  agenda? 

JB:  Oh  well  they  certainly  do,  yeah. 
In   fact,    interestingly ...  when   I    inter- 


F^F^IHiZESaECl   LUaFSh-D    3CD 


viewed  workers  I  asked  about  working 
conditions.  But  what  made  them  begin  to 
question  the  company  in  many  cases  were 
sentiments  like  "I  went  out  to  my  favorite 
spot  and  it  was  gone.  You  know  I  used  to 
take  my  son  fishing,  and  now  there's  no 
more  fish."  One  of  the  episodes  at  the 
Fort  Bragg  rally  was  the  famous  dramatic 
confrontation  in  the  middle  of  town  when 
the  Earth  First!  rally  comes  face  to  face 
with  the  yellow-ribbon-waving-crazed- 
drunk-alcoholic-abusive  ranting  and 
raving,  and  we  offer  them  the  micro- 
phone. These  three  loggers  get  up  there 
and  the  first  two  just  rage,  and  then  the 
third  one  gets  up,  and  he's  5th  generation 
with  the  whole  accent,  and  the  whole  trip, 
(we  didn't  know  him,  he  was  not  a  plant, 
he  was  somebody  we'd  never  worked  with 
before),  and  he  said  "You  all  know  me, 
I  grew  up  with  you."  He  addressed  the 
loggers,  and  he  said  "I  used  to  log  in  the 
summer  and  fish  in  the  winter,  and  now 
there's  no  more  logs  and  no  more  fish.  I 
never  wanted  to  put  my  family  on  wel- 
fare, but  I  put  my  family  on  welfare  be- 
cause I  can't  do  this  anymore,  I  can't 
keep  destroying  this  place  I  love."  And  he 
said  he  was  going  to  dedicate  his  life  to 
opening  a  recycling  center,  so  he  can 
have  right  livelihood.  There  is  a  group 
of  ex-timber  workers  who  want  to  do 
some  kind  of  reparations  and  right  live- 
lihood. The  coalition  of  people  who  criti- 
cized us  from  the  environmental  move- 
ment, who  criticized  us  for  advocating 
the  interests  of  extractive  industry  work- 
ers, they  don't  understand  what  we're 
doing  at  all.  Not  in  any  way,  shape  or 
form  are  we  advocating  traditional 
unionism,  even  though  we  had  Georgia 
Pacific  workers  wearing  IWW  buttons  to 
work.  These  [logging]  companies  are 
almost  done,  they're  outta  here.  Right 
now  Georgia  Pacific's  redwood  section  is 
less  than  1  %  of  the  overall  operation. 
It's  basically  a  pulp  and  paper  company, 
primarily  based  in  the  south.  Then  they 
have  this  little  Western  Division  up  here 
that  does  redwood,  and  it  consists  of  one 
big  mill.  Before  they  would  recognize  a 
Wobbly  union  they  would  definitely  close 
the  mill.  There's  just  no  question  that  we 
don't  have  a  single  chance  in  organizing 
for  traditional  labor  goals.  We're  looking 
at  an  industry  that's  on  its  way  out.  What 
we're  talking  about  is  what  we're  going 
to  do  after  it  leaves,  and  how  we're  going 
to  seize  control  of  our  community  so  that 
we  CAN  do  what  we  think  needs  to  be 
done  after  it  leaves.  That's  the  broader 
question  that  we're  working  on,  is  com- 
munity control  of  our  community  so  that 
it  won't  be  turned  into  yuppies,  and  the 


timber  workers  won't  be  displaced.  Right 
now  we're  controlled  by  out-of-state 
corporations. 

CC:  I  wonder  how  you  imagine 
controlling  the  outside  capital  that 
might  be  coming  in? 

JB:  I  don't  think  you  can  solve  all  the 
problems  without  a  revolution!  We 
advocated  for  the  workers  who  got  PCB 
dumped  on  them,  we  advocated  for  the 
worker  who  got  killed  in  a  Ukiah  mill 
and  got  criminjd  charges  brought 
against  Louisiana-Pacific,  we  inter- 
viewed workers  about  their  working 
conditions,  but  that's  the  narrower 
thing,  and  we're  also  talking  about  this 
broader  thing  of  resource  destruction,  of 
out-of-town  evil  corporation.  The  alli- 


ance with  workers  based  on  workplace 
issues  has  been  translated  into  a  larger 
question  of  the  resource  base,  and  the 
height  that  it  got  to  was  demanding  the 
eminent  domain  seizure  of  the  timber 
industry  by  the  county. 

CC:  Socialism  in  Mendocino  Coun- 
ty! 

JB:  You  know  what  happened  after 
we  did  that,  besides  that  they  tried  to  kill 
me  for  it .  .  .  We  started  from  workplace 
problems,  we  went  to  resource  destruc- 
tion, and  then  we  started  to  demand 
eminent  domain  seizure.  That  was  cer- 
tainly taking  it  into  a  broader  context! 

by  Chris  Carlsson  and  Med-o,  April  20, 
J  992  in  Mendocino  County. 


MY  JOB: 


WHAT'S  THE  POINT? 


PF^CIEZESSEO   kJjaPbh-D    3CII 


PROCESSED  SHIT: 

Capitalism,  Racism  and  Entropy 


Dedicurse:  this  essay  is  dedicated 
to  the  hope  that,  if  there  is  an  afterlife, 
Daniel  Moynihan,  Mickey  Kaus,  and 
all  the  other  "black  underclass  patholo- 
gy" demagogues  will  spend  it  on 
welfare  in  a  public  housing  project, 
trying  to  find  a  job  and  to  avoid  getting 
beaten  or  shot  by  the  police. 

The  Heart  of  Whiteness 

Judeo-Christian  culture  has  long  had 
a  problem  with  dirt  and  darkness.  White- 
ness has  been  Europe's  symbol  of  purity, 
goodness,  life,  order,  and  the  divine. 
(By  contrast,  consider  classical  Chinese 
culture,  in  which  whiteness  symbolizes 
death,  and  is  worn  at  funerals.)  Black- 
ness or  darkness,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
traditionally  connoted  impurity,  evil, 
death,  disorder,  and  the  satanic. 

For  centuries,  the  dominant  Euro- 
pean ideal  of  human  beauty  stressed 
white  skin.  The  most  obvious  reason  for 
this  is  that  reddened  or  tanned  skin 
meant  exposure  to  sun,  wind,  and  rain. 
Since  feudal  society  was  agrarian,  such 
exposure  in  a  young  person  (or  in  a 
woman  of  any  age)  implied  work  — 
commonly  in  the  fields.  The  arbiters  of 
taste  were  aristocrats,  for  whom  the 
absolute  avoidance  of  work  was  crucial 
to  class  self-definition.  The  aristocratic 
ideal  of  beauty,  still  current  today,  was 
shaped  by  all  the  signs  of  distance  from 
work  — the  build  athletic  rather  than 
massive  in  a  man,  narrow-boned  yet 
voluptuously  fleshed  in  a  woman,  the 
hands  small  or  at  any  rate  narrow,  with 
tapered  fingers,  and  so  forth.  Distance 
from  work  in  a  mainly  agricultural 
society  also  meant  distance  from  dirt, 
from  contact  with  the  soil.  To  this  day, 
"soi'ed"  means  dirty,  just  as  dark  means 
evil  or  threatening.  (Signifiers  of  class 
and  wealth  still  underlie  our  aesthetic 
and  moral  values.  Consider  the  terms 
"noble"  and  "base"  as  applied  to  human 
conduct,  the  derivation  of  our  word 
"villain"  from  vileyn,   serf,  and  the  con- 


vergence of  vileyn  with  "vile"  through  the 
Latin i;27z5,  cheap.) 

This  cultural  complex  allowed  Euro- 
peans to  enslave  and  slaughter  African's 
and  Native  Americans  with  a  clearer 
conscience  than  would  otherwise  have 
been  possible.  Of  course  the  expansion- 
ist and  exclusive  character  of  institu- 
tionalized Christianity  was  the  ideologi- 
cal linchpin  of  the  "Age  of  Discovery,"  as 
it  had  been  of  the  Age  of  the  Crusades. 
(In  fairness,  it  is  worth  remembering 
that  during  the  Crusades  Christian 
culture  was  fighting  a  severe  challenge 
by  another  expansionist  and  much  more 
sophisticated  culture,  Islam.)  Christi- 
anity divides  human  beings  into  wheat 
and  chaff.  Saved  and  Damned,  allowing 
them  no  middle  ground  once  the  Word 
of  the  One  True  God  has  been  preached 
to  them.  This  absolute  division  of  the 
world,  with  its  own  white/black  symbol- 
ism, was  superimposed  on  the  aristo- 
cratic dualism  of  white  noble,  dark 
base. 

Underlying  the  Christian  and  aristo- 
cratic dichotomies  was  another  more 
ancient  one,  the  Graeco-Roman  divi- 
sion of  humanity  into  civilized  versus 
"barbarian"  or  "savage"  peoples.  (The 
derivations  of  the  latter  put-downs  are, 
respectively,  people  whose  speech 
sounds  to  us  like  animal  noises  and 
people  who  live  in  the  forest  instead  of 
cultivating  fields.)  For  several  centuries 
before  the  Age  of  Slavery,  the  European 
ruling    classes    had    been     convincing 


Capitalist  accvunulation  produces 

order  at  one  pole  and  entropy 

at  the  other  — or  else  organized 

shit  (capital)  at  one  pole  and 

disorganized  shit  (misery  and 

pollution)  at  the  other.  The 
symbolic  shittiness  of  wealth  is 

the  dirty  secret  of  white- 
capitalist-patriarchal  culture. 


themselves  that  they  were  the  civilized 
and  that  the  Arabs  and  Persians,  despite 
their  splendid  architecture,  literature, 
science,  and  mathematics,  were  the 
barbarians.  Encountering  the  tribal 
peoples  of  West  Africa,  Eastern  North 
America,  and  Mexico,  who  neither  used 
the  wheel  nor  smelted  iron,  the  Discov- 
erers could  feel  sure  of  their  superiority 
and  God-given  right  to  exploit.  Better 
yet,  these  peoples  were  possessed  of 
more  melanin  in  their  skins  than  most 
Europeans,  and  so  could  be  fitted  into 
the  cultural  slot  labelled  black  or  dark 
—  which  meant  at  best  chaotic,  ignor- 
ant, dirty,  and  impure,  and  at  worst 
menacing,  vicious,  and  evil. 

The  wealth  looted  from  the  land, 
artifacts,  and  bodies  of  Africa  and 
America  provided  the  fuel  for  the  lift-off 
of  commerce  in  Europe.  The  gold  and 
silver  mined  by  Indian  slaves  in  Mexico 
and  Peru,  the  cotton,  sugar,  and  tobac- 
co harvested  by  African  slaves  in  the 
Caribbean,  created  the  wealth  that  was 
used  to  buy  pale-skinned  wage  labor.  It 
was  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
the  slave  trade  was  soaring,  that  the 
notion  of  Europeans  as  white  first 
appeared.  The  aristocratic  signifier  had 
been  spread  to  include  all  Europeans, 
whether  noble,  base,  or  in  between. 
Thus,  alongside  capitalism,  twinned 
with  it,  was  born  modern  racism. 

As  Europeans  and  Euro-Americans 
lived  with  African  slaves  — and  fought 
Native  Americans  for  undisputed  con- 
trol of  the  continent—  the  process  of 
stereotyping  and  otherizing  advanced 
rapidly'.  By  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Euro-Americans  seem  to  have 
been  almost  incapable  of  seeing  Afri- 
can-Americans, slave  or  free,  as  human 
beings.  Even  Mark  Twain,  conceiving  a 
sympathetic  figure  in  Jim,  can  only 
show  the  runaway  slave  as  a  pathetic 
victim.  Jim's  very  speech  is  misrepre- 
sented, and  by  the  writer  who  first  set 
down  varieties  of  Euro-American  ver- 
nacular with  such  care.  Yet  describing 
the  episode  when  Huck  listens  to  the 
white  raft-men  talking.  Twain  gives  the 
game  away.  Its  the  raft-men's  game,  a 


3CD 


F'B^incEsaEci  iLijai=Nh_a  3cd 


Miles  Davis  translates  Nat  Turner. 


ritual  of  trading  hyperbolic  and  poetic 
boasts,  and  it  comes  straight  out  of  West 
Africa.  The  repressed  returns,  an- 
nouncing that  Twain's  blindness  and 
deafness  are  willful;  they  are  necessitat- 
ed by  guilty  awareness  of  slavery's 
intimate  and  inextricable  role  in  the 
founding  of  a  "free"  nation  — and  by  the 
fact  that,  as  Albert  Murray  observes  in 
The     Omni- Americans,     "American     cul- 


ture. .  .is,  regardless  of  all  the  hysterical 
protestations  of  those  who  would  have  it 
otherwise,  incontestably  mulatto." 

In  his  White  Racism:  A  Psychohistory, 
Joel  Kovel  has  shown  how  U.S.  racism 
bifurcates  between  North  and  South.  In 
the  South,  where  whites  grew  up  in 
intimate  daily  contact  with  black  slaves 
and  servants,  the  signifier  of  difference 
is    supposed    relative    intelligence    and 


development:  Africans  are  childlike  and 
must  be  ruled  by  whites  for  their  own 
good.  They  are  not  feared  or  loathed  as 
such,  except  when  they  get  "uppity"  and 
"don't  know  their  place."  Racial  contact 
pollutes  in  only  one  way:  through  sex. 
Euro-patriarchy  must  not  be  chal- 
lenged, either  by  the  legitimation  of 
mixed-race  offspring  (though  children 
from  a  long-term  liaison  with  a  female 


F'i=^aEIE55EE3    LJjai=^h_a    3CD 


slave  may  be  treated  with  the  kindness 
due  pets)  or  above  all  by  sex  between  a 
black  man  and  a  white  woman.  In  the 
North,  where  despite  the  historically 
better  legal  status  of  black  people  the 
races  have  actually  had  less  contact,  a 
subliminal  fear  of  dirt  and  pollution  is 
characteristic  of  what  Kovel  calls  aver- 
sive  racism.  Studies  of  Northern  racist 
whites  reveal  bizarre  fantasies  of  black 
skin  color  rubbing  off  on  them  when 
touched.  The  psychodynamic  connec- 
tion between  these  two  forms  of  racism 
can  be  intuitively  grasped  when  we 
remember  that  "dirty"  in  Anglo- 
American  culture  is  a  synonym  for 
openly  erotic. 

Social  Thermodynamics 

Nothing  I  have  said  so  far  is  new. 
Less  easily  recognized  is  the  relationship 
between  how  European  or  Euro- 
American  culture  understands  "dirt" 
and  the  thermodynamical  principle  of 
entropy  as  applied  to  political  economy 
and  culture. 

Thermodynamics  defines  entropy  as 
a  measure  of  the  disorder  in  a  closed 
thermodynamical  system.  Since  no  sys- 
tem is  100%  efficient,  some  energy 
must  eventueilly  become  unavailable  for 
work  (meaning  here  the  self- 
reproduction  of  the  system's  order). 
Energy  that  is  not  available  for  work 
causes  disorder.  To  maintain  order, 
therefore,  a  system  must  expel  this 
disorder.  For  example,  exhaust  prod- 
ucts (carbon  monoxide  and  dioxide  and 
waste  heat)  are  entropy  expelled  by  a 
working  auto  engine  to  maintain  its 
order  as  a  system.  The  living  human 
body  sheds  entropy  as  heat,  as  excreta 
(carbon  dioxide,  sweat  and  urine),  as 
mucus  carrying  dead  bacteria  and  other 
rejected  matter,  as  dead  skin  cells,  and 
of  course  as  shit. 

Human  societies  are  organized  self- 
reproducing  systems.  In  principle,  then, 
this  thermodynamical  model  can  be 
extended  to  cover  any  society.  What 
changes  from  one  to  another  is  the  mode 
of  order,  and  therefore  what  each  one 
defines  as  work  and  energy.  Capitalist 
industrial  society,  which  engendered 
thermodynamical  theory  in  the  first 
place,  defines  "real"  work  as  activity  that 
gives  rise  to  profit  and  is  performed  in 
exchange  for  money.  Activity  necessary 
for  social  reproduction  that  fails  to  meet 
one  or  both  of  these  criteria  is  experi- 
enced as  a  drain  on  the  system.  This 
includes  all  the  work  of  government,  aW 
paid  nonprofit  work  such  as  public 
education  or  health  care,  unpaid  cultur- 


dl  activity  like  writing  poems  or  playing 
music  for  one's  friends,  and  of  course 
unpaid  domestic  work. 

"Activity  that  gives  rise  to  profit"  has 
evolved  as  capitalism  has  developed.  To 
begin  with,  such  activity  was  virtually 
synonymous  with  the  production  and 
distribution  of  material  goods.  Marx, 
however,  was  quick  to  see  that  produc- 
tion for  capitalism  means  above  all  the 
production  of  capital,  which  in  turn 
(and  more  profoundly)  means  the  re- 
production of  capitalist  social  relation- 
ships: paid  work  and  the  universal 
market.  What  is  more,  said  Marx, 
because  profits  plateau  and  decline  as 
industries  mature,  this  reproduction 
depends  on  "growth."  It  cannot  main- 
tain itself  in  a  steady  state.  Growth  for 
capitalism  means  more  profit  for  capi- 
talists, more  work  done,  more  com- 
modities sold  — but  this  depends  on 
more  people  being  wage  earners  and 
commodity  consumers,  more  areas  of 
the  world  and  of  sociad  existence  being 
brought  into  the  cycle  of  work-pay-sell- 
buy-profit.  Capitalism  must,  therefore, 
convert  more  and  more  kinds  of  human 
activity  into  work. 

While  constantly  redefining  work, 
capitalism  also  constantly  strives  to 
reduce  the  amount  of  work-time  taken 
to  produce  any  given  commodity  —  and 
to  shorten  the  time  capital  needs  to 
circulate  from  work  done,  via  merchan- 
dise sold,  to  profit  taken.  Consequently 
capitalism  is,  as  its  publicists  never  cease 
to  remind  us,  always  creating  techno- 
logical revolutions.  This  technologicail 
dynamism  means  that  capitalism  con- 
tinually redefines  energy  as  well,  which 
in  a  thermodynamic  sense  means  not 
only  power  sources  but  raw  materials. 

A  global  system  that  must  perpetually 
expand  and  change  in  order  to  survive, 
that  is  continually  creating  new  techno- 
logies, and  that  defines  work  at  once  so 
narrowly  and  so  broadly,  is  likely  to 
generate  many  forms  of  entropy.  Most 
obviously,  this  means  all  sorts  of  indus- 
triad  waste:  "traditional"  emissions  like 
heat,  carbon  dioxide,  and  soot,  an 
ever-widening  rainbow  of  toxic  chemi- 
cals, and  various  radiation  hazards. 
Increasingly  such  pollutants  are  rivalled 
in  destructiveness  by  consumption 
waste  such  as  packaging  and  disposables 
of  all  sorts,  carbon  dioxide  and  nitrous/ 
nitric  oxide  from  car  exhausts,  and  toxic 
household  cleaners. 

This  entropic  Niagara  produces 
other  lethal  disorders,  not  least  in  the 
human    body.     Work-related     illnesses 


from  silicosis  to  carpal-tunnel  syn- 
drome, the  cancer  clusters  blooming 
around  refineries  and  nuclear  plants, 
join  the  traditional  diseases  of  malnutri- 
tion and  overcrowding  triggered  by 
three  centuries  of  market  forces  shoving 
people  off  their  land  or  out  of  their  jobs. 
And  as  everyone  knows,  the  disorder 
spewed  out  by  the  frantic  global  search 
for  profits  is  ripping  huge  holes  in  the 
ecological  fabric  — holes  in  the  ozone 
layer,  holes  in  the  rainforests,  holes  in 
the  webs  of  animal  and  plant  species, 
and  holes  in  the  census  figures  around 
places  like  Bhopal  or  Chernobyl. 

Beyond  these,  capitalist  economifcs 
also  generate  behavioral  and  social 
forms  of  energy  unavailable  for  "work" 
in  the  other  sense  of  social  reproduction. 
These  include  property  crime  from  car 
burglary  to  securities  fraud;  violent 
crime  caused  by  poverty  and  frustra- 
tion; and,  in  a  feedback  loop  with  these, 
drug  and  alcohol  addiction.  Shifts  in 
land  and  labor  prices  also  engender 
forced  migration  and  homelessness  — 
immense  disruptions  in  demographic 
patterns  and  in  people's  daily  lives.  The 
other  immense  disruption,  of  course,  is 
war,  whether  fought  directly  over  mar- 
kets and  resources,  or  over  some  ethnic 
rivalry  with  economic  shock  and  stress 
as  a  contributing  cause. 

Yet  any  thermodynamical  system  ac- 
tually has  two  options  in  regard  to 
energy  that  becomes  unavailable  for 
work:  dumping  it,  or  recycling  it.  ^  Just 
now,  capitalism  is  not  doing  very  well  at 
recycling  much  of  its  entropy,  especially 
the  chemical  varieties.  At  recycling 
people,  however,  capitalism  has  always 
been  unsurpassed.  In  the  fifteenth, 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
rich  English  landowners  turned  many  of 
their  tenants  loose  because  the  shift  from 
diverse  farming  to  the  more  profitable 
monoculture  of  sheep  required  more 
range  and  fewer  workers.  They  also 
expelled  freeholding  peasants  from  tra- 
ditionally common  land  they  had  en- 
closed for  their  own  use.  This  dumped 
surplus  population  wandered  the  coun- 
tryside as  beggars  and  thieves,  causing  a 
perpetual  problem  for  the  rural  social 
order.  Some  drifted  into  the  towns, 
where  they  were  likewise  experienced  as 
entropic.  But  gradueilly,  nascent  manu- 
facturing began  recycling  them  as 
■wage-workers.  Once  capitalism  in  both 
agriculture  and  industry  got  off  the 
ground  in  the  late  eighteenth  century, 
the  flow  of  work-energy  from  the  land  to 
the  cities  became  a  flood,  which  contin- 


F^PkaCESSECl    hJJi:]FMi_ED    3CD 


ues  to  this  day. 

Capitalism  is  so  effective  at  recycling 
work-energy  because  it  treats  work  as  a 
commodity  and  therefore  as  abstract. 
Kinds  of  work  are  interchangeable, 
valued  solely  according  to  their  ability  to 
produce  profit.  (Thermodynamics,  as 
the  Midnight  Notes  group  has  pointed 
out,  originated  during  the  same  epoch 
as  Frederick  Taylor's  "scientific  man- 
agement," which  aimed  to  break  indus- 
trial work  down  into  small,  mindless 
units  for  greater  efficiency.)  In  fact, 
Harry  Braverman,  David  Noble,  and 
others  have  shown  how  the  whole  his- 
tory of  capitalist  technology  and  man- 
agement techniques  is  the  effort  to  make 
labor  more  interchangeable  — and 
thereby  to  make  workers  more  dispens- 
able and  less  powerful.  However,  capi- 
tal's recycling  of  work-energy  runs  afoul 
of  the  system's  periodic  crises.  Theorists 


differ  as  to  the  inner  cause  of  these 
crises.  All  of  them,  though,  appear  as  a 
situation  in  which  there  is  plenty  of 
plant  and  equipment  on  one  side  and 
plenty  of  workers  on  the  other,  but  in 
which  the  liquid  capital  cannot  be  found 
to  bring  the  two  together.  The  result  is 
very  high  rates  of  both  unemployment 
and  corporate  bankruptcy. 

If  the  crisis  is  short  enough,  the  effects 
for  the  system  can  be  quite  beneficial; 
and  today,  governments  are  able 
through  fiscal  and  monetary  policy  to 
manage  crisis  to  capital's  advantage, 
even  to  bring  on  recessions  at  will  (as  the 
Federal  Reserve  did  in  1979-82).  Per- 
haps the  most  important  benefit  of  a 
controlled  crisis  is  its  disciplining  of 
workers.  High  unemployment  makes 
resistance  to  intensified  exploitation  dif- 
ficult, and  wages  can  be  reduced  be- 
cause workers  are  desperate.  Once  the 


new  cycle  starts,  moreover,  there  is  a 
large  pool  of  labor  available  for  new 
ventures  and  for  expansion.  But  if  the 
crisis  becomes  too  deep  and  prolonged, 
like  the  Great  Depression  of  the  '30s,  the 
human  energy  made  unavailable  for 
work  becomes  violently  entropic.  The 
unemployed  and  the  poor  demonstrate 
and  riot;  and  if  they  form  alliances  with 
the  employed,  as  they  did  then,  there  is 
potential  for  mass  strikes  and  even 
insurrection.  Keeping  the  entropic  en- 
ergy of  the  unemployed  and  the  poor 
from  contaminating  the  employed 
working  class  is  a  continuing  project  for 
the  system. 

Dealing  Dirt  &  Getting  Shit 

Having  outlined  something  of  the 
range  of  socially  generated  entropy  and 
the  ways  capitalism  deals  with  it,  I 
would  like  to  stretch  the  notion  a  little 


Coleman  Hawkins  and  Duke  Ellington  riff  on  surplus  value. 


further  to  cover  the  re3dms  of  cuhure 
and  the  personality.  Once  again  I  must 
retrace  some  famiUar  ground.  Capitalist 
culture,  as  the  likes  of  Max  Weber  and 
R.H.  Tawney  have  demonstrated,  rests 
on  the  Protestant  revolution  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
which  adapted  the  basic  structures  of 
Judeo-Christian  patriarchy  to  fit  new 
psychosocial  needs.  Protestantism,  es- 
pecially Calvinism,  exalts  thrift,  the 
accumulation  of  wealth,  and  hard  work. 
That  is,  it  favors  the  exchange  of  living 
time  for  congealed  dead  time  in  the  form 
of  commodities  and  money,  which  are 
then  accumulated.  As  a  corollary.  Prot- 
estantism preaches  sexual  continence, 
the  conservation  of  erotic  energy.  Patri- 
archal cultures  have  often  been  anxious 
about  the  release  of  sperm  — the  Hindu 
theory  oi  prana  is  one  example.  But  in 
bourgeois-Protestant  culture,  sperm  is 
viewed  as  a  form  of  capital,  which  must, 
in  the  seventeenth-century  phrase,  be 
"spent"  productively  in  begetting  chil- 
dren. And  if  sperm  is  capital,  the  womb 
for  patriarchy  has  always  been  land,  the 
realest  of  real  property.  By  making  the 
womb-soil  fruitful,  the  Protestant  bour- 
geois not  only  continues  his  bloodline 
—  the  aim  of  all  patriarchs  — but  invests 
in  the  future,  founds  or  continues  a 
family  firm. 

All  this  requires  strict  discipline. 
Thus,  mainline  Protestant  culture  from 
Luther  on  inculcates  hierarchical  obedi- 
ence to  one's  elders  and  betters,  begin- 
ning with  the  State  — so  long  as  the  State 
permits  one  to  worship  the  Protestant 
God  and  accumulate  a  Godly  fortune.  It 
also  demands,  as  Freud  saw,  deferral  of 
gratification  to  a  degree  rare  in  precapi- 
talist societies,  and  thus  much  emotional 
and  sensual  repression  and  rechannel- 
ing.  The  personality  created  in  this 
image  is  controlled  primarily  through 
guilt,  though  shame  is  also  an  important 
spur.  To  inculcate  and  reinforce  self- 
discipline,  violence  is  often  necessary. 
As  in  most  patriarchies,  death  and 
mutilation  are  a  State  monopoly,  but 
lesser  violences  such  as  beating  are  the 
prerogatives  of  every  father-husband. 

For  this  configuration,  which  I  will 
call  "accumulationist,"  cultured  entropy 
consists  first  of  all  of  "wasteful"  or 
"unproductive"  behavior:  free  spending 
rather  than  saving,  sexual  promiscuity 
and  sensuality,  the  open  expression  of 
passionate  feeling,  and  of  course  lazi- 
ness. Female  sexuality  is  viewed  with 
fascinated  dread,  since  it  can  lead  to  all 
the  other  forms  of  cultural  disorder, 
beginning    with    illegitimate    children. 


Sex  between  men  is  an  abomination. 
Since  the  accumulation  of  property  is 
the  chief  goal  of  life,  lack  of  respect  for 
property,  such  as  trespass,  is  crime  on  a 
par  with  violence  against  one's  betters, 
and  theft  must  be  savagely  punished. 
The  flouting  of  hierarchy  (once  feudail- 
ism  and  the  Church  of  Rome  have  been 
defeated)  is  likewise  a  dire  threat,  as  is 
the  unlicensed  use  of  violence. 

One  common  way  for  cultures  — and 
individuals  — to  deal  with  anxiety  about 
forbidden  traits  or  behaviors  is  to  pro- 
ject them  outwards  as  defining  attri- 
butes of  some  demonized  Other.  As 
capitalism  developed  through  the  eight- 
eenth and  early  nineteenth  centuries, 
the     European     and     Euro-American 


bourgeoisies  came  to  project  entropic 
characteristics  onto  the  poor  of  their 
own  cities  as  well  as  onto  the  peoples  of 
Africa  and  India  they  were  colonizing. 
"Half  devil  and  half  child,"  Kipling 
would  call  these  peoples  in  "The  White 
Man's  Burden";  but  nineteenth-century 
manufacturers  said  much  the  same  of 
their  workers  (many  of  whom  up  to  the 
1860s  were  actual  children).  Poor  people 
were  viewed  by  the  propertied  classes  as 
lazy,  promiscuous,  larcenous,  drunken, 
and  spendthrift. 

There  was  truth,  of  a  kind,  to  the 
stereotype.  Long  hours  of  repetitive  toil 
produce  boredom,  exhaustion,  and 
consequent  sluggishness.  People  who 
live  from  week  to  week  cannot  save  their 


money  even  if  they  had  the  incentive. 
Poverty  and  forced  migration  in  search 
of  work  disrupt  familial  and  communal 
ties  and  drive  people  to  theft  and 
prostitution.  Drunkenness  and  senseless 
violence  are  consequences  of  depriva- 
tion and  despair.  Unlicensed  forms  of 
sexual  behavior  offer  some  of  the  few 
pleasures  that  can  be  had  without  mon- 
ey- 

This  unruly  proletariat,  mostly  only 
one  generation  removed  from  the  coun- 
tryside, was  only  converted  into  a  stable 
and  respectable  working  class  through  a 
long  acculturation.  It  also  involved 
enormous  State  violence.  In  the  end, 
relative  stability  was  only  achieved  by 
introducing  machinery  that  made  it 
possible  to  squeeze  more  production  out 
of  workers  without  lengthening  the 
working  day. 

Once  the  "respectable"  working  class 
was  established  in  the  U.S.  during  the 
last  third  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
same  entropic  characteristics  were  pro- 
jected onto  other  Others:  onto  the 
lumpenproletariat  or  criminal  classes; 
onto  the  Irish;  onto  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe;'  onto 
Indians  and  Mexicans;  and  above  all 
and  continuously,  onto  black  people. 
And,  as  in  the  case  of  the  earlier 
projection  onto  the  poor,  the  projective 
fantasy  was  partly  self-fulfilling,  a  mat- 
erialized ill-wish  or  exorcism. 

There  is  one  cruciad  component  to 
this  exorcism  that  I  have  not  mentioned: 
dirt.  As  we  have  seen,  feudalism  defined 
dirt  (at  least  on  face,  hands,  or  clothes) 
as  a  signifier  of  low  social  status.  The 
rising  capitalist  class,  by  its  nature,  had 
to  be  a  lot  closer  to  work  than  had  the 
aristocracy  — and  it  had  to  reverse  the 
polarity  of  the  aristocracy's  disdain  for 
money-grubbing.  It  developed  an  even 
more  passionate  aversion  to  dirt, 
summed  up  in  the  famous  Victorian 
maxim  "Cleanliness  is  next  to  Godli- 
ness." But  feudal  dirt  differs  from  capi- 
talist dirt.  Feudal  dirt  is  the  sign  of 
closeness  to  work  and  the  earth.  Capi- 
talist dirt,  being  mostly  industrial  ef- 
fluent or  the  grime  of  destitution,  is 
likewise  associated  with  work  — but  also 
with  poverty,  waste,  and  the  absence  of 
Protestant  bourgeois  values.  It  is,  one 
might  say,  visible  entropy.  Like  the 
poor  themselves,  dirt  is  a  product  of 
capitalist  accumulation  that  the  capital- 
ist class  does  not  want  to  see  or  smell. 

The  dirtiest  dirt,  of  course,  is  shit. 
Shit's  meaning  in  capitalist  culture, 
however,  is  profoundly  ambiguous.  In 
The  Ontogenesis  of  Money,  the  psychologist 


3L. 


E='i=>h[nc:E5SECI    lOJIUF^h-EJ    3C3 


Sandor  Ferenczi  suggests  that  the  anal 
retentive  stage  of  infancy  lays  the  foun- 
dation for  the  accumulationist,  ex- 
change-oriented bourgeois  personality. 
When  the  child  being  toilet-trained 
deliberately  holds  her  shit  back,  she 
gains  attention  and  rewards  for  releas- 
ing it  at  the  set  time.  Thus  she  learns  to 
retain,  to  delay  gratification,  and  to 
exchange  one  pleasure  for  another.  She 
also  becomes  more  self-contained,  more 
aware  of  her  own  desires  as  distinct  from 
those  of  others.  To  the  bourgeois  un- 
conscious, then,  shit  is  wealth  — but  only 
when  you  can't  see  it. 

Bourgeois  wealth  grows  out  of  shit, 
and  produces  shit.  Capitalism,  Marx 
says,  creates  wealth  at  one  pole  of 
accumulation  and  poverty  at  the  other. 
One  could  paraphrase  this  by  saying 
that  capitalist  accumulation  produces 
order  at  one  pole  and  entropy  at  the 
other  — or  else  organized  shit  (capital)  at 
one  pole  and  disorganized  shit  (misery 
and  pollution)  at  the  other.  The  sym- 
bolic shittiness  of  wealth  is  the  dirty 
secret  of  white-capitalist-patriarchal 
culture.  Milan  Kundera,  in  The  Unbear- 
able Lightness  of  Being,  says  that  kitsch  is 
the  denial  of  shit.  In  the  Stalinist 
Czechoslovakia  of  which  Kundera  was 
writing,  "shit"  meant  secret  police,  po- 
litical prisoners,  few  choices,  shortages, 
stupid  jobs,  pollution;  "kitsch"  meant 
red  flags  flying,  patriotic  songs  and 
icons  of  Lenin,  hymns  to  industry  and 
progress.  In  market-capitalist  societies 
"shit"  means  violence,  apolitical  prison- 
ers, meaningless  choices,  poverty,  stu- 
pid jobs,  pollution;  "kitsch"  means 
shopping  malls,  sitcoms,  blockbuster 
comic-book  movies,  advertising,  telec- 
toral  pseudopolitics.  In  either  case, 
kitsch  — formulaic,  sentimental,  one- 
dimensional,  cosily  reassuring  even  at 
its  sexiest  or  most  brutal  —  serves  to 
conceal  shit,  which  is  why  it  is  one- 
dimensional. 

Besides  the  usual  late-capitalist  shit, 
white  kitsch  in  the  United  States  is  also, 
as  noted  earlier,  a  denial  of  original 
crime  — genocide  and  slavery  — and  of 
the  fact  that,  as  Harold  Cruse  put  it  in 
"The  Crisis  of  the  Negro  Intellectual," 
"the  white  Protestant  Anglo-Saxon  in 
America  has  nothing  in  his  native 
American  tradition  that  is  aesthetically 
and  culturally  originad,  except  that 
which  derives  from  the  Negro  presence." 
White  (not  European)  American  accu- 
mulationist culture  is  defined  by  its  utter 
blandness  and  avoidance  of  controversy 
or  risk,  by  its  cleanliness-as-absence. 

This    blandest-common-denominator 


culture  is,  notoriously,  the  behavioral 
and  stylistic  norm  of  the  suburb,  to 
which  even  the  older,  run-down  exur- 
ban  developments  aspire.  It  is,  besides, 
the  ambience  of  the  modern  corporate 
office,  where  niceness  rules  — or  rather, 
is  the  means  of  rule.  In  the  white-collar 
workplace  everyone  must  act  white: 
quiet,  polite,  cheerful,  emotionally 
masked,  sensually  numb,  perpetually 
busy,  willing  to  tolerate  any  humiliation 
as  long  as  its  done  with  a  smile. 
Controversial  topics  are  rigidly  avoided, 
and  the  ultimate  taboo  is  discussing 
salaries.  The  excremental  significance  of 
money  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that 
good  corporate  citizens  would  rather  tell 
you  how  much  they  get  laid  than  how 
much  they  get  paid. 

The  truth  of  wealth,  however,  is 
made  historically  manifest  in  the  prolet- 
ariat, the  class  of  shitworkers.  These  are 
the  people  who  are  supposedly  only  fit 
for  what  the  sociology  texts  call  super- 
vised routine  tasks,  which  means 
numbingly  dull,  frequently  health- 
damaging  drudgery  — not  only  in  the 
factory  but  at  the  keyboard  and  behind 
the  counter.  Their  energy  is  made 
available  for  work  only  by  fierce  eco- 
nomic compulsion  backed  up  by  a 
never-ending  bombardment  of  ideolo- 
gy, beginning  in  schools  whose  function 
is  to  convince  them  they  are  incapable  of 
anything  else.  You  ain't  shit,  the  Amer- 
ican insult  goes,  meaning  you  are  the 
lowest  of  the  low.  Eat  shit  and  like  it. 
Shit  is  processed  or  disposed  of  by 
inferiors  who  are  contaminated  by  it, 
who  metaphorically  eat  it,  and  who 
metonymically  (by  association)  become 
it. 

No  surprise,  then,  that  black  people 
have  always  been  at  or  near  the  bottom 
of  the  proletarian  heap  in  the  US. 
Occupying  at  best  the  next  level  up  — or 
in  many  places  the  same  level  — are 
Indians,  Mexicans,  Central  Americans, 
and  Puerto  Ricans,  also  in  the  racist 
mind  shit-colored.  Just  above  them  are 
the  poor  white  trash,  another  entropy- 
word.  All  are  to  this  day  routinely 
represented  as  dishonest,  loud- 
mouthed, lazy,  lustful,  stupid,  booze- 
and-drugsodden  brutes.  The  psychic 
consequences  of  this  projection  onto 
working-class  people,  and  especially 
onto  women  and  African-Americans, 
are  devastating.  Yet  these  despised 
creatures  have  been  a  prime  source  of 
capitalist  wealth. 

This  wealth  is  not  only  economic  but 
cultural.  To  give  only  the  most  familiar 
example:    black  people,   working  from 


the  African  traditions  they  were  able  to 
retain,  created  the  country's  most  im- 
portant—some might  say  only  — 
indigenous  musical  forms. 

Recycling  In  Mass  Culture:  The 
Case  of  Black  Music 

There  is  no  need  to  rehash  the  vast 
and  continuing  expropriation  of  Afri- 
can-American music  to  the  profit  of 
(mostly)  white-owned  capited  and  for  the 
entertainment  of  white  audiences.  Any- 
one with  the  slightest  knowledge  of  U.S. 
music  history  can  cite  examples,  from 
the  bleaching  of  Ellington's  and  Basie's 
orchestral  jazz  into  bland  Glenn  Miller- 
style  big-band  pop  in  the  '30s  and  '40s 
to  the  endless  recycling  by  white  guitar- 
ists of  blues  riffs  lifted  from  Robert 
Johnson  or  B.B.  King.  White  baby- 
boomers  howl  with  outrage  when  the 
rock  anthems  of  their  adolescence  are 
converted  into  commercials;  but  this  is 
much  the  same  experience  that  black 
musicians  and  audiences  have  been 
having  for  nearly  a  century.  (Michael 
Jackson  represents  the  paroxysm  of  this 
process:  an  African- American  who  tries 
to  eradicate  from  his  face  and  body  the 
traces  of  race  while  producing  a  color- 
blind dance  music  ingeniously  con- 
structed out  of  all  the  hot  pop  trends  of 
the  moment  — and  then  recycling  it 
almost  immediately  into  ad  jingles.) 

Viewed  from  a  cultural-thermo- 
dynamic  perspective,  this  expropriation 
appears  if  anything  even  more  horri- 
fic. We  see  a  dominant  culture  and 
political  economy  that  imported  Afri- 
cans as  slaves,  worked  them  to  death, 
bred  them  like  animals,  tortured  them 
in  every  conceivable  way  for  two  cen- 
turies. Then  for  another  century  and  a 
half  this  culture  and  politicad  economy 
systematically  exploited  the  descendants 
of  the  slaves  as  the  lowest  shitworkers, 
denying  them  economic  opportunity 
and  political  rights  wherever  possible, 
meanwhile  projecting  onto  them  its  own 
repressed  fears  and  furies,  loathings  and 
longings.  At  the  same  time,  this  social 
order  extracted  from  African-Americans 
the  brilliant  music  and  language  they 
created  as  a  way  of  surviving  their 
misery.  It  is  as  if  the  Nazis  had,  while 
gassing  the  Jews  and  extracting  their 
gold  teeth,  sold  off  the  artwork  they  had 
created  in  the  camps,  and  marketed 
recordings  of  the  string  quartets  they 
had  formed  there  to  entertain  the 
guards. 

But  how  did  African-American  cul- 
ture become  — at  least  in  watered-down 
forms  — not  merely  acceptable  to  U.S. 


F>G=sac:Ea5Ea  LuaFSk-Ci  3C3 


commercial  mass  culture  but  central  to 
it,  its  semi-occult  driving  force?  As  I 
have  tried  to  show,  the  accumulationist 
personality  structure  is  profoundly  hos- 
tile to  "Blackness"  as  white  people  read 
into/project  onto  ?/  — shamelessly  sensual 
and  hedonistic,  incipiently  violent  and 
uncontrollable.  It  is  also  hostile  to  the 
culture  black  people  have  themselves 
experienced  and  created.  This  culture  is 
a  far  more  complex  amalgam  of  traits, 
one  that  varies  widely  by  class,  caste, 
and  region  and  that  includes  distinct 
patterns  of  emotional  revelation  and 
concealment,  anger  and  tenderness, 
community  and  individuality,  reason 
and  intuition.  One  major  factor  under- 
lying its  common  differences  from 
Euro-American  cultures  may  be  the 
preservation  of  African  cultural  traits, 
in  particular  the  communal  and  ecstatic 
character  of  West  African  religion.  But 
black  culture  is  not  simply  — or  even  at 
this  point  primarily  —  transplanted  Afri- 
can-ness.  As  Stanley  Crouch  has  con- 
troversially pointed  out,  it  is,  like  U.S. 
culture  in  its  entirety,  a  mulatto  phenom- 
enon.* 

Black  culture  has  been  created  under 
the  pressure  of  African-American  peo- 
ple's situation  within  the  U.S.— within 
whiteness.  Under  this  pressure,  exerted 
at  first  through  slavery  and  later 
through  institutions  such  as  schooling, 
African-Americans  have  continually 
transformed  what  they  have  been  able  to 
preserve  of  their  own  heritage:  for 
example,  shifting  African  linguistic 
forms  into  English  to  create  black  ver- 
nacular. At  the  same  time  they  have 
absorbed  influences  and  materials  not 
only  from  Euro-America  but  from  Na- 
tive people  and  from  Mexico  and  the 
Caribbean,  producing  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  complex  cultures  in  the  world. 
The  pressure  has  also  taken  commercial 
form,  the  more  so  as  institutional  racism 
has  become  subtler  in  its  strategies. 
Countless  black  musicians,  dancers,  ac- 
tors, and  even  writers  have  had  to  flavor 
their  work  to  white  tastes  in  order  to 
survive,  often  concealing  subversive 
content  through  a  "signifying"  process. 

A  complex  and  revealing  example  is 
the  various  uses  made  of  the  myth  of 
"Staggerlee,"  the  footloose,  fearless,  de- 
fiantly individualistic  black  man  who 
hustles  his  way  through  life,  loving 
women,  siring  children,  and  dealing 
ruthlessly  with  his  enemies  — including, 
in  later  variants,  the  white  sheriff.  This 
figure,  of  course,  is  the  ultimate  racist 
nightmare  and  justification,  the  specter 
looming  over  a  thousand  lynchings  and 


behind  the  phobic  prose  of  contempora- 
ry conservative  and  neoliberal  pundits. 
Yet  the  image  is  also  vitally  important  to 
African-American  tradition  — and  has 
been  attractive  to  a  minority  of  whites. 
Numerous  versions  of  the  Staggerlee 
tale  appeared  in  blues  of  the  '20s. 
Muddy  Water's  classic  urban  blues 
"Rolling  Stone"  represented  a  less  vi- 
olent version  of  this  character,  inspiring 
not  only  the  name  of  one  of  the  most 
famous  bands  in  rock  history  and  that  of 
the  pioneer  counterculture-corporate 
fusion  magazine,  but  also  numerous 
lesser  rock  songs  of  the  '50s  and  '60s,  of 
which  "The  Wanderer"  is  as  good  an 
example  as  any.  Greil  Marcus  points 
out  in  Mystery  Train  that  Staggerlee- 
Rolling  Stone  appeals  positively  to 
whites  as  well  as  blacks  because  he  is  a 
crudely  antithetical  but  powerful  image 
of  freedom  both  for  adolescent  boys  and 
for  shitworking,  shit-eating  men  of  any 
color.  The  popularity  of  ultraviolent, 
misogynistic  "gangsta"  rap  among  white 
suburban  teenage  boys  probably  stems 
from  analogous  causes,  including  the 
excruciating  boredom  of  their  milieu 
and  the  dismal  future  most  face  as 
adults. 
Breaking  Loose  vs.  Hanging  Tight 

Such  sensational  use  of  negatively 
signed  images  of  black  life  merely  tips 
an  iceberg.  Blackness,  in  the  dual  sense 
in  which  I  have  employed  the  term,  has 
been  appropriated  more  broadly  by  the 
culture  industry.  In  my  view  this  is 
owing  to  a  profound  and  deepening 
contradiction  in  capitalist  culture  and 
economy  since  the  '20s.  In  order  to 
expand  after  World  War  I,  U.S.  busi- 
ness needed  new  mass  markets  for 
consumer  goods.  To  create  these  mar- 
kets within  the  U.S.  it  had  to  stimulate 
in  huge  masses  of  people  what  John 
Maynard  Keynes,  the  great  economic 
strategist  of  mid-century  capitalism, 
called  the  "propensity  to  consume."  The 
most  immediate  aim  was  to  sell  the 
consumer  durables  that  could  now  be 
turned  out  cheaply  en  masse  using  the 
assembly-line  methods  developed  by 
Henry  Ford.  This  strategy,  known  to 
many  analysts  as  Fordism,  aimed  at  a 
car  in  every  garage  and  a  refrigerator  in 
every  kitchen,  bought  with  the  wages 
earned  producing  the  cars  and  refriger- 
ators. 

At  first,  Fordist  consumerism  could 
be  consistent  with  the  accumulationist 
social  personality  (as  it  still  is  to  some 
extent).  Every  worker  could  assume  the 
trappings  of  Property,  hallmark  of  vir- 


tue. As  Stewart  and  Mary  Ewen  have 
shown,  advertising  between  the  wars 
(and  well  into  the  '50s  for  some  prod- 
ucts) played  on  the  insecurities  in  this 
social  personality:  anxiety  about  dirt 
and  pollution,  work  ethic,  desire  to 
emulate  the  next  income  level  up,  need 
to  conform.  Ford  cars  (always  black) 
were  initially  sold  as  a  more  efficient 
form  of  transportation,  refrigerators 
(always  white)  as  promoters  of  hygiene 
and  order. 

But  already  another  set  of  buttons  was 
being  pushed.  In  The  Road  to  Wigan  Pier, 
published  in  1937,  George  Orwell  noted 
how  English  working-class  youth  were 
opting  for  colorful,  stylish,  if  shoddily 
made  clothing  rather  than  the  somber 
but  durable  uniforms  worn  by  their 
elders.  Though  they  wore  out  quickly, 
such  glad  rags  were  cheap  enough  that 
new  and  fashionable  ones  could  be 
bought  easily.  Like  their  U.S.  counter- 
parts, these  young  people  liked  to 
dance,  mostly  to  jazz  and  big-band 
swing,  and  their  dancing  was  becoming 
increasingly  wild.  They  went  to  the 
movies  and  did  their  best  to  imitate  the 
images  of  glamor  and  romance  they  saw 
there. 

The  new  consumption  and  leisure 
habits  growing  among  late  Depression- 
era  young  people  foreshadowed  the 
direction  merchandising  was  to  take 
after  World  War  II.  The  sober  accumu- 
lationist consumerism  of  the  previous 
generation  was  no  longer  enough  to 
absorb  the  vast  output  of  increasingly 
automated  mass  production,  which  had 
learned  unprecedented  efficiency  while 
making  weapons.  To  achieve  the  neces- 
sary speed  of  turnover,  consumer  goods 
generally  had  to  become  matters  of 
fashion,  as  they  had  always  been  for  the 
aristocracy  and  the  upper  reaches  of  the 
bourgeoisie.  By  the  late  '50s,  this  meant 
the  application  of  planned  obsolescence, 
previously  confined  to  items  like  nylons, 
light  bulbs,  and  razor  blades,  to  durable 
goods  like  automobiles  and  vacuum 
cleaners.  At  the  level  of  advertising,  it 
meant  that  desire  of  all  sorts  had  to  be 
stimulated.  Accumulationist  repression 
was  loosened,  and  the  exploitation  of 
hedonist  impulses,  begun  cautiously  in 
certain  market  sectors  before  the  war, 
accelerated. 

This  hedonist  ascendance  can  be 
viewed  as  a  partial  reappropriation  of 
shadow  characteristics  banished  from 
the  white  accumulationist  social  person- 
ality—more open  sexuality  and  sensual- 
ity, orientation  toward  immediate 
rather      than      deferred      gratification. 


P'F^CICEaSEED    kJjaFSk_Cl    3CD 


"flaunting"  rather  than  reticence  in  per- 
sonal style,  propensity  to  spend  and 
consume  rather  than  save  and  acquire. 
But  such  tendencies  were  in  sharp 
contradiction  to  the  accumulationist 
values  that  still  dominated  political, 
religious,  and  civic  discourse  as  well  as 
much  advertising. 

The  collision  between  accumulation- 
ist and  hedonist  messages  helps  to 
explain  the  sheer  weirdness  of  later  '50s 
mass  culture:  the  heavy,  finned  cars  like 
space  fortresses  in  pastel  colors;  the 
demurely  sexy  TV  moms  mopping  the 
kitchen  floor  in  tight  sweaters  and  high 
heels;  and  of  course  Elvis  on  the  Ed 
Sullivan  Show  with  his  gyrating  hips 
blacked  out.  Another  indicator  of  the 
change  was  the  literally  Biblical  circula- 
tion enjoyed  by  Dr.  Spock's  Baby  and 
Child  Care,  which  advocated  accommo- 
dation to  the  child's  own  physiological 
and  developmental  rhythms  in  toilet 
training  rather  than  the  rigid  timeta- 
bling practiced  by  previous  generations. 

A  large  minority  of  the  generation  of 
whites  that  grew  up  in  consumerist 
(relative)  abundance  partly  absorbed  the 
hedonist  messages  but  by  and  large 
rejected  the  accumulationist  ones.  That 
is,  they  synthesized  from  pleasure- 
oriented  advertising  and  the  "imaginary" 
of  rock'n'roll  a  notion  of  freedom  that 
implied  the  absence  of  hierarchical  ac- 
countability (say,  to  a  parent  or  a  boss) 
or  customary  commitment  (say,  to  a 
spouse).  Perhaps  even  more  important, 
they  absorbed  images  of  satisfaction  that 
focused  on  abandonment  to  experience 
rather  than  acquisition  of  goods,  on  the 
present  rather  than  the  future.  To 
paraphrase  the  old  ad-man's  saying, 
they  wanted  the  sizzle  without  buying 
the  steak.  In  the  context  of  the  times, 
this  hedonist  gestalt  fused  temporarily 
with  social  idealism  and  a  will  to 
experimentation  in  daily  life  to  help 
create  what  Theodore  Roszak  called  the 
counter-culture. 

Alongside  the  ascending  curve  of 
hedonism  rose  another,  in  complex 
relation  to  it.  Ever  since  the  Jazz  Age, 
the  appropriation  of  African-American 
music  and  style  into  U.S.  mass  culture 
had  been  on  the  increase.  This  appro- 
priation, to  be  sure,  was  mediated  by 
the  culture  industry,  which  bleached  it 
for  Euro-American  tastes.  However, 
significant  minorities  of  whites  always 
managed  to  gain  access  to  the  real  thing. 
In  this  way  they  served  unwittingly  as 
feeders  of  new  trends  to  the  industry, 
rather  as  Bohemian  types  open  up 
marginal  neighborhoods  to  gentrifica- 


't> 


"I  LOVE  THE  SOUND  OF  BREAKING  GLASS 


tion.  They  also  consistently  projected 
their  own  hedonist  values  onto  black 
culture,  in  a  partial  inversion  of  the 
psychic  shit-dumping  practiced  by  the 
majority.  The  '20s  Bohemians  who 
flocked  to  Harlem  saw  jazz  as  exotic, 
wild,  primitive,  an  image  of  the  escape 
they  sought  from  white  bourgeois 
mores.  In  the  '50s,  the  Beats  who 
congregated  around  bebop  musicians 
admired  the  spontaneity  in  their  impro- 
visations, but  often  failed  to  recognize 
the  mastery  of  an  entire  musical  lan- 
guage developed  over  generations  that 
made  the  spontaneity  possible. 

At  about  the  same  time,  working- 
class  Southern  whites  like  Elvis  were 
blending  with  white  country  music  the 
jump  blues  they  heard  in  black  juke 
joints  — while  still  talking  about  "nig- 
gers." As  Greil  Marcus  puts  it,  "Even  if 
Elvis'  South  was  filled  with  Puritans,  it 
was  also  filled  with  hedonists,  and  the 
same  people  were  both."  Rock'n'roll  was 
born.  Black-derived  music  (and  music 
by  actual  black  performers)  was  provid- 
ing the  soundtrack  for  hedonist  market- 
ing strategies;  and  the  soundtrack  itself 
was  becoming  a  hugely  lucrative  com- 
modity in  its  own  right. 

The  new  energy  of  post-World  War  II 
black  popular  music,  though,  was  in 
part  political,  or  at  any  rate  prepolitical. 
Even  as  rhythm  and  blues  evolved  in 
complex  feedback  loops  between  Mem- 
phis, New  Orleans,  and  Chicago,  the 
ground  was  being  laid  for  the  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama  bus  boycott  of  1955 
and  the  decade-long  explosion  that  fol- 
lowed. This  explosion,  the  Civil  Rights 
movement,    was    the    other    force    that 


created  the  counter-culture.  To  some 
extent  the  transmission  was  direct,  via 
the  white  student  veterans  of  the  South- 
ern voter  registration  campaigns.  For 
many  more  young  middle-class  whites, 
it  came  via  the  televised  images  of 
thousands  of  black  people  standing  up  to 
clubs,  dogs,  firehoses,  bullets,  and  fire- 
bombs and  refusing  to  back  down. 
These  images,  contradicting  everything 
they  had  been  taught,  not  only  filled 
them  with  anger  and  a  desire  for  social 
justice,  but  offered  them,  however  va- 
guely, a  model  of  revolt,  oi  another  way  to 
be.  Even  where  this  revolt  took  off  in 
quietist  (Orientadizing-meditative)  or 
self-destructive  (drug-abusing)  direc- 
tions, it  was  given  much  of  its  initial 
kick  by  African-American  rebellion  — 
anticipated  and  transmitted  in  the  mu- 
latto music  of  rock'n'roll. ' 

From  the  early  rock'n'roll  period 
through  about  1970,  the  two  curves, 
hedonism  and  black  influence,  moved 
intermittently  close  together,  exchang- 
ing energy  via  figures  such  as  Chuck 
Berry,  Elvis,  and  later  Jimi  Hendrix 
and  Sly  Stone.  Yet  despite  its  partial 
rejection  of  white  accumulationist  val- 
ues and  behavior  — and  much  superficial 
admiration  for  "spades"  — the  counter- 
culture remained  overwhelmingly 
Euro-American.  Its  music,  while  still 
blues-based,  was  leagues  away  in  feeling 
from  the  black  pop  of  the  period, 
typified  by  Motown,  which  smoothed 
out  Gospel  into  sweet,  danceable  cross- 
over tunes.  Sly  and  the  Family  Stone 
were  virtually  alone  in  synthesizing  the 
two  strains  of  cultural  energy,  in  a  string 
of  hits  that  carried  the  band  to  Wood- 


F'F^aiZESSECI    LJjaFNk-E3    3(3 


a*? 


stock  in  1969. 

Then,  in  1971-3,  fueled  by  the  last 
surge  of  Black  Power  and  the  politiciz- 
ing of  the  white  counter-culture  via  the 
anti-war  movement,  black  musicians 
briefly  took  over  the  pop  airwaves  with 
exciting,  chzdleriging,  politically  potent 
songs:  Edwin  Starr's  "War,"  Marvin 
Gaye's  "Inner  City  Blues,"  War's  "The 
World  Is  A  Ghetto,"  to  name  a  few. 
Among  these  songs  was  the  Tempta- 
tion's grim,  eerie  "Papa  Was  A  Rollin' 
Stone,"  which  brilliantly  critiqued  the 
Staggerlee  myth  even  as  it  acknowl- 
edged the  myth's  basis  in  reality.  In  the 
songj  a  black  mother  gathers  her  chil- 


sabotage,  absenteeism,  and  wildcat 
strikes  spread  through  the  U.S.  econo- 
my. These  waves  were  initiated  espe- 
cially by  black  workers,  who  had  formed 
their  own  semilegal  shop-floor  organi- 
zations to  resist  the  racism  of  both  their 
supervisors  and  their  unions  and  the 
superexploitation  to  which  they  were 
often  consigned.  They  were  increasingly 
joined  in  their  rebellion  by  newly  urba- 
nized "white  trash"  workers,  as  well  as 
by  urban  working-class  freaks  who  had 
drifted  back  into  the  factories.  Hedonist 
mass  culture  and  its  counterculturcil 
offshoots  had  combined  with  African- 
American  revolt  and  the  weakening  of 


The  history  of  black  people  in  the  U.S.  also  teaches 
Euro- Americans  that  their  whiteness  is  not  an  "ethnicity" 
but  a  dominance  category  and  a  denial  mechanism;  in 
other  words,  that  it  is  empty  of  everything  but  power 
and  forgetting. 


dren  at  the  grave  of  their  absent  father, 
and  they  want  to  know  more  about  him. 
"When  he  died,  all  he  left  us  was  sdone," 
she  replies.  At  a  cultured  node  where 
white  notions  of  "Blackness"  and  white 
men's  escape  fantasies  fed  on  actual 
black  experience  and  black  men's  fanta- 
sies about  themselves,  the  Temptations 
were  cutting  one  pipeline  while  pouring 
truth  down  another.  Hitherto,  the  cul- 
ture industry's  selective  appropriation  of 
black  culture  had  mostly  been  limited  to 
those  features  that  could  be  fitted, 
however  incompletely,  into  the  hedonist 
gestalt.  The  cultural-political  surge  of 
the  early  '70s  both  allowed  black  artists 
to  speak  and  perform  more  freely  and 
opened  a  channel  wide  enough  that  their 
newly  undiluted  music  directly  touched 
more  whites  than  ever  before. 

This  breaching  of  the  cultural  fire- 
walls was  preceded  and  accompanied  by 
a  massive  breakdown  of  work  discipline. 
The  postwar  boom  was  the  first  (and 
only)  period  in  which  capital  had  tried  to 
manage  labor  under  conditions  of  gen- 
erzdized  abundance,  in  which  the  spur  of 
destitution  was  softened  by  near-full 
employment  and  by  social  welfare  pro- 
grams. The  experiment  failed.  From 
about  1967  on,  the  colorful  revolt  of  the 
counter-culture.  Black  Power,  and  the 
mass  movement  against  the  Vietnam 
War  both  concealed  and  helped  propa- 
gate a  revolt  on  the  job.  Beginning 
mainly  in  the  auto  industry,   waves  of 


economic  compulsion  to  make  more  and 
more  social  and  cultural  energy  literally 
unavailable  for  work.  Fordism  was  shat- 
tered. 

The  early-to-mid-'70s,  in  fact, 
marked  a  point  of  real  danger  for 
capitalism  in  the  developed  countries. 
But  crises  are  the  ether  thing  capitalism 
has  always  been  good  at  recycling.  The 
threatening  entropic  energy  of  the  oil 
shock  and  the  Third  World  debt  crisis  in 
1974-6  was  turned,  with  the  aid  of 
computers  and  telecommunications, 
into  a  global  reorganization  of  the 
system.  The  oil-price  recession  of  1974 
began  the  process  of  restoring  work 
discipline,  especially  through  the  hys- 
terical atmosphere  of  scarcity  created  by 
the  mass  media  and  by  such  measures  as 
gasoline  rationing.  Meanwhile,  U.S.- 
based  multinationals  intensified  their 
export  of  capitzd  —  and  of  what  had  been 
high-wage  manufacturing  jobs  — to  the 
Asian  Pacific  Rim  and  Latin  America. 
Still,  inflation,  bane  of  the  accumula- 
tionist  mindset,  continued  to  eat  away  at 
U.S.  capital  assets  until  the  Federal 
Reserve  raised  interest  rates  in  1979, 
causing  unemployment  to  soar  as  sever- 
al jolts  of  recession  shot  through  the 
economy. 

The  result  was  that  millions  of  work- 
ers, especially  black  ones,  were  tossed 
out  of  the  factories  while  the  remainder 
were  bullied  into  line,  their  already 
sclerotic    and    corrupt    unions    broken. 


Hedged  in  by  new  legislation  and  hostile 
courts  and  bureaucracies,  strikes  were 
made  virtually  illegal.  The  centers  of 
industriad  power  that  Fordism  had 
created  were  scattered  one  after  anoth- 
er, as  the  Smokestack  Belt  became  the 
Rust  Belt.  Second- wave  feminism, 
which  had  started  out  with  radical 
criticisms  of  the  ruling  order,  had 
already  been  sidetracked  into  opportu- 
nity ideology  for  professional-class 
women  on  the  one  hand,  and  "cultural 
feminist"  separatism  on  the  other.  Now 
the  brief  surge  of  woman-oriented  of- 
fice-worker organizing  that  began  in  the 
late  '70s  was  hcdted.  A  ferocious  assault 
on  "entitlements"  and  social  programs 
was  launched.  Real  wages  fell,  even  as 
housing  prices  soared.  The  shift  of 
capital  from  industrial  investment  to 
frenzied  speculation  began.  Capital's 
bipolar  shit-machine  went  into  high 
gear,  spewing  money  and  obedience  out 
of  one  end  and  every  sort  of  entropic 
foulness  and  horror  out  of  the  other. 

Cultural  control  was  also  being  re- 
established. A  version  of  the  accumula- 
tionist  social  personality  was  set  up  as 
the  norm  by  closing  the  loop  between 
accumulation  and  pleasure,  by  making 
the  process  of  accumulation  the  supreme 
pleasure.  Like  the  miswired  psychopath 
in  The  Terminal  Man,  who  gets  an 
orgasmic  rush  from  the  implant  in  his 
brain  whenever  he  murders,  the  looter- 
heroes  of  '80s  casino  capitalism  shud- 
dered with  ecstasy  as  they  made  killings 
on  the  market.  Most  white  proletarians, 
their  solidary  links  with  fellow-workers 
weakened,  terrorized  by  the  prospect  of 
homelessness,  fell  easy  prey  to  vertical 
identification  with  the  rich  and  with  the 
nation-state.  The  Reagans  presided 
over  this  Scheissjest  as  the  wish-dream  of 
the  ageing  white  suburban  middle  class 
—  old  but  looking  good,  rich  but  re- 
laxed, stylish  but  virtuous. 

The  Global  Dump 

The  new  phase  of  capital  accumula- 
tion that  began  around  1979  is  charac- 
terized, as  theorists  like  David  Harvey 
have  noted,  by  its  great  flexibility  and 
unprecedented  global  reach.  These  are 
made  possible  by  the  new  power  and 
cheapness  of  computers  and  by  the 
speed  of  worldwide  telecommunica- 
tions, as  well  as  by  the  breaking  of 
working-class  power  in  the  developed 
countries.  Capital,  in  the  form  of  mon- 
ey, materials,  and  product  specifica- 
tions, can  be  switched  around  the  planet 
so  fast  that  no  existing  worker  strategies 
or    organizations    can    keep    pace.    As 


F>FM=IEZE5SiEEl    LJjaE^h_a    3C3 


Harvey  puts  it  in  The  Condition  of 
Postmodernity,  "The  same  shirt  designs 
can  be  produced  by  large-scale  factories 
in  India,  cooperative  production  in  the 
'Third  Italy,'  sweatshops  in  New  York 
and  London,  or  family  labor  systems  in 
Hong  Kong." 

Capital's  new  freedom  of  action  gen- 
erates unprecedented  amounts  of  social 
and  ecological  entropy.  Developing 
countries  have  not  been  able  to  afford 
much  in  the  way  of  environmental  or 
worker  protection,  because  their  indus- 
tries have  lacked  the  economies  of  scale 
and  technologically  based  productivity 
that  would  allow  them  to  compete 
successfully  with  transnational  corpora- 
tions even  in  their  own  markets.  Now, 
desperate  for  investment,  they  are  per- 
mitting the  transnationzils  to  draw  on 
their  pools  of  underemployed  cheap 
labor  while  benefiting  from  the  lower 
operating  costs  imposed  by  their  largely 
unregulated  economies.  The  result  is 
the  pollution  and  hopeless  overcrowding 
of  places  like  Mexico  City  or  Sao  Paolo 
on  one  side,  and  the  deforestation  of 
Southeast  Asia  or  the  Amazon  Basin  on 
the  other. 

Both  the  sale  of  toxic  or  hazardous 
commodities  and  the  disposal  of  wastes 
are  often  referred  to  as  dumping  — m  the 
U.S.,  also  a  slang  term  for  shitting. 
Dumping  is  a  central  process  of  post- 
Fordist  capital.'  The  developed  coun- 
tries' relationship  to  the  periphery  (in- 
cluding their  own  "underdeveloping" 
regions  and  populations)  is  not  merely 
exploitative  and  extractive,  but  excretive. 
Peripheral  countries  are  used  for  partic- 
ularly hazardous  kinds  of  production, 
like  the  pesticides  Union  Carbide  was 
making  at  Bhopal.  Also,  they  are  sold 
"discount"  merchamdise  no  longer  salea- 
ble in  the  countries  of  its  manufacture 
because  of  toxicity  or  other  hazards;  and 


they  are  bribed  to  become  disposal  sites 
for  toxic  waste.  More  subtly  but  just  as 
devastatingly,  they  have  been  victims  of 
the  economic  entropy  dumped  on  them 
by  a  global  system  convulsing  itself  in 
the  effort  to  boost  profit  rates  and  locate 
capital  for  investment  — as  artificizilly 
depressed  prices  for  raw  materials,  as 
mountains  of  debt,  and  finally  as  IMF- 
imposed  "austerity"  plans.  This  trans- 
lates to  the  dumping  of  millions  of 
former  peasants  into  the  shanty-towns 
that  ring  Third  World  cities. 

Each  of  these  excretive  processes  has 
its  analogy  in  poor  African-American 
and  Latino  neighborhoods.  Not  only  are 
toxic-waste  sites  and  polluting  factories 
concentrated  in  or  near  them,  but  the 
misery  and  poor  education  of  many  of 
their  residents  is  being  exploited  by  drug 
merchants  legal  and  illegad,  who  are 
dumping  their  merchandise  — 

principally  tobacco,  alcohol,  and  co- 
caine—there as  middle-class  suburban 
markets  soften.  Meanwhile,  with  the 
exception  of  the  "Great  Society"  period 
under  Lyndon  Johnson,  these  neigh- 
borhoods have  been  systematically 
starved  of  resources  — as  Federal  hous- 
ing-loan policies  virtually  bribed  whites 
to  abandon  the  inner  cities  while  delib- 
erately preventing  blacks  from  doing  so, 
as  industry  followed  the  whites  into  the 
suburbs  over  the  next  twenty  years,  as 
financial  institutions  redlined  the  neigh- 
borhoods into  slums,  and  as  social 
programs  and  public  education  have 
been  sliced  to  ribbons  over  the  last 
decade.  Finally,  it  is  much  of  the  black 
and  Latino  working  class  itself  that  has 
been  dumped,  flushed  down  the  toilet, 
as  its  unreliable  work-energy  has  been 
expelled  from  the  wage  system.  Now 
these  workers  are  recycled  as  low-octane 
fuel  in  the  sweatshops  that  bring  one 
final   excremental    insult    to   the   inner 


W.E.B.  Dubois  on  sax 


TWISTED  IMAGE  -y  AceBachwords 


cities  — shit  jobs. 

All  this,  following  on  other  adapta- 
tions forced  by  the  history  of  slavery  and 
then  by  the  constant  brutal  pressures  of 
poverty  and  discrimination  that  fol- 
lowed, has  allowed  white  projections  a 
limited  basis  in  reality  — the  materieJ- 
ized  ill- wish  I  spoke  of  earlier.  To  grasp 
this  idea,  suppose  a  woman's  face  has 
after  repeated  beatings  healed  with  a 
bent  nose,  accretions  of  scar  tissue,  and 
broken  veins.  Suppose  also  that  unde- 
rstandably, her  habitual  expression  is 
one  of  bitterness  and  anger.  Then 
suppose  that  the  woman  is  forced  by  her 
abuser  to  wear  a  translucent  mask  that 
grotesquely  exaggerates  every  result  of 
her  injuries  to  create  a  laughable  and 
frightening  caricature,  obliterating  the 
beauty  and  strength  that  persist  under 
the  scars. 

One    example    of    this    caricatured 


f^iOO  -SHOULP  BE  GRAT£F<;i> 

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aEf\NirJG  OP  OUR  MESSES!!^ 


THIS  IS  AM  EXCELLENT     ^ 
OPPOjnuMirV  FOR  4oU  TO 
Efim   SUBSISTENCE  IA/A6ES 

With  2ER0  Possibilities 
For  promotion/  or  securitv' 


^VA'KHOW...  S0KIETIK1E5  I     > 
THINK  THESt  BLACKS  JUST 
HAVE  NO  RESPECT  ^0^  THE 
AMERICAN  WORK  ETHIC,  MA|£^ 


PF^aciEsaEa  kJjae=sh_D  acD 


TWISTED  IMAGE  by  Ace  Dackwords  m^ 


VOU'U  BE  QOtm  HAPPV  TO  KNdW 
VdO  have  MV  CoMftETT  SUPWTT 
IM  YOOR  STROeOE  A5  AN  OPPBESSEP 
BUWCftNERlCA  -m  Oimoi^  THE 
IfJSlDlOOS  EFFECTS  of  RWAL  STIOO; 
-rVPfNd  A5  VteU  Y«RH  78  B£  FRFf./^ 


semi-reality  is  black  extended  family 
networks,  in  which  children  have  been 
somewhat  more  likely  than  their  white 
counterparts  to  be  raised  by  a  relative 
other  than  their  biological  parents,  and 
in  which  fathers  have  (supposedly)  been 
more  often  absent.  This  difference  is 
routinely  inflated  by  racist  demagogues, 
starting  with  the  liberal  Daniel  Patrick 
Moynihan,  into  the  irresponsible,  licen- 
tious "pathology"  of  the  black  family, 
responsible  for  most  ills  of  the  "under- 
class." Yet  as  similar  sorts  of  prolonged 
economic  dislocation,  insecurity,  and 
hopelessness  hit  white  working-class 
people,  their  family  structures  and  child- 
rearing  practices  have  begun  to  alter  in 
the  same  ways.  (There  are  certainly 
more  white  deadbeat  dads  than  black 
ones.)  What's  more,  the  "pathologist" 
commentators  make  little  mention  of  the 
evident  familial  loyalty  and  devotion  of 
black  alternative  childrearers  like  aunts 
and  grandmothers. ' 

Another  example  is  the  higher  per 
capita  rates  of  crime  by  black  people, 
asserted  by  these  same  apologists  to  be 
part  of  the  "underclass  pathology";  a 
more  reasonable  explanation  is  the  de- 
crepit public  education  in  the  inner 
cities  and  the  catastrophic  levels  of 
unemployment  faced  by  young  black 
men.  (At  the  height  of  the  Civil  Rights 
movement  in  the  early  to  mid-1960s,  in 
a  surge  of  hope  and  social  solidarity, 
crime  fell  by  as  much  as  half  in  many 
black  communities.) 

Both  the  fatherless  or  matriarchal 
black  family  and  black  criminality  have 
been  the  raw  material  for  countless 
movies  and  TV  shows  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  in  what  Ishmael  Reed 
aptly  calls  "black  pathology  entertain- 
ment." This  is  how  poverty-entropy  and 
crime-entropy  are  recycled  by  capital  as 
social   and    ideological    terrorism.    The 


revived  "Staggerlee"  image  of  the  ruth- 
less, sociopathic  black  criminal,  most 
recently  personified  in  Willie  Horton, 
has  proved  a  reliable  way  to  drill  white 
working  people  into  alliance  with  their 
exploiters  and  to  suppress  the  possibility 
of  a  cross-racial  class  alliance.  Audi- 
ence-participation "verite"  cop  shows  like 
America's  Most  Wanted,  whose  viewers 
work  as  snitches  to  turn  in  alleged 
criminals,  promote  vertical  identifica- 
tion with  the  State  and  the  police.  The 
LAPD  trial,  depending  as  it  did  on  a 
negrophobic  and  authoritarian  reading 
of  the  Rodney  King  tape,  can  be  seen  as 
an  extension  of  these  shows  into  the 
courtroom.  In  the  stop-motion  ritualis- 
tic dance  video  the  prosecution  made  of 
the  tape,  violence  was  slowed  down  until 
the  viciousness  of  the  cops  faded  and 
was  replaced  by  the  threat  conjured 
from  King's  every  movement. 

Conclusion:  Fucking  Shit  Up 

Where  a  margin  of  profit  or  political 
gain  is  foreseeable,  capitalism  tries  to 
reabsorb  or  recycle  energy  that  has 
become  unavailable  for  work.  The  waste 
recycling  and  pollution  cleanup  indus- 
tries are  the  most  obvious  examples,  but 
the  ways  deviant  subcultures  are  "recy- 
cled" into  commercial  fashion  are  prob- 
ably more  economically  important. 
When  recycling  does  not  seem  desira- 
ble, capitalism  does  its  best  to  make  the 
energy  unusable  for  any  alternate  sys- 
tem or  order  — that  is,  an  order  outside 
the  circuits  of  corporate  power  and 
money  value.  This  tendency  is  visible  in 
a  thousand  petty  and  gross  acts  of  waste, 
from  tearing  the  covers  off  unsold  books 
to  destroying  "surplus"  agricultural 
commodities  that  could  feed  tens  of 
thousands  of  hungry  people. 

The  single  most  dangerous  form  of 
entropy    for    capitalism    is    large-scale 


organized  revolt,  typically  provoked  by 
(and  provoking)  economic  and  political 
crisis.  But  even  this  energy  can  be 
harnessed,  if  its  own  interned  organiza- 
tion and  scale  does  not  carry  it  beyond 
the  terms  of  capitalist  social  relation- 
ships. The  long  and  bitter  struggle  of 
nineteenth-century  wage-slaves  to 
shorten  the  working  day  proved  a  huge 
spur  to  mechanization,  which  in  turn 
made  possible  the  opening  up  of  vast 
new  markets  and,  arguably,  the  survival 
of  the  system  for  another  century. 
Likewise,  the  containment  of  the  indus- 
trial revolts  of  the  '30s  within  the  CIO 
unionization  drive  facilitated  the  shop- 
floor  discipline  needed  to  produce  for 
World  War  II  and  the  Fordist  deal  that 
came  after,  in  which  intensified  work 
and  longer  hours  were  traded  for  wage 
increases. 

The  case  of  the  black  rebellion  of  the 
60s  and  70s  is  more  complex.  To  some 
extent,  the  U.S.  capitalist  class  has  been 
able  to  channel  the  rebellion's  energy 
into  a  spectacle  of  "equal  opportunity" 
and  tolerance  built  on  the  civil  rights 
legislation  passed  between  1959  and 
1975,  with  additional  use  being  made  of 
a  suitably  edited  icon  of  Dr.  Martin 
Luther  King  Jr.  But  this  spectacle 
masks  a  vicious  if  politically  useful 
division  of  the  African- American  popu- 
lation into  "middle-class"  workers  on  the 
one  hand  and  "ghetto"  poor  on  the  other, 
most  of  whom  are  still  working  for 
wages,  but  much  lower  ones.  Also,  of 
course,  money  is  being  made  off  the 
resurgence  of  Black  Nationadist  ideology 
among  rap  groups  like  Public  Enemy. 
But  by  and  large  it  is  the  second 
tendency  that  has  been  followed:  to 
make  surplus  African-American  prolet- 
arians unavailable  for  any  other  order 
by  allotting  them  social  conditions  so 
intolerable    that    they    collectively    self- 


PB^aEZEaSED    hJJOi^k_E]    3CD 


destruct  through  addiction,  alcoholism, 
psychosis,  hypertension,  internecine  vi- 
olence, and  imprisonment.  Both  the 
success  and  the  limits  of  this  strategy  can 
be  seen  in  the  L.A.  uprising. 

As  various  black  radicals  have  long 
pointed  out,  the  system's  treatment  of 
black  people  is  the  extreme  case  — and 
testing  ground  — of  what  it  is  doing  to  all 
of  us,  and  has  been  doing  to  all 
working-class  people  for  generations. 
Conversely,  African-Americans  provide 
countless  brilliant  examples  of  how 
people  can  recycle  the  shit  dumped  on 
them  into  an  ailternate  order  for  them- 
selves, as  speech,  as  art,  and  as  strategy. 
African  America's  unabsorbed,  vivid, 
rich,  poor,  damaged,  surviving  pres- 
ence is  a  constant  reminder  that  capital- 
ism depends  for  its  daily  perpetuation 
on  brutalizing  people  in  every  conceiv- 
able way  — and  that  this  brutalization 
can  be  resisted.  Capitalism's  central 
brutality  consists  in  forcing  people  to 
choose  between  giving  up  most  of  their 
lives  to  mind-numbing,  body- 
destroying  toil  or  scrabbling  for  scraps 
like  rats  in  a  garbage  heap.  This  choice 
is  what  the  LAPD  and  all  its  kindred 


bodies  exist  to  enforce,  and  this  choice  is 
what  we  must  collectively  refuse. 

How  can  we  refuse  it?  The  history  of 
black  people  in  the  U.S.  also  teaches 
Euro-Americans  that  their  whiteness  is 
not  an  "ethnicity"  but  a  dominance 
category  and  a  denial  mechanism;  in 
other  words,  that  it  is  empty  of  every- 
thing but  power  and  forgetting.  This 
forgetting  really  only  benefits  the  few  at 
the  top  of  the  social  pyramid,  and  must 
be  reproduced  by  a  constant  blizzard  of 
"white  noise"  in  the  mass  media,  as  well 
as  by  every  mechanism  of  geographical, 
educational,  and  economic  segregation 
the  system  can  bring  to  bear.  Whenever 
whiteness  starts  to  break  down,  as  it  did 
during  the  "Sixties,"  danger  looms  for 
the  system,  because  new  forms  of  order, 
involving  the  refusal  of  work  and  the 
direct  assertion  of  collective  need,  tend 
to  appear.  The  young  "whites"  in  their 
reversed  baseball  caps  and  baggy  shorts 
who  ran  furiously  through  the  streets 
after  the  LAPD  verdict  was  announced, 
who  cheerfully  looted  supermarkets 
alongside  their  black  and  Latino  neigh- 
bors, had  for  the  time  being  ceased  to  be 
white.  To  me  they  are  a  source  of  pride 


and  hope,    an  emblem  of  the   fruitful 
disorder  to  come. 

—Adam  Cornford 

Footnotes  to  Shit 

1.  See  Marlon  Riggs'  excellent  documentary  Ethnic 
Notions  for  a  powerful  introduction  to  the  stereotypes. 

2.  The  biosphere  can  be  viewed  as  a  vast  web  of 
recycling  loops,  centered  on  plants'  recycling  of  atmos- 
pheric carbon  dioxide  through  photosynthesis.  The  chief 
form  in  which  entropy  is  dumped  from  the  biosphere  is 
heat  radiated  into  outer  space. 

3.  Only  thirty  years  ago,  as  Micaela  DiLeonardo 
points  out,  pundits  and  sociologists  were  describing 
working-class  Italian-Americans  in  almost  identical 
terms  to  those  in  which  they  describe  working-class 
African- Americans  today. 

4.  This  may  appear  to  contradict  what  I  said  earlier 
about  white  accumulationist  culture;  actually  it  confirms 
it.  All  over  the  Americas,  light  skinned  elites  that  can 
pass  for  "pure"  European  are  hysterical  in  their  desire  to 
separate  themselves  in  every  way  from  Blackness;  their 
negative  self-definition  as  un-black  is  part  of  the  mulatto 
experience  —  as  is,  sadly,  the  Black  middle-class  desire  to 
assimilate.  J 

5.  Check  out,  for  example.  Chuck  Berry's  "Too  Much 
Monkey  Business." 

6.  The  "Murphy  Brown"  affair  is  instructive.  Hysteri- 
cal conservatives  like  Dan  Quayle  view  the  tendency  to 
single-parent  families  and  deadbeat  absentee  fathers  as 
an  infection  bubbling  up  from  the  Black  underclass 
sewage.  Some  liberal  and  even  "feminist"  commentators, 
on  the  other  hand,  distinguish  "responsible"  white  upper- 
middle-class  single  parents  like  the  fictional  Murphy 
Brown  from  irresponsible,  pathological  underclass  ones, 
breeding  at  the  taxpayer's  expense.  Evidently  parenting 
is  to  be  another  right,  like  most  rights  in  the  U.S.,  that 
only  money  can  buy. 


Bud  Powell's  spirit  laughing  at  the  Big  Stick,  Birmingham  AL  1963. 


F*i=SaE::E55ED    kUOF^k-O    3CD 


L.L 


THRIFTERS: 
Second- Hand  Shit 


We  take  shelter  in  the  glory  of  our 
rage  because  sometimes  the  remedy  is 
worse  than  the  disease. 

I  have  no  excuse  to  be  here, 
but  I  hold  the  camera  that,  for 
me,  brings  it  back  to  me. 

In  the  dark  now,  sweepers  pick  up 
their  last  piles,  toss  them  shovel  over 
arm  into  black  plastic  trash  bags  and 
leave,  yawning. 

I  snap  sporadic  candids.  A  faint  throb 
where  pulses  meet .  .  . 

I  did  have  a  foreboding  a  few  months 
ago.  Once,  at  a  co-op  health  food  store, 
two  women  pulled  each  other's  hair  in 
my  peripheral  view.  I  found  them 
arguing  over  a  used  plastic  bag  fallen  at 
our  feet.  Each  claimed  she  had  carried  it 
from  home  for  the  ten-cents-a-bag  dis- 
count for  reusing  plastic. 

"I've  reused  mine  nine  times."  "I  shop 
here  every  week  —  they  know  me  and  my 
bags."  "Oh  yeah?  Prove  it!" 

Today  brought  up  deeper  impressions 
cutting  to  the  heart  of  reason.  As  a 
photographer,  I  am  caught  in  that  world 
where  conflict  is  focusable. 

Still,  I'll  plead  extenuating  circum- 
stance. 

At  first,  three  were  there  besides  me. 
I  found  the  garage  sale  by  mistake, 
having  exited  one  street  too  soon  in 
search  of  a  friend's  new  apartment.  I 
noticed  a  long  wall  of  draped  t-shirts  in 
various  colors.  As  I  parked  to  the  wall's 
far  right  side,  I  spotted  a  shirt  I  had 
been  looking  for  since  the  shoot  in  the 
park  last  summer,  a  free  concert  in 
celebration  of  Black  History  Month.  I 
decided  to  check  out  the  price  and 
possibly  find  a  tacky  but  nostalgic  gift  as 
a  house-warming  treat. 

The  t-shirt  was  black.  Pitch  black. 
Like  tar.  The  only  design  was  on  the 
front:  a  red  star  circling  red  lettering 
that  read:  "Rock  Against  Racism." 

I  wandered  the  wall  before  asking  for 


the  one  I  wanted.  There  was  a  table 
beneath  it  with  baskets  of  cosmetic 
jewelry,  moldy  hardback  how-to  books, 
and  boxes  of  old  board  games:  Monop- 
oly, Shoots  &  Ladders,  Life.  I  glanced 
at  my  watch  and  cut  the  browsing. 
Again,  I  was  running  late.  Locating  the 
t-shirt,  I  asked  to  pull  it  down  and 
pinched  its  bottom  hem  as  I  pointed  to 
it.  From  behind  my  right  shoulder,  a 
woman  pushed  ME  down  and  back,  her 
hand  snagging  the  shirt  from  its  hook. 


I  began  to  wonder  if 
there  was  a  sign  on 
my  back  that  read 

"Tell  me  your 
favorite  consumer 

story  today!" 


"That's  mine!"  she  insisted.  She  was  in 
a  brown  polyester  bus  driver's  uniform, 
apparently  on  a  break.  "I  want  that  for 
my  nephew.  I  saw  it  first." 

No  problem,  I  thought,  and  raised 
my  arms  in  surrender.  I  asked  the  man 
behind  the  table  if  he  had  another 
somewhere,  but  he  just  shook  his  head, 
not  in  a  "no"  gesture  or  a  "yes"  gesture 
for  that  matter,  but  kind  of  a  yes/no-all 
-around-the-neck  movement.  Then  he 
walked  away.  The  woman  with  the  shirt 
continued  her  shopping  attack  on  me  by 
walking  around  in  circles,  back  and 
forth  in  front  of  the  table.  She  began  to 
tell  me  stories  of  other  shopping  adven- 
tures and  bargains.  (Yeah,  by  pushing 


everyone  out  of  your  way,  I  thought.) 

Blocked  by  her  hyperactive  pace,  I 
loaded  my  camera: 

"The  shape,  the  size,  that  color,"  she 
began  in  a  staccato  Spanish  accent 
which  made  me  pay  more  attention 
simply  because  I  liked  the  sound  of  her 
words.  "It  reminded  me  of  one  my 
grandmother  kept  next  to  the  wicker 
hamper  in  her  first-floor  bathroom.  My 
grandfather  tossed  loose  change  into  it 
while  cleaning  out  his  pants  pockets 
after  long  days  at  the  deli.  I  had  to  have 
it!  I  found  it  at  a  garage  sale  down  the 
block  from  my  house  where  almost 
weekly  a  tye-dyed  couple  sets  up  for 
sale.  I  noticed  it  as  they  were  filing  in 
folded  chairs  and  card  tables,  boxes  of 
books,  t-shirts  and  china  dolls.  My  little 
find  rested  on  top  of  a  box  of  bleached 
sheets.  I  was  so  excited  I  pointed  at  it 
and  screamed. 

"How  much,  huh?  How  much  ya 
want  for  that  there?" 

Her  voice  became  more  charismatic 
as  her  body  narrated  along.  Her  passion 
gave  her  syllables  more  stress.  She  stretched 
out  her  arm,  forefinger  pointing  like  the 
conductor  of  some  psychedelic  orches- 
tra. "How  much,  huh?  How  much  ya 
want  for  that  there?"  I  can  see  her  now. 

She  continued:  "I  must  have  fright- 
ened them  a  bit  because  they  jumped 
and  turned  around  to  catch  their  bal- 
ance on  the  bannister.  But  I  was 
determined,  and  they  could  tell." 

She  had  that  thrifter's  look  which 
made  her  eyes  drift  frantically  from 
table  to  table.  It  was  as  though  a 
perfect-purchaser's-wind-up-knob  was 
wound  too  tightly  on  the  back  of  her 
head.  Those  eyes  justified  a  necessary 
purchase  with  some  fabricated  historical 
significance.  Those  eyes  were  the  voy- 
euristic casualties  of  shell-shocked  con- 
sumerism. She  was  determined,  I  could 
tell  that  much.  I  sat  down  on  my  feet 
and  watched. 

"They  said  they  promised  one  another 
they  wouldn't  sell  anything  past  four. 
What  was  left  over  this  week  they 
wanted  to  donate  to  the  Salvation 
Army.  'You  have  too  much  stuff,  I 
said.  They  have  too  much  stuff.  I 
offered  $15.00  although  between  you 
and  me,  it  was  only  worth  5  or  6.  They 
couldn't  refuse.  As  they  wrapped  it  in 
paper,  they  said  the  only  use  they  got 
out  of  it  was  for  burning  incense.  The 
layered  ash  did  give  it  some  antique  look 
until  I  cleaned  it  and  had  it  appraised. 

"It  took  me  a  week  to  decide  where  to 
place  it.  It  was  too  tall  for  the  coffee  table. 


L.2 


F>FM=IC:E55ED   LJJOE^h_ED   ac3 


The  beige  patio  furniture  matched  its 
coloring  but  there  was  always  the  chance 
of  rain.  It  didn't  match  my  kitchen's 
orange-and-green  fruit-basket  wallpa- 
per, and  my  bedroom,  which  I  like  bare 
and  uncluttered,  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. No  one  would  see  it  in  there.  So, 
finally,  after  a  week  of  placing  it  here, 
putting  it  there,  even  hanging  it  from  a 
plant  hook  in  the  ceiling,  I  decided  a 
more  subtle  approach  would  work.  I 
figured  that  every  guest  pees  on  the 
average  of  at  least  once  in  a  two-hour 
visit.  So,  I  put  it  on  the  back  of  the  toilet 
when  entertaining  male  friends  and  to 
the  right  of  the  door  if  female  friends 
arrive.  If  the  guests  are  a  little  of  each,  I 
place  it  according  to  whom  I  want  to 
impress."  She  takes  a  deep  breath, 
smiles,  and  curls  the  t-shirt  into  her 
folded  arms  at  her  chest. 

I  couldn't  help  but  ask:  "What  hap- 
pens when  you're  alone?" 

"Oh!"  she  perked  up,  excited  at  my 
interest.  "I  shift  it  with  my  moods.  Yes. 
It's  nice  that  it  moves.  So,  finally  after  a 
week  of  that,  I  returned  to  work." 

She  said  this  as  she  walked  down  the 
table,  glaring  up  and  down,  back  and 
forth.  I  sat  back  on  my  ass,  put  my  chin 
to  my  knees,  and  thought  about  leaving. 


"Hey!"  I  lifted  my  head  and  yelled 
behind  her.  "What  IS  IT  anyway?"  She 
couldn't  hear  me.  Or  didn't  want  to.  She 
walked  on  chatting  to  herself  and  touch- 
ing everything  in  her  reach. 

Objects  piled  in  her  arched  arms. 

When  I  looked  up,  more  people  had 
surrounded  the  table  and  wall.  Various 
people  with  various  looks  touching, 
feeling,  even  smelling  and  turning 
things  around  and  around,  checking  it 
all  out  at  different  angles,  bartering  with 
the  man  behind  the  table  whose  eyes 
gradually  sunk  above  the  flimsy  brown- 
ing circles  beneath  them. 

I  couldn't  tell  if  I  was  delirious  from 
printing  late  into  the  night,  or  if  there 
was  some  hidden  agenda  or  theatrical 
performance  about  to  begin.  The  set 
seemed  unnatural.  Staged.  Robotic. 
Hands  and  arms  reaching.  People 
watching  without  looking  at  each  other. 
Hustling.  Shoving.  Holding  their  deci- 
sions firmly  in  the  closed  curve  between 
their  biceps  and  ribs.  Their  sometimes 
simple  movements  grew  into  militant 
aggressive  actions.  I  became  paranoid, 
nervous  that  someone  would  get  hurt,  or 
the  silent  man  behind  the  table  would 
lose  all  patience  and  fall  beneath  their 
feet.  Almost  instinctively,  I  did  what  I 


often  do  in  crowds:  I  snapped  the 
camera. 

I  snapped  their  hands,  their  arms, 
that  reaching,  their  excited  eyes.  I 
snapped  until  I  bumped  into  a  tall  mam 
in  a  blue  pin-striped  suit,  with  dread- 
locks that  hung  like  cigars  over  his 
shoulders. 

"Excuse  me,"  I  stuttered. 

"Oh  — no  problem,"  his  voice  an- 
swered in  a  giddy  high  but  a  light- 
hearted  change  from  the  noise  anxiety  I 
felt. 

He  pointed  to  a  "Share  the  Earth" 
t-shirt  with  lettering  sketched  to  resem- 
ble branches  and  ivy  projecting  outward 
toward  the  shirt's  edge  that  veered 
slightly  to  the  back.  "Isn't  this  great?"  he 
asked. 

"Nice,"  was  all  I  could  get  out. 

"I  think  I'll  buy  it  now  to  give  to  my 
niece  this  Christmas.  I  always  complete 
my  shopping  by  Thanksgiving.  And 
you?" 

Before  I  could  answer,  he  rolled  off 
into  Storyville.  I  began  to  wonder  if 
there  was  a  sign  on  my  back  that  read 
"Tell  me  your  favorite  consumer  story 
today!" 

"The  first  time  I  picked  it  up,  it  was  as 
though  no  hands  ever  held  it.  The  next 


E=■F^OC:EEiSEEl    hJJOE^h_E3    3CD 


time,  all  the  fingerprints  of  time  had 
gathered  as  a  small  fraction  of  its 
composition.  I  adored  it."  He  became 
increasingly  dramatic.  "It  seemed  like 
any  slight  wind  could  cast  the  thing  to 
the  ground  by  tipping  it  sideways  over 
its  top-heavy  stance.  If  it's  placed  prop- 
erly under  light,  it  stretches  a  shadow 
over  its  bottom  half,  silhouetting  itself 
on  top  of  itself,  an  endless  spiral  echo. 

"I  bought  it  for  my  mom  for  Christ- 
mas a  few  years  back  — a  holiday,  mind 
you,  that  encompasses  the  three  things  I 
have  the  most  problem  with:  religion, 
consumerism,  and  sentimentality." 

I  looked  up  from  cleaning  beneath  my 
nails.  I  heard  what  he  said  but  couldn't 
focus  on  how  or  why  he  said  it.  He  kept 
up.  I  shook  my  head. 

"So,  I  figured  my  mom  would  really 
dig  this  statuette-something-or-another 
to  put  on  her  shelf  for  some  Avon  friend 
to  admire.  She'll  raise  that  chubby  peach 
hand  of  hers,  brush  it  across  her  right 
cheek,  grin  (but  not  too  much),  giggle 
(but  not  too  sweet),  and  say,  'Yes,  my 
youngest  gave  that  to  me.  Isn't  he 
thoughtful?'  And  the  Avon-giddy  will 
say,  'What  is  it?'  And  mom  will  give 
some  far-fetched  story  of  me  traveling 
from  city  to  major  city  with  my 
briefcase  full  of  accounting  files,  meet- 
ing major  bank  executives  for  lunch  and 
passing  by  the  city's  many  souvenir 
shops,  thinking  instantly  of  my  mother. 
Because  that's  what  good  sons  do.  .  . 
'Oh,'  the  friend  will  reply,  casting  her 
oblong  eyes  to  the  ground  and  turning 
to  the  expensive  fake  gold  watches  and 
eye-wear  made  from  sand  and  melted 
ear  wax.  (Giggle.  Giggle.) 

"Yes,  yes,  yes.  I  took  great  pleasure  in 
purchasing  that  thing.  Seeing  mom 
open  it.  It  had  the  oddest  shape  I'd  ever 
seen.  Nothing  near  an  average  geome- 
tric shape.  I  couldn't  find  a  box  to  fit  it 
in.  But  why  a  box,  I  thought.  Why  not 
drape  a  sheet  over  it.  Let  the  wind  get 
up  underneath  to  it.  It's  old.  It's  used. 
Let  the  elements  touch  it. 

"Through  the  airport,  my  right  hand 
held  up  the  heavy  top  half  while  my  left 
hung  on  to  the  bottom  lower  platform 
by  the  top  notch  of  my  middle  finger  as  I 
balanced  it  to  the  rhythm  of  my  wcilk. 
People  gawked  at  us,  the  thing  and  I. 
They  giggled  at  it  and  snarled  at  my 
shoulders  as  I  tried  to  fit  us  comfortably 
in  restaurant  booths  or  through  airplane 
aisles.  Having  it  made  me  suppress  my 
natural  urge  to  overpack.  So  I  ..." 

He  went  on  and  on  until  I  finally 
found  enough  nerve  to  excuse  myself.  I 


was  exhausted.  I  began  to  think  some- 
body was  playing  a  trick  on  me.  That  a 
photographer  friend  finally  called  Can- 
did Camera  out  on  me  as  she  often 
threatens  to  do.  That  maybe  I  walked 
into  an  afternoon  field  trip  from  the 
nearest  psychiatric  ward.  That.  .  .  I 
never  even  got  from  him  what  that 
THING  actually  was .  .  . 

From  their  arms,  everyone's  choice  of 
purchase  advertised  itself  through  the 
anxious  look  in  their  eyes. 

I  wobbled  around,  heading  for  my  car 
at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  Conversa- 
tions were  few,  but  when  they  occurred, 
it  was  shopping  philosophy  in  grand, 
elaborate  monologue:  "I  try  to  always 
take  mother's  advice  at  these  times  in 
my  life."  A  green-eyed  girl  in  her  teens 
to  a  younger,  adolescent  blue-eyed 
friend.  "If  I  feel  down,  hurt,  inferior,  or 
afraid,  I  jump  right  out  and  buy  myself 
something  pretty.  'Cause  I'm  worth  it." 

Something  pretty.  Some  thing  pretty. 
I  kept  snapping  film,  looking  for  some- 
thing pretty  in  the  square.  Something 
old.  Something  new,  borrowed,  or  that 
"Rock  Against  Rascism"  shirt  that  se- 
duced me  here,  and  to  my  left,  she 
snooped  through  a  box  on  her  knees. 
She  threw  them  over  her  head  in  haste 
as  though  she  were  being  timed.  They 
were  variously  colored  scarfs,  leather, 
elbow-length  gloves,  elastic  belts  and 
hair  bows  falling,  falling  from  above  her 
head  and  sliding  down  the  shirt  that 
dangled  from  her  purse  in  her  arm!  My 
initial  reaction  was  to  snag  it  quickly 
enough  so  she'd  fall  back  onto  her  box 
with  its  skewer  set  sticking  out  from  the 
top.  I  felt  I  had  failed  unless  I  left  there 
with  it.  I  focused  in  on  the  shirt  with  my 
lens  to  not  lose  her  in  the  crowd  and 
headed  forward. 

A  black-haired  arm  entered  my  view. 
I  automatically  followed  its  round, 
choppy  knuckles  unbending  to  point  to 
my  own  goal,  hearing: 

"Hey!  Hey  lady  — Do  you  really  want 
that  shirt?  I'll  pay  you  and  the  man  for 
it.  What  'cha  say,  huh?  Can  I  have  it?" 

"No,  definitely  not!"  She  barked.  "Go 
on  — get  away  from  me  now.  You  hear?" 

"Ah  — come  on  lady.  What  ya  want 
from  that  shirt?  I'm  a  musician,  man.  A 
black  man.  A  musical  black  man. 
Means  something  to  me.  Come  on  — 
Pleeeeeeze!?  Please  lady,  give  it  up.  I've 
been  looking  everywhere  for  one  like 
that  for.  .  ." 

Out  of  nowhere,  she  wailed:  "Help! 
Help!  This  man's  trying  to  rob  me! 
Help!!" 


Heads  and  arms  ceased  meandering 
as  buyers.  Attention  now  haloed  above 
the  confrontation  between  them  and  the 
shirt,  and  I  again  failed  spontaneity 
because  suddenly  my  mind  went  epic. 

Thrown  from  the  signal  of  agitation, 
my  sword  broken  and  confused,  my 
mind  told  me  to  snap,  my  eyes  to  move 
back  from  the  bodies  who  were  herding 
toward  them.  I  wished  I  had  for  once 
been  early;  or  maybe  I  was,  for  some 
strange  reason,  needed  here.  Here,  in 
the  midst  of  a  Sunday  afternoon,  our 
luxury  turned  over  on  top  of  itself  like 
the  shadow  of  the  statuette. 

As  things  developed,  the  man,  the 
woman,  the  shirt  became  a  loud  shaky 
arena.  The  longer  it  continued  unre- 
solved, the  more  spectators  participated 
by  cheering,  or  walking  forward  into 
them.  Others  paid  for  their  things,  or 
dropped  them  quickly  and  walked  to  the 
grey  stones  that  led  to  the  cars. 

"There  they  go,"  I  heard  to  my  right. 
"See  how  we  are?" 

I  turned  and  she  looked  at  me.  I 
leaned  further  into  the  gap  between  us 
and  acknowledged  her  with  slight 
smiles. 

"How  are  we?"  I  asked. 

"Bored.  And  addicted  to  it.  Every- 
day." 

I  inhaled  and  giggled  a  bit  as  I  often 
do  out  of  nervousness.  Her  insight  was 
as  poetic  and  melodramatic  as  it  was 
objective  and  shy.  I  placed  my  thumb 
on  the  film  advancer  knob  and  turned. 

"Bored?"  I  asked.  "Are  we  really? 
Seems  like  too  much,  don't  you  think?" 

I  anticipated  a  wise  and  witty  re- 
sponse but  instead  she  reached  up  at 
me,  eye-to-eye  momentarily,  and 
turned  back  again,  pointing  to  new 
movement  in  the  crowd  as  she  raised  her 
bony  body  on  tip- toe. 

"Now  what  are  they  doing?"  She  said 
more  to  herself  than  me.  "What's  going 
on?  I  can't  see  over." 

I  looked  up  and  over  to  fill  her  in, 
motivated  by  the  prospect  of  her  ob- 
servant response.  I  rattled  off  moves. 

"A  teenage  boy,  maybe  fourteen  or 
so,  just  entered  and  is  pulling  at  the 
bottom  of  the  shirt.  Looks  like  he's  being 
held  back.  Oh.  Maybe  that's  his  mother 
behind  him.  Wait.  Wait.  I  can't  quite 
see.  Everyone's  moving  forward  again. 
There  are  three  or  four  surfer-type  guys 
.exiting  to  the  right.  Oh  shit!  They're 
going  for  the  wall.  Wow  — snagging 
those  shirts  while  the  others  are  preoc- 
cupied. Huh.  .  ."  I  had  to  laugh.  It  was 
becoming  an  obstacle  course  of  move- 


PFSdEZESSECI    LJjaE=Nh_D    3,C3 


graphic  by  Cory  Potts 


ments  both  predictable  and  full  of 
suspense.  Suddenly,  I  thought  of  the 
man  behind  the  table.  Where  was  he?  I 
couldn't  focus  in  on  him  anywhere.  I 
clicked  my  lens  to  macro  and  searched 
around  the  foreground.  The  back- 
ground. I  stood  on  a  milk  crate  and 
pointed  directly  into  the  circle's  center. 
No  table  man  in  sight. 

"Oh  no  you  don't,"  came  a  tiny  voice 
from  behind.  The  table  man  was  run- 
ning past  us  now  toward  the  wall 
looters.  "Buy  up  or  leave!"  Wow  — he 
talks. 

There  were  too  many  things  going  on 
at  once  by  this  time.  I  didn't  know  where 
to  look,  what  to  shoot.  Like  most  sports, 
I  didn't  know  if  I  should  keep  my  eyes 
on  the  ball  or  the  strategy  of  the  defense 
on  the  other  side.  The  table  man 
became  the  ball.  He  became  the  object 
to  throw  for  a  possible  score. 

He  jived  back  and  forth  from  the 
w£ill,  the  table,  the  people,  the  circle. 
His  neck  shifted  back  to  the  street  as 
though  in  search  of  help,   then  to  the 


ground  looking  for  landing  in  case  he 
fell.  I  felt  caught  in  the  grass  beneath 
me.  Here  and  there,  I  pointed  my 
camera.  Missing  only  pom-poms  and 
saddle  shoes.  Wise  Woman  clapped  at 
my  side,  cheering  on  the  jester-like 
movements  of  Table-Man. 

"Here  we  go!"  she  cheered. 

"Shouldn't  we  call  someone  or  some- 
thing?" I  asked,  my  voice  rising  with  the 
crowd  noise. 

"Oh  — this  happens  here  every  Sun- 
day. The  cops  will  be  here  in  about  [she 
glances  at  her  wrist  watch]  oh,  I'll  guess 
ten  minutes.  The  sweeping  crew  will 
follow  shortly  after  them.  I  hear  they  get 
paid  overtime  for  this.  This  is  why  I 
come  here.  Best  Sunday  afternoon  en- 
tertainment I  can  think  of.  And  you? 
Don't  worry  honey  —  if  you  don't  want  to 
get  hurt  or  involved  at  all,  just  don't 
walk  any  closer.  You're  in  the  safe 
zone." 

If  I  don't  want  to  get  hurt  or  any- 
thing? What  the  hell?  I  definitely  took  a 
wrong  turn  somewhere.   Everyone  was 


running  in  circles  except  for  me  and 
Miss  What's-her-name  here.  I  was  feel- 
ing pressed  to  get  involved,  but  I 
couldn't  figure  out  how  many  sides  there 
were  anymore.  My  maternal  instincts 
rose  up.  I  wanted  to  find  the  table  man 
in  the  crowd,  clear  away  all  small 
children  and  pregnant  women,  which 
seemed  to  be  numerous  here,  maybe 
find  a  phone,  dial  911 

SUDDENLY... 

It  began  as  a  small  flame  until  the 
heat  of  the  day  and  the  heat  of  the  spark 
and  the  heat  of  flying  language  branded 
MY  CAR  as  bombfire  material.  I  saw 
that  shirt  on  my  way  in  and  parked  as 
closely  as  possible  with  my  lazy  self,  and 
so  here,  on  the  verge  of  a  decision,  my 
car,  my  prints  in  the  back  seat,  my  glove 
compartment  with  exposed  film  from 
the  past  two  weeks  of  work,  all  grew  into 
one  wild  burgundy-blue  decision  right 
before  my  very  eyes:  MY  CAR!  MY 
FUCKING  CAR! 


F'F^OEZESSEO   hJJlnF^h-C3    3CZ) 


I  ran  for  it.  From  behind,  Wise 
Woman  yelled,  "Go  get  'em  Honey! 
Break  a  Leg!"  And  she  was  laughin'  and 
hootin'  and  a'hollerin',  cheering  on  my 
sudden  participation.  I  felt  sick  with 
anger  and  ran. 

As  I  reached  the  back  bumper,  an- 
other explosion  set  off  on  the  front  hood, 
loud  enough  to  scare  the  people  who'd 
begun  to  cheer  on  the  fire.  They  had 
forgotten  their  angry  ordeals  with  each 
other,  and  now  my  car  in  flames 
provided  a  unifying  spectacle. 

I  was  shaking.  Whenever  I  get  this 
angry,  I  throw  everything  from  my 
person.  I  threw  off  my  camera,  my  jean 
jacket,  my  bracelets  and  rings.  I  tossed 
my  earrings  into  the  fire,  untied  my 
sweater  from  around  my  waist  and 
hurled  it  over  the  crowd  catching  the 
potpourri  of  eyes  on  ME  now.  Some 
expressionless,  others  curious,  antici- 
pating my  next  move. 

From  the  middle,  someone  yelled: 
"Take  it  off,  baby!"  And  then  from 
somewhere  else:  "Yeah,  lady  — take  it 
off.  Go  for  it!"  They  were  whistling  and 
staring  and  clapping  in  unison. 

My  hands  were  clutching  the  bottom 
of  my  shirt,  which  unconsciously  I 
meant  to  disrobe.  My  stomach  held  heat 
from  the  fire.  My  left  hand  covered  my 
navel  as  the  right  pulled  down  my  shirt. 
I  reddened  and  warmed  with  embar- 
rassment. In  shock  from  unexpected 
attention,  I  squatted  to  the  ground, 
limp,  when  both  my  arms  were  taken 
up  by  two  policemen  who  not  only  threw 
me  into  their  car,  but  proceeded  to 
shovel  the  rest  of  us  into  other  vehicles. 

We  were  held  for  three  hours  with  no 
fine.  While  waiting  out  the  time,  I  was 
told  that's  average  for  these  Sunday 
charades.  It  all  depends  on  the  officers 
moods  and  the  amount  of  mess  left  by 
sunset.  Last  week,  the  time  was  only  one 
hour.  My  car  provided  more  debris. 

Now,  the  sweepers  are  jellyfish  hitting 
against  the  glass  of  an  unkempt  aquari- 
um, wrinkling  their  flabby  collarets, 
fraying  the  near-ending  natural  light. 

Me?  I  guess  I  do  have  an  excuse  to  be 
here.  I  snap  sporadic  candids  until  the 
sun  falls  down. 


Next  week  I  hear  there'll  be . 


■Marina  Lazzara 


r^S^OCESSEEJ   LXJaE=Sh_D   3C3 


A  LITTLE  CRITICISM 


IN  THE  ALIEN  WORLD 


When  this  society  finally  finishes 
the  job 
and  drags  me  off  to  the  madhouse 
I'm  not  going  to  fight  or  even 
swear  at  the  officers  that  tai<e 
me  in  BUT... 

as  soon  as  I  hear  those  doors 
slam  behind  me  I'm  not  gonna 
give  those  people  a  rest 
If  there's  any  justice  in  this 
country  it  will  be  in  the  marrow 

of  my  bones 
and  since  escape  will  probably 
be  impossible 

1  can  at  least  wrestle  with  the 
goons  on  the  ward 
kick  the  nurse  in  the  shins 
throw  food  on  the  floor  and  at  people 
piss  on  the  walls 

scribble  obscene  words  on  the  lavatory  walls 
and  other  such  rebel  acts 
that  come  to  mind 
And . . . 

the  reason  why  is  1  would  hate 
for  the  state  that  it  had  anything 
like  a  human  face  and  were  actually 
helping  me 

—Dale  W.  Russell 


In  the  alien  world,  lamp  posts  are  shaped  like  needles,  eyes  bright 

and  the  rest  still  lit  but  paler.     Beings  nod  in  greeting, 

rarely  talk,  grow  flowers  which  they  cut  and  give  as  gifts 

which  then  take  root  automatically.     Each  house  operates 

its  own  air  supply.     Cuts  heal  of  their  own  accord. 

For  metaphysical  cuts,  a  being  leans  toward  any  being's  chest 

and  thus  is  healed.     No  one  reminds  anyone  of  anyone  else. 

Advanced  art  allows  invisible  statues,  glossed 

in  annuals  spiral-bound.     I  visited  once. 

They  put  me  to  work  at  a  train  station,  sweeping. 

— Muriel  Karr 


ELREY 

Where's  thick  hair  on  the  sidewalk  mats  n  greased  I, 
to  the  festering  buildings  clothe  my  eyes,  asleep 
in  their  vacant  swarm,  where  the  coffee  in  the  gutters 
streams,  could  I  be  there  and  clearly  catch  a  bus? 
Or's  severing,  like  the  gravel  pants  1  wear  so  I  sit, 
but  lurch  but  never  sit,  just  stand  under  a  rain  of 
dust  (where  the  roofs  dissolve,  and  the  windows  fill 
with  chain)  Could  I  sceptre  there,  with  this  rod 
through  my  neck,  where  that  whined  jaw  in  the  doorway 
"talks?" 

—John  M.  Bennett 


VIDEO  WOLF 


He  moved  through 

the  abstract  city, 

speaking  in  tunnels  of  chrome, 

his  body  outlined 

by  the  pressure 

of  light. 

On  the  street  he  was  preceded 

by  an  empty  jacket 

filled  with  wind. 

It  protected  his  thinking. 

Waking  far  behind 

again,  he  returned 

to  the  wall  of  circuits: 


The  woman  in  hospital  clothes 

escapes,  killing  the  janitors. 

The  cars  blow  up. 

Pock  faced  men 

hit  each  other  harder  and  harder  until 

one  of  them  falls 

dead.     The  surgeon  emerges 

from  a  successful  implant. 

The  womb  now  harbors 

the  perfect  child. 

In  the  deep  deep 
oceans,  purse-seine  nets 
pull  up  everything 
in  their  boundary. 

— Richard  Osbom  Hood 


INFRARED  EYES 

If  at  the  end  of  the  day 

we  find  ourselves  the  only  Empire 

still  standing,  see 

...  if  our  day  is  followed  by  record  night 
dark  beyond  our  design 
but  our  making — yes 

...  if  we  dream  ourselves 
avenging  angels  with  forked  tongues 
civilized — with  infrared  eyes .  .  . 

—D.S.  Black 


PF^OCESSECl    LJJCIF^h-E]    3CD 


PEOPLE'S  PARK '91 


I  have  thrown  myself  into  battle  to  forget  you; 

1  carry  my  fat  belly  like  a  purple  heart. 
1  have  staggered  across  the  sand  to  rescue  a  fallen  manikin; 

I  dodge  saliva  of  policemen  who  resemble  your  brother. 
1  have  raised  the  flag  of  refuge  over  the  ruins  of  my  castle; 

1  free  prisoners  who  have  neither  history  nor  hope. 
I  have  made  the  sun  rise  on  a  leaflet  as  the  sun  set; 

I  build  a  camp  in  the  city  to  house  emptiness. 
1  have  sipped  icy  blood  in  the  shade  of  television  cameras; 

1  dodge  the  saliva  of  policemen  who  resemble  your  lover. 
1  have  inquired  for  the  reasons  behind  lies  and  other  sacred  mysteries; 

1  write  you  letters  just  to  say  hello. 
1  have  thrown  myself  into  battle  to  remember  you; 

I  carry  my  fat  belly  like  a  purple  heart. 
I  have  committed  my  spirit  to  the  future; 

I  die  and  am  buried  on  the  same  planet  you  call  home. 


REMEMBER  THE  NAME 

(Excerpted  from  P.S.  for  Personal  Secretaries) 

When  you  cannot  remember  your  hand  you  are  perceived 

When  you  cannot  remember 

When  you  cannot  remember  your  hand 

You  identify  12  inches  of  your  p^hysical  self 

When  you  answer  the  telephone  professional  when 

"I'm  Sally  Jones  it's  nice  to  see  you  again" 

It  projects  competence  and  your  worth  as  well 

— Richard  Wool 


— Daue  Linn 


graphic  by  S.  Devaney 


PREPPINGTHE  PREPOSITIONS 


This  is  a  reminder  that 

coincident  with 

the  theft  of 

a  computer  from 

the  office  where 

the  desk  is  where 

the  special  keys  for 

the  special  areas  of 

security,  the  special  keys  were  also  taken. 

This  is  a  reminder  that 

any  keys  which 

you  do  not  keep  on 

your  person  should 

be  kept  in 

a  safe  or  a  locked  cabinet  that's  screwed 

securely  down. 

The  top  drawers  of 

an  unlocked  desk 

are  the  first  places  that  a  thief  will  look. 

In  view  of  the  above 

it  is  hoped  you  will  remember  that  within  reason. 

Sincerely  and  in  confidence 

with  your  cooperation 

I  feel  sure  we  can 

within  reason  protect 

our  fund  of  prepositions. 

— Edward  Mycue 


DO  WHAT  YOU  LOVE  AND  THE  MONEY  WILL  FOLLOW, 
IF  YOa  VISUALIZE  A  RICH  RELATIVE  (WHO  LIKES  YOU) 
DYING  REAL  SOON  NOW 

Let's  talk  data. 

You're  dBased.  All  sorted  out.  All  out  of  sorts. 

More  debris  from  the  Information  Age 

Scattershot  rattletrap  ricochet  all  the  way  home. 

The  usual  chew  on  this,  buddy.   Very  infotaining. 

The  word  "networking"  has  acquired  so  many  meanings 

It  now  means  everything.  So  give  it  up,  give  in  to  it. 

There's  twelve  steps  out  there  somewhere 

That  address  your  particular  problem. 

As  opposed  to  that  dweeb  over  there, 

Who  imagines  himself  an  information  surfer  in  mid-dude-ism, 

But  in  a  parallel  reality  he's  just  a  guy  with  an  ulcer  for  a  job, 

A  flycasting  wannabe 

With  a  Sharper  Image  catalog  for  an  imagination. 

Watch  the  undertow,  buddy.  Watch  the  undertow. 

We  didn't  make  this  world,  so  we'll  have  to  lie  to  it. 

Is  it  resume  time?  We'll  let  you  know. 

News  is  not  reported,  it  is  released 

Wicked  as  a  spitball.  Write  a  personals  ad: 

Desperate  seeking  insanely  desperate.  Someone 

Who  will  take  me. 

Upload  it  to  the  on-line  service.  She'll  buy  it. 

Why  not?  She's  a  consumer. 

Dinner,  drinks,  dancing,  and  maybe  later, 

Date-rape. 

That's  the  way  business  is  done.  It's  a  career. 

Not  your  life  or  anything.  Now  bend  over. 

With  enough  coke  it  can  even  seem  like  pleasure. 

But  don't  forget  to  count  them  beans.  Keep  your  receipts. 

The  city  is  just  a  conduit  for  business. 

Plug  and  play.  Plug  away.  Spelunk  your  synapses  for  the  next  innovation: 

Misfire  or  mismanagement.  Rising  stars  go  nova, 

Down  on  the  carpet,  then  out  on  your  ass.  Resume  time! 

Jerk  your  fingers  to  the  known.  You've  got  connections. 

Work  them  puppies!  So  there  it  is: 

The  state  of  the  art,  the  art  of  the  state. 

All  wired  up  and  nothing  to  know. 

We'll  get  back  to  you. 

— David  Fox 


L.^ 


PF^aCZESSEE]    hJLjaf^k_a   3C3 


WHOLE 

you  walk  down  the  street 
and  you  see  the  people 
staring  at  you,  faceless 
and  loud,  gaping  holes 
where  the  heads  are  supposed 
to  be,  yawning  wide,  big 
holes,  little  holes, 
hell, 

they're  covering  their  entire 
bodies,  soon  it  looks  like 
one  big  hole,  the  more  the 
merrier,  the  better  to 
swallow  you  up  with  my 
dear,  and  i  pause  to  think 
about  how  we're  ingested 
then  spit  out  every  day 
of  our  lives,  i  keep 
looking  for  plugs  to 
stop  them  up,  but  all 
i  seem  to  find  are 
tongues,  and  they  are 
just  a  little  bit 
distorted. 

—Scott  C  Holstad 


OLD  WOMAN 

You  have  seen  the  old  woman 
seen  her  crumbling  silhouette 
between  two  immense  buildings 
where  there  is  just  enough  room 
for  her  and  her  possessions 

and  the  night  that  rots 
in  the  morning  sky.  And  you  passed 
her  on  another  sidewalk 
emerging  from  her  abyss  behind 
the  laundromat.  She  did  not  follow 

but  you  walked  faster.  You  did  not  know 
or  care  that  she  has  had  the  perfect  answer 
burning  in  her  head  for  fifty  years 
and  will  die  still  waiting  to  be  asked. 
Old  woman  who  hears  bees  shudder. 

Who  can  hear  the  teeth  in  the  roses 
gnash,  forecasting  winter.  Old  woman 
who  carries  heaven  in  one  plain  brown 
bag  and  hell  in  another.  Old  woman 
who  raises  generations  of  spiders 

in  the  space  between  her  fingertips. 
Old  woman  who  cradles  a  broken  clock. 
Old  woman  who  paces  outside  the  room 
of  her  son,  the  dollmaker  (he  keeps 
pink  fingers  in  a  blue  jar).  Old  woman 

who  comforts  her  other  son,  the  mathematician 
(he  has  dreamed  again  of  the  number  one 
whipping  the  number  two  into  infinity). 
Old  woman  who  plucks  hairs  from  the  nostrils 
of  a  statue.  Old  woman  who  tries  vainly 


TT>\* 


graphic  by  Man  Bianca 


to  scrub  the  filth  from  the  bottom 

of  an  idea.  Old  woman  who  puffs  smoke 

from  her  dead  husband's  pipe 

as  she  watches  the  tides  rise  and  fall 

in  the  privacy  of  an  imaginary  bathtub. 

Old  woman  who  catalogs  lace.  Old  woman 
who  guides  eggs  to  paradise.  Old  woman  who 
cackles  in  the  corridors  of  history,  burned 
and  reviled — condemned  to  psychiatry. 
To  drugs  named  after  dead  gods.  Old  woman 

of  flesh,  of  hair,  of  bone  and  bone 
and  bone.  Old  woman  who  suffers  eruptions 
of  light  from  her  forehead.  Old  woman 
ground  fine  by  the  seasons.  Old  woman 
like  powder  in  the  wind,  blown  into 

eternity,  unseen,  unseen.  You  have  passed 
this  woman  by,  but  you  will  come  to  her. 
When  your  ruptured  life  spills  dust 
on  the  empty  page.  When  the  air  you  breathe 
tastes  thin  and  sour  as  the  air 

forced  into  brain  dead  patients,  strapped 
to  terrible  machines.  When  the  mangled  fruit 
of  youth  lies  fermenting  and  rotten 
on  the  sidewalks  of  city  after  city.  Then 
you  will  come  to  her,  and  she  will  float 

two  beads  of  oil  in  a  glass  of  clear 
water,  and  when  the  two  join  together  you  will 
know  her  as  your  mother,  your  sister,  your 
wife,  your  self,  and  then  and  only  then 
will  she  kiss  and  make  you  better. 

— Jack  Evans 


F>F^CIC:E55ECI   kJUOFMi-D   3C3 


l.^i 


QOD'S  WORK 


I'M  A  SUPERVISOR  of  a  group  home  for  mentally  handi- 
capped people.  Don't  let  the  supervisor  title  fool  you,  I'm 
just  an  hourly  wage  slave  with  a  title.  Interspersed  with 
a  four  year  stint  at  a  state  college,  I've  done  various  work 
to  survive:  concrete  laborer,  dairy  plant  worker,  data 
entry  person,  janitor,  salesman,  stagehand,  liquor  store 
clerk.  In  between  I  hitchhiked  in  Europe,  living  off  my 
savings  and  the  hospitality  of  people  I  met  along  the  way. 
When  I  returned  to  America  I  started  my  present  occupation. 


Basically  I  believe  that  work  is  an 
oppressive  rather  than  uplifting  aspect 
of  life,  taking  time  away  from  more  in- 
teresting pursuits.  The  time  spent  slav- 
ing for  someone  else  could  best  be  used 
to  expand  your  own  horizons.  If  your 
whole  day  is  filled  with  mindless  repeti- 
tious work  you  are  bound  to  become 
brain  dead  in  the  process.  The  work 
done  by  millions  of  people  in  America 
could  be  done  by  thousands,  thus  free- 
ing people  to  better  society,  educate 
themselves  and  pursue  their  own  indi- 
vidual interests. 

I  don't  judge  my  life  by  my  work.  I'm 
not  a  good  soldier.  I've  participated  in 
sabotage  on  almost  every  job.  Sabotage 
can  be  extreme  or  it  can  be  as  simple  as 
cheating  your  boss  out  of  time. 

Ultimately,  for  it  to  be  effective  it 
should  be  done  in  a  way  that  allows  you 
to  keep  your  job.  Any  act  of  sabotage  is 
worthy.  Remember,  the  clean  fingered 
business  types  are  stealing  millions  and 
anything  you  can  do  to  stop  them  is 
positive. 

As  a  concrete  laborer  I  was  required  to 
do  specialized  jobs.  Sometimes  a  septic 
tank  orwater  container  was  being  formed. 
Each  needed  openings  so  that  pipes  could 
be  run  through  once  the  form  was 
poured.  On  a  few  occassions  I  conve- 
niently forgot  to  place  the  inserts  in  the 
form.  Once  it  was  poured  and  hardened 
the  bosses  realized  there  was  no  pipe 
inlet  and  outlet  out  of  the  tanks.  I  feigned 
ignorance  and  received  a  tongue  lashing 
but  the  hulking  piece  of  concrete  was 
scrapped.  In  a  dairy  plant  I  stacked  bags 
of  sweet  whey  and  tiien  stabbed  the  bags 


just  as  they  were  being  loaded  on  a  truck. 
When  the  truck  reached  its  destination 
the  sweet  whey  had  turned  into  a  con- 
gealed mess.  Working  a  cash  register 
creates  endless  possibilities.  The  easiest 
thing  to  do  is  have  friends  buy  various 
items  and  then  charge  them  for  only  one 
item.  Or  if  a  customer  is  looking  for  an 
item,  inform  the  customer  that  the  same 
item  can  be  bought  at  another  store  for 
a  cheaper  price. 

I've  continually  tried  to  unionize  ev- 
ery workplace  I've  been  in  because  in  the 
workplace  there  are  no  rights.  The 
present  business  unionism  practiced  by 
the  AFL-CIO  is  a  sellout,  but  unions  still 
give  workers  a  small  chance  at  equality  in 
the  workplace.  Every  effort  on  my  part  to 
organize  has  resulted  in  colossal  failure. 
Usually  I'm  shown  the  door  or  the  effort 
dies  because  of  lack  of  interest.  Many 
workers  are  afraid  and  labor  laws  make  it 
next  to  impossible  for  workers  to  orga- 
nize. It  is  coming  to  the  point  where  even 
workers  who  want  to  unionize  can  not. 

I  tried  to  organize  my  present  job  with 
SEIU  organizers.  The  process  is  long  and 
involves  inside  information  gathering  and 
above  all  the  ability  to  maintain  stealth. 
You  must  have  the  ability  to  choose  people 
who  are  fed  up  with  their  jobs  and  then 
use  their  discontent  in  productive  ways. 
Occassionally  this  yields  some  surprises, 
as  when  the  most  right-wing  person  sup- 
ports you  and  the  progressive  type  ig- 
nores you.  Our  effort  had  evolved  to  the 
point  where  we  had  gathered  informa- 
tion about  the  company  and  employees. 
We  began  going  door  to  door  and  talk- 
ing to  people.  The  company  was  in  the 


dark,  but  we  made  a  fatal  mistake.  One 
day  the  organizers  and  I  met  in  a  local 
diner  and  discussed  tactics  and  new  in- 
formation. Unfortunately,  a  boss  from  a 
similar  company  was  at  the  next  table 
and  overheard  everything  said.  By  the 
time  I  arrived  at  work  the  phone  was 
ringing  off  the  hook  and  I  was  asked  to 
make  an  appearance  at  the  office  the 
next  day.  I  was  identified  as  the  culprit 
and  questioned  about  my  role.  I  denied 
everything  but  by  then  it  was  too  late,  the 
company  began  churning  out  anti-union 
memos  and  support  for  our  effort  faded. 
As  an  example  of  their  good  will  I  was  not 
fired. 

Failing  that  I  joined  the  IWW  and 
proudly  pay  dues  even  though  it  doesn't 


SO 


PE^aEZESSEGD   hJJOE^h_D   3C3 


affect  my  work  place.  Their  talk  of  worker 
control  (even  if  it  is  only  talk)  is  the  kind 
of  talk  I  want  to  hear.  Other  unions  may 
have  big  memberships  and  loads  of 
money,  but  they  are  mostly  full  of  shit. 
They  sold  out  years  ago  and  are  paying 
the  price  now. 

As  I  mentioned,  I  supervise  a  home 
for  handicapped  people.  When  I  tell 
people  what  I  do  their  reply  is  always  the 
same:  "Oh  that's  great,  you  are  doing 
God's  work!  "or  "You  don't  make  much 
money  do  you?"  Wanting  to  bash  their 
brains  in,  I  tell  them  it's  not  "God's 
work",  it's  the  dirty  work  of  the  state  and 
system  which  regards  human  needs  as 
secondary.  The  politicians  like  to  have 
their  pictures  taken  v«th  smiling  re- 
tarded people  but  that  is  the  extent  of 
their  good  will.  Pennsylvania  group 
homes  are  run  for  profit  by  individuals 
who  form  companies  and  get  funds  from 
the  state.  The  agreement  benefits  both 
since  the  individual  makes  a  profit  and 
the  state  doesn't  have  to  pay  union  scale 
or  benefits. 

No  I  don't  make  a  lot  of  money!  How 
the  fuck  could  I? 

Group  homes  are  spread  across  the 
state.  The  area  I  work  in  has  13  homes 
and  a  day  program.  The  concept  of  a 
group  home  may  look  good  but  it  doesn '  t 
work.  Homes  were  set  up  so  that  higher 
functioning  clients  (our  word  for  the 
people  we  work  with)  could  attain  skills 
needed  to  integrate  into  the  commu- 
nity. Instead,  clients  are  dumped  in  sites 
regardless  of  ability.  Some  sit  in  chairs 
drooling  and  staring  at  television.  Oth- 
ers have  so  many  medical  problems  and 
are  so  medicated  you  wonder  how  they 


THIS  M«BktU  W«IL» 


by  TOM  TOMORROW 


IT'S  TIME  FOR  ANOTHER  LOOK  AT  HO'*J  TH£  NCV/S 

w»/?/r5...piRsr,  the  media  report  the  OAY'S 

OFFICIAL  PRONOUNCEMENTS,  GIVIM&  SELF-SERV- 
ING LIES  AND  SPIN-CONTROL  EFFORTS  THE  LE" 
GlTlK\ACT  OF  ACTUAL  HVtiS--. 


TWt  PRESIDENT  TOOAT  BLAMED  THE  FAL- 
TEfJlNO  EOSMOMY  ON  FANATiCAL  COCAiNE' 
CRAZED  LIBYAN  TERRORISTS  WORKinO  SE- 
cetTLY  TO  SA80TA6E  OOR.  FREE-A^ARKET 
5V5TEM .' 


TME  RESULTS  OF  THESE  POLLS  ARE  THEN  RE- 
PORTED ON  THE  NEW5,  CREATING   A   SELF- 
FULFlLLINCr  iENSE  OF  PUBLIC  CONCERN  OVER 
AN  IMAOmARy  THREAT  TO  THE  REPUBLIC  ■•• 


"A  NEW   POLL  5H0WS 
THAT  <m%  OF  THE  AM- 
ERICAN PEOPLE    AHE 
TEpRmED  OF  COCAlNE- 
CKAZEO  LIBYANS i 


GOODNESS  "HOW 
^tP-r  ALARK^- 
//VG.' SOMEONE 
5H0UL0  PO 
SOmETMING.' 


are  able  to  stay  alive. 

The  workers  are  supposed  to  be  an 
idealistic  type  willing  to  work  for  slave 
wages,  even  though  they  are  generally 
not  the  social  welfare  types.  If  they  are, 
they  eventually  decide  to  work  in  other 
fields  once  they  get  a  taste  of  group 
home  work.  We  get  a  cross  section  of 
displaced  workers  from  every  walk  of 
life.  Many  sincerely  believe  in  the  work 


ROVING  BANDS  OF  DELINQUENT  PROOFREADERS 


PO.LSTERS  THEN  PROCEED  TO  ASK  A  SMALL 
6R0UP  OF  PEOPLE  A  SET  OF  QOESTiONS  CARE' 
FJLLY  WORDE.D  TO  PRODUCE  A   DESiRED  f~£- 
SOLT.  WITH  NO  W\AR6iN  FOR  AfY^BlGUlTY. 


...WHICH  THE  ADf<MNlSrRATlON  THEN  USES  TO 
JOSTlFT  ACTIONS   THAT    IN  NO  WAY  6ENE- 
HT  THE  ClTiZCNRY  IT  PURPORTS  TO  SERVE. 


THEREFORE  ALL  CiN/iL 
LIBERTIES  ARE  IMMED- 
lATELY  SUSPENDED  AND 
r»l.  PPESlDEWr  HAS 
SEEN  &RANTED    PKTA- 
TORlAL  POWERS. 


they  do.  Other  times  small  time  thieves 
are  hired,  copy  the  keys  and  rob  the  site 
of  appliances  and  money.  Most  people 
are  doing  the  job  until  they  find  some- 
thing else,  so  they  say.  Because  of  our 
rotten  economy,  more  people  like  my- 
self are  staying.  This  bothers  the  com- 
pany because  they  may  have  to  pay  us 
pensions  one  day. 

I  am  a  "supervisor."  I'm  paid  by  the 
hour.  I  have  no  power  to  hire  or  fire.  I 
"supervise"  2  workers  and  3  clients.  I'm 
proud  to  say  that  my  co-workers  and  I 
have  completely  rearranged  the  work 
place  according  to  our  own  needs.  We 
come  to  work  when  we  want  and  leave 
when  we  want.  We  cover  for  each  other  in 
everyway  and  recognize  that  our  loyalties 
are  with  each  other  rather  than  manage- 
ment. As  supervisor,  it's  my  job  to  do  all 
the  mindless  paperwork,  feed  and  medi- 
cate clients,  take  them  to  appointments, 
meetwith  case  workers  and  family,  create 
behavior  modification  programs,  handle 
finances  and  if  someone  shits  in  their 
shorts  I  have  to  clean  it  up. 

My  guys  are  a  fun  group.  One  man 
has  a  fetish  for  calendars  and  menus.  He 
can  tell  you  the  day  your  birthday  falls 
on  in  a  given  year.  He  has  a  history  of 
running  out  of  the  house  and  terroriz- 
ing diners  or  supermarkets.  My  favorite 


F>FM=IEZE5aEC3    lLUCIF^h_CI    3CD 


story  was  the  time  he  burst  into  a  church 
demanding  holy  calendars  in  the  midst 
of  a  choir  practice.  Because  of  him  we 
have  to  lock  ourselves  into  the  house 
lest  he  run  wild.  Another  man  is  a  clean 
freak  who  only  cares  about  doing  chores. 
The  third  man  in  the  group  is  a  non-stop 
talker  who  idolizes  Lawrence  Welk.  His 
passion  is  coffee  and  if  you  don't  give 
him  his  daily  ration  you  are  in  for  some 
heavy  shit.  Given  all  the  craziness,  the 
job  is  extremely  stressful.  The  turnover 
rate  is  high  and  some  people  have  had 
breakdowns  on  the  job. 

The  company  I  work  for  is  your  typi- 
cal hierarchical  outfit.  The  President  is 
the  sole  shareholder  in  the  company. 
She  sits  like  a  grand  poobah  over  her 
empty  bureaucratic  domain  of  accoun- 
tants and  useless  middle  managers.  We 
are  one  big  happy  family  working  to- 
gether in  peace  and  prosperity.  Family 
style  management  is  the  most  mislead- 
ing, unfair  and  ultimately  ridiculous  at- 
tempt at  making  workers  powerless.  The 
company  tries  to  include  us  in  decision 
making  but  once  we  complain  they  do 
whatever  they  damn  well  please.  When 
we  point  out  the  humanitarian  need  for 
our  work  and  just  pay,  they  call  it  a 
business.  When  we  call  it  a  business  they 
call  it  humanitarian.  Recognizing  that 
unionization  is  a  threat  to  their 
moneymaking  scam,  they  have  given 
workers  like  me  the  title  of  supervisor, 
thinking  that  we  will  believe  we  are  man- 
agement. Once  a  year  they  dole  out 
pitiful  raises  of  25  cents  an  hour  and 
lump  sum  bonuses  that  amount  to  1 2  to 
15  cents  per  hour.  Of  course  all  this  is 
incumbent  on  whether  or  not  the  state 
has  any  money.  Of  course,  there 
shouldn't  be  a  profit  making  middle 
person  standing  between  the  state  and 
workers  to  begin  with.  Those  that  do  the 
work  should  get  the  money. 

Because  I  work  in  a  house,  my  boss 
expected  me  to  do  repairs  and  yard 
work.  I  explained  to  her  that  since  I  do 
not  own  the  house  it  was  not  my  respon- 
sibility. Every  week  the  grass  grew  taller 
and  taller.  The  rebellion  spread  to  other 
sites  and  they  had  to  hire  a  maintenance 
man.  So  not  only  did  I  decrease  my 
workload  by  standing  up  to  the  assholes, 
but  I  helped  someone  else  get  a  job. 
Another  time  my  boss  informed  me  that 
I  would  have  to  dress  the  part.  Anyone  in 
their  right  mind  knows  that  working 
with  handicapped  people  is  not  the 
cleanest  job.  I  told  her  that  I  would  only 
comply  with  company  policy  if  the  com- 
pany gave  me  a  fat  raise  to  pay  for  all  the 
luxurious  clothing  they  wanted  me  to 


SUCK  MY  NATION! 


wear.  They  eventually  gave  up. 

We  do  get  2  months  paid  vacation  a 
year,  but  every  second  of  it  is  needed 
since  you  are  usually  on  the  verge  of 
insanity  by  the  time  a  vacation  comes 
arouncl.  As  for  medical  benefits,  we  pay 
into  the  insurance  company  each  pay- 
day plus  there  is  a  large  deductible.  The 
plan  only  helps  you  if  you  have  a  serious 
problem.  At  one  time  the  money  was 
deducted  according  to  your  salary.  But 
the  higher  ups  "democratized"  the  pro- 
cess by  making  it  a  flat  rate  for  everyone. 
Thus  someone  who  makes  $50,000  a 
year  pays  the  same  as  someone  who 
makes  $15,000  a  year.  Because  lower 
scale  workers  are  more  numerous  they 
wind  up  paying  for  the  less  numerous 
higher  scale  people.  I  don't  even  call 
the  higher  ups  workers  since  I've  never 
been  able  to  understand  what  they  do, 
besides  sitting  on  their  fat  asses. 

So  having  said  all  this,  why  do  I  do  it?  My 
occupation  may  seen  benign  because  it 
seeks  to  help  the  disadvantaged,  but  I'm 
still  a  worker  and  I'm  still  getting  screwed. 
I  dislike  being  a  slave  but  recognize  the 
need  to  support  myself  Imagine  trying  to 
live  off  the  meager  crumbs  the  state  gives 


you  for  being  on  welfare.  People  con- 
standy  say,  "Why  don't  you  quit  if  you 
don't  like  it."  or  "Find  a  better  job." 

I  don '  t  subscribe  to  the  quitter  school. 
In  the  American  economy  there  are  no 
"betterjobs."The  high  paying  manufac- 
turing and  technology  base  has  eroded 
and  even  if  Japan  and  other  countries 
opened  their  doors  to  trade  what  would 
we  sell  them?  America  makes  great  mili- 
tary weapons  but  when  was  the  last  time 
you  bought  a  surface  to  air  missile? 

So  the  options  are  few,  you  can  hop 
from  slave  job  to  slave  job  or  you  can  stay 
in  a  job  and  try  to  radicalize  the  work- 
place. I  have  chosen  to  stay.  It  is  fine  to 
theorize  and  complain  about  the  work 
place.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  words 
must  eventually  lead  to  action.  Change 
never  has  been  easy  in  this  country,  but 
it  happens  when  people  take  a  prin- 
cipled stand.  I  don't  profess  to  have  all 
the  answers,  nor  can  I  be  a  guide  for 
others  who  must  make  an  individual 
thoice.  I  know  one  thing:  I'm  staying  for 
the  long  run  and  I'm  going  to  be  a  pain 
in  the  ass  until  they  carry  me  away  kick- 
ing and  screaming. 

-JeffKelly 


F>e=^aEZE55EC]    kUOi^h-CI    3C3 


CONFESSIONS 

OF  A  SPERM  DONOR 


BRIGHTON,  ENGLAND,  THE  mid  1980s.  A  deep  malaise  saps 
the  energy  of  this  once-proud  nation.  Everything  is  gray.  And 
damp.  The  next  General  Election  is  an  eternity  away  and  there's 
precious  little  hope  of  a  Labor  victory  anyway.  Thatcher  survives  a 
bomb  attack,  bouncing  back  with  renewed  popularity.  The  miners  are 
on  strike  forever,  and  with  every  passing  day  seem  less  likely  to  achieve 
their  demands.  Unemployment  is  up,  public  health  care  down,  public 
housing  being  sold  off.  For  students  (of  which  I  am  one),  cuts 
increasingly  make  higher  education  a  sport  for  the  rich.  Everyone  I 
know  is  on  the  fiddle,  "freelancing"  at  some  menial  cash-in-hand  job 
to  supplement  their  unemployment  benefit  or  student  grant. 


••nisi 


This  then  is  the  stark  background 
against  which  I  became  a  professional 
wanker. 

On  and  off  for  about  two  years  I 
supplemented  my  paltry  student  grant 
(and  later,  once  I  had  graduated  to  the 
dole  queue,  my  unemployment  ben- 
efit), by  donating  my  sperm:  £7  a  sample, 
two  samples  a  week,  Tuesday  and  Thurs- 
day mornings.  To  write  of  it  now  is 
liberating  since  I  never  get  to  mention  it 
on  my  resume. 

There  I  was,  strapped  for  cash  and 
work-shy,  faced  with  the  harsh  reality  of 
having  to  find  some  source,  however 
modest,  of  income.  It  was  while  I  was 
working  Saturdays  in  a  toy  store  that  I 
heard  from  a  friend  about  the  sperm 
bank.  To  someone  like  me — earning 
£1 .25  an  hour  selling  play-dough — jerk- 


ing off  for  £7  a  shot  seemed  like  a  very 
civilized  way  to  make  ends  meet.  Admit- 
tedly, £14  a  week  wasn't  much,  but  it 
covered  my  weekly  food  bill;  besides,  I 
thought,  right  now  most  of  my  sperm 
just  ends  up  on  the  sheets — why  not  get 
paid  for  it  instead? 

Unfortunately,  my  first  test  sample 
was  rejected.  "They  all  died,"  the  female 
doctor  said  unkindly  of  my  sperm  when 
I  called  by  phone  to  learn  the  results. 
Silence.  "Look,  why  don't  you  try  again 
next  week,"  she  said,  sensing  my  dejec- 
tion. I  did,  as  much  out  of  anxiety  as  out 
of  a  need  to  make  money — if  my  sperm 
was  defective  I  wanted  to  know  about  it. 

Second  time  lucky.  Thus  began  what 
was  to  become  for  me  a  Tuesday  and 
Thursday  morning  ritual.  First  thing, 
before  I  even  cleaned  my  teeth,  I  would 


ejaculate  into  a  small  plastic  jar  (I  had  a 
bag  of  them  stashed  under  the  bed). 
Undoubtedly  the  hardest  parts  of  the 
job  were:  a)  having  the  presence  of 
mind  first  thing  in  the  morning  to  have 
the  jar  handy,  and  b)  making  sure  it  was 
angled  correctly  to  receive  the  valuable 
fluid.  This  achieved  (and  I  missed  more 
than  once) ,  all  I  had  to  do  was  screw  the 
top  on  the  jar  and  place  it  in  one  of  the 
white  plastic  pouchs  supplied  by  the 
sperm  bank,  taking  care  to  keep  the  jar 
upright.  Each  pouch  had  a  tag  on  which 
I  wrote  my  code  number — everything 
anonymous,  no  names.  From  the  point 
ofejaculation  the  clock  was  ticking,  since 
a  condition  of  employment  was  that  the 
sperm  be  delivered  within  one  hour  of 
its  production,  while  it  was  still  fresh. 

The  clinic  which  housed  the  sperm 
bank  was  an  institutional  red  brick  build- 
ing, the  sperm  bank  itself  part  of  an 
annex  that  was  nothing  more  than  a 
glorified  prefabricated  hut.  I  delivered 
my  pouch  to  an  office  staffed  by  three 
middle-aged  women  who  were  always  in 
the  middle  of  a  conversation.  At  first  this 
was  a  source  of  some  embarrassment, 
but  it  quickly  became  a  financial  trans- 
action like  any  other.  I  would  hand  over 
the  pouch  (which  they  gingerly  placed 
in  a  shallow  cardboard  tray,  along  with 
any  other  recently-arrived  samples),  and 
give  them  my  code  number.  In  exchange 
they  paid  me  £7  cash.  The  transaction 
took  about  two  minutes  and  was  usually 


F>F^I=1C:E55ED   LJjaf=ML.El    3CD 


The  position  could  be  filled 
by  anyone  with  a  dick, 
an  average  sperm  count, 
and  a  desperate  need 
for  money,  i.e.  a  I 
segment  of 
town's  pop^Stio; 


accompanied  by  pleasantries  about  the 
weather. 

What  kind  of  qualifications  does  one 
need  to  be  a  sperm  donor?  Contrary  to 
popular  mythology,  donors  were  not 
required  to  have  the  body  of  a  Greek 
god,  the  brain  of  Einstein,  and  the  sperm 
count  of  a  prize  bull.  In  fact,  on  the 
contrary,  it  seemed  the  position  could 
be  filled  by  anyone  with  a  dick,  an  aver- 
age sperm  count,  and  a  desperate  need 
for  money,  i.e.  a  large  segment  of  the 
town's  population. 

Because  the  semen  market  was  lim- 
ited, there  was,  in  the  interest  of  avoid- 
ing competition,  a  tacit  agreement 
amongst  the  donors  that  information 
about  the  sperm  bank  be  given  spar- 
ingly. Although  contact  with  other  do- 
nors rarely  amounted  to  more  than  a 
comradely  nod  as  you  crossed  paths 
entering  or  leaving  the  clinic,  it  was 
instinctively  understood  that  we  were 
on  to  a  good  thing,  and  that  our  inter- 
ests were  best  served  by  keeping  quiet 
about  it.  To  those  hundreds  of  young 
men  toiling  away  in  drudge  jobs  paying 
less  than  £2  an  hour,  the  idea  of  getting 
paid  £7  for  having  a  wank  would've 
seemed  too  good  to  be  true.  If  word  got 
around  we'd  be  competing  with  the 


sperm  of  every  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry, 
and  the  pressure  of  performing  under 
such  conditions  would  doubtless  dimin- 
ish the  quality  of  our  product.  For  that 
reason  we  kept  it  our  little  secret. 

Until  that  time  I'd  never  given  my 
sperm  much  thought.  It  had  always 
seemed  the  right  color  and  consistency, 
and  the  quantity  seemed  about  right. 
Now  I  put  it  in  ajar  and  scrutinized  it 
twice  weekly.  I  was  amazed  at  how  much 
it  varied  in  quality  and  quantity  one 
week  to  the  next.  Sometimes,  when  it 
was  thick  and  creamy,  I  affected  a  manly 
swagger  as  I  entered  the  clinic;  other 
times  it  was  transparent  and  thin,  like 
runny  snot,  and  I  would  make  a  hasty 
exit  before  my  meager  offering  was  dis- 
covered and  someone  from  the  clinic 
came  chasing  after  me,  demanding  their 
moneyback.  Such  inferior  samples  could 
usually  be  explained  by  a  drinking  binge, 
having  a  cold,  being  stressed  out,  too 
much  recreational  wanking,  or  (more 
rarely)  having  got  laid  the  night  before. 

Nor  did  the  erratic  quality  of  my 
produce  go  unnoticed  at  the  clinic.  Sev- 
eral times  during  my  career  I  was  "laid 
off'  for  periods  of  a  month  at  a  time.  On 
one  occasion  when  I  went  to  deliver  my 
morning  offering,  the  woman  behind 


the  desk  consulted  her  list  to  find  a 
notation  against  my  number.  "Have  a 
rest,  dear,"  she  said  with  a  tone  of  con- 
cern that  made  me  suspect  she  knew 
something  I  didn't.  "Come  back  in  a 
month,"  she  said.  I  left  crestfallen. 

One  day  out  of  the  blue  I  was  asked  to 
give  a  blood  sample,  and  they  asked  me 
questions  about  my  medical  history,  and 
if  I  smoked  marijuana.  I  hed.  That  they 
bothered  to  interview  me  makes  me 
uspect  that  I  am  a  biological  father  at 

.^Jkast  once. 

'^4  How  does  it  feel  being  the  possible 
^^er  of  an  indefinite  number  of  prog- 

tChy?  Actually,  it  doesn't  feel  like  any- 
thing. I  don't  lie  awake  at  night 
A*2wondering  about  the  child (ren)  I  will 
never  know,  contemplating  a  gallant 
quest  against  all  odds  to  discover  their 
identity.  I  have  barely  given  it  a  second 
thought.  I  was,  you  might  say,  profoundly 
alienated  from  my  labor. 

Even  if  I  wanted  to,  there's  no  way  I 
can  ever  find  out  if  my  sperm  was  even 
used  for  artificial  insemination,  let  alone 
the  identity  of  the  child  (ren)  that  may 
be  my  biological  offspring.  Nor,  I  am 
assured,  is  there  any  way  they  can  find 
me.  Strangely  this  has  never  really  made 
me  anything  more  than  slightly  curious. 
The  one  time  I  did  feel  uneasy  about  the 
idea  of  someone  profiting  from  my 
bodily  fluids  (after  all,  £7  is  not  much 
for  a  life),  I  rationalized  that  it  was  a 
National  Health  Service,  i.e.  free,  clinic, 
and  persuaded  myself  that  I  was  helping 
give  the  miracle  of  life  to  unhappy  young 
couples  who,  for  whatever  reason, 
couldn '  t  have  biological  children  of  their 
own. 

But  really  it  was  just  the  easiest  way  I 
knew  of  at  the  time  to  make  money,  the 
path  of  least  resistance.  At  £7  for  ten 
minutes  work,  prorated  it  still  works  out 
as  the  best  hourly  wage  I've  ever  made. 
And  what's  more,  I  loved  my  job. 

— Iguana  Mente 


PF^aCIESSED   kJJaF^h_D    3C3 


RE  VI E  WS 


The  Let's  Qet  ■"" 
Press  Department 


At  first  blush,  it  might  appear  that 
Bay  Area  zine  pubUshers  are  obsessed 
with  sex.  In  even  the  best  of  times  one 
might  ask,  well,  who  isn't? 

There  never  were  any  good  old  days. 
The  recent  interminable,  empty  debate 
over  '"family  values"  and  the  bone-chill- 
ing cynicism  it  betrays  are  all  part  of  the 
moral  bankruptcy  in  this  "moaning  of 
America.  "With  Sarajevo  and  South  Cen- 
tral L.A.  but  a  channel-hop  away,  we  see 
the  spectacle  of  cities  burning  some- 
where beyond  that  horizon,  behind  the 
phosphordot  screen  which  is  a  window- 
substitute. 

"Gossip  is  the  new  pornography," 
Michael  Murphy  says  to  Woody  Allen  in 
Manhattan.  One  doesn't  have  to  be  a 
Fergie  or  a  Mia  or  Woody,  however,  to 
see  in  this  daynage  privacy  besieged. 
Anyone  who  doesn't  buy  into  these  cut- 
rate  "family  values"  risks  being  branded 
a  sexual  outlaw,  the  new  pariah. 

In  an  information  economy,  the  body 
more  than  ever  is  in  question,  with  death, 
pleasure,  freedom  and  responsibility 
locked  in  a  nightmare  embrace.  Sex  as  a 
commodity  represents  "the  world's  old- 
est profession" — yet  it  is  also  a  natural 
law  imperative  of  lovers  and  libertines 
which,  leaving  aside  the  procreative  urge 
to  survivevidi  one's  offspring,  is  one  area 
of  human  experience  most  resistant  to 
official  injunction.  Attitudes  to  and  ex- 
pressions of  sexual  necessity  are  as  good 
a  barometer  of  the  state  of  things  as 

Anything  That  Moves  #4.  This  mag, 
subtitled  "beyond  the  myths  of  bisexual- 
ity,"  is  really  omnisexual,  "creating  a 
movement  for  acceptance  and  support 
of  human  diversity."  With  articles  on  bis 
in  Germany,  media  criticism  of  the  Brit- 
ish press  's  post  mortem  trashing  of 
Queen  singer  Freddie  Mercury,  an  ad- 
vice column  "What  Your  Mother  Never 
Told  You"  and  much  more.  $6,  4/$25. 
Checks  to  BABN,  2404  California  St. 
#24,  SF,CA  94115. 

Diseased  Pariah  News  #5.  Talk  about 
yer  bad  attitude,  what  could  be  more 
twisted  than  gallows  humor  by  and 
about  People  With  AIDS?  DPN  may  be 


dark,  but  it  manages  to  be  both  hilari- 
ous and  mordant,  with  a  sprinkling  of 
recipes  ("GET  FAT,  don't  die!"),  re- 
views of  books  (Derek  Humphry's  F?na/ 
Exit,  a  how  to  commit  suicide  manual) , 
reviews  of  dildoes,  a  centerfold  boy, 
another  advice  column  ("Ask  Aunt 
Kaposi"),  and  in  this  recent  issue,  a 
flexi-disc  ("Songs  of  DPN").  c/o  Men's 
Support  Center,  POB  30564,  Oakland, 
CA94604.  $3;4/$10. 

Frighten  the  Horses  #8-9.  "My  dear,  I 
don't  care  what  these  affectionate 
people  do,  as  long  as  they  don't  do  it  in 
the  streets  and  frighten  the  horses." 
This  line  from  the  Gay  Nineties  well 
describes  this  "document  of  the  sexual 
revolution."  A  melange  of  social  com- 
mentary, news,  reviews,  fiction  and  po- 
etry, these  issues  include  a  reprint  from 
Valerie  Solanas'  SCUM  Manifesto,  a 
Michael  Botkin  article  on  the  recent 
NAMBLA  (North  American  Man/Boy 
Love  Association)  witch  hunt  by  local 
media  opportunists.  Kim  Addonizio 
tells  a  nasty  "Bedtime  Story."  Cris 
Gutierrez  ruminates  on  rape  in  "Men 
Are  Dogs,"  and  tells  how  learning  that 
male  orangutans  rape  females  yielded 
new  insights  into  the  male  condition, 
while  Kris  Kovic  has  an  idea  or  two  on 
"WTiat  to  Do  with  Rapists."  On  a  lighter 
note,  Susan  Carlton  takes  us  behind 
the  scenes  at  Disneyland  to  a  fantastic 
orgy  island.  Editor  Mark  Pritchard  sets 
the  tone,  both  playful  and  deadly  seri- 
ous, in  a  cautionary  column  linking  the 
high  mortality  rate  of  walk-on  charac- 
ters in  Star  Trek  (often  dead  before  the 
opening  credits  run)  with  the 
marginalized  poor,  female,  people  of 
color,  and  queer,  warning  that  "Your 
guest  appearance  is  likely  to  be  very 
brief."  Provocative,  and  once  read,  in- 
dispensable. $4,  4/$  14.  41  Sutter  St. 
#1108,  SF,CA  94104 

Girljock  #5-6.  A  fun,  spunky  mag  for 
jockettes  and  wannabes — "fuck  the  well 
of  loneliness;  we're  here  to  have  fun." 
Susie  Bright  talks  about  life  after  On  Our 
Backs,  and  how  she  isn't  really  a  jock, 
being  the  child  of  nerds.  Lotsa  readers 


write  in  with  tales  of  paradise  lust  and 
sundry  indiscretions.  Angela  Bocage  has 
some  "Major  Fun"  telling  comicstyle  the 
"unrepentant  confessions  of  a  baton 
twirler."  Laura  Miller  defends  female 
energy  conservation  in  "Girl  Sloth." 
Wicked,  wonderful  stuff  $2.95,  4/$  12. 
2060  Third  St.,  Berkeley,  CA  94710. 

No  Longer  Silent  .'#4/ 5.  After  a  couple 
of  years'  hiatus,  this  digest-sized  zine  is 
back  with  a  vengeance.  Editor  Eliza 
Blackweb  takes  issue  with  the  sympa- 
thetic attention  shown  elsewhere  in  the 
anarchist  press  for  NAMBLA  and  other 
sexual  outlaws  she  views  as  abusive. 
Both  NLS!  and  Frighten  the  Horses  pro- 
vide crucial  information  on"Regaining 
Control. .  .Taking  Health  Care  Into  Our 
Own  Hands"  with  "Guerrilla  Abortion 
in  the  Post-Roe  90s."  Pretty  wide  cover- 
age, ranging  from  Rodney  King,  bill- 
board alteration,  "Radical  Women  in 
the  Sex  Industry,"  a  Lester  Bangs  re- 
print, and  some  very  fine  color  graph- 
ics. POB  3582,  Tucson,  AZ  85722.  $3, 
5/$10. 


Prisoncamp  Reality,  by  Bob  Z.  This  is  a 
ghoulish  but  elegant  pocket  chapbook 
of  about  40  poems  by  the  singer, 
posterer,  publisher  oiBadNewz,  and  all- 
round  dangerous  dude.  Hard  to  resist 
with  titles  like  "You're  a  Miserable  Cog 
in  the  Wheel,Johnny"  and  Hues  that  run 
"whether  or  not  we  consent  we  get 
searched/by  bureaucrats  filled  with  con- 
tempt for  humanity/more  and  more 
frequently  driving  us  in/to  the  dark 
recesses  of  prisoncamp  reality. "  The  tape 
is  about  an  hour  in  length,  and  Bob's 
razor  rasping  brings  out  the  best  in  his 
fugitive  rhymes  and  repetitions.  Panic 
Button  Press.  POB  14318,  SF,  CA941 14. 
$3.95  book;  $5.95  tape;  $8.95  both  ppd. 

Real  Girl  #3.  This  one's  a  winner. 
Edited  by  Angela  Bocage,  this 
comiczine  features  some  familiar 
names — Tom  Tomorrow,  Kris  Kovick, 


PF^OEZESSEED    kJJOF>bb_C]    B,0 


and  of  course  Angela — as  well  as  some 
welcome  discoveries,  covering  every- 
thing from  "The  Psychobabology  of 
Women's  Humor"  (about  dyke  stand- 
up  comedians)  to  an  amusing  S  &  M 
coming  of  age  story  by  Judy  Becker. 
Available  from  Fantagraphic  Books, 
7563  Lake  City  Way  NE,  Seatde,  WA 
98115.  $3.50 

Taste  of  Latex  #6.  The  current  issue 
might  just  as  aptly  be  titled  "Taste  of 
Leather,"  focusing  on  S  &  M.  Plenty 
here  to  whet  the  appetite,  with  photos 
by  Mark  Chester,  Charles  Gatewood, 
Michael  Rosen,  and  Fakir  Musafar;  in- 
terview with  dyke  dominatrix  (and 
bitchin'  writer)  Pat  Califia,  submission 
fantasies  by  local  performer  Divianna 
Ingravallo.  Very  educational,  with  "The 
Practicing  Pervert:  Negotiation  101, "by 
Michael  Decker.  Considering  how  raw 
the  eroticism,  this  is  a  pretty  slick  pack- 
age, for  the  kinkier  coffee  tables. .  .on  or 
off  the  rack.  $5, 4/$20.  POB  460122,  SF, 
CA  94146. 

—D.S.  Black 

American  Dream 

Video.  1  hour,  45  minutes.  Produced  & 
Directed  by  Barbara  Kopple 

American  Dream  is  a  gripping  docu- 
mentary about  the  epic  mid-'80s  strike 
against  the  Hormel  meatpacking  com- 
pany in  Austin,  Minnesota.  As  a  detailed 
dissection  of  the  plight  of  organized 
labor  in  the  current  period,  the  film 
serves  brilliantly.  As  a  reflective  look  at 
the  underlying  causes  within  the  union 
"movement"  and  within  workers  them- 
selves, it  comes  up  considerably  short, 
and  the  viewer  is  left  to  sort  through  the 
depressing  outcome  to  try  and  under- 
stand why  on  one's  own. 

The  film  opens  with  excerpts  from 
early  1 980 's  newscasts  about  the  PATCO 
strike,  bankruptcies  and  tinion  contract 
concessions.  Cut  to  meatpackers  going 
door  to  door  in  the  small  company  town 
of  Austin,  Minnesota  — your  quintessen- 
tial community  in  the  American  heart- 
land. Hormel,  in  spite  of  making  a  $30 
million  profit  on  its  bacon,  spam,  dev- 
iled ham,  etc.,  is  demanding  the  work- 
ers take  a  23%  wage  cut,  from  $10.69/ 
hr.  to  $8.25/hr. — a  familiar  situation 
(see  PWs  lengthy  account  of  the 
Watsonville  Cannery  strike  in  issues  15- 
19).  Incredible  scenes  from  inside  the 
factory  show  the  casual  brutality  of  pro- 
cessing pigs  into  "meat  products,"  the 
kind  of  footage  meatpacking  compa- 
nies prefer  we  don't  see. 


ZoeNoe 


A  public  speakout  at  the  union  hall 
lets  us  see  middle  class  Americans  (that 
is  to  say,  workers)  decrying  the  impend- 
ing wage  cuts — one  fellow  reads  off  three 
different  wage  stubs  from  the  past  years: 
$690  a  week,  then  $475  a  week  after  the 
incentive/bonus  program  was  elimi- 
nated, and  finally  $325  when  the  first 
wage  concession  took  hold,  and  he's 
working  harder  than  ever  (sound  famil- 
iar?) .  It's  clear  there's  no  more  room  to 
cut  if  these  people  are  going  to  maintain 
their  vaunted  American  standard  of  liv- 
ing. In  a  kitchen  scene  with  two  wives, 
one  is  saying  "I  don't  begrudge  anyone 
making  $30-  $40-  $50,000  a  year,  but  let 
us  live  in  our  $32,000  house!"  Hormel 
workers  living  in  the  surrounding  com- 
munities with  mortgages  of  only  $200  a 
month  are  worried  about  keeping  up 
their  payments. 

Jim  Guyette,  president  of  Local  P-9, 
voices  over  the  obvious  truth  that  U.S. 
labor  has  been  taking  a  beating,  and 
something  new  has  to  be  done.  Enter 
Ray  Rogers  and  his  consultancy,  Corpo- 
rate Campaign.  He  promises  to  win  a 
big  victory  in  Austin,  notjust  for  Local  P- 
9,  but  for  the  entire  U.S.  labor  move- 
ment. People's  spirits  rise  as  Rogers' 
charismatic  promises  strike  a  respon- 
sive chord.  Rogers  promises  "experts" 
on  political  and  community  organizing 
who  will  help  the  local,  while  the  cam- 
paign will  attack  "irresponsible"  corpo- 
rate behavior  through  a  negative  media 
campaign.  Additionally,  the  Corporate 
Campaign  reveals  the  links  between  dif- 
ferent institutions  that  invisibly  support 
the  Hormel  Company  as  it  tries  to  im- 


pose the  wage  cut,  e.g.  the  local  bank. 

Kopple's  camera  is  everywhere 
throughout  the  two  years  of  the  organiz- 
ing leading  up  to  the  strike  and  through 
the  strike  itself.  We  go  to  Washington 
DC  and  meet  Lewie  Anderson,  director 
of  the  United  Food  and  Commercial 
Workers  Union's  (the  parent  union) 
meatpacking  division.  He  represents 
1 00,000  workers  in  95  companies,  and  is 
quick  to  declare  that  "they're  [P-9]  not 
gonna  win  through  the  Corporate  Cam- 
paign... it  will  cost  them  their  jobs."  We 
find  Lewie  meeting  with  a  small  faction 
ofP-9  workers  who  are  unhappy  with  the 
Ray  Rogers  approach,  and  are  worried 
about  losing  their  jobs.  They  seek  help 
from  the  International  to  try  to  change 
the  direction  that  their  local  is  taking, 
but  the  support  for  Guyette  and  Rogers 
is  too  strong. 

The  main  line  of  attack  by  Anderson 
and  the  International  is  to  claim  that 
since  the  Corporate  Campaign  is  fi"ank 
about  the  failures  of  mainstream  union- 
ism and  vehemently  opposes  the 
International's  advice  to  accept  a  con- 
cessionary contract,  they  are  "anti- 
union." Lewie  Anderson  is  quoted 
several  times  to  the  effect  that  "anti- 
unionism  is  oozing  from  the  ranks," 
when  the  workers  are  loudly  disdainful 
of  his  concessionary  advice.  The  pro- 
International  dissidents  try  to  ask  ques- 
tions of  Rogers  in  a  union  meeting  bul 
are  aggressively  ridiculed  and  berated 
from  the  podium  by  Rogers  himself. 

Food  support  and  money  are  pour- 
ing in  from  workers  and  unions  across 
the  country.  A  P-9  caravan  is  out  raising 
money  and  solidarit)'.  One  can't  help 
but  be  inspired  by  the  energy  and  cohe- 
sion among  the  P-9  strikers  and  commu- 
nity. Even  the  conservative  dissidents 
concede  in  a  private  meeting  that  people 
are  at  the  union  hall,  playing  cards, 
pool,  talking  to  each  other,  and  so  on. 
"People  are  sharing...  opening  up...  cry- 
ing... "Local  leaderjim  Guyette  says  'The 
union  hall  has  become  a  fun  place  to 
be — families  come  there." 

In  the  middle  of  the  film,  spirits  are 
still  running  high,  solidarity  is  incred- 
ibly strong,  and  Hormel  workers  from 
the  nearby  factory  in  Ottumwa  are  hold- 
ing a  solidarity  rally.  A  fellow  says  "I  see 
forty  guys  and  girls  who  used  to  look 
dead,  and  you've  resurrected  them  to 
life! "  In  a  crucial  moment  the  camera  is 
showing  us  an  exuberant  dance  party  at 
the  union  hall  and  Guyette  is  explaining 
how  meatpackers  who  were  "amateur" 
carpenters  fixed  people's  homes,  "guys 


F>F>aEZEaaEEJ    LJjaF^h_C]    3CD 


who  like  to  work  on  cars  are  fixing  each 
others'  cars — they  [the  workers]  did 
what  they  hke  to  do — they  did  their 
hobbies. "  Filmmaker  Kopple  thankfully 
included  this  exciting  glimpse  of  a  radi- 
cally different  way  to  approach  life,  but 
seems  to  have  missed  its  importance, 
perhaps  because  of  her  own  political 
biases  toward  (relatively)  uncritical  sup- 
port of  unionism.  Here,  in  the  midst  of 
what  became  a  crushing  defeat,  were 
the  seeds  of  a  radical  break  with  the 
Economy  and  the  wage-labor/money 
nexus:  people  following  their  inclina- 
tions and  proclivities  and  freely  sharing 
their  skills  without  any  concern  for  re- 
muneration. A  further  exploration  of 
the  psychological  impacts  of  this  part  of 
the  story  is  sorely  missed. 

Seventeen  weeks  into  the  strike, 
Hormel  shifted  most  production  to  other 
plants  and  management  workers  were 
turning  out  thousands  of  cans  of  spam 
at  the  Ausdn  plant.  Lewde  Anderson 
knew  that  a  bad  contract  imposed  on  P- 
9's  workforce  would  wreck  industry  wage 
standards,  but  was  more  interested  in 
getting  them  back  to  work  on  company 
terms.  No  International  effort  was  made 
to  mobilize  support  from  other 
meatpackers  throughout  the  industry 
in  order  to  tip  the  balance  in  favor  of  P- 
9  strikers.  Anderson  advises  instead  "if 
you  want  a  job,  you  have  to  take  it"  [the 
concessions]. 

At  the  strike's  20th  week,  Hormel 
reopened  the  plant,  and  7  workers  re- 
turned to  work.  A  spirited,  militant  car 
blockade  circles  the  plant  at  4  a.m.,  with 
Ray  Rogers  making  sure  that  if  anyone 
was  stopped  by  the  police,  "no  one  is  in 
charge  here — there's  just  been  a  lot  of 
cars  breaking  down  [in  the  sub-  zero 
temperatures]."  Minnesota's  then-Gov- 
ernor Rudy  Perpich  calls  out  the  Na- 
tional Guard  to  "keep  order,"  and  soon 


locals  who  have  been  without  work  for 
anywhere  from  one  to  six  years  are  scab- 
bing at  the  plant.  After  the  factor)'  has 
been  reopened  for  10  days,  75  workers 
have  returned  to  work  and  400  replace- 
ments have  been  hired. 

At  an  open  union  meeting,  workers 
discuss  the  pressure  they're  feeling  to 
cross  the  picket  line.  An  older  worker 
gets  up  and  states  what  should  have 
been  obvious  months  earlier:  "We  have 
to  shut  down  ALL  the  Hormel  plants,  or 
else  all  go  back  in  together!"  The  P-9 
executive  board  votes  unanimously  to 
dispatch  roving  pickets  to  other  plants, 
in  spite  of  the  worries  that  some  express 
about  forcing  other  workers  to  support 
them  (they  themselves  supposedly  were 
striking  "voluntarily").  Other  strikers 
were  quick  to  point  out  that  they  had 
been  forced  to  strike  by  the  company's 
assault.  571  workers  lost  their  jobs  at 
other  Hormel  plants  for  honoring  the 
roving  picket  lines. 

The  UFCW  International  cut  off  $40- 
a-week  strike  benefits  and  ordered  an 
end  to  the  strike.  In  March  1986,  the 
25th  week  of  the  strike,  Hormel  an- 
nounced the  plant  was  full  and  no  jobs 
were  left.  In  June  '86,  the  UFCW  put 
Local  P-9  into  trusteeship.  Quickly  they 
settled  with  Hormel.  They  agreed  to  a 
contract  that  provided  $10.25  for  the 
scabs  who  broke  the  strike  and  no  am- 
nesty for  strikers.  Ultimately  only  20% 
of  the  strikers  went  back  to  work  for 
Hormel.  In  1989  Hormel  leased  half  the 
plant  to  a  non-union  company  who  hired 
meatpackers  for  $6.50  an  hour. 

In  a  (deliberately,  unintentionally?) 
ironic  conclusion,  Kopple  takes  us  back 
to  an  earlier  scene  of  a  rousing  rendi- 
tion of  "Solidarity  Forever"  at  the  union 
hall,  while  post-mortems  run  up  the 
screen.  Lewie  Anderson  was  fired  by  the 
International  in  1989  for  opposing  the 


concessionary  bargaining  position.  Ray 
Rogers  went  on  with  his  Corporate  Cam- 
paign, conducting  campaigns  against 
Eastern  and  American  Airlines  and  some 
other  companies  too.Jim  Guyette  moved 
to  New  York  and  got  a  job  with  a  union 
there.  One  of  the  former  conservative 
dissidents  who  crossed  the  picket  line 
became  the  new  head  of  Local  P-9. 

American  Dream  is  fascinating  cin- 
ema verite  labor  history.  Its  strength  lies 
in  how  well  it  takes  you  inside  the  pain- 
ful reality  faced  by  each  of  the  labor 
protagonists,  from  the  workers'  wives  to 
the  International  representative.  In 
showing  the  Corporate  Campaign  and 
the  militant  rank-and-file  unionism  of 
Local  P-9  in  such  detail  the  film  empha- 
sizes the  bitter  choices  faced  by  workers 
and  their  unions  in  a  brutal  world  mar- 
ket.  As  a  document  of  a  symbolic  struggle 
and  a  crushing  defeat,  1  wish  the  film- 
maker had  included  some  reflections 
on  what  happened  and  why. 

Curiously  absent  from  the  film  were 
any  overt  leftists.  Given  the  socialist  roots 
of  many  working  class  families  in  Min- 
nesota, I  couldn't  help  by  wonder  if  they 
had  been  edited  out,  possibly  to  appeal 
to  preconceived  notions  of  what  would 
"fly"  with  middle  America.  In  the  liter- 
ary journal  Caliban,  Kevin  Magee  de- 
scribes a  large  mural  painted  on  the  side 
of  the  Austin  Labor  Center  by  P-9  strik- 
ers and  supporters.  In  the  picture,  a  line 
of  faceless  workers  in  colorless  clothes 
enters  a  factory,  which  has  a  giant  snake 
wound  around  it.  From  under  the 
snake's  bleeding  head  (which  has  been 
cut  by  a  woman  in  a  butcher's  smock 
with  a  blade  labeled  "P-9")  another  line 
of  workers  emerges.  They  have  faces, 
defined  features,  and  wear  colorful 
clothes.  They  carry  banners  that  read: 
"International  Labor  Solidarity:  Abol- 
ish Apartheid,"  "Farmers  and  Labor 


jE^ESjnoBErxtiiJLi  juob:  fit; jBaHcvje:  urorvjB:  F 


PE^CICIEaaECl    LJJOF^h_D    3C3 


ST» 


Unite,"  "Families  Fight  Back,"  and  the 
bottom  righthand  corner  has  a  picture 
of  Nelson  Mandela.  At  the  top  of  the 
wall  hangs  the  an  anonymous  quote 
from  a  19th  century  meatpacker:  "If 
blood  be  the  price  of  your  cursed  wealth 
good  God  we  have  paid  in  full." 

But  maybe  there  really  weren't  any 
leftists  involved  in  the  strike,  and  this 
mural  was  completed  long  after  the  film- 
ing was  finished.  I  don't  know.  Ray 
Rogers  is  shown  during  a  New  York 
Times  interview  at  the  end  of  the  strike 
(and  film)  trying  to  put  a  positive  spin 
on  the  whole  thing,  refusing  to  acknowl- 
edge the  fact  of  defeat.  It  is  unfortu- 
nately typical  of  labor  activists  that  it's 
very  hard  to  admit  a  defeat  and  draw 
lessons  from  it.  (See  the  earliest  Pro- 
cessed World's  #1  and  2  for  a  similar 
occurrence  after  the  end  of  the  Blue 
Shield  strike  in  1981). 

I  suppose  I  should  thank  Kopple  for 
sparing  us  academic  or  union  talking 
heads,  but  why  not  ask  participants  to 
deliver  post  mortems?  If  the  Corporate 
Campaign's  claims  to  nationwide  sym- 
bolic importance  were  accurate,  surely 
there  are  working  class  intellectuals  who 
might  offer  some  analysis  of  the  defeat, 
a  critical  look  at  the  weaknesses  of  both 
the  Corporate  Campaign  and  traditional 
trade  unionism,  both  brightly  illumi- 
nated in  this  story. 

— Chris  Carlsson 


The  Productivity 
Work-Over 

The  Overworked  American:  The  Unexpected 
Decline  of Leisurehy]\i\\e\.^.  Schor  (Basic 
Books,  1991,121.00) 

No  one  would  accept  two  daily  hours  of 
slavery.  To  be  accepted,  slavery  must  be  of 
such  a  daily  duration  as  to  break  something 
in  a  man. 

— Simone  Weil,  "Factory  Work  " 

Harvard  professor  and  Z  magazine 
columnist  Juliet  Schor  argues  that  the 
U.S.  is  overburdened  with  ever-increas- 
ing work  and  that  it's  way  past  time  to 
reduce  work.  She  presents  a  great  deal 
of  interesting  research  to  show  the  hu- 
man and  social  costs  of  the  daily  grind, 
but  backs  off  from  making  any 
emancipatory  conclusions.  As  lefdst  pop 
sociology',  The  Overworked  American  is  a 
schizo  recipe  of  ideas. 

Schor's  unhumble  discovery  should 
be  obvious  enough  to  most  people — a 
speed-up  of  the  social  factory  over  the 
last  two  decades  amounting  to  an  extra 


month  of  work — but  its  a  novel  observa- 
tion for  academia  and  the  media,  where 
all  talk  of  work  (except  to  call  for  more 
of  it)  is  forbidden.  Schor  proves  conclu- 
sively that  there's  too  much  work;  not 
only  are  there  more  and  more  workers 
(particularly  teenagers  and  women) 
working  longer  hours  at  more  and  more 
(low-paying)  jobs,  but  professionals  are 
also  being  worked  ragged. 

Using  government  and  business 
statistics,  Schor  shows  that  a  huge 
amount  of  the  work  presently  being 
done  serves  no  purpose  in  terms  of 
contributing  to  productivity  levels. 
However,  she  still  ties  workers'  gains 
(specifically,  shortened  work  hours) 
to  increases  in  productivity.  This  rings 
pretty  hollow  given  the  dismal  legacy 
of  collective  bargaining. 


"We  could  now  reproduce  our  1948 
standard  of  living  (measured  in  terms  of 
goods  and  services)  in  less  than  half  the 
time  it  took  in  1948.  We  actually  could 
have  chosen  the  four  hour  day.  Or  a 
working  year  of  six  months.  Or  imagine 
this:  every  worker  in  the  United  States 
could  now  be  taking  every  other  year  off 
from  work,  with  pay."  Putting  aside  the 
question  of  whose  "1948  standard  of 
living,"  there's  some  problems  with  bas- 
ing an  argument  for  less  work  in  terms 
of  a  producdvit)'  level  that  by  its  very 
nature  must  expand  exponentially. 

Schor  calls  the  failure  of  working 
time  to  keep  pace  with  increases  in  auto- 
mation and  capacity  a  "producdvity  defi- 
cit."  She  argues  that  "we  "  made  a  mistake 
when  we  traded  shortened  hours  for 
more  money — thus  trapping  us  in  a 
"cycle  of  work  and  spend"  which  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  current  overload  of 
work  ("keeping  up  with  the  Jones,"  as 


she  puts  it).  Although  she  demolishes 
the  neoclassical  argument  that  capital- 
ism gives  people  the  work  and  goods 
they  seek,  by  locating  the  source  of  over- 
work in  overconsumpUon  she  accepts 
the  same  supply-and-demand  argument. 
For  consumers  with  diminishing  pay- 
checks, she  advocates  Buddhist  auster- 
ity economics  and  "less  is  more-ism." 
Yuck. 

While  Schor  recommends  that  we 
renounce  our  share  of  the  goodies  in 
favor  of  free  time,  she  is  very  concerned 
that  productivity  levels  be  maintained 
("there  are  effective  productivity-rais- 
ing substitutes  for  long  hours").  Even 
after  an  historical  analysis  of  housework 
that  shows  that  "productivity"  as  it's  cur- 
rently measured  is  a  scam  that  overlooks 
most  work  (because  it  isn't  translated 
into  wages),  she  considers  productivity 
to  be  a  sancrosanct  category  and  a  legiti- 
mate indicator  of  living  standards.  But 
production  for  what?  For  its  owti  sake? 
Shouldn't  a  discussion  of  shortening 
work  time  address  work's  social  useful- 
ness? Nowhere  in  the  book  does  Profes- 
sor Schor  deal  v«th  the  possibility  of 
eliminating  work-producing  industries 
that  are  not  only  counterproductive  so- 
cially but  highly  destructive  as  well,  i.e. 
real  estate,  finance,  the  law,  advertising, 
military,  etc. 

The  point  of  The  Overworked  American 
is  to  convince  management  that  a  well- 
rested  and  less-stressed  work-force  is 
good  for  productivity  ("In  the  interna- 
tional market,  what  matters  in  the  long 
run  is  not  how  many  hours  a  person 
works,  but  how  productively  he  or  she 
works  them") .  Schor  seeks  nothing  more 
radical  than  "a  transformation  of  the 
corporate  culture."  Her  proposals  for 
escaping  the  work  treadmill  (overtime 
swaps  and  stuff)  sound  okay  but  pre- 
serve things  as  they  already  are,  leaving 
us  voxlnerable  to  the  same  old  shit.  So 
what's  Schor's  goal?  "If  a  workplace  re- 
form is  done  right,  a  company  can  gain 
loyalty  and  productivity  from  its  em- 
ployees at  no  cost.. .It  is  clear  that  money 
can  be  saved  if  people  are  managed 
better."  In  fact,  she  boasts  that  many  of 
her  proposals  are  already  being  imple- 
mented by  many  "enlightened,  forward- 
looking  companies,"  including 
Hewlett-Packard,  Wells  Fargo  and 
Xerox! 

As  overdue  as  a  discussion  of  reduc- 
ing work  may  be,  doing  it  in  the  name  of 
productivity'  and  renewed  competitive- 
ness is  just  bullshit.  I'd  feel  just  as  over- 
worked at  Schor 's  six-hour  day  company. 
— Mickey  D. 


F*F^OEZE5EiEE3    hJJI=IE=^h-El    3C3 


A  RIVER'S  REVENQEI 

Surrealist  Implications  of  the  Chicago  Flood 


"This  isn't  funny."— Mayor  Richard 
Daley,  13  April  1992,  in  his  first 
statement  to  the  press  on  the  flood. 

"As  the  offices  emptied,  there  was  little  sense 
of  the  alarm  or  panic  usually  associated  with 
major  disasters  — More  typical  was  the  hu- 
mor and  even  giddiness  with  which  many 
greeted  the  unexpected  holiday.  "  —  Chicago 
Tribune,  14  April  1992,  page  1 . 

"I  feel  like  a  kid  getting  out  of  school  because 
of  snow. "—  a  woman  telephone  worker, 
quoted  in  the  Tribune,  14  April  1992 

I  Any  sudden  end  of  "business  as  usual" 
ushers  in  possibilities  for  everything  that 
is  neither  business  nor  usual.  Every 
interruption  in  the  "normal  functioning" 
of  government  and  commerce  reveals 
glimpses  of  a  new  society  that  is  the  very 
negation  of  such  sorry  afflictions.  Mo- 
mentarily freed  of  the  stultifying  routine 
of  "making  a  living,"  people  find  them- 
selves confronted  with  a  rare  opportuni- 
ty to  live. 

In  these  unmanageable  situations,  the 
absolute  superfluousness  of  all  "man- 
agement" becomes  hilariously  obvious. 
Uninhibited  by  the  presence  of  bosses, 
supervisors  and  other  agents  of  hierar- 
chical power,  those  who  have  rarely 
been  more  than  exploited  victims  of  a 
slave  system  begin  to  act  like  free 
human  beings,  relying  — in  many  cases 
for  the  first  time  since  childhood  — on 
their  own  initiative,  their  own  resourc- 
es. 

With  the  chains  of  authority  broken, 
or  at  least  in  disuse,  the  wonders  of 
solidarity  and  mutual  aid  are  rediscov- 
ered as  if  by  magic.  Long-time  prisoners 
of  the  insufferable  workaday  world  revel 
in  the  inexhaustible  pleasures  of  not 
working.  Spontaneously  and  joyfully, 
those  who  have  always  been  "bored  to 
death"  reinvent,  starting  from  zero,  a 
life  worth  living.  The  oppressive  ty- 
ranny of  obligations,  rules,  sacrifice, 
obedience,  realism  and  a  multitude  of 


so-called  "lesser  evils"  gives  way  to  the 
creative  anarchy  of  desire.  The  "every- 
day" begins  —  however  fleetingly  — to 
fulfill  the  promise  of  poetry  and  our 
wildest  dreams. 

II  "Poetry  is  neither  tempest  nor  cyclone.  It  is  a 
majestic  and  fertile  river. "—  Isidore  Du- 
casse.  Poesies 

"I  knew  there  were  big  problems 
when  we  got  reports  of  fish  in  base- 
ments."—Chicago  Police  Superinten- 
dent Mat  Rodriguez,  13  April  1992. 

For  an  entire  exalting  week,  with  the 
whole  world  watching,  the  Chicago 
River  had  the  city's  central  business 
district  at  its  mercy.  The  rising  of  this 
tormented,  much-maligned  waterway 
revealed  the  fragility  and  precariousness 
of  the  foundations  not  only  of  a  city,  but 
of  a  whole  society,  an  entire  civilization. 
With  the  power  off  and  the  lights  out, 
the  unruly  river  showed  us  how  much  of 
what  affects  our  lives  is  dark  and 
underground  and  hidden  from  view. 
This  "freak  accident"  demonstrated  that 
the  seemingly  vast  and  monolithic  pow- 
er of  this  society's  repressive  forces  is 
largely  an  illusion  maintained  by  the 
ignorance  and  disorganization  of  those 
who  are  accustomed  to  being  repressed. 

In  passing,  the  Great  Flood  exposed 
yet  again  the  utter  worthlessness  of  all 
bureaucracy  and  statism  in  solving  any 
fundamental  problem.  The  raging  tor- 
rents of  the  river's  murky  waters  thus 
brought  only  clarification  in  their  wake. 

In  a  social  set-up  based  on  inequality 
and  exploitation,  "natural  calamities" 
generailly  victimize  the  poor.  The  Chi- 
cago flood,  however,  hurt  only  the 
prosperous  and  powerful.  Businessmen, 
cops,  bankers,  politicians  and  officials  of 
the  Board  of  Trade  called  it  a  "tragedy" 
and  a  "nightmare,"  but  just  about  every- 
one else  had  a  grand  old  time.  Many 
described  it  as  an  adventure  that  they 
wouldn't    have    missed    for    anything. 


Thanks  to  the  flood,  some  250,000 
workers  enjoyed  at  least  one  extra  day 
off,  with  pay,  and  many  of  the  homeless 
savored  their  finest  meals  in  years  (with 
refrigeration  turned  off,  restaurant- 
owners  found  it  cheaper  to  give  food 
away  than  to  pay  for  its  removal). 

From  the  start  this  "different  kind  of 
disaster,"  as  someone  dubbed  it,  was 
perceived  by  everyone  but  the  ruling 
class  as  an  image  or  symbol  of  their  own 
latent  urge  to  revolt. 

In  the  river's  subterranean  fury  every 
rebel  against  unfreedom  has  sensed  a 
kindred  spirit. 

The  river's  refusal  to  stay  in  its 
manmade  cage  will  long  remain  an 
inspiration  for  all  who  reject  domestica- 
tion and  other  forms  of  unnatural 
confinement.  In  the  rising  of  the  river 
we  recognize  the  eruption  and  triumph 
of  all  that  is  forbidden,  outlawed,  sup- 
pressed by  the  enforcers  of  a  racist, 
sexist,  exploitative,  militaristic  and  eco- 
cidal  Law  'n'  Order.  Like  the  Great 
Snow  of  '67,  the  Flood  of  '92  is  a  grand 
moment  in  the  struggle  to  resolve  the 
contradiction  between  nature  and  hu- 
man nature.  As  long  as  nature  is 
enslaved,   humankind  cannot  be   free. 

An  injury  to  one  is  an 
injury  to  all!  The  majesty 
and  fertility  of  the  river  is  as 
irrepressible  as  the  desire  for 
freedom.  Dreamers  of  the  world, 
dream  like  the  flood! 

—  The  Chicago 
Surrealist  Group 
May  1992 


F'S^OEZESSEO    hJJClF^h_C]    3C3 


',t . 


i 


"Hello,  how  are  ya?  You 
have  reached  the  Hoffman  res- 
idence. I  bill  my  time  at  two 
hundred  dollars  per  hour.  All 
my  time.  So  knowing  that,  if 
you  have  anything  worth  say- 
ing, wait  for  the  beep  and  leave 
a  message.  .  .  Hey,  wait  a  min- 
ute, don't  hang  up,  only  kid- 
ding. If  you  are  not  mentally 
ill,  contagiously  sick,  or  a 
member  of  the  Communist 
Party.  .  .  beeeep." 

"Roger,  this  is  your  wife.  Cute,  real 
cute.  Could  you  please  erase  that  before 
I  get  home.  I'll  be  late  tonight,  honey. 
The  casserole  is  in  the  fridge.  Just  have 
to  heat  it.  You  can  handle  it." 


"Rita  Hoffman's  office.  I'm  away 
from  my  desk.  Leave  a  message." 

"Hi,  dear.  It's  me.  Casserole  was 
great,  really  it  was.  Those  correspon- 
dence cooking  lessons  really  paid  off. 
[laughs].  Oh  yeah,  too  bad  you  couldn't 
make  it  to  the  game.  Rog  Junior  hit  a 
two-run  homer.  You  shoulda.  .  ." 


"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Hi,  hon,  it's  me.  Love  your  new 
tape.  Really,  Roger.  Cjould  you  pick  up 
Jenny  at  daycare?  I'll  be  late  again 
tonight.  God,  I  hope  you're  home  before 
after-school  gets  out.  I'm  counting  on 
you,  Roger.  You  ^z</ leave  a  message  on 
my  office  machine  saying  you'd  be  home 
early.  I'm  counting  on  you.  Gotta  run, 
hon.  They're  waiting  for  me.  Big  molto 
meeting.  Love  ya." 


"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Hello,  Mr.  Hoffman.  I'm  going  to 
leave  a  message  on  your  machine.  It's 
five  thirty,  Mr.  Hoffman.  We  close  at 
five  o'clock.  I  thought  we  came  to  an 
understanding  about  this  once  before. 
This  is  the  last  time.  I'll  wait  here  with 
Jenny  until  six.  See  you  at  six,  Mr. 
Hoffman." 

"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Hon,  Mrs.  Mitchell  called.  She  left  a 
message  on  my  machine.  I'm  sure  she 
left  one  at  home,  too  — I  mean  on  your 
own  machine.  You  were  supposed  to 
pick  up  Jenny,  remember?" 

"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Daddy,  where  are  you?  It's  six 
thirty." 


E.C3 


C^F^OEIEaaEEl    UJai=^h_D    3C3 


graphic  by  Hugh  D'Andrade 


"Rita  Hoffman's  office.  I'm  away 
from  my  desk.  Leave  a  message." 

"Rita,  I  just  picked  up  the  messages 
off  the  machine.  I  did  not,  repeat,  did 
not  agree  to  pick  Jenny  up.  That  is  your 
interpretation.  An  expansion,  really  an 
expansion  of  our  exchange  of  messages. 
I  will  not  be  blamed  by  you,  by  Jenny, 
by  that  Mrs.  Mitchell.  Do  you  hear  me, 
Rita?  Let  me ..." 

"Rita  Hoffman's  office.  I'm  away 
from  my  desk.  Leave  a  message." 

"Mommy,  why  don't  you  ever  pick  up 
the  phone?  It's  six  thirty.  I  got  your 
message  at  school  that  Daddy's  picking 
me  up,  but  he  isn't  here.  I'll  be  at  the 
Mitchell's.  Can  one  of  you  please  pick 
me  up?" 


"Rita  Hoffman's  office.  I'm 
from  my  desk.  Leave  a  message." 

"Hon,  it's  me.  Roger.  It's 
fifteen.    Look,    something   came 


away 

seven 
up.    I 


have  to  be  on  the  coast  for  that  merger. 
Plane  outta  here  at  nine  o'clock.  I 
don't  have  time  to  stop  at  Mitchell's.  You 
take  care  of  it,  O.K.,  hon?  See  you 
Tuesday.  Counting  on  you;  see  you 
Tuesday." 

*     *     * 

"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Folks,  this  is  Mrs.  Mitchell  calling. 
Jenny  is  at  Protective  Services.  That's 
Protective  Services.  You'll  find  it  in  the 
phone  book  under  California,  State  of. 
You  still  owe  me  a  check  for  October. 
This  is  Mrs.  Mitchell.  'Bye  now." 

"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple.  Start  talking!" 

"Roger,  how  dare  you!" 

"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Daddy,  you  were  supposed  to  pick 


me  up.  I  don't  know  where  I  am, 
Daddy."  [Pause.] 

"Mr.  Hoffman,  this  is  Sergeant 
Beard.  Call  me  at  642-8001 ." 

"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Damn,  I  hate  that  tape.  I  landed, 
honey.  Hope  this  doesn't  wake  you. 
Jenny  all  right?  Oh  yeah,  I  ordered  the 
car  phone.  Love  ya!" 


"Rita    Hoffman's    office.     I'm 
from  my  desk.  Leave  a  message." 
"Mommy,  where  are  you?" 


away 


"Rita  objected  to  yesterday's  tape. 
This  one  is  simple:  Start  talking!" 

"Mommy,  Daddy,  Mommy,  Daddy, 
where  are  you?" 

—  David  Alan  Goldstein 


i='i^aEZE55EE3    LJJI=lF^h_D    3C3 


E>L 


DOWNTIME! 


e? 

o 
o 


How  To 
Actually 

Enjoy  Your 
Incredibly  Inane 
and  Stupid  Job 
Now  and  Then 

Without 
Becoming  A 

Brainwashed 
Zombie 


"If  there's  something  you've  got  to  do  and  a 
way  to  enjoy  it,  you'd  be  a  fool  to  do  it  any 
other  way. " 

Thomas  Disch,  "On  Wings  of  Song" 

Hello,  and  welcome  to  the  Creative 
Employment  Opportunity  (CEO) 
School  of  Employee  Empowerment. 
The  following  techniques  will  help  make 
it  possible  for  you  to  actually  enjoy  a 
reasonable    portion    of    the    long    and 


tedious  hours  you  spend  creating  profit 
for  other  people.  With  regular  practice 
and  steady  application  of  these  methods, 
you  should  be  able  to  turn  to  your 
advantage  any  number  of  work  situa- 
tions that  at  best  you'd  rather  not  be  at 
and  at  worst  you  despise  down  to  the 
very  nuclei  of  your  blood  cells.  Please 
note:  None  of  these  techniques  involves 
developing  a  good  attitude,  cultivating  a 
genuine  commitment  to  the  company, 
or  taking  your  job  seriously. 

1 .  Have  sex  fantasies  (if  you  work  in 
the  sex  industry,  castration  fantasies 
may  be  more  effective  for  you). 

2.  Go  into  the  bathroom  and  mastur- 
bate. 

3.  Experiment  with  just  how  much 
you  can  make  a  personal  phone  call 
sound  like  company  business. 

4.  Make  friends  with  the  people  you 
work  with.  It  may  not  be  a  great  idea  to 
actually /w^  the  people  you  work  with, 
but  having  genuine  friends  at  your  job 
can  make  working  there  somewhat  less 
fossilizing  and  perhaps  even  marginally 
pleasant.  It  also  makes  it  easier  to  waste 
valuable  company  time. 

5.  Impersonate  your  boss.  (It  is  es- 
sential that  you  complete  step  4  before 
attempting  this  technique.  Failure  to  do 
so  may  result  in  severe  embarassment 
and/or  loss  of  your  job. 

6.  Talk  about  your  life.  This  will  help 
you  remember  that  you  have  one. 
However,  for  the  sake  of  your  intelli- 
gence and  imagination  as  well  as  the 
sanity  of  your  workmates,  please  sev- 
erely limit  the  amount  of  time  you  spend 
discussing  television  shows. 

7.  Have  more  sex  fantasies.  (Yes,  we 
know,  we  said  this  already,  but  it's  an 
important  technique  and  is  worth  re- 
peating. If  you  haven't  had  a  good  sex 
fantasy  in  the  last  hour,  it's  time  for 
another.  Try  the  one  about  the  13th 
century  French  Crusader  and  the  Ara- 
bian aristocrat.) 

8.  Have  non-sexual  fantasies.  Make 
up  an  elaborate  imaginary  world  in 
which  you  are  brilliant  and  fearless  and 
noble  and  wise  and  charming  and 
passionate  and  gifted  and  graceful  and 
hauntingly  beautiful  to  boot;  a  world  in 
which  everyone  you  touch  is  changed 
forever,  even  your  enemies  grudgingly 
admire  you,  and  anyone  who  ever 
sneered  at  you  finally  realizes  just  how 


much  they've  misjudged  you. 

9.  Make  faces  at  people  you  talk  to  on 
the  telephone. 

10.  Make  faces  at  your  boss  behind 
his/her  back. 

11.  Stare  blankly  out  the  window 
(assuming  you  have  access  to  one.  If  you 
don't,  the  wall  will  do  almost  as  well.) 
Hold  a  pen  thoughtfully  and  purpose- 
fully in  your  hand:  done  correctly,  this 
will  deceive  your  boss  into  believing  that 
you're  actually  thinking  about  your  job. 

12.  Invent  time-saving  efficiency 
working  techniques  to  give  you  more 
time  in  which  to  fuck  off. 

13.  Invent  new  ways  of  making  your 
personal  projects  look  like  company 
business. 

14.  Have  even  more  sex  fantasies.  (1 
really  can't  emphasize  strongly  enough 
the  importance  of  this  technique.  Keep- 
ing your  libido  alive  is  probably  the 
most  fun  you  can  have  subverting  the 
dominant  paradigm.  If  you're  bored 
with  the  Crusades,  try  the  one  about  the 
FBI  agent  and  the  bootlegger's  lover.) 

15.  Experiment  with  just  how  far  you 
can  push  the  dress  code. 

16.  Experiment  with  just  how  far  you 
can  stretch  your  breaktime/lunchtime/ 
arrival-and-departure  time. 

17.  Experiment  with  just  how 
drunk/high  you  can  get  on  your  lunch 
hour  without  fucking  up  your  position. 
If  you  are  an  addict,  it  will  most  likely 
have  very  limited  entertainment  value. 

18.  Go  into  the  bathroom  and  mas- 
turbate some  more.  (What  are  they 
going  to  do,  give  you  grief  about  the 
amount  of  time  you  spend  on  the 
crapper?  Well,  okay,  they  might.  If  this 
happens,  explain  that  you  have  stress- 
related  constipation,  and  issue  vaguely 
threatening  hints  about  workman's 
compensation,  rising  insurance  costs, 
and/or  possible  lawsuits.) 

19.  Use  the  word  processor  to  write 
letters  to  your  friends.  Use  the  postage 
machine  to  mail  them. 

20.  Find  new  and  ingenious  ways  to 
annoy  your  boss  that  you  can't  actually 
be  fired  for. 

21.  Have  another  sex  fantasy.  Don't 
be  shy  — you  owe  it  to  yourself!  Always 


F>f^OEZEaaEE3   kJJaF^h_E3    3CD 


I 


remember  that  you  are  a  beautiful  and 
unique  liuman  being,  no  matter  how 
crummy  your  job  makes  you  feel.  You 
deserve  to  have  dozens  of  sex  fantasies 
every  day  of  your  life. 

22.  Plan  your  evening. 

23.  Plan  your  weekend. 

24.  Plan  your  next  vacation. 

25.  Plan  your  life  after  the  workers' 
revolution  comes  and  you  don't  have  to 
work  at  this  stupid  fucking  job  anymore! 

26.  Plot  the  workers'  revolution. 

If  you  feel  that  this  lesson  has  been 
helpful    but    are    in    need    of    further 


assistance,  please  consult  our  second- 
level  instruction  manuals,  How  To  Look 
Industrious  And  Responsible  While  Doing 
Your  Own  Creative  Work  On  Company  Time 
and  101  Sex  Fantasies  To  Keep  You 
Entertained  During  An  Otherwise  Tedious 
Workday. 

—  Greta  Christina 


Many  thanks  to  Marian 
,  Phillips  Jor  her  valuable 
assistance,  invaluable 
companionship,  and 
really  weird  outlook 
on  life. 


MACotage 


»  ^f> '%%'  ^^  '9'f'  ^^^^^^^^■^x 


As  long  as  we're  slave-labor  drones, 
we  might  as  well  take  what  we  can. 
Following  are  some  ways  in  which  Mac 
users  can  appropriate  software  and 
computer  use  resources  for  their  own 
amusement  and  gain: 


Fun  with  networked  printers:  Since 
printers  are  tied  in  to  computer  net- 
works, and  those  networks  are  net- 
worked, you  can  print  on  printers  other 
than  in  your  own  office. 


Fun  with  mail  and  communica- 
tions: QuickMail  will  allow  you  to 
"attach"  documents  to  whatever  mail 
message  you're  sending.  If  you're  at  a 
large  organization  or  university,  you've 
almost  certainly  got  Internet  access. 
Using  QuickMail's  "Address  Book  — 
Special  Address"  feature,  you  can  create 
your  very  own  address  book  with  Inter- 
net e-mail  addresses.  Then  you  can  send 
mail  and/or  attachments  to  yourself  and 
your  friends  while  at  work.  You  could 
even  e-mail  confidential  financial  docu- 
ments to  your  inside  contact  at  a 
competing  company.  Fax  software  such 
a  MaxFax  will  allow  you  to  fax  most  any 
document  to  any  fax  number. 


Fun  on  file  servers:  It's  remarkable 
just  how  forgetful,  careless  or  ignorant 
system  administrators  and  other  net- 
worked users  can  be,  even  when  it 
comes  to  important  or  confidential  data. 
Depending  on  your  level  of  access,  you 
can  move  things  around,  copy  things  to 
your  hard  drive,  rename  files,  or  move 
folders  inside  folders.  Fun  huh?  Some 
organizations  (such  as  universities)  ac- 
tually have  file  servers  with  shareware 
archives  that  anyone  can  freely  copy. 


F^G^dCESaEa   LJJOF^h-E3   3CD 


Employees 


This  is  a  short  excerpt  of  a  longer  document. 
For  the  entire  document,  or  more  information, 
please  contact:  How  Do  You  Spell  It  Produc- 
tions, PO  Box  460896,  San  Francisco,  CA 
94146-0896,  U.SA. 


Time  theft  is  common  enough 

,_       on  most  jobs.  When  we  come  to 

^^^^     y  ^^S  /    '^       work  late,  leave  early,  extend  our 

^^j  l(^C  V  /    ^  breaks  and  lunch  hours,  conduct 

^^         ^     \    ▼^    '^^^i     /    S^  "personal  business"  on  the  clock, 

▼       ^  J^^*       ^  j^W       /     .c?"  we  expand  the  time  dedicated  to 

enriching  our  own  humanity.  At  the 

same  time  we  make  off  with  bits  of  crea- 

-•^  tive  human  energy,  stealing  it  back  from 

'        W  H.  X    ^'^  all-devouring  machine  of  The  Economy. 

To  The  Economy,  most  of  us  are  no 

more  than  employees  of  companies  and 

consumers  of  goods.  The  premise  of  this 

arrangement  is  that  during  our  time  on 

the  job  we  will  help  create  wezdth  in 

excess    of    what    we    are    paid.     This 

additional  wealth  is  the  profit  that  The 

flyy  -_  -ry  g->i   Ay   Economy    demands,    in    fact    requires, 

AAjJ-<JtliVJ"A.Ajand  it  is  stolen  from  us  by  design.  The 

circle  is  completed  when  we  buy  back 

the  goods  that  we  contributed  to  pro- 

LOOK  WHAT  THEY'VE 

QUS! 


TIME 
THEFT? 

ISN'T 
THAT 


E9Lp6i!@  "msNm 


sold  your  life  to  bu 

How  manf  hows  of  YOUM  Ufo  havo  boon  ponnanoiitlly^wattid? 

Rodaim  your  Ufa!  Join  the  Union  of  Tima  Tiiiavaa! 

TIME  IS  MONEY!  STEAL  SOME 

graphic  by  Chris  Carlsson 


ducing  in  the  first  place.  Of  course  we 
then  pay  more  than  the  goods  "cost"  to 
produce,  because  the  companies  that 
pay  people  to  make,  ship  and  sell  them, 
to  keep  track  of  the  money,  pensions, 
taxes,  and  so  on,  all  have  a  "right"  to 
make  a  profit.  Somewhere  between  the 
bottom  and  the  upper-middle  echelons 
of  business  life  almost  all  of  us  are 
toiling  away  in  this  web  of  absurdity, 
while  OUT  right  to  a  good  life  is  buried 
beneath  more  powerful  "rights." 

During  the  last  century  there's  been 
an  incredible  increase  in  the  productivi- 
ty of  human  labor,  to  the  point  where 
we  are  almost  in  sight  of  self- 
reproducing  robots.  Since  1948,  labor 
productivity  has  more  than  doubled,  yet 
today  we  are  working  an  average  of  five 
weeks  longer  per  year  than  we  were  in 
1972.  WHY  IS  THIS? 

It  is  widely  recognized  that  the  system 
needs  an  "army  of  unemployed,"  both  as 
a  pool  of  cheap  and  eager  labor  to  draw 
on  in  case  of  a  business  upturn  — or  a 
strike  — and  as  a  terrifying  example  to 
hold  up  to  the  still  employed.  In  spite  of 
this.  The  Economy  is  actually  an  in- 
credible work  creator.  The  Economy  is 
a  self-perpetuating  way  of  "life"  that 
depends  on  growth  and  profit.  Human 
goals  like  good  relations  between  peo- 
ple, deep  and  satisfying  emotional  and 
sex  lives,  or  anything  not  reducible  to 
economic  numbers,  are  at  best  inciden- 
tal to  our  work  lives.  Having  thoroughly 
streamlined  industrial  production,  re- 
ducing humans  to  animate  machine 
parts  in  the  process,  economic  logic  is 
invading  every  part  of  the  globe  and  our 
lives.  From  the  search  for  cheap  biogen- 
etic materials  in  the  deepest  tropical 
jungles  to  the  emergence  of  new  prod- 
ucts and  services  such  as  "career  coun- 
seling" or  new  variations  on  fast  food, 
less  and  less  human  activity  goes  on 
outside  the  realm  of  the  marketplace. 
Paid-for  "professional  services"  medical- 
ize  family  and  personal  problems  that 
often  have  their  roots  in  the  overwork, 
financial  stress,  and  hopelessness  pro- 
duced by  The  Economy. 

Time  thieves  recognize  this  dynamic 
and  combat  it  every  way  we  can.  The 
most  direct  resistance  available  to  us  is 
to  take  back  as  much  time  as  possible 
from  the  logic  of  the  marketplace, 
beginning  immediately  on  our  own 
jobs. 

We  need  to  alter  the  pace  of  work  to 
suit  our  own  needs.  Sometimes  we  can 
secretly  eliminate  unnecessary  activi- 
ties, other  times  we  may  pull  a  slow- 


down.  Psycho- wars  between  groups  of 
workers  and  their  managers  are  essenti- 
al to  gradually  (or  abruptly)  changing 
productivity  expectations. 

When  we  control  our  worktime,  we 
can  structure  our  activities  to  increase 
free  time,  hiding  our  efficiency  to  retain 


its  benefits  for  ourselves.  Why  shouii.. 
our  ingenuity  strengthen  The  Econo- 
my? When  such  efforts  become  organ- 
ized across  the  boundaries  of  workplac- 
es, occupations,  industries,  and  finally 
national  borders,  we  will  be  approach- 
ing a  new  way  of  life  in  which  people 
freely  choose  and  creatively  pursue  the 
work  that  together  they  decide  they 
want  done  —  the  only  work  worth  doing. 

Why  A  Union? 

Unions  have  become  ineffective  and 
generally  corrupt  institutions  designed 
to  facilitate  the  sade  of  our  time  to  an 
Economy  over  which  we  have  no  con- 
trol. They  have  failed  to  challenge  the 
absurd  and  inhuman  division  of  labor 
that  has  grown  up  under  200  years  of 
capitalism.  Unionism  must  address  the 
bald  fact  that  most  work  done  today  is  so 
wasteful  and  harmful  that  it  has  to  be 
eliminated,  not  simply  reformed 
through  improved  or  less  brutal  condi- 
tions, or  even  workers'  control. 

Time  thieves  already  know  that  their 
"real  lives"  happen  outside  of  what  they 
do  for  money,  i.e.  work.  The  pursuit  of 
ree  time  and  less  work  is  a  continuing 
statement  about  the  basic  uselessness  of 
most  jobs,  and  our  need  for  greater 
meaning  and  fulfillment.  Unionism 
based  on  specific  jobs  or  industries  has 


divided  workers  Jind  often  led 

to  self-defeat.  But  a  union  of 

time  thieves  naturally  unites  kindred 

spirits  across  the  artificial 
boundaries  imposed  by 
The  Economy. 
A  Union  of  Time  Thieves 
restores  the  original 
meaning  of  the 
word  "union." 
Once  again 
it  becomes 
a  practical 
association 
among  individuals 
seeking  a  common 
goal  —  in  this  case  the 
expansion  of  autono- 
mous time  under 
our  own  control 
while  on  the  job. 
To  systematically 
increase  free,  creative  time 
takes  cooperation  and 
collaboration,  hence 
the  need  for  a  union 
of  time  thieves. 


Why  Local  #00? 

^  ^        Each  zero  has  its 

own  meaning: 

—  The  first  0  represents  the 


usefulness 

of  most  of 

the  work  we  do 

for  this  society. 

—  The  second  0  indicates 

what  percentage  of  our  time 

we  are  willing  to  leave  under 

the  control  of  people  and 

institutions  other  than  ourselves. 


Won't  you  join  us? 

Combat  the  ravenous  and  insatiable  appetite 
of  The  Economy  which  attempts  to  subject  all 
aspects  of  human  life  to  the  dictatorship  of  its 
logic! 

TIME  IS  MONEY! 
STEAL  SOME  TODAY! 

Union  of  Time  Thieves  Local  #00, 
c/o  41  Sutter  St.  #1829,  San  Francis- 
co, CA  94104. 


^>JXJX^>^.^^X^^^^^^'^>^^^^^>^>^^^^^.^^>^^^ 


i; 
w 
w 

'I 

I 


Moms  Don't  Want  Jobs! 

Two  out  of  three  mothers  would 
choose  to  stay  at  home  with  their 
children  and  not  work  if  they  could 
afford  to  do  so.  But  40  percent  went 
back  to  work  within  three  months  of 
their  baby  being  born.  According  to  a 
survey,  a  third  of  working  mothers  feel 
guilty  about  being  away  from  home  and 
60  percent  say  that  child  benefit  pay- 
ments are  "very  important"  — 9  percent 
more  than  a  survey   found  last  year. 


Only  15  percent  of  mothers  were  "very 
keen"  to  return  to  work,  40  percent 
"quite  keen,"  24  percent  "not  very  keen" 
and  20  percent  "not  at  all"  keen.  Even 
though  a  large  number  of  women  said 
they  would  rather  be  at  home,  half  of  all 
the  mothers  who  worked  believed  their 
ability  to  be  a  parent  was  enhanced  by 
the  change  in  environment,  mental 
stimulation  and  social  contact. 


from  The  Times,  London 


F>E=^aCEaSED    ULiaPSh-Cl    3CD 


AVON  CMM 


My  life  took  an  abrupt  turn  for  the 
worse  after  I  graduated  from  Miami 
University  in  the  spring  of  1987.  A 
liberal  arts  major  with  poor  grades,  I 
couldn't  maintain  a  set  of  accounting 
books,  design  hair  dryers,  or  trade 
commodities.  The  help  wanted  ads 
didn't  look  very  promising.  There  was  a 
large  demand  for  nurses,  engineers,  cost 
accountants,  security  guards,  and  little 
else.  None  of  it  interested  me  in  the 
least,  but  I  had  to  apply  for  something. 

A  few  small-to-medium-sized  facto- 
ries were  advertising  for  unskilled  la- 
borers, and  I  certainly  fit  the  bill.  After 
I  failed  to  get  a  job  by  applying  with 
them  direcdy,  a  "friend"  suggested  check- 
ing out  temporary  agencies.  Another 
"friend"  referred  me  to  Olson  Tempo- 
rary Services,  claiming  it  has  the  "best" 
assignments.  Olson  had  placed  his  girl- 
friend at  General  Electric's  jet  engine 
plant  in  Cincinnati  and  she  ended  up 
getting  into  GE's  executive  management 


Like  most  factories,  Avon's 
workforce  was  composed  of 
two    classes:    the   non-pro- 
ductive managerial  and 
clerk  class,  most  of  whom 
dressed  like  appliance  sales- 
persons at  Sears,  and  the 
workers,  many  also  non- 
productive, who  dressed 
like  people  who  purchase 
appliances  at  Sears. 


trainee  program.  I  didn't  believe  I  was 
capable  of  landing  such  a  position  owing 
to  a  basic  defect  of  character  — a  com- 
plete lack  of  the  work  ethic,  at  least  a 
positive  one.  But  at  this  point,  anything 
would  do. 

The  nearest  Olson  office  was  in 
Fairfield,  a  Cincinnati  suburb  in  the 
Forest  Fair  Mall,  the  largest  mall  in  the 
United  States,  probably  containing  al- 
most as  much  concrete  as  the  Hoover 
Dam.  A  monument  to  consumer  excess, 
its  developer  went  belly  up  and  wrote  off 


$1.5  billion- worth  of  junk  bonds  that 
had  been  used  to  finance  its  construction 
on  a  couple  hundred  acres  of  former 
corn  and  soybean  fields.  Its  combination 
of  highly  polished  marble,  loud,  abra- 
sive music,  and  flashing  lights  had  given 
half  a  dozen  children  epileptic  fits. 

Forest  Fair  Mall  is  Fairfield's  largest 
minimum-wage  employer,  and  Olson 
Temporary  Services  is  strategically 
placed  within  it,  right  between  the  Jiffy 
Lube  and  the  State  Farm  Insurance 
office.  The  mall's  architectural  style  is 
"lowest  common  denominator"  —  as  un- 
inspiring as  possible,  particularly  if 
thirty  cents  can  be  saved,  and  Olson's 
office  is  a  perfect  example  of  it.  When 
I  walked  through  Olson's  door,  I  noticed 
a  small  waiting  area  with  eight  people  in 
the  typical  uncomfortable  plastic  chairs. 
A  few  of  their  occupants  were  leafing 
absentmindedly  through  People  and 
Reader's  Digest;  some  just  stared  out  into 
space  with  dead  chicken  eyes.  My 
three-hour  wait  was  thoroughly  horri- 
ble. Making  people  wait  needlessly  is 
the  petty  bureaucrat's  means  of  exerting 
a  modicum  of  authority  over  the  power- 
less. 

Although  I  passed  the  basic  skills  and 
word  processing  tests  Olson  gave  me, 
they  didn't  have  an  immediate  job 
assignment,  and  told  me  to  call  the  next 
day  to  check  for  openings.  Being  anx- 
ious to  get  out  of  the  Olson  office,  I 
played  the  obedient,  ignorant  worker 
and  left  without  asking  any  questions. 
This  was  neither  the  time  nor  the  place 
to  be  antagonistic.  That  would  come 
later. 

Following  my  instructions  to  the  let- 
ter, I  called  Olson  at  around  2:30  the 
following  afternoon.  After  being  on  hold 
for  half  an  eternity,  subjected  to  the 
drone  of  a  "light  rock"  station,  a  human 
voice  informed  me  of  a  potential  assign- 
ment at  a  nearby  Avon  cosmetics  fac- 
tory. The  assignment  would  last  for  two 
to  three  weeks,  and  I  was  informed  that 
it  was  considered  "choice"  because  it 
didn't  require  you  to  wear  a  hard  hat 
and  steel-toed  shoes.  I  accepted  the 
assignment,  which  was  to  begin  the  next 
Monday,  giving  me  one  last  weekend  of 
freedom. 

Not  knowing  what  the  early  morning 
traffic  would  be  like,  I  allowed  plenty  of 


time  to  arrive  at  the  factory  that  Mon- 
day. Olson  had  stressed  showing  up 
fifteen  minutes  early  to  convey  a  "posi- 
tive attitude."  As  I  headed  toward  the 
factory,  the  gray-toned  cover  of  early 
dawn  prevented  me  from  getting  a  very 
good  look  at  the  other  drivers  barreling 
down  the  expressway.  They  all  looked 
the  same:  silhouettes  taking  gulps  of 
coffee  from  spill-proof  containers,  look- 
ing for  another  radio  station  or  just 
staring  ahead  while  negotiating  the 
umbilical  cord  between  home  and  job. 
Humans  are  alone  when  they're  born 
and  when  they  die,  and  also  when  they 
drive  to  work  at  5:40  Monday  morning. 

The  Avon  factory  sat  on  an  expansive 
plot  of  land  skirting  two  major  inter- 
states.  It  looked  more  like  a  vast  office 
complex  than  the  traditional  factory 
replete  with  smokestacks  and  water 
towers.  Of  course,  most  funeral  homes 
also  conceal  what  actually  goes  on 
behind  their  closed  doors. 

The  parking  lot  was  already  quite  full 
when  I  arrived,  with  newer  cars  safe- 


w 


How  to  sell  your  soul 
In  six  easy   steps:// 

'11  M     HW^ 


kSPy.."'^^^'^ 


grapbic  by  deuce  of  clubs 


E>E> 


F>F^DCE55EE]    hJJOF^k_GD    3CZ1 


guarded  in  its  outer  periphery  to  pre- 
vent being  scratched  and  bumped  by  the 
many  don't-give-a-damn  jalopies  parked 
closer  to  the  employee  entrance.  Proba- 
bly half  of  many  employees'  weekly 
earnings  went  out  the  exhaust  pipe  of 
monthly  car  loan  payments  and  repair 
bills.  Which  comes  first  — the  job  that 
necessitates  having  the  car  or  the  car 
that  necessitates  having  the  job?  Either 
way,  it's  a  vicious  circle. 

By  this  time,  the  sun  was  on  the  job, 
turning  shades  of  gray  into  colors.  As  I 
parked  my  car  I  could  see  the  faces  of 
the  people  sitting  in  the  relative  safety  of 
their  cars,  savoring  those  last  few  min- 
utes of  freedom.  Not  knowing  where  to 
report,  I  followed  the  herd  heading 
toward  an  entrance,  hoping  to  figure 
things  out  without  having  to  ask  ques- 
tions. Like  most  factories,  Avon's  work- 
force was  composed  of  two  classes:  the 
non-productive  managerial  and  clerk 
class,  most  of  whom  dressed  like  appli- 
ance salespersons  at  Sears,  and  the 
workers,  many  also  non-productive, 
who  dressed  like  people  who  purchase 
appliances  at  Sears.  Taking  note  of  a 
few  other  confused  people  congregated 
ziround  the  security  desk,  I  went  over  to 
try  to  glean  some  information  from 
listening  to  their  questions.  One  of  the 
disinterested  guards  told  a  confused 
temp  to  sign  in  and  take  an  identity 
badge,  to  be  worn  "in  a  prominent 
place"  whenever  on  the  factory  floor. 

On  my  way  to  the  assigned  break  area 
where  the  temporary  employee  orienta- 
tion was  to  be  given,  I  took  a  long  look 
at  the  factory  floor.  It  was  clean, 
well- ventilated,  and  amply  lit.  Its  large 
south-facing  window  overlooked  a  well- 
manicured  lawn.  Avon  certainly  defied 
the  factory  stereotype. 

It  was  early  October,  and  a  produc- 
tion increase  was  in  the  works  to  meet 
the  large  influx  of  orders  expected  from 
Avon's  legion  of  salespeople.  From  a 
business  standpoint,  hiring  temporary 
workers  to  meet  peak  production  needs 
makes  perfect  business  sense  — after  all, 
temps  receive  rock-bottom  wages  and 
marginal  benefits,  if  any.  With  that 
attitude,  it  should  have  been  no  surprise 
when  most  personnel  departments 
changed  their  names  to  Human  Re- 
sources. 

Early  in  the  history  of  this  "modern" 
factory,  the  workforce  went  on  a  long 
and  bitter  strike  that  cost  Avon  a  lot  of 
money  and  taught  its  management  the 
importance  of  minimizing  the  possibili- 
ty of  future  strikes.  Central  to  this  new 
managerial  philosophy  was  the  replace- 


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ment  of  tenured  employees  with  a  large 
pool  of  temps  who  would  be  trained  to 
perform  an  elementary  assembly  line 
function  in  less  than  fifteen  minutes  — 
and  summarily  dismissed  if  they  ever 
questioned  the  status  quo.  The  remain- 
ing tenured  employees  were,  in  the 
meantime,  pacified  into  a  state  of  bo- 
vine docility  and  quite  frankly  didn't 
give  a  hoot  in  hell  how  the  temps  were 
treated. 

A  group  of  twenty  to  thirty  temps  sat 
or  stood  around,  nervously  spouting  the 
mindless  chatter  of  parrots  or  appliance 
salesmen  at  Sears.  Many  of  them  knew 
one  another,  having  worked  together  on 
other  temporary  jobs  in  the  past. 
Others,  such  as  myself,  didn't  know 
anyone  and  just  stood  around  looking  as 
dumb  as  the  machines  to  which  we 
would  soon  be  chained. 

Everyone  shut  up  as  soon  as  two 
official-looking  women  walked  into  the 
break  area.  The  first  was  frumpy  and 
well  into  middle  age,  probably  a  com- 


pany person  who'd  worked  her  way  up 
through  the  ranks.  Walking  a  few  feet 
behind  was  a  substantially  younger 
woman  who,  while  looking  just  as 
official  (i.e.,  hollow-eyed  and  manne- 
quin-faced), possessed  the  body  of  an 
aerobics  fanatic  who  lived  on  yogurt  and 
diet  sodas.  Her  face  was  much  more  taut 
than  that  of  the  marshmallow- 
complexioned  woman  in  front.  I  could 
tell  immediately  that  the  young  woman 
was  all  business  and  saw  her  current 
position  as  a  necessary  evil  to  be 
tolerated  only  until  something  better 
came  along.  The  older  woman  probably 
looked  upon  her  current  position  as  a 
career  pinnacle,  the  fruit  of  twenty-five 
years  with  the  company,  something  to 
brag  about  during  Saturday  morning 
appointments  with  the  beautician. 

The  employee  orientation  was  con- 
ducted on  much  the  same  infantile  level 
as  the  one  at  Olson:  very  structured, 
very  authoritarian,  and  very  boring. 
Among  the  items  stressed  was  the  need 


F>E=^OEZEa5iEC]    kJJOF^h_CI    3CD 


E.? 


to  sign  in  and  out  at  both  the  guard 
station  and  supervisor's  desk,  to 
promptly  return  from  breaks,  and  to 
display  a  positive  attitude  at  all  times 
owing  to  the  large  number  of  "dignitar- 
ies" who  tour  the  factory  on  a  daily 
basis.  The  orientation  broke  up  after 
fifteen  minutes,  and  we  were  split  up 
into  teams  of  five  temps  each. 

After  fifteen  minutes  of  "training,"  my 
team  was  assigned  to  a  machine  that  was 
operated  by  a  tenured  employee  behind 
a  control  console  and  watched  over  by  a 
machine  repairman.  Our  job  involved 
snapping  one  plastic  piece  onto  another 
as  it  passed  our  respective  work  stations 
on  a  conveyor  belt  to  another  temp  who 
neatly  arranged  them  in  boxes.  The 
assembly  involved  a  simple  pump  that 
would  eventually  be  attached  to  a  per- 
fume bottle  on  another  assembly  line.  A 

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highly  indifferent,  late-middle-aged 
woman  controlled  the  assembly  line's 
speed  and  initially  kept  it  down  to  what 
was  considered  an  inefficient  pace  while 
the  temps  acquired  the  basic  rote  skills 
and  machine-like  rhythms  to  accomplish 
the  task  at  hand. 

After  less  than  five  minutes,  it  was 
painfully  boring  and  I  was  looking  for  a 
clock  to  mark  the  time  until  the  first 
break,  still  two  and  a  half  hours  away. 
The  two  temps  sitting  on  either  side  of 
me  were  engaged  in  some  inane  conver- 
sation through  which  they  could  perhaps 
make  things  go  by  more  quickly.  They 
covered  such  well-worn  topics  as  missed 
daytime  dramas,  planned  shopping  ex- 
cursions on  the  upcoming  weekend,  and 
anticipated  purchases  from  the  Avon 
Employee  Store. 

In  spite  of  the  finite  nature  of  such 
conversational  topics,  they  were  able  to 
sustain  their  chitter-chatter  for  a  full  two- 
and-a-half  hours  until  the  final  break, 
somewhere  around  10:30,  although  I 
had  completely  lost  track  of  empirical 
time.  The  temps  sitting  in  the  break 
area  closest  to  my  assembly  line  were 
acting  like  shell-shocked  soldiers.  The 
tenured  employees  didn't  look  any  bet- 
ter, and  in  fact,  looked  shell- shocked  all 
the  time  — both  on  and  off  the  job. 
While  earning  almost  double  per  hour 
what  the  temps  earned  and  having 
slightly  better  jobs,  they  had  the  distinct 
disadvantage  of  having  done  it  for  years 
if  not  decades  and  wore  the  effects  like 
fashion  models  wear  skin-tight  clothes: 
puffy  faces,  cream-cheese  complexions, 
raccoon-like  rings  around  oil-slick  eyes, 
atrophied  muscles,  poor  posture,  de- 
formed hands. 

The  temps  returned  from  the  break 
with  the  reluctance  of  cattle  being 
herded  into  a  slaughterhouse  killing 
line.  The  tenured  employees  who  knew 
what  was  in  store  were  the  last  to  come 
back,  extending  the  break  for  another 


five  minutes.  I  too  was  less  than  eager  to 
return  to  that  godforsaken  assembly 
line,  which  was  now  being  speeded  up  to 
a  minimally  acceptable  production 
speed. 

In  front  of  each  of  the  nine  assembly 
lines  was  a  desk.  Behind  each  desk  was  a 
machine  supervisor,  whose  job  it  was  to 
see  that  production  quotas  and  quality 
control  standards  were  met.  As  long  as 
everything  was  within  acceptable  pro- 
duction ranges,  they  didn't  have  to  do 
very  much,  and  indeed  didn't  do  much 
besides  standing  around  trying  to  look 
necessary.  They  didn't  convince  me. 
Sure,  one  of  them  would  take  periodic 
walks  around  the  line,  write  on  a  clip- 
board, and  occasionally  inquire  how 
everything  was  going.  I  wasn't  asked, 
but  wouldn't  have  told  the  truth  any- 
way; they  didn't  want  to  hear  anything 
other  than  "OK." 

By  1:30  I  was  working  like  a  robot 
and  paying  no  attention  to  the  quality  of 
my  workmanship.  Quality  control  was  a 
luxury  I  hadn't  the  time  or  inclination  to 
engage  in.  Frankly,  I  displayed  the 
finesse  of  a  drunken  Russian  coal  min- 
er. If  the  correct  fitting  was  made,  OK; 
if  the  incorrect  fitting  was  made,  OK. 

With  the  buzzing  of  the  end-of-shift 
signal,  both  tenured  and  temporary 
employees  dropped  everything  and 
dashed  for  the  exits  with  a  reason  for 
living  that  they  otherwise  lacked  during 
the  course  of  the  working  day.  While 
leaving  the  Avon  factory  did  signal  the 
attainment  of  a  degree  of  freedom,  it 
also  meant  driving  through  bumper-to- 
bumper  traffic,  preparing  the  evening 
meal,  washing  dishes,  taking  children  to 
sports  practice,  watching  four  to  six 
hours  of  television,  thinking  about  sex  — 
maybe  even  going  through  the  mo- 
tions—and falling  asleep  on  the  couch 
by  10:00.  By  9:30,  I  was  thoroughly  lost 
in  dreamless  slumber  land. 

Morning  came  around  in  much  the 
same  way  it  had  twenty-four  hours 
earlier,  only  I  was  more  tired,  two  cups 
of  jet  black  coffee  notwithstanding. 
Arriving  five  minutes  later  than  yester- 
day forced  me  to  park  further  back  in 
the  parking  lot  and  walk  what  seemed 
like  half  a  mile  to  the  employee  en- 
trance. As  for  my  state  of  mind,  I  didn't 
really  have  one  the  second  day,  most  of 
which  was  spent  filling  boxes  with 
shampoo  bottles  and  jars  of  facial  cream 
coming  off  a  conveyor  belt  with  the 
velocity  of  machine  gun  bullets.  Falling 
behind  within  fifteen  minutes  of  the 
beginning  of  my  shift  necessitated  work- 


E>^ 


E=>i^nE:E5i5EE3   kJJCIB^h-a    3CD 


ing  like  mad  to  avoid  being  the  "weak 
link"  in  the  chain.  I  shouldn't  have  given 
a  damn,  but  did  — a  major  character 
flaw  I  hope  to  eliminate  soon. 

This  was  only  Tuesday  morning,  but 
the  concept  of  weekends  had  lost  its 
significance  in  my  struggle  to  keep  up 
with  the  mechanized  beast.  Unlike  the 
two  assembly  lines  flanking  the  one  I 
was  bound  to,  mine  wasn't  breaking 
down  very  frequently;  it  just  kept  on 
going.  The  two  temps  working  near  me 
had  long  since  ceased  talking  and  in- 
stead just  concentrated  on  the  task  at 
hand,  trying  to  survive  until  the  next 
break.  By  quitting  time  I  knew  why 
Fred  Flintstone  shouted  "Yabba  Dabba 
Doo!"  when  his  shift  ended  and  he  could 
get  away  from  his  drudgery. 

Once  home,  riding  my  bike  was  still 
possible,  but  I  mostly  thought  about  the 
job  while  biking  and  didn't  really  enjoy 
myself.  Reading  was  entirely  out  of  the 
question.  Watching  television  was 
stretching  my  capabilities,  but  was 
made  possible  by  having  a  remote 
control  unit  within  arm's  reach.  I  fell 
asleep  by  9:00;  my  night  was  once  again 
dreamless. 

Early  Wednesday  morning,  while  as- 
sembling lunch  (the  food  in  the  Avon 
cafeteria  was  truly  wretched)  and 
dreading  my  appointment  with  yet  an- 
other machine,  I  realized  that  this 
couldn't  go  on  much  longer  if  my  sanity 
were  to  be  preserved.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  the  alternatives  seemed  to  be 
equally  unattractive.  There  was  really 
only  one  alternative  —  another  shit  job. 

Wednesday  morning  actually  started 
out  OK,  because  I  was  pulled  away 
from  the  assembly  line  and  assigned  to 
help  a  tenured  employee  construct  box- 
es. The  machine  had  broken  down,  and 
she  told  me  to  just  act  like  I  was  working 
in  the  meantime.  My  holiday  lasted 
until  the  first  break,  after  which  I  was 
chained  to  the  machine  for  which  I  had 
previously  constructed  boxes.  This  new 
job  involved  screwing  lids  onto  jars  of 
cold  cream.  It  was  another  situation  in 
which  I  immediately  fell  behind  and  had 
to  bust  ass  to  avoid  falling  behind  even 
further.  As  luck  would  have  it,  the 
machine  broke  down  again  when  one  of 
the  jars  got  caught  in  a  chute  and 
created  a  substantial  traffic  jam.  After 
carefully  listening  to  the  repairman 
explain  to  the  machine  operator  why  the 
jam  occurred,  I  made  a  mental  note  of 
his  instructions. 

Only  then  did  I  notice  the  sexual 
composition  of  the  factory  floor's  two  job 


classifications:  repair  (men)  and  opera- 
tions (women).  Because  being  a  repair- 
man was  deemed  more  "difficult,"  they 
were  paid  more  than  operators,  who, 
while  earning  more  than  the  temps, 
earned  about  one-third  less  than  the 
repairmen.  The  supervisors  were  pre- 
dominantly female,  but  earned  little 
more  than  the  repairmen,  who  mainly 
stood  around  drinking  coffee  and  mak- 
ing sexist  remarks. 

Once  the  machine  was  unclogged,  it 
ran  smoothly  —  except  when  I  sabotaged 
it  by  creating  a  jam.  But  this  provided 
only  the  most  temporary  relief.  I  could 
only  break  the  machine  down  for  about 
15  minutes  an  hour  without  giving 
myself  away  to  management;  this  meant 
having  to  work  for  45  minutes  an  hour, 
which  was  intolerable  as  far  as  I  was 
concerned.  So  as  soon  as  the  half-hour 
lunch  break  began,  I  casually  gathered 
up  my  jacket  and  bag  and  took  one  last 
look  around  the  place.  There  was  really 
no  need  to  sign  out.  I  didn't  believe  I'd 


get  paid  by  Olson  anyway  owing  to 
some  silly  breach  of  contract  clause  in 
the  employment  forms.  So  be  it! 

The  first  object  I  noticed  upon  getting 
out  of  Avon  was  an  enormous  oak  tree 
towering  over  the  parking  lot.  Perfectly 
proportioned,  it  must  have  been  seventy 
years  old  and  possessed  a  dignity  denied 
to  the  people  bound  to  the  hum-drum 
life  inside.  I  marveled  that  it  hadn't  been 
bulldozed  during  the  construction  of  the 
parking  lot,  probably  a  concession  to 
'70s  environmentalists  designed  to  pro- 
ject a  "good  corporate  image"  while 
Avon's  products  filled  up  landfills  across 
the  nation  and  much  of  the  ocean  floor 
off  the  New  Jersey  coast. 

As  I  walked  towards  my  car,  granted, 
I  had  almost  no  money  and  few  pros- 
pects for  getting  any  in  the  near  future, 
but  I  was  free  for  the  afternoon  —  and 
that  was  enough  for  the  time  being. 


— Donald  Phillips 


WITH    MORE     COPS     AND     MORE     TAILS      THAN    BVCtK      BBFOrE.^ 
we're    POIN^    Ot/R    B£Sr    TO     tHSURE.      THAT     THE      POUce. 
ARe    A     CONSTANT       FRE'SSNCE      IN    THg.     INNER.       Cir/es.. 
3VT    CONS    Alone    ARE    NOT    EHOOCH     TO    CONTFOC     AN   CNnRE- 

CfTITEN  ALERT f    CiriZEH    /iLERT/ 


THE  LAW 

NEEDS  YOUR 

HELP! 


V/tTHOOT     roOK.     CO-OP£l!tATtON,I.A\J  Af/O    OHPeR\ 
IS    MSANINCt-e.^Z,     YoO   CAN  HELP    OOP    BorZ. 
(N     BLUe.     coHTPou     fOVR    C^HHONlTY     Bt 

fouuowiNC     THEse    stMPt-e.    comma*/©*: 


•  fceep  roup  t?ooPs  Loct<et> 

AHO      yoOP     TCLEnStON  ON    AT  Al-L.    T/ATCST' 
•  WATCH    roup   NEiCHBons    roR    S/<;a/5    op   Vtiuc, 

use        0«       COMMONirr     OPdANIXtN^. 

BE  NtCC   PAlLuPe     TO     svBMir    rt>     PouicC 

PeauEsrs    may    hort  the    feei-»ncs   op 

THE.       OPPlcep      IN\/OL\/E0, 


REf^EMBEK  OBEDIENCE      IS       NINE        TENTHS      OF    THE     LAW 


PF^OEZESSED   hJjaF^h_a    3C3 


RUSTBELT  ARCHIPELAQO 


As  the  dust  of  the  so-called 
collapse  of  communism  settles, 
it's  become  clear  that  this  is 
only  one  of  international  capi- 
talism's minor  adjustments. 
The  last  living  myth  after  the 
death  of  socialism  is  the  Free 
Market,  or  as  it  is  more  popu- 
larly known,  The  Economy. 
State-Taylorism  in  the  East 
and  Post-Fordism  in  the  West 
are  looking  for  new  ways  to  tap 
people's  social  productivity, 
their  natural  ability  to  work 
together  to  produce  for  them- 
selves. It  no  longer  makes  sense 
to  call  this  situation  a  "crisis" 
—  capitalism  is  always  in  crisis. 
By  its  very  nature,  capitalism 
is  a  clumsy,  precarious  way  of 
transforming  people's  natural 
social  productivity  into  work 
and  the  conditions  that  ensure 
more  work. 

The  transformations  of  "Eastern 
capitalism"  reveal  the  relationship  be- 
tween capital  and  social  productivity 
quite  clearly.  The  stagnation  of  state- 
capitalism  under  Brezhnev  was  mainly 
caused  by  the  rampant  "exploitation"  of 
capitalist  structures  by  the  workers.  The 
Soviet  factory  had  many  uses  and  was 
extremely  productive  but  unfortunately 
wasn't  profitable.  The  buildings  provid- 
ed shelter  during  the  day  and  at  night, 
as  well  as  space  for  conversations, 
private  tinkering,  card  games,  and  so 
forth.  Factories  organized  food  distri- 
bution through  barter  deals  with  agri- 
cultural enterprises  (no  lines  required). 
They  guaranteed  medical  services, 
cheap  vacations,  and  child  care.  The 
factory  itself  was  a  source  of  materials 
for  private  barter  deals  (theft).  These 
functions  were  only  slightly  disturbed  by 
market-oriented  production,  which 
consumed  about  10  hours  a  week  of  each 
worker's  time. 

In  fact,  the  factory  was  not  a  strictly 
market-oriented  enterprise  but  an   ex- 


tended collective  household  with  the 
typically  high  productivity  that  house- 
holds have  always  had.  (Especially  in 
agriculture:  50%  of  all  Soviet  food  was 
allegedly  produced  on  2%  of  all  Soviet 
farmland  — the  "private"  patches  owned 
by  agricultural  workers.)  However,  the 
full  use  of  this  productive  capacity  was 
hindered  by  the  stranglehold  of  the 
Communist  Party  and  state  bureaucra- 
cy—the only  real  capitalist  structures. 
Maintaining  a  tightly  knit  workforce 
surveillance  network  absorbed  huge 
amounts  of  productive  capacity  and  was 
immensely  demoralizing.  And  com- 
pared to  control  by  the  money  system,  it 
was  so  ridiculously  expensive  and  inef- 
fective that  its  prolonged  existence  can 
be  considered  one  of  the  "economic 
miracles  of  socialism"  — no  other  system 
could  have  afforded  so  many  idle  mem- 
bers. 

"Socialism"  was  a  deal  with  capital, 
but  never  a  workers'  paradise.  If  the 
Soviet  workers  could  have  gotten  rid  of 
this  repressive  grid,  its  "productivity" 
might  easily  have  risen  tenfold. 

The  current  adjustments  demonstrate 
that  by  the  end  of  the  '80s,  even  the 
Communist  Party's  extremely  terroristic 
and  debilitating  regime  was  unable  to 
extract  sufficient  surplus  out  of  an 
expanding  "swamp"  of  direct  appropria- 
tion. The  proletariat  had  become  dan- 
gerously concrete,  surviving  in  spite  of 

"Socialism"  was  a  deal  with 
capital,  but  never  a  workers* 

paradise .  .  .  To  stop  a 
proletariat  that  wasn't  con- 
trolled by  the  Party  (the 
real  equivalent  of  money), 
that  had  not  yet  submitted 
to  monetary  circuits,  and 
that  would  suddenly  have 
been  one  of  the  richest  and 

happiest  on  the  planet, 

only  a  radical  international 

emergency  program 

would  do. 


the  collapse  of  gross  national  output  and 
smelling  the  immense  possibilities  at  its 
own  disposal  once  it  could  pry  the 
bureaucratic  lid  off  the  pot.  Into  this 
miasma  of  theft,  corruption,  shadow 
"economy,"  "stagnation,"  and  "Brezh- 
nevism"  (Brezhnev  takes  the  credit 
without  deserving  it!),  the  authorities 
aimed  the  light  of  glasnost  (Russian  for 
transparence)  and  perestroika  (getting  the 
households  out  of  the  factories).  From 
the  perspective  of  the  world  market  (and 
the  communists  have  always  operated 
from  this  perspective,  beginning  with 
Lenin's  "Taylorist"  coup  d'etat),  an  in- 
competent, overpaid,  and  socially  "en- 
tangled" generation  of  old  executives 
had  to  be  replaced  by  a  sharper  crew 
that  would  dare  to  cut  into  social 
productivity  with  tougher  instruments. 

The  Soviet  Union  was  certainly  a 
capitalist  society,  but  not  run  on  money 
(only  its  overall  output  for  the  world 
market  was  monetized,  as  the  big  mul- 
tinationals do).  To  stop  a  proletariat 
that  wasn't  controlled  by  the  Party  (the 
real  equivalent  of  money),  that  had  not 
yet  submitted  to  monetary  circuits,  and 
that  would  suddenly  have  been  one  of 
the  richest  and  happiest  on  the  planet, 
only  a  radical  international  emergency 
program  would  do.  The  bureaucracy 
sabotages  productivity  for  the  workers' 
use  wherever  possible  and  then  proposes 
the  "free  market,"  with  the  most  dedi- 
cated of  the  workers  as  the  new  capiteil- 
ists,  as  the  only  salvation.  For  example, 
there  has  never  been  and  there  is  no 
food  shortage  in  the  ex-Soviet  Union, 
but  all  the  old  channels  of  distribution 
have  been  blocked  by  the  bureaucracy. 
The  drying  out  of  the  swamp  is  a 
necessary  first  step  in  the  introduction  of 
a  system  in  which  a  direct  connection 
between  work  and  living  is  made  via 
real  money  (U.S.  dollars,  at  the  mo- 
ment). Russian  workers  cannot  pay  for 
their  living  by  working  10  easy-going 
hours  a  week  and  expect  to  compete 
with  world-market  levels  of  productivity 
like  those  of  Taiwan  or  Japan. 

A  monthly  wage  in  the  former  Soviet 
Union  is  now  about  $12.  How  rich  must 
a  society  be  if  it  can  keep  its  members 
alive,  even  on  the  most  miserable  terms, 
for  $12  a  month!  There  must  still  be 
reserves  of  "hidden"  productivity!  What 


VCD 


F^E^nEZESSEa   UJaF^h-CI    3C3 


we  observe  at  this  moment  is  a  desperate 
race  between  the  Russian  proletariat 
reconstructing  and  rediscovering  its 
productivity  on  a  new  basis  and  inter- 
national capital  creating  an  archipelago 
of  (initially  subsidized)  full-time  capi- 
talist production  to  exploit  their  pro- 
ductivity. The  problem  is  that  because 
of  active  sabotage  by  the  old  bureaucra- 
cy, most  factories  cannot  be  centers  of 
social  productivity  any  more  without 
specific  efforts  to  make  them  useful  to 
the  market  again.  Russian  households 
are  extremely  poor,  small,  and  vulnera- 
ble, and  even  less  productive  than  ours. 
The  Leninist  "deal"  consisted  of  "giving" 


the  Russian  proletariat  the  factory,  but 
"taking"  the  "village"  (obshtina)  away.  A 
Russian  factory  always  looked  like  and 
operated  like  a  traditional  village  com- 
munity. If  you  now  take  the  factory 
away,  the  Russian  workers  are  in  a  real 
squeeze.  They'll  be  out  in  the  open, 
ready  to  accept  any  deal.  This,  of 
course,  is  what  "international  aid" 
means. 

If  only  an  attack  on  the  Russian 
proletariat  were  on  the  agenda,  interna- 
tional capital  wouldn't  make  more  of  a 
fuss  than  in  past  decades.  But  the 
dismantling  of  the  Russian  workers' 
power  base  correlates  with  decisive  "ad- 


justments" in  the  West.  Although  there 
is  a  lot  of  social  productivity  ready  for 
market  exploitation  in  the  East,  it  has 
vanished  or  become  inexploitable  in  the 
West.  This  productivity  is  one  of  use 
values  and  is  objectively  "high"  when 
everybody  feels  "comfortable."  It  can  be 
high  in  a  technically  and  energetically 
simple  community  like  the  South  Sea 
islands,  and  low  in  the  housing  projects 
of  the  most  sophisticated  capitalist  sys- 
tems. Even  in  an  advanced  capitalist 
society,  the  social  productivity  is  always 
predominant,  and  must  be.  Simple 
czdculations  of  hours  worked  in  the 
extremely     crippled     2.5-person     U.S. 


F^F^agZEBiaEa   kJJCIi^h-a   3C3 


7^ 


household  show  that  50  %  of  the  work  is 
done  within  it.  Add  services  and  deals 
among  friends,  invitations,  small  vege- 
table gardening,  consumption  on  farms, 
gifts,  the  shadow  economy,  spontaneous 
cooperation  in  the  workplace,  unpaid 
union  and  party  meetings,  midnight 
notes  and  so  on,  and  you  can  easily  see 
that  capital  can  only  exist  if  most  of  the 
yNork  —  even  on  the  job  — isn't  regularly 
accounted  for.  Capital  feeds  on  the 
"social  body"  like  a  leech  on  a  water 
buffalo.  The  subversive/instructive 
sense  of  a  slogan  like  "Wages  for 
housework"  is  based  on  this  fact. 

Actually,  if  you  look  at  use  values, 
capitalism  is  one  of  the  crudest  and  most 
wasteful  and  brutish  attempts  to  make  a 
living  (and  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
desire  to  make  a  living,  either).  It  could 
only  survive  because  the  worldwide  level 
of  spontaneous  production  was  so  im- 
mensely high  that  only  the  dumbest  took 
capitalism  seriously.  Especially  what  we 
call  the  Third  World  was  such  an 
inexhaustible  reservoir  of  human  and 
cultural  resources  that  the  capitalist 
nonsense  experiment  could  be  looked  at 
with  a  contemptuous  smile.  It  accounted 
for  maybe  10%  of  real  human  dealings 
on  the  planet  (wage  labor). 

Now  this  is  over.  People  are  seriously 
impatient  with  capital  almost  every- 
where. Two  hundred  years  of  continu- 
ous exploitation  and  sabotage  of  social 
productivity  have  put  us  and  capital  in  a 
squeeze.  In  the  West,  for  example,  the 
reproductive  capacity  of  households  has 
been  damaged  to  such  an  extent  that 
capital  must  pay  more  for  the  upkeep  of 
the  workers  than  it  can  profitably  afford 


The  "socied  costs"  (caused  by  capitzd's 
own  ferocious  work  rhythms),  the  repair 
bills  for  the  profit-generators,  have 
risen  so  high  that  the  required  wage 
would  reduce  profits  to  below  bearable 
limits.  The  capitalization  of  real  estate 
made  housing  costs  rise.  Health  care, 
pensions,  child-rearing  costs  including 
education,  etc.,  have  made  industrial 
production  unprofitable  in  the  old  capi- 
talist zones.  Workers  don't  work  enough 
and  live  too  long— they  aren't  "just  in 
time"  like  other  factors  of  production. 
Only  where  the  hinterlands  supply 
cheap,  fresh  workers  and  provide  acces- 
sible dumping  grounds  (East  Asia)  can 
material  goods  still  be  produced.  Only 
where  workers  come  "for  free"  can 
capital  exist.  Even  if  we  work  full  time  and 
pay  for  everything,  we  cost  too  much. 

But  what  if  our  social  costs  could  be 
reduced  to  those  of  the  new  arrives 
from  Russia  and  other  points  abroad? 
In  a  certain  sense,  cheap  socialist  work- 
ers are  already  competing  with  expen- 
sive western  workers,  although  the  fac- 
tories they  will  work  in  have  not  yet 
been  built.  One  of  the  mechanisms  is  the 
transfer  of  capital:  huge  masses  of 
money  are  invested  in  the  special  eco- 
nomic zones  in  the  East  (not  all  of  the 
ex-Soviet  Union  can  be  made  profita- 
ble), emptying  the  credit-markets  in  the 
West  and  thus  pushing  interest  rates  up. 
The  "softest"  western  companies  then  go 
bankrupt,  unemployment  rises,  and 
workers  become  cheaper.  Rents,  linked 
to  interest  rates,  rise  and  skim  away 
30%  of  a  wage  versus  maybe  20%  a 
few  years  ago.  Inflation  without  com- 
pensation does  the  rest.   At  the  same 


time,  government's  purse  strings  are 
tied  and  capital  pays  less  into  the 
common  social  pool.  Reductions  of 
social  costs  via  wage  cuts  or  state  budget 
cuts  have  been  under  way  in  the  West 
for  some  years  now.  There  are  cheaper 
workers  available. 

It  would  be  easy  for  capital  to  revive 
social  productivity  even  in  the  West  and 
get  potentially  cheaper  workers.  A  2.5- 
person  household  is  very  expensive  and 
desperately  unproductive.  It  seems  that 
the  highest  social  productivity  is  possible 
in  a  village-like,  well-structured,  "dem- 
ocratic" community  of  about  500  peo- 
ple. Living  in  such  units  could  reduce 
social  costs  by  as  much  as  80% .  Capital 
would  be  happy  to  get  workers  at  such  a 
price;  however,  the  problem  is  that  such 
communities  develop  high  levels  of 
political  power  and  independence  and 
their  members  usually  can't  understand 
why  they  should  work  at  all  and  pay  so 
much.  They  become  cheap  but  useless.  To 
get  them  back  to  work,  you  need  pure 
pre-capitalist  terror  (money  alone  or 
even  the  Chicago  Boys  won't  do  the 
job.). 

In  part,  this  will  be  one  of  capital's 
roadblocks  in  the  East.  And  it  could  be 
the  starting  point  of  our  reflections  on 
how  to  ruin  capital's  newest  and  most 
global  readjustment  so  far.  The  geogra- 
phical area  where  most  of  the  readjust- 
ments will  happen  is  the  Rustbelt.  It 
stretches  from  Northern  California 
across  Detroit,  New  Jersey,  New  Eng- 
land, Old  England,  and  Middle  Europe, 
along  the  Trans-Siberian  railroad  and 
into  parts  of  China  and  even  Japan 
(Japan's  been  aging  lately,  too).  If  we 
look  at  the  planet  this  way,  we  can  forget 
the  old  ideological  myths  of  Eastern  and 
Western  blocs  and  national  boundaries 
and  just  see  empty  industrial  areas  with 
groups  of  workers  in  different  but 
interdependent  squeezes,  with  different 
experiences  involving  struggle,  machin- 
ery, bureaucrats,  and  "corruption"  (i.e., 
social  productivity).  We  recognize  that 
life  in  this  zone  of  destruction,  roughly 
between  30  and  60  degrees  of  latitude 
North,  could  still  be  possible  without 
further  disturbing  the  South.  Of  course 
our  criteria  would  be  different  from 
those  of  the  current  capitalist  renovat- 
ors. Although  we  don't  exactly  love 
factories,  even  less  rusty  ones,  and  there 
is  massive  pollution  in  some  of  these 
areas,  they  represent  a  common  possi- 
bility for  action.  They're  empty  and  can 
be  invaded  and  recycled.  Workers  are 
skilled  in  how  to  use  them.   The   real 


va 


E='E^[ZIC:Ea5EEJ    UJaf^h_EJ    BiCZ) 


graphic  by  Angela  Bocage 


estate  they  sit  on  is  mostly  cheap,  and 
the  areas  are  centrally  located  and 
linked  to  railroads.  Spaces  are  big  and 
often  ideal  for  communal  structures. 

Instead  of  following  capital's  ambigu- 
ous offers  of  emigration,  we  could 
emigrate  collectively  into  these  spaces 
and  link  them  to  a  kind  of  Rustbelt 
Archipelago.  Then  all  workers  would  be 
able  to  travel  around  the  planet  from 
social]  factory  to  social  factory  without 
serving  in  capital's  army  of  wage- 
undercutters.  Instead,  they'd  always  be 
coming  home. 

The  Economy  tries  to  impose  condi- 
tions on  us  that  combine  the  worst  of 
both  worlds  —  eastern  wages  and  west- 
ern work  discipline.  The  answer  to  this 
is  worldwide  collaboration  on  the  com- 
mon project  of  producing  for  ourselves. 
Although  we  have  better  equipment 
than  the  Russians,  they  could  teach  us 
how  to  use  factories  in  other  ways.  In 
creating  the  new  industrial  villages  of 
the  Rustbelt,  we  need  all  the  social  and 
technical  know-how  we  can  get. 

Of  course,  because  food  distribution 
is  one  of  the  instruments  of  political 
repression  and  social  sabotage,  we  must 
also  connect  these  Rust  Spots  with  the 
surrounding  farmland.  Without  direct 
control  over  food-production,  the  capi- 
tadist  "joke"  will  never  end.  (Supermar- 
kets are  ridiculous!) 

There  is  immense  power  and  pleasure 
in  social  productivity  controlled  by  the 
proletariat,  or  just  people  once  you  get 
rid  of  capital's  criteria,  and  now  is  the 
moment  to  organize  the  struggle  for  it. 
Periods  of  adjustment  are  always  risky 
for  capital.  There  are  "leaks"  now,  soft 


spots,  and  reasonable  proposals  that 
could  help  to  put  imagination  on  dan- 
gerous paths  to  action. 

In  a  larger  context,  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  Rustbelt  into  a  kind  of  Archi- 
pelago Pandora  could  end  5,000  years  of 
patriarchal  anomaly  and  neutralize  the 
Northern  domination  of  the  Southern 
Hemisphere.  Mining  the  Rustbelt  can 
only  be  one  aspect  in  the  struggle 
against  the  patriarchal  planetary  Work 
Machine,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of 
practical  opportunity,  it  could  be  a 
viable  first  step  in  this  big  task. 

The  Rustbelt  movement  is  just  one 
aspect  of  the  planetary  struggle  against 
the  stranglehold  of  capital.  Cooperation 
with  all  movements  throughout  the 
world  is  crucial,  but  especially  with  the 
Southern  Hemisphere  (there  are  lots  of 
rusty  spots  there  too).  The  need  for  such 
cooperation  transcends  all  barriers  of 
race,  color,  income,  sex,  and  nationali- 
ty- 
Why  not  use  industrial  areas  in  the 
context  of  movements  that  fight  for 
other  than  economic  solutions  to  life?  In 
many  urban  areas  such  movements  are 
looking  for  spaces  to  meet,  organize, 
and  test  new  lifestyles.  At  the  same 
time,  there  is  an  immense  lack  of 
housing  space  for  the  homeless,  mi- 
grants, young  people  and  the  victims  of 
the  present  crisis  in  general.  Huge  office 
buildings,  assembly-line  halls,  ware- 
houses, storage  areas,  port  facilities  are 
theoretically  available  now  everywhere, 
and  capitalist  planners  can't  offer  profit- 
able proposals  for  their  reuse.  What  we 
propose  is  a  transcontinental  movement 
that  appropriates  these  spaces  and  uses 


them  as  bases  for  a  new,   matriarchal 
civilization. 

•  Focus  on  three  concrete  projects, 
ideally  one  in  the  R.S.A.  (Rusty  State  of 
Amnesia),  one  in  Middle  Eurusty,  and 
one  in  the  ex-Rust  Union. 

•  Create  schemes  for  appropriating 
industrial  areas:  squatting,  creating 
state  subsidized  housing,  forming  coop- 
eratives or  public  corporations. 

•  Disseminate  existing  knowledge 
regarding  the  re-use  of  industrial  areas. 

WORKERS  OF  THE  RUSTBELT, 
UNITE!  YOU  HAVE  NOTHING  TO 
LOSE  BUT  YOUR  JOBS! 

—  P.M.,  Zurich,  Switzerland 


E>g=HaEZES5EE3   LUaF^k-O   3C3 


Ta 


Once  upon  a  midnight  bleary,  while  I  suffered,  weak  and  weary. 

Over  many  a  quaint  and  curious  program  hacked  of  yore  ~ 

While  I  nodded,  nearly  sleeping,  suddenly  there  came  a  beeping. 

As  of  something  creeping,  softly  creeping,  near  my  disk  drive  door. 

"Tis  some  malfunction,"  said  I,  "beeping  at  my  disk  drive  door  -- 

Only  this,  and  nothing  more."  * 

Yet  the  silken,  sad,  unrolling  of  each  screen  of  code  downscrolling 
Thrilled  me  --  filled  me  with  fantastic  terrors  never  felt  before,- 
So  that  now,  to  still  the  beating  of  my  heart,  I  stood  repeating, 
"Tis  some  hardware  error  clattering  at  my  disk  drive  door  -- 
Some  errant  bug  creating  an  annoyance  at  my  disk  drive  door  -- 
That  it  is,  and  nothing  more." 

Deep  into  directories  peering,  long  I  sat  there,  wondering,  fearing 
Dreaming,  doubting  doubts  no  mortal  ever  dared  to  doubt  before,- 
But  the  silence  was  unbroken,  and  the  stillness  gave  no  token, 
And  the  single  word  there  spoken  was  a  whispered  "Qremlinsi" 
This  I  whispered,  and  an  echo  whisp'ring  answered,  "Qremlins!" 
Merely  this,  and  nothing  more. 

Back  unto  my  keyboard  turning,  all  my  soul  within  me  burning. 
Soon  again  I  heard  a  beeping,  somewhat  louder  than  before. 
"Surely,"  said  I,  "surely  that  is  something  in  the  tape  drive,- 
Let  me  see,  then,  what  thereat  is,  and  this  mystery  explore  -- 
Let  my  heart  be  still  a  moment  and  this  mystery  explore  - 
Tis  a  bug  and  nothing  more." 


Swiftly  I  accessed  the  backup,  when,  with  many  a  fart  and  hiccup. 
There  wafted  out  some  flakey  Ravin'  from  the  mystic  days  of  yore,- 
Not  a  clue  as  to  who'd  made  it,-  no  Escape  key  stopped  or  stayed  it. 
But,  determined  to  invade,  it  perched  above  my  disk  drive  door  - 
Upon  a  virtual  bust  of  Turing  just  above  my  disk  drive  door  -- 
Perched,  and  shat,  and  nothing  more. 


Then  this  ebony  doofus  jiggling  my  sad  fancy  into  giggling. 
By  the  crufty  cartoon  crudeness  of  the  countenance  it  wore, 
"Though  thy  resolution's  murky  and  thy  animation's  jerky," 
Said  I,  "Qrim  and  ancient  Ravin'  floating  from  this  frightful  bore  - 
Tell  me,  tell  me  thy  full  pathname  in  the  system's  hallowed  store!" 
Croaked  the  Ravin':  "NEVERMORE." 


A  Itw  •xplanatlont  of  bits  of  obscure  w*lrdn«is: 

Alan  Turing  (1912-1954}  vvas  a  pioneer  in  modern 

computer  theory  and  mathematics  He  was  hounded  tor 

his  homosexuality  until  he  committed  suicide. 

A  raster  scan  is  a  technique  used  in  computer  termmals 

and  TVs  to  display  an  image  on  the  screen. 

A  Daemon  is  a  computer  program  that  is  available  to 

users  but  which  they  don't  have  to  call  (eg  programs 

that  control  printers). 

A  pointer  error  is  a  mistake  In  a  computer  program  that 

results  In  extremely  unpredictable  behavior;  they  are 

essentially  errors  In  writing  or  reading 

information  in  memory. 

A  process  table  is  a  list  of  all  the  programs  running 

on  a  computer. 

System  files  are  computer  programs  and  data  which 

are  required  to  operate  the  machine. 


133 


Much  I  marveled  this  ungainly  hack  to  synthesize  so  plainly. 

Though  its  answer  little  meaning  -  little  relevance  bore,- 

For  we  cannot  help  agreeing  that  no  living  human  being 

Ever  yet  was  cursed  with  seeing  such  an  image  'bove  his  door  -- 

Qlitch  or  bug  upon  the  windowed  screen  above  his  disk  drive  door. 

A  software  error  -  nothing  more. 


But  the  Ravin',  spouting  lonely  from  the  placid  bust,  spoke  only 
That  one  phrase,  as  if  its  soul  therein  it  did  outpour. 
Nothing  further  then  it  uttered  --  not  a  raster  then  it  fluttered  - 
Till  1  scarcely  more  than  muttered,  "Other  bugs  have  flown  before 
On  the  morrow  this  will  leave  me,  as  such  code  has  flown  before. 
"FATAL  ERROR:  CAN'T  RESTORE." 


Startled  at  the  stillness  broken  by  reply  so  aptly  spoken, 
"Doubtless,"  said  I,  "what  it  utters  is  its  only  stock  and  store 
First  repeated  and  repeated  as  some  dweeb  trying  to  delete  it 
Was  defeated  and  defeated  till  his  songs  one  burden  bore  - 
Till  the  dirges  of  his  hope  that  melancholy  burden  bore 
Of  ABORT  OR  RETRY,  OR  IQNORE?" 


Now  the  Ravin'  was  befouling  my  glad  fancy  into  scowling,- 
Straight  1  wheeled  a  cushioned  seat  in  front  of  screen  and  bust  and  door,- 
Then,  upon  the  dacron  sinking,  I  betook  myself  to  linking 
Fancy  unto  fancy,  thinking  what  this  ominous  fraud  of  yore  -- 
What  this  grim,  ungainly,  gnarly,  gross,  and  gubbish  fraud  of  yore 
Meant  in  grunting  "DUMP  THE  CORE!"? 


"Prophet!"  said  I,  "Thing  of  evil!  -  prophet  still,  if  bug  or  daemon!  - 
Whether  programmed,  or  a  terror  grown  from  unknown  pointer  error. 
Freak,  undocumented,  in  this  office  unenchanted  -- 
In  this  shop  by  deadlines  haunted  -  tell  me  truly,  I  implore  -- 
Does  this  —  does  this  machina  hold  a  deusi  --  tell  me,  I  implore!" 
"DEAD  LABOR--  NOTHINQ  MORE." 


"Be  that  phrase  our  sign  of  parting,  bug  or  fiend,"  I  shrieked,  upstarting 
"Qet  thee  from  my  process  table,  and  my  system  files  restore! 
Leave  no  icon  as  a  token  of  that  lie  thy  soul  hath  spoken! 
Leave  my  loneliness  unbroken!  ~  Quit  the  bust  above  my  door! 
Take  thy  beak  from  off  my  screen,  and  take  thy  code  from  out  my  core!" 
Croaked  it:  "RUNTIME  ERROR  104." 


PFSOEZESSEO 


hXICIE^k_a    3CD 


TS 


WHAT  WORK  MATTERS? 


The  Labor  Movement  has 
stopped  moving.  Institutions, 
primarily  AFL-CIO  trade  unions, 
long  ago  replaced  workers  as  the 
"active"  part  of  the  "movement." 
In  the  past  two  decades  unions 
and  organized  workers  have  been 
completely  outflanked  by  the 
widespread  restructuring  of 
work  through  automation  and 
relocation.  This  institutional 
legacy  of  earlier  struggles  is  in- 
capable of  reconceptualizing  the 
nature  of  social  opposition;  to 
expect  otherwise  is  naive. 

What  do  we  want  and  how  do  we  get  it? 

We  want  to  take  back  our  labor.  It's 
ours,  and  we  want  to  decide  what 
society  does!  It  is  strategically  disem- 
powering  — dare  I  say  "stupid"  — to  begin 
from  the  premise  that  our  revolutionary 
activity  must  rest  on  our  subordinate 
positions.  Trying  to  get  improved  wages 
or  conditions  within  an  absurd,  toxic 
and  wasteful  division  of  labor  over 
which  no  one  has  any  meaningful 
control  is  to  pursue  a  future  of  childlike 
dependence  on  either  rulers  or  the 
abstraction  known  as  The  Economy. 
What  is  The  Economy?  It  is  all  of  us 
doing  all  this  work  —  a  lot  of  it  a  waste  of 
time!  But  the  media  tells  a  different 
story:  we  are  chided  for  lacking  "con- 
sumer confidence"  and  scolded  for 
"hurting  The  Economy,"  or  perhaps  we 
are  counseled  that  "it's  bad  right  now," 
as  though  The  Economy  was  suffering  a 
transient  medical  problem  that  will  pass 
just  like  a  cold. 

Government  as  we  know  it  is  a  major 
part  of  the  problem,  not  because  it 
stands  in  the  way  of  business  and  the 
market,  but  because  it  offers  them  the 
ultimate  guarantee  of  force,  and  has 
proven  its  willingness  to  act.  Unions  are 
also  part  of  this.  They  have  clear  legal 
responsibilities,  primarily  negotiating 
and  upholding  legal  contracts  with  large 
companies,  ensuring  "labor  peace";  they 
cling  to  the  law,  hoping  that  eventually 
the  government  will  change  the  laws  and 
then  enforce  them  to  allow  a  new  wave 


of  unionization.  They  imagine  that  they 
will  someday  be  allowed  back  in  the  club 
and  once  again  enjoy  a  piece  of  an 
expanding  economic  pie  as  they  did 
during  the  post-war  period,  when  they 
played  an  important  role  in  crafting 
U.S.  foreign  and  domestic  policies  by 
purging  radicals  and  communists  and 
becoming  ardent  cold  warriors. 

Labor-management  cooperation  suc- 
ceeds when  there  is  increasing  wealth 
to  divide  up  at  the  bargaining  table,  and 
workers  are  content  to  exchange  control 
over  their  work  for  increased  purchasing 
power.  Those  days  are  gone  forever. 
The  U.S.'s  much-vaunted  "high  stan- 
dard of  living"  — the  trough  at  which 
trade  unionism  has  fed  its  formerly  fat 
face  so  voraciously  —  is  sinking  fast. 

Falling  living  standards  are  no  acci- 
dent. The  effect  of  expanding  interna- 
tional trade  is  to  gradually  equalize 
wages  and  working  conditions  world- 
wide. The  demise  of  union  strength, 
attributable  in  part  to  the  emergence  of 
this  world  market  with  its  billions  of 
low-wage  workers,  is  also  in  part  a  result 
of  unions   themselves.    Union   bureau- 


crats who  have  helped  pursue  the  im- 
perialist policies  of  the  U.S.  through  the 
American  Institute  for  Free  Labor  De- 
velopment (AIFLD)  and  campaigns  for 
"democratic  unions"  have  contributed 
to  a  process  which  has  already  greatly 
increased  "Third  World"  conditions  in 
U.S.  cities. 

The  reduction  of  high-wage  industrial 
work  in  favor  of  low-wage,  part-time 
service  and  information  work  was  in 
response  to  the  equalizing  forces  of  the 
world  market.  As  capital  flows  to  areas 
of  optimal  profitability,  living  condi- 
tions worsen  in  its  wake,  creating  a 
two-tiered  society  that  signals  misery  for 
the  majority.  It  is  a  process  that  cannot 
be  derailed  by  an  "honest"  or  even 
"progressive"  government  enmeshed  in 
the  unforgiving  world  market.  Union 
leaders  who  campaign  for  "jobs"  are 
either  cynics  or  genuinely  myopic.  They 
know  as  well  as  anyone  who  reads  the 
daily  papers  that  the  wave  of  restructur- 
ing that  helped  produce  this  "downturn 
in  The  Economy  has  permanently 
reduced  the  number  of  workers  needed. 

Today  people  band  together  as  work- 


A  trail  of  theft,  protection  raciiets  and  sordid  corruption— the  droppings  of  the  job  mariiet  pimps  iinown  as 
"official  unionists"— led  to  a  ghoulish  cul-de-sac: 
THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  OF  LABOR 


PE=M=ic::E5aEa  tojoi^h-C]  ^cd 


They  had  made  a  perfidious  pact  with  the 
EVIL  ONES!... 

ers  and  t£ike  action  when  they  are 
attacked  and  enraged,  or  desperately 
frightened  (and  not  always  then).  By  the 
time  they  are  pushed  to  this  extreme,  a 
large  team  of  lawyers  and  managers  has 
already  been  planning  for  months  or 
years  on  using  management's  strategic 
power  to  increase  control  and  profits. 
Workers'  actions  under  union  (and  le- 
gal) control  invariably  correspond 
closely  to  the  script  being  written  by  the 
company  lawyers. 

Of  course  no  one  expects  radical  ideas 
from  union  leaders,  whose  primary 
concerns  are  personal  survival,  pen- 
sions, their  kids'  college  tuitions,  etc.  As 
every  wave  of  layoffs,  automation  and 
concessions  hurls  more  people  into  the 
daily  transience  and  uncertainty  that 
increasingly  characterize  daily  life  in  the 
U.S.,  union  bureaucrats  merely  seek 
long-term  guarantees  for  themselves  as 
institutional  players  at  the  Table  of 
Consensus.  Any  contract  will  do,  as 
long  as  the  dues  keep  getting  checked 
off.  Maybe  they'll  have  to  "tighten  their 
belts,"  lay  off  a  secretary  or  two. 

For  these  reasons  a  new  wave  of  social 
opposition  must  identify  its  strategic 
concerns  as  distinct  from  those  of  uni- 
ons. Those  that  do  the  work  should 
assume  comprehensive  control,  through 
their  own  activity,  of  their  (our)  work, 
their  purposes,  and  organization. 
Workers  have  to  begin  thinking  beyond 
the  logic  of  the  system  in  which  they  find 
themselves  entrapped. 

Time  at  the  paid  job  is  akin  to  "jail" 
versus  the  "freedom"  of  time  after  work. 


Work  is  war.  If  it's  only  a  game  now,  it's 
because  it's  so  difficult  to  seriously  chal- 
lenge the  power  and  designs  of  the 
owners  and  their  representatives. 

Many  people  already  pursue  activities 
and  "work"  that  they  rarely,  if  ever,  get 
paid  for.  In  spite  of  the  lack  of  "demand" 
for  this  "work,"  they  put  serious  com- 
mitted energy  into  developing  various 
talents,  skills,  or  tendencies  because 
their  engagement  with  life  demands 
it  — the  satisfaction  of  their  full  humani- 
ty depends  on  it!  What  if  the  passion 
that  leads  us  to  become  musicians  or 
artists,  or  to  pursue  "second  careers,"  or 
"pay  our  dues"  in  the  fields  we  are 
interested  in,  were  unleashed  to  rede- 
sign life  itselP! 

As  the  people  who  "have  better  things 
to  do  than  work,"  we  have  to  develop 
our  sense  of  self-interest,  in  stark  oppo- 
sition to  the  consensus  for  a  "strong 
economy."  Tactics  to  expand  our  free- 
dom RIGHT  NOW  will  become  clearer 


collective  appropriation  of  the  means  of 
production.  In  other  words,  "taking 
over"  this  messed-up  world  and  running 
it  "democratically"  is  neither  truly  pos- 
sible nor  desirable.  A  more  thorough- 
going transformation  of  human  activity 
and  society  will  be  required.  To  look  at 
institutional  solutions  at  the  state  level 
or  its  opposite,  is  to  gaze  into  the  past. 
Those  ideas  were  born  embedded  in  a 
division  of  labor  and  social  system  that 
has  consistently  promoted  extreme  cen- 
tralization, stratification,  and  hierarchy 
based  on  power,  wealth,  race  and  gen- 
der. 

If  it  is  hopelessly  anachronistic  to 
believe  in  the  possibility  of  One  Big 
Union,  or  even  a  good  government, 
how  do  we  democratically  organize  our 
lives?  What  does  democratic  organiza- 
tion really  mean?  How  come  when  we 
"talk  politics"  we  don't  talk  about  real 
issues  like  what  do  we  do  and  why?  How 
can  we  "freely  participate"  in  a  system  of 


The  target  of  a  new  social  opposition  should  be  a  good  life 
for  everyone.  An  ecologically  sound  material  abundance, 
based  on  non-mandatory  but  widely  shared  short  work 
shifts  at  democratically  determined  "necessary  labor,"  is 
possible  right  now! 


as  we  share  what  we  already  know  about 
points  of  vulnerability,  openings  and 
spaces,  creative  obfuscation,  unfettered 
self-expression,  Utopian  fantasizing,  and 
living  well  now.  Sometimes  we'll  find 
allies  at  work,  other  times  the  pursuit  of 
our  goals  may  need  "outside  help." 

Given  the  sweeping  changes  of  the 
past  two  decades  (computerization  and 
just-in-time  production  to  name  but  two 
examples),  the  fear  of  losing  increasing- 
ly scarce  jobs,  and  the  thorough  amnesia 
that  afflicts  U.S.  workers,  liberals,  and 
even  radiczds,  it  seems  unlikely  that 
social  movements  that  break  with  the 
logic  of  the  marketplace  will  arise  on  the 
job.  However,  such  movements  will  still 
face  the  question  of  work. 

THE  DUALISM  OF  WORK 

The  French  writer  Andre  Gorz  has 
argued  that  the  extreme  socialization  of 
modern  industry  and  its  reduction  of 
human  labor  to  completely  controlled 
machine-like  behavior  has  eliminated 
the  once  radical  vision  of  true  workers' 
control  of  industry  and  society.  The  way 
most  work  is  structured  in  the  global 
factory   precludes   the   possibility   of  a 


highly  socialized  labor  and  creatively 
redesign  the  fabric  of  our  lives  at  the 
same  time? 

The  marketplace  and  wage-labor  im- 
pose a  fatail  break  between  our  inclina- 
tions and  duties.  We  are  objects  cast 
about  in  the  rough  seas  of  the  market. 

What  can  you  say  about  people  who's  motto  is: 
"Proud  To  Be  An  Office  Worker"? 


PF^aEZESSEED    kJJOF^h_0    =kC3 


W 


These  ghouiish  workerists  attempled  to  pass  themselves  as  living  humans! 


Vincent  Vanguard 

SECT;  Wevilutionary  Lurkers 

Plague 
FRONT  GROUP:  Solidarity  with 

the  Industrial  Workers  of 

Antarctica 


SECT:  Laboriously  Struggling 
Worken  Party 


Mike  Old-Doff 

SECT:  Anachronist-Syndicalist 
FROI^  GROUP:  "The  Oiganizm' 
Organizing  Conference" 


rather  than  thoughtful  subjects  consid- 
ering the  zilhons  of  ways  in  which  our 
Hves  could  be  better  immediately,  and 
organizing  ourselves  to  help  bring  it 
about.  We  are  locked  into  "careers,"  or 
perhaps  vicious  cycles  of  underemploy- 
ment, unemployment  and  bad  luck, 
instead  of  choosing  from  a  smorgasbord 
of  useful  activities  needing  attention, 
from  cooking,  cleaning  and  caretaking, 
to  planting  and  building,  along  with  a 
variety  of  well-stocked  workshops  for 
easy  "self-production"  of  essential  items. 

Why  isn't  it  a  common  discussion 
among  people  that  life  is  so  dismal  when 
it  could  be  so  fine? 

Perhaps  we  can  get  something  from 
Gorz's  concept  of  dualism  at  work.  It's  a 
dualism  we  already  face,  but  relatively 
unconsciously.  On  the  one  hand,  there 
are  certain  basic  tasks  that  must  be  done 
"efficiently"  to  accommodate  basic  hu- 
man needs  worldwide  — clean  water  and 
sewage  treatment,  sustainable  agricul- 
ture, adequate  shelter  and  clothing,  and 
so  on.  On  the  other,  are  the  countless 
ways  humans  have  developed  to  satisfy 
themselves  and  improve  life,  from  cul- 
ture and  music  to  home  improvements 
and  do-it-yourself-ism.  In  today's  so- 
ciety, this  dualism  is  experienced  as  cin 
unavoidable  division  between  what  we 
do  to  "make  a  living,"  and  what  we  do 
when  work  is  over  and  we  are  "free."  Of 
course,  that  "free"  time  is  most  often 
defined  by  the  flipside  of  alienated  work, 
i.e.  shopping,  or  other  forms  of  silie- 
nated  consumption.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
outside  of  work  that  most  of  us  construct 
the  identities  that  we  really  care  about 
and  that  give  us  our  sense  of  meaning. 


Calling  what  we  do  as  work  now 
"necessary  labor"  is  a  confusing  mis- 
nomer in  our  society  since  millions  of 
jobs  are  a  waste  of  time  at  best.  But  if  a 
social  movement  arises  with  enough 
strength  to  create  new  ways  of  social  life, 
then  the  activities  that  belong  on  the  list 
of  "necessary  labor"  could  ultimately  be 
decided  upon  by  a  new,  radically  demo- 
cratic society.  Once  these  tasks  are 
identified  and  agreed  upon,  we  can  go 
about  the  business  of  reducing  unpleas- 
ant work  to  a  minimum,  making  it  as 
enjoyable  as  possible,  and  sharing  it  as 
equally  as  possible. 

Such  a  new  society  would  eliminate 
billions  of  hours  of  useless  work  re- 
quired by  The  Economy,  from  banking 
to  advertising,  from  excessive  packaging 
to  unnecessarily  wide  distribution  net- 
works, from  military  hardware  and 
software  to  durable  goods  built  to  break 
down  within  a  few  years  or  even 
months.  Hundreds  of  areas  of  human 


activity  can  be  drastically  reduced,  al- 
tered or  simply  eliminated. 

Imagine  how  easy  it  would  be  to  take 
care  of  medical  problems  if  there  were 
no  money  or  insurance,  merely  the 
provision  of  services  to  those  who  need- 
ed them.  There  would  still  be  medical 
record-keeping,  but  it  would  only  track 
information  for  health  needs,  not  infor- 
mation to  be  used  for  the  pernicious  ends 
of  insurance  disqualification  or  other  stan- 
dard business  crimes.  Hospitals  would 
take  care  of  people,  not  process  insurance 
forms,  imagine!  With  the  elimination  of  so 
imagine!  With  the  elimination  of  so 
much  wasted  effort  and  resources,  real 
needs  become  much  easier  to  meet. 
Material  security  is  guaranteed  to  all. 
(There's  plenty  to  go  around  already  — 
but  thanks  to  the  market  most  of  us  can't 
afford  much.) 

With  this  kind  of  revolution  the 
wrong-headed  demand  for  "jobs"  van- 
ishes into  thin  air.  Instead  we  are 
overwhelmed  (at  least  at  first)  by  all  the 
work  we  need  to  do  to  create  this  new 
free  society  — a  great  deal  of  it  involving 
the  development  of  many  new  forms  of 
social  decision-making  and  collective 
work. 

When  we  get  things  more  or  less  the 
way  we  like  them  our  "necessary  labor" 
will  fall  to  something  like  an  easy  five 
hours  a  week  each.  Our  free  time  then 
stretches  out  before  us  with  almost 
unlimited  possibilities.  Most  of  us  will 
get  involved  in  lots  of  different  things. 
As  people  begin  "working"  at  all  the 
things  they  like  to  do,  under  their  own 
pace  and  control,  society  discovers  the 
pleasant  surprise  that  "necessary  labor" 
is  shrinking  since  so  much  of  what 
people  are  doing  freely  is  having  the 
effect  of  reducing  the  need  for  highly 
socialized,  machine-like  work. 

Juliet  Schor  has  discovered  some 
interesting   statistics   in   her   book    The 


UNION     MCMBEK, 


CARRY     A     KI0TE6O0K  f 
tORlTE     DOlUN    EVe^y   TIME 
SHrtOVi     IS      MEAVJ    TO 
-iO\)\    I'M     A 
LA\A)yffR    SO 
1     5H0ULO 
KWOtu! 


The  slindard  creaky  oral  reporte  on  "sacririce"  and  "suffering  with  dignity"  gave  new  meaoing  to 
"Boring From  Within". . . 


'P^ 


F>FMZIi::E55ED   LJJCie=Sh_Cl    3CD 


THEIR  REAL  JOBS  ARE: 


stand-up  comedian 
&Poet 


Dancers  & 

AIDS  Hospice 

Volunteers 


Singer  & 
Sculptor 

Soup  Kitchen 

Volunteer, 
Anthropologist 
&  sex-club  patron 
/ 


Overworked  American  (See  review  on  page 
58).  A  1978  Dept.  of  Labor  study  showed 
that  84%  of  respondents  would  willingly 
exchange  some  or  all  of  future  wage 
increases  for  increased  free  time.  Nearly 
half  would  trade  ALL  of  a  10%  pay 
increase  for  free  time.  Only  16%  refuse 
free  time  in  exchange  for  more  money. 

In  spite  of  overwhelming  sociological 
evidence  of  a  widespread  preference  for 
less  work  and  more  fun,  many  people 
still  fervently  clutch  the  work  ethic.  For 
them  the  connection  between  working 
and  getting  paid,  earning  your  own 
living,  is  deeply  ingrained  as  a  basic 
element  of  self-respect.  This  sense  of 
self-respect  is  extremely  vit2il  knowledge 
for  human  happiness,  but  somehow 
capitalism  managed  to  link  it  to  wage- 
labor.  They  want  us  to  express  our 
self-respect  through  our  ability  to  do 
their  work,  on  their  terms.  We  deserve 
respect,  from  others  and  from  ourselves, 
but  not  because  we  can  do  stupid  jobs 
well.  When  that  happens  our  self- 
respect  has  been  bought  and  sold  back  to 
us  as  a  self-defeating  ideology. 

Nobody  ever  does  anything  that  is 
truly  "theirs."  Every  part  of  human 
culture  and  daily  life,  especially  work,  is 
a  product  of  millions  of  people  interact- 
ing over  generations.  The  fact  that  some 
individuals  invent  things  or  "have  ideas" 
that  become  influential,  doesn't  make 
those  breakthroughs  any  less  a  social 
product.  That  inventor's  consciousness 
is  very  much  a  product  of  the  lives  and 
work  of  all  those  around  him  or  her, 
present  and  past. 

If  this  is  true,  then  what  is  the  basis 
for  enforcing  the  link  between  specific 
kinds  of  work  and  specific  levels  of 
access  to  goods?  In  other  words,  why  do 


some  people  make  so  much  more  money 
than  others?  More  interesting  still,  in  a 
society  freed  from  the  mass  psychosis 
known  affectionately  as  The  Economy, 
what  relationship  do  we  want  to  estab- 
lish between  work,  skill,  initiative,  lon- 
gevity, etc.  and  access  to  goods. '^ 

Obviously  I'm  not  arguing  for  com- 
parable worth,  or  any  strategy  that  gears 
itself  to  simple  wage  increases  as  a  goal. 
In  the  exchange  of  wages  for  work  we 
lose  any  say  over  what  work  is  done  and 
why;  at  this  point  in  history  we  must 
redesign  how  we  live,  and  we  have  to  do 
it  intelligently  or  we  will  surely  not 
survive  as  a  human  civilization  (it's 
barbaric  enough  adready!). 

A  prosperous  global  society  that  is  not 
dominated  by  a  world  government  and  is 
fun  to  live  in,  and  doesn't  require  an 
abstract  devotion  to  work  for  its  own 
sake,  is  within  our  grasp.  We  have  to 
think  about  the  social  power  that  still  lies 
at  work  in  spite  of  our  desire  to 
transform  it  into  something  quite  dif- 
ferent. If  we  are  not  organizing  our- 
selves on  the  basis  of  our  jobs,  how  do 
we  begin  to  make  real  an  alternative 
movement  based  on  what  we  do  value? 
How  can  this  new  "labor  movement" 
grow  organically  out  of  our  efforts  to 
subvert  the  current  system? 

The  unions,  from  conservative  to 
"radical,"  still  believe  in  and  insist  on  the 
centrality  of  the  work  ethic.  They  can- 
not conceive  alternatives  to  the  work- 
and-pay  society  because  as  institutions, 
unions  are  embedded  within  and  de- 
fined by  that  society.  Radicals  clinging 
to  the  security  blanket  of  "workers' 
organizing"  (especially  in  the  hopeless 
direction  of  rank-and-file  trade  union- 
ism) are  embracing  a  dying  society  and 
its  obsolete  division  of  labor.  Why 
pursue  at  this  late  date  the  stabilization 
and  maintenance  (let  alone  improve- 
ment!) of  a  deal  with  capitalism,  when 
it's  clearer  than  ever  that  we  need  deep, 
systemic  change  that  goes  beyond  mere 
"economics"? 

Never  has  it  been  more  appropriate  to 
place  on  the  front  burner  the  classic 
critiques  of  wage-labor  and  capitalist 
society.  The  work  ethic  is  a  perverse 
holdover  from  the  worst  extremes  of  the 
narrow  puritanism  that  contributed 
greatly  to  the  founding  of  this  culture. 
The  compulsion  to  work  — for  its  own 
sake  and  as  an  ideological  cattle  prod  — 
is  the  battery  acid  that  keeps  this  society 
afloat  even  while  it  leads  to  widespread 
corrosion  within  our  hearts,  relation- 
ships, and  neighborhoods. 

Although  I  attack  the  work  ethic,  I  do 


not  attack  hard  work.  Without  doubt,  a 
free  society  will  be  a  great  deal  of  work, 
involving  both  the  free,  creative  and  fun 
stuff,  and  a  fair  share  of  the  grind-it-out 
rehabbing,  reconstructing,  and  reinha- 
biting  of  our  cities  and  countrysides. 
People  are  not  afraid  or  incapable  of 
hard,  worthwhile  work.  Even  the  most 
onerous  tasks  can  be  made  more  enjoy- 
able. Many,  if  not  most,  enjoy  work,  in 
reasonable  and  self- managed  doses.  But 
few  are  able  or  willing  to  give  that 
passionate  extra  effort  when  they  are 
being  paid  to  do  a  job  all  their  lives. 
Degradation  accompanies  being  left  out 
of  basic  decisions  about  how  you  spend 
your  life,  and  perpetually  being  told 
what  to  do. 

Most  of  us  go  through  life  without 
finding  meaning  or  satisfaction  at  work, 
or  if  we're  really  lucky,  we  get  some  in 
small  amounts  now  and  then.  The  good 
things  that  happen  at  work  in  this 
society  are  almost  invariably  IN  SPITE 
of  the  organization,  its  activities,  and 
the  way  it's  run.  When  real  human 
connections  are  made  and  real  needs 
fulfilled,  that  is  the  essence  of  what  all 
work  should  be.  Of  course  it  will  be 
difficult  to  feel  that  way  about  lots  of 
important  things,  like  tending  toxic 
waste  dumps.  But  society's  goal,  and  the 
target  of  a  new  social  opposition,  should 
be  a  good  life  for  everyone.  An  ecologi- 
cally sound  material  abundance,  based 
on  non-mandatory  but  widely  shared 
short  work  shifts  at  democratically  de- 
termined "necessary  labor,"  is  possible 
right  now. 

The  forms  of  our  political  activity  and 
direct  resistance  must  take  seriously  the 
basic  questions  of  social  power.  It's 
pretty  obvious  who's  got  the  guns  and 
that  they're  comfortable  using  them. 
We'll  never  win  a  military  conflict. 
Pleasure  is  our  strongest  weapon.  Life 
could  be  so  great!  Symbolic  efforts  may 
be  useful  at  first,  but  if  we  are  serious 
about  radical  change  we  will  eventually 
have  to  grasp  the  levers  of  power  found 
at  work. 
—  Chris  Carlsson 

"What  positive  steps 
can  WE  take  to  organize 
THEM? 


Who  are 
those  500,000  people.. 

*  genuine  quote  from  organizers'  follow-up  bulletin! 


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