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PRDCESSEE] 


iiiir.111 


Digitized  by  tlie  Internet  Archive 
in  2010 


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littp://www.arcliive.org/details/processedworld31proc 


PRDCESSED  kUDRLD 

Issue    3I/5ummer-FaU    1993  155 M   0735-9351 


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f^K5NMENTS 


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Truant  Heads 


Letters 


Making  Stoopid 


A  Year  in  Espanola 


Fast  Learner 


Fat  Lot  0' Good 


High  Cost  of  Sleep 


TransitZone 


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Confessions  of  An  Atheist  Priest    fff*  oj  loif  i..j  TTximsrc  qinUxit 


Remaking  A  Public 


Reviews 


I  Beg  To  Disagree 


DOWMTIME! 


Take  Mo  Chances 


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^liotf  -111.  f.ii((  ^Jiiuff  (lu  l)m\ 


/(f'(ioii  1)11   P^iiiiiliin  ^Umfif(<.' 


PW  Collective.' Mickey  D.,  Petra  Leuze,  JR5,  Primitivo  Morales.  Larina,  Zoe  Noe,  Chris  Carisson, 
Richard  Wool,  Sarah  Mor^i,  Kwazee  Wabbitt,  Adam  Cornford,  D.S.  Black,  Iguar^a  Mente.  C.F.  Christopher 

Other  Contributors; Gloria  Frym,  Antler,  Salvador  Ferret,  R.L.  Tripp,  Greg  Evans,  Ace  Tyiene,  Lalla  Finecke,  Blair 
Ewing,  Doug  Minkier,  Tom  Tomorrow,  Ace  Backwords,  Angela  Socage,  Markus,  Jennie,  I.B.  Nelson,  Robert  Matheny, 
Victor  Change,  Dolores  Job,  Rose  Ray,  the  Office  Mice  and  many  others. . . 


ilho 


lid  no 


rial  in  l\i),nwd  World  rcnccn  the  views  and  fantaiics  of  the  s| 

-ily  those  of  other  contributors,  editors,  or  BACAT  Pmrnstd  World  is  a  projerl  of  the  Bay  Area  Outer  for 

Art  &  Technology  (BACAT) .  a  non-profit,  tax-exempt  corporation   BACAT  can  be  contacted  at  109,5  Market 

Street.  Suite  209.  San  Francisco.  CA  94103,  /"IV'or  BACAT  may  be  phoned  at  (41.5)  626-2979  or  faxed  at  (415) 

626-2685  or  c-mailed  at  pwmag@well.sf.ca  us  Pmtessrd  World  is  collectively  edited  and  nroduced.  Nobody  gets 

paid  (except  the  printer,  the  post  ofTice/UPS.  the  landlord,  and  the  phone  co).  We  welcome  comments,  letters 

and  submissions  (no  originals!).  Write  us  at  41  Sutter  St.  #1829,  San  Francisco.  CA  94104.  Procased  World  is 

indexed  in  the  Alternative  Press  Index. 


Truant 
Heads 


The  capitalist  today,  if  lie  wishes  to 
remain  one,  must  support  the  gov- 
ernment, and  even  lead  the  way,  in 
giving  the  children  whom  he  may  one  day 
need  on  the  machines  an  education  such 
as  a  hundred  years  ago  very  few  children 
of  manufacturers  ever  got.  It  goes  against 
the  grain  with  him,  but  he  has  no  choice. 
Today,  and  still  more  this  is  true  of  the 
future,  it  is  not  the  country  which  is  most 
highly  educated  at  the  top,  but  the  country 
which  is  most  highly  educated  at  the  bottom 
that  takes  first  place  and  decides  the  worth 
of  the  dollar.  ("The  Caretta,"  B.  Traven, 
circa  1926) 

The  crisis  in  education  has  become  a  sub- 
ject worthy  of  headlines,  the  op-ed  page,  and 
other  "public"  forums,  typically  with  the  lament 
that  education's  failures  are  the  source  of  a 
steady  decline  in  US  industrial  productivity. 
The  failures  are  robbing  the  country  of  its 
competitive  advantage.  Worse  yet,  though  un- 
stated, the  cream  of  an  admittedly  faulty  crop 
need  new  ways  to  rationalize  their  relative 
privilege.  Excellence  will  be  the  standard,  and 
economic  progress  the  goal  of  a  new  educa- 
tional strategy. 

According  to  the  National  Commission  on 
Excellence  in  Education  report,  A  NATION  AT 
RISK,  "If  an  unfriendly  foreign  power  had 
attempted  to  impose  on  America  the  mediocre 
educational  performance  that  exists  today,  we 
might  well  have  viewed  it  as  an  act  of  war.... 
We  (sic)  have,  in  effect,  been  committing  an  act 
of  unthinking,  unilateral  educational  disarma- 
ment." Businesses  complain  about  the  high  cost 
of  finding  qualified  entry-level  personnel.  Six 
out  of  ten  PacBell  applicants  are  rejected  be- 
cause they  can't  pass  a  7th-grade-level  test; 
40%  of  BofA  applicants  fail  tests  requiring 
alphabetizing  names  and  putting  5-digit  num- 
bers in  sequential  order;  Wells  Fargo  wanna- 
bes suffer  a  50%  failure  rate  on  similarly 
mindless  exams.  These  people  literally  won't 
do. 

A  1985  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  report 
finds  that,  even  when  high-tech  industries  are 


broadly  defined,  they  "will  account  for  only  a 
small  proportion  of  the  new  jobs  through  1995." 
Opportunities  abound  for  the  custodian,  cashier, 
secretary,  kitchen  helper,  security  guard,  or  door- 
keeper (in  that  order).  Disregarding  the  calls  for 
a  higher  degree  of  "schooling,"  low-paying,  low- 
skill  jobs  keep  growing. 

Despite  deliberate  efforts  to  de-skill  the 
workplace,  in  part  because  it's  easier  to  control 
fragmented  servants  who  process  information 
they'll  never  really  understand,  skilled  labor  is 
still  required.  Smart  machines  have  needs,  too. 
Each  automated  step  forward  demands  a  sup- 
port staff  -  although  today  much  of  the  exper- 
tise comes  from  contracted  technical  support, 
payroll-  service  bureaus,  independent  tax  consult- 
ants, etc.  Generally  self-employed  or  small-business 
employees,  these  workers  are  scattered  and  unable 
to  cooperate,  and  are  frequently  trapped  in  techno- 
k>gicaliy  obsolete  fields. 

The  experts  agree:  the  failure  of  the  schools 
threatens  tiie  nation's  competitiveness  and  the 
USA's  status  as  the  richest  country  in  history.  In 
response  to  what  A  NATION  AT  RISK  calls  "a 
rising  tide  of  medioaity,"  policy-makers  propose 
the  standard  of  "excellence"  as  the  focal  point  of 
a  comprehensive  educational  strategy  devoted  to 
the  future  of  high-tech  America. 

Education  Is  Their  Business 

From  the  late  1830s  through  the  1840s, 
"common  schools"  were  established  to  "shape 
character,"  in  response  to  increasing  urbaniza- 
tion and  the  demise  of  skilled  craftsmen  and 
self-sufficient  farmers.  Schooling  was  widely 
applied,  although  the  female,  slave,  Indian,  and 
tiie  ghetto  poor  were  usually  not  educated 
(might  give  'em  ideas).  Even  a  casual  look  at 
the  requirements  for  being  a  teacher  (female, 
unwed,  proper,  etc.)  shows  that  something 
more  was  expected  than  reading  and  writing. 

Between  the  1890s  and  1920s,  schools 
smoothed  the  way  for  the  development  of  more 
intensive  bureauaatization.  A  new  professional 
elite  of  "education  executh/es,"  trained  in  the 
hierarchical  organization  techniques  of  scientific 
management  and  the  edicts  of  business  efficiency, 
reorganized  the  school  to  mirror  the  modem 
factory.  High  school  also  served  as  an  institution 
to  "Americanize"  potentially  "radical"  immigrants. 

After  World  War  II,  the  G.I.  Bill  made 
higher  education  possible  for  more  people,  and 
a  multi-tiered  system  evolved:  community  col- 
leges for  the  minimally  trained  working  class; 
large,  state  universities  for  future  mid-level 
bureaucrats;  and  elite,  private  institutions  for 
the  progeny  of  the  ruling  class.  A  "knowledge 
race"  with  the  USSR  necessitated  a  vast  out- 
pouring of  federal  funds  for  scientific  R&D 
and  a  class  of  engineers  and  physical  scientists, 
wedding  the  "multiversities"  with  the  military- 
industrial  complex. 


As  the  universities  developed  into  centers 
of  political  dissent  in  the  late  '60s,  interests 
such  as  the  liberal  Trilateral  Commission  cited 
the  "crisis  in  democracy"  as  a  cause  for  great 
alarm,  and  recommended,  among  other  things, 
that  business  move  away  from  utilizing  the 
university  for  research  purposes.  The  faculty 
and  students  were  deemed  unfriendly  to  the 
needs  of  the  status  quo.  The  threat  of  a  capital 
"strike"  encouraged  reform  in  the  profit-ori- 
ented universities. 

To  maintain  its  economic  viability,  the  uni- 
versity now  leases  and/or  sells  its  resources  - 
labs,  computer  centers,  faculty  -  for  corporate 
use.  The  trend  is  to  render  the  campus  more 
amenable  to  corporate  partnerships  and  re- 
search contracting.  Silicon  Valley,  Research 
Triangle,  and  Route  128  are  models  of  private 
spin-offs  of  the  universities,  serving  the  inter- 
ests of  high-tech  industry.  At  the  same  time, 
policy-makers  increasingly  rely  on  private  (i.e. 
corporate)  think-tanks  to  mobilize  public  opin- 
ion and  set  long-term  policy  goals  for  the  state. 
These  institutions,  not  surprisingly,  are  the 
authorities  behind  most  commissioned  reports 
regarding  educational  reform. 

Reeling  &  Writhing,  revisited 

As  information  replaces  material  wealth 
and  traditional  authority  as  the  foundation  of 
social  power  and  status,  the  power  of  technoc- 
racy grows.  In  its  educational  form  technoc- 
racy is  meritocracy:  a  means  of  determining 
"value"  based  upon  allegedly  objective  stand- 
ards such  as  testing,  quantification,  and  ap- 
proved methods  of  abstraction.  In  response  to 
demands  for  equal  access  to  educational  (and 
other)  opportunities,  "excellence"  relegitimates 
meritocracy  by  asserting  the  fiction  of  value-neu- 
tral aiteria. 

As  the  attack  on  social  equality  moves 
ahead,  and  depoliticization  reaches  new  ex- 
tremes, the  ideology  of  "excellence"  validates 
the  increased  power  of  the  knowledge  brokers. 
Technocracy  by  its  nature  cannot  turn  its  world 
view  over  to  public  evaluation.  "Excellence,"  a 
conveniently  malleable  standard  (one  of  Clin- 
ton's catch  phrases),  grafts  a  dimension  of 
quality  onto  an  otherwise  value-less  perspec- 
tive. 

The  crisis  in  education,  according  to  the 
managers  of  the  latest  fi'ontier,  is  caused  by 
laxity,  apathy,  and  a  decline  in  respect  for 
authority.  Calls  for  excellence  are  mere  at- 
tempts to  bolster  discipline  and  inculcate  re- 
spect for  those  above  you  on  the  social  ladder: 
the  self-proclaimed  self-achievers. 

To  be  less  than  excellent  is  to  be  mediocre, 
and  a  failure  to  society.  Meritocracy  declares 
that  success  or  failure  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
individual,  so  you've  only  yourself  to  blame  as 
you  crash  through  the  safety  net. 


PBOCESSED  WOBLD  31 


It  should  be  no  surprise  that  many  high 
school  graduates  can't  locate  the  US  on  the 
world  map,  or  think  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence is  a  communist  document.  Prevent- 
ing such  ignorance  is  not  useful.  But  the  values 
of  gym  teachers  and  Rhodes  scholars  (conform- 
ity, competition,  coercion)  are  useful. 

The  desire  for  a  class  of  technically  profi- 
cient idiots  has  been  satisfied;  the  learned  will 
try  to  convince  you  that  buying  and  selling  go 
back  to  the  last  ice  age.  From  high  office  to 
low,  not  just  a  lack  of  knowledge,  but  a  willful 
inability  to  think  is  a  regular  product  of  US 
schools. 

Most  of  the  pieces  on  education  In  this 
issue  were  created  by  such  products;  we  think 
that  we  haven't  totally  failed  in  looking  at  this 
omnipresent  institution.  Mickey  D.  outlines  his 
contempt  for  the  school  system  in  "Making 
Stoopld,"  and  Dolores  Job  details  her  personal 
saga  of  Catholic-schoolgirl-turned-social<rltic 
in  "Fat  Lot  of  Good  it  Did  Me."  Our  Southwest- 
ern correspondent  Salvador  Ferret  checks  in 
with  a  Journalistic  tale  of  toil,  which  documents 
his  experience  teaching  6th  grade  in  Espaflola, 
New  Mexico.  Chris  Carlsson's  "Remaking  a 
Public"  calls  for  a  reanimated  public  life  as  a 
basis  for  a  renewal  and  renaissance  in  educa- 


tion, while  Lawrence  Tripp's  fiction  "Fast 
Learner"  explores  some  possibilities  and  prob- 
lems with  augmented  learning. 

Kwazee  Wabbit  looks  at  both  graduate 
education  and  the  "helping"  profession  in 
"Confessions  of  an  Atheist  Priest."  In  the 
"Downtime"  section,  "Scamming  thru  College" 
reveals  a  somewhat  unusual  attitude  toward 
financing  education,  the  wisdom  of  which  is  still 
the  subject  of  criticism  and  scepticism  at  our 
collective  meetings.  "Downtime"  also  looks  at 
Bank  of  America's  recent  attack  on  its  employ- 
ees ("Wake  Up  and  Smell  the  Tiers"),  and  an 
example  of  counter-bank  activity  in  "BofA  Infil- 
trated." 

A  new  addition  in  this  issue  is  a  section  on 
transportation;  this  time  we  have  an  unabashed 
call  for  bicycling  ("I  Love  What  You  Do  for  Me"), 
a  report/recruiting  call  from  "Critical  Mass"  (a 
recent  and  recurrent  action  in  the  Bay  Area  to 
demonstrate  bicycle  presence),  and  an  essay  on 
America's  latest  do-it-yourself  craze,  car  jack- 
ing. 

The  reviews  section  looks  at  topics  ranging 
from  "dumpster  diving"  to  the  victims  of  Lon- 
don's class  war  in  the  18th  century,  not  neglect- 
ing modern  comics  and  the  bigger  issues  of  the 
Oil  War(s).  Greg  Evan's  "High  Cost  of  Sleep" 


and  Primitivo  Morales'  "Take  No  Chances"  are 
dystopian  fictions  for  our  time,  while  Gloria 
Frym's  short  story  "Distance  No  Object"  ex- 
plores subtleties  of  the  life  of  a  former  museum 
guard.  Antler  returns  to  our  pages  with  "I  Beg 
To  Disagree,"  while  other  poetry  explores  top- 
ics ranging  from  grading  papers  to  applying  for 
the  job.  An  extensive  letters  section  rounds  out 
the  magazine. 

We  want  to  hear  what  you  think  -  please 
write  us!  We'd  like  to  acknowledge  all  those 
people  who  produced  material  for  this  issue 
that  wasn't  used  -  we  were  swamped  with  many 
"excellent"  articles  and  fiction  pieces  we  had 
no  room  to  publish.  To  all  contributors,  pub- 
lished or  not,  our  thanks. 


PROCESSED  WORLD 

41  Sutter  Street  #1829, 

San  Francisco,  CA  94104,  USA 

Tel.  415-626-2979 

fax  415-626-2685 

e-mail  pwmag@well.sf.ca.usa 


pnOCCSSED  WORLD  3« 


Letters 


EL  NINO  MAS  BONITO 

Hey  Processed  World! 

I  recently  saw  issue  #30  at  a  bookstore 
and  really  liked  it  but  I  didn't  have  any  money 
to  buy  it,  but  I  took  this  envelope  with  the 
better  low  income  deal — so  here's  my  $10. 

I  try  to  pay  for  my  books  and  magazines 
whenever  I  can,  but  most  times  I  can't.  See, 
I'm  one  of  those  typical  Latinos  on  welfare 
and  $300  a  month  isn't  much,  especially 
when  $220  goes  to  paying  rent  and  utilities. 
And  like  most  recipients  of  G.A.,  I  get  many 
essentials  and  luxuries  by  shoplifting — no 
sense  in  living  like  a  worm  if  you  don't  have 
to.  But  the  only  shop  that  carries  Processed 
World  (in  L.A.)  is  this  small  artsy/pretentious 
cafe/bookshop  where  they've  got  cameras 
and  they  watch  you  like  hawks  (it  doesn't 
help  that  I  look  rather  scruffy),  making  it 
impossible  to  get  the  goods.  Thanks  for  hav- 
ing your  low  income  deal. 

Ah,  but  one  of  these  days  those  bastards 
will  get  theirs  (while  I  get  mine!).  I  really  liked 
your  comics  on  the  Martian  perspective  on 
Looting!  You  probably  got  all  those  bullshit 
media  stories  up  there  in  S.F.  about  the  riots 
but  the  truth  was  very  different.  Not  only 
were  people  getting  much  needed  (and 
maybe  some  not-so-necessary)  stuff,  they 
were  also  having  fun — there  was  an  incred- 
ible spirit  of  celebration.  They  kept  saying 
that  we  were  burning  our  own  communities 
but  nobody  feels  that  the  stores  belong  to 
them.  It's  just  a  store  managed  by  the  owner 
in  the  business  of  taking  what  little  we  have. 
They  owe  us.  They  owe  us  more  than  what 
we  can  get  in  a  few  days  of  looting.  And  I 
doubt  that  they  will  ever  be  able  to  pay  us 
back  for  all  the  damage  they've  done  with 
their  ugly  stores.  Nobody  wants  them,  no- 
body wants  to  pay  for  the  objects  they  house, 
and  nobody  wants  to  work  in  them  either. 
They  can  shove  their  "Rebuild  L.A."  plans, 
I'm  not  interested  in  helping  business  return 
to  normality.  I'd  rather  be  playing  tag  with 
my  neighbors,  reading  a  book,  sleeping  in 
the  park,  or  eating  some  tamales.  Anything 
other  than  contributing  to  the  things  that 
make  me  miserable. 

So  how  was  your  day? 

"El  Chavo" — Los  Angeles,  CA 

ALIENATED  AND  SMUQ! 

Dear  Processed  People: 

Someone  gave  me  a  copy  of  PW# 30  and 
I  was  really  impressed.  I  hadn't  known  it  was 
possible  to  be  so  alienated  and  so  smug  at 
the  same  time!  Perhaps  it  goes  with  being 


well-fed  and  adequately  housed,  but  still 
feeling  somehow  oppressed,  in  a  world 
where  most  people  would  kill  for  your  living 
standards  OR  your  jobs. 

I  particularly  like  the  way  you  insult  or  put 
down  anyone  who  believes  they  are  making 
positive  changes  or  leading  productive  lives 
(i.e.  environmentalists,  anyone  who  doesn't 
hate  their  job).  Actually,  the  book/comix 
reviews  and  the  "Ravin"  poem  were  pretty 
good.  The  rest  of  your  magazine  would  make 
a  colloquium  of  Marxist  intellectuals  seem 
interesting  by  comparison.  Keep  up  the  good 
work! 

Sincerely, 

D.S. — San  Francisco 

WHY  I  DONT  WANT  TO  WORK 

PW: 

This  morning,  I  called  a  friend  at  her  office 
from  my  office.  When  she  answered  with  her 
customary  "may  I  help  you?",  I  said  well,  I 
don't  know — I  seem  to  be  trapped  in  a  small 
room,  utterly  without  character  or  color, 
crammed  full  of  electronic  equipment,  and 
elderly  white  men  in  business  suits  come  in 
periodically  and  force  me  to  enact  seemingly 
meaningless  manual  rituals  over  and  over. 
She  asked  me  if  this  were  a  marriage  con- 
tract, since  it  sounded  to  her  like  a  descrip- 
tion of  marital  fucking.  I  said  no,  but  upon 
reflection  I'm  not  so  sure. 

Making  the  best  products  or  delivering  the 
best  services  has  very  little  to  do  with  the 
bottom  line  of  American  business,  and  any- 
one who's  ever  spent  more  than  two  days 
working  for  wages  in  this  great  land  of  ours 
knows  it.  If  Profit  were  truly  Cod,  and  a 
ruthless  efficiency  reigned  everywhere,  then 
at  least  we  workers  would  know  where  we 
stood. 

But  as  someone  who  has  searched  for  the 
power  source  of  American  commerce  while 
laboring  in  the  belly  of  the  beast,  I  have 
trodden  some  very  slimy  paths  on  my  way  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  the  American  business 
world  all  exits  lead,  ultimately,  not  to  the 
bank  vault  but  to  a  vast,  collective  cloaca — 
tastefully  decorated  and  well  situated,  per- 
haps, but  still  where  the  smelly  excretions 
come  out. 

The  need  to  come  and/or  shit  all  over  its 
constituent  parts  is  a  hallmark  of  American 
business.  And  since,  to  paraphrase  a  famous 
capitalist,  the  religion  of  America  is  business, 
I  think  we  must  look  at  these  eliminative 
functions  in  the  same  terms  as  their 
sexuo/scatologically  obsessed  Christian 


counterparts — not  as  part  of  a  healthy  purg- 
ing process  but  as  a  means  of  shaming, 
degrading,  ultimately  drowning  its  victims. 

Why?  After  long  thought,  I  believe  be- 
cause of  the  need  for  vengeance — the  re- 
venge of  the  reviled  "smart  kids"  against  the 
class  bullies.  School  system  success  among 
children  themselves,  as  we  all  well  know,  is 
based  almost  entirely  upon  physical  attrib- 
utes. (Civen  the  world  they  live  in,  how 
should  kids  judge  one  another — on  moral 
character?)  At  the  same  time,  the  shallowness 
of  view  foisted  upon  kids  by  capitalist  con- 
sumerism is  incapable  of  allaying  the  fear 
engendered  by  the  threat  of  others'  intelli- 
gence— fear  of  the  magical  ability  to  look  at 
a  page  of  printed  matter  and  see  a  reflection 
of  the  larger  world.  (For  a  further  discussion 
of  these  views  I  highly  recommend  a  book 
from  the  1970s  by  Cobb  and  Sennett  called 
The  Hidden  Injuries  of  Class — one  of  the  few 
sociology  books  ever  written  that's  worth  the 
paper  it's  printed  on.) 

As  we  "grow  up,"  smart  kids  start  to  get  a 
handle  on  their  power — and  one  of  the  few 
real  definitions  of  power  available  in  a  capi- 
talist consumer  paradigm  is  the  ability  to 
make  other  people  suffer  by  denying  them 
the  necessities  of  life  while  avoiding  suffering 
oneself.  Having  power  means  one  is  able  to 
create  a  net  of  lies  including  only  other 
"smart  kids"  in  which  one's  job  takes  on  an 
importance,  an  indispensability;  work  be- 
comes a  place  where  one's  opinions  are 
listened  to.  In  short,  smart  kids  grow  up  to 
manufacture  respect,  the  one  necessity  for 
living  that  none  of  us,  however  lucky,  re- 
ceived from  the  larger  world  as  children. 

How  many  of  your  bosses  have  been 
scrawny,  creepy  little  guys  with  funny 
names?  Lots,  I'll  bet.  And  any  reasonably 
aware  individual  walking  down  a  corridor 
can  almost  palpate  the  fear  pouring  out  of  the 
rows  of  their  well-appointed  offices.  This  fear 
requires  endless  defenses.  How  to  keep  the 
hired  muscle  from  turning  on  you?  By  incul- 
cating the  appropriate  self-loathing  and  de- 
pendence through  denial  of  respect.  Make 
them  afraid  they're  not  smart  enough,  not 
good  enough  to  live  without  you,  and  so 
generate  more  repressed  anger  in  the  work- 
ers, leading  to  more  reason  for  fear  and  thus 
more  defensive  behavior.  And  so  the  cycle 
turns. 

At  the  risk  of  marking  myself  as  an  old 
hippie,  I  still  love  the  passage  from  Lord  of 
the  Rings  where  Candalf  says  that  all  hope 
lies  in  the  fact  that  while  the  Dark  Lord  is 


PBOCESSED  WORLD  31 


unassailably  prepared  for  any  frontal  assault 
designed  to  seize  his  throne,  the  thought  that 
our  real  objective  is  to  cast  him  down  and 
have  no  one  in  his  place  never  muddies  his 
darkest  dreams.  In  this  colorful  period  when 
the  only  difference  between  communism  and 
capitalism  is  that  capitalism's  corpse  is  still 
farting,  will  those  of  us  who  will  neither 
submit  to  the  revenge  of  the  nerds  nor  use 
our  brainpower  to  subjugate  the  thoughtless 
be  able  to  withstand  the  hatred  of  those 
whose  every  breath  is  propelled  by  the  fear 
that  we  would,  if  we  could,  become  them? 

Stay  tuned. 

— B.H.  Cubbage,  San  Francisco 

IN  THE  WOODS 

PW,  howdy— 

I've  seen  yer  biotech  issue  #28.  Several 
real  good  articles,  particularly  the  one  by 
Tom  Athanasiou  re  Creenwashing.  I  liked  the 
issue's  overall  tone:  stick  to  your  guns,  with- 
out askin'  everyone  else  to  lay  down  theirs. 
Someday  I'd  like  to  get  it  together  enough  to 
respond  in  kind  to  some  of  the  key  points  you 
raise,  e.g.,  "abundance,"  from  my  own  more 
to  the  woods  point  of  view. 


— D.K.,  Leeport,  PA 

SYSTEMS  DISINTEQRATION 
CONSULTINQ 

Dear  PW: 

When  I  received  my  hiring  letter  from  The 
Firm  I  was  elated.  This  was  exactly  the  place 
I  had  wanted  to  work,  in  the  city  I  wanted  to 
work  in,  doing  the  work  I  wanted  to  do.  How 
could  I  have  been  more  fortunate? 

The  first  day  mounds  of  paperwork  and 
manuals  were  piled  before  us.  (It  took  me  six 
months  to  finally  sift  through  it  all.)  We 
received  our  complimentary  Digital  Voice 
Exchange  (DVX)  passwords.  We  were  told 
that  we  were  now  official  Creen  Beans. 

The  Office  consisted  of  sterile,  nearly 
empty  rooms  with  glass  walls  (with  a  spec- 
tacular view  of  the  earthquake-closed  Bay 
Bridge)  that  had  to  be  scheduled  daily  by 
project  managers.  Someone  described  the 
building's  13-foot  sway,  complete  with  top- 
pling bookcases  and  air-borne  typewriters. 
Ugly  modern  "art"  adorned  gleaming  hospi- 
tal-white walls.  Bluish  direct  overhead  light- 
ing cast  shadows  over  eyes  and  illuminated 
jaundiced  complexions.  Creen  Beans  occu- 


pied clusters  of  privacy-free  generic  gray 
cubicles. 

Week  1  (they  number  their  weeks)  we 
spent  learning  the  culcha  and  his-story  of  The 
Firm.  The  managing  partner  took  my  Start 
Croup  of  Creen  Beans  out  to  lunch.  At  our 
forthcoming  programming  course,  he  ex- 
plained, "it  doesn't  matter  if  they  teach  you 
how  to  do  oral  sex"  instead  of  COBOL  pro- 
gramming. The  idea  was  that  we  imbibe  The 
Firm's  culcha.  I  couldn't  wait  to  learn  more 
about  Firm  oral  sex.  This  was  my  kinda 
culcha. 

Weeks  2-3  were  designed  to  teach  the 
non-programmer  how  to  program.  We  wrote 
our  first  simple,  useless  COBOL  report  pro- 
gram. I  hunted  for  a  letter  opener  to  use  in 
order  to  pry  up  my  finger  nails  to  stay  awake. 
My  Start  Croup  was  fairly  diverse — two 
women,  two  Chinese,  one  Filipino,  and  one 
queer  white  boy,  and  I  noticed  that  there 
were  even  three  black  employees  among 
375:  the  secretaries. 

Weeks  4-6  were  spent  at  The  Firm  training 
facility,  The  Center  For  Professional  Educa- 
tion, in  nowhere's  ville  Midwest  in  the  dead 
of  winter.  At  first,  the  hours  of  8  am  to  10  pm 


PROCESSED  WODLD  3« 


seven  days  a  week  seemed  a  bit  excessive. 
Nothing  that  couldn't  be  mitigated,  how- 
ever, by  chain-drinking  coffee  and  nightly 
alcohol  poisoning  at  the  Social  Center.  No 
one  else  ever  left  the  hermetically  sealed 
corporate-sphere,  which  was  a  "sick  build- 
ing" health-wise  and  ideologically.  It  be- 
came my  duty  to  urinate  on  the  sculptures  of 
corporate  yuppies  in  corporate  drag  outside 
the  Social  Center. 

The  ones  I  related  to  well  were  the  Black 
and  Hispanic  maintenance  and  housekeep- 
ing staff.  I  vaguely  recall  schmoozing  with  the 
maids,  Josepha  and  Julietta  (Hoe-Seffuh  and 
Who-Lee-Etta),  in  a  drunken  stupor.  I,  a 
fellow  Green  Bean,  and  the  black  janitor 
enjoyed  polio  weed  in  his  ancient  Buick 
Riviera  in  subzero  temperatures. 

Several  of  my  fellow  Green  Beans  were 
from  the  Johannesburg  office.  Phil  was  a 
studly  bearded  dude,  who  was  a  former 
South  African  police  officer.  He  was  "proud" 
to  have  "defended"  the  whites  during  riots.  I 
wanted  to  "punish"  him  in  the  worst  way. 
Michael  was  just  the  opposite:  a  black  dem- 
onstrator who  participated  in  numerous  anti- 
apartheid  marches.  Suling  was  the  most 
interesting,  Chinese  with  a  thick  Scottish 
accent  due  to  her  Glasgow  upbringing.  Her 
friend  Scott  had  taken  the  job  on  a  bet  that 
he  wouldn't  make  it.  Everything  to  them  was 
"bloody"  as  we  downed  many  an  ale  at  the 
tavern  Scotland  Yard  with  the  London  office 
staff 

We  also  performed  the  powhitetrash  ac- 
tivity of  bowling  in  Elgin,  swilling  a  pitcher 
each  per  game.  The  South  Africans  sang 
drinking  songs  in  Afrikaans  on  the  school  bus 
ride  home.  During  the  weekend  excursion 
into  The  Windy  City  I  ditched  everyone  at 
Kingston  Mines  and  went  cruising  the  Touche 
gay  leather  bar. 

Somewhere  in  between  caffeine  and 
booze  we  were  programmed  to  create  iden- 
tical batch  and  on-line  COBOL  programs, 
and  became  interchangeable  ball  bearings. 
Later,  I  learned  that  the  facilitator  had  com- 
mitted suicide. 

Back  at  The  Office,  my  co-workers 
needed  additional  education.  I  invited  a 
flaming  queen  to  the  dinner-cruise-on-the- 
Bay.  They  stared,  utterly  speechless,  as  he 
screamed  his  love  for  Garland,  Davis,  et  al., 
at  the  dinner  table.  I  danced  and  had  my 
picture  taken  with  another  "brother"  at  the 
annual  dinner  dance.  Despite  The  Firm's 
homophobic  exterior,  many  of  their  clients 
were  screaming  nells — the  most  enjoyable  to 
work  with. 

As  "Captain  Admin"  of  The  Project — 
meaning  data  entry  of  time  sheets  and  field- 
ing complaints — I  was  assigned  to  "cube" 
#1E050C— Hist  Floor,  (EJast  Wing,  Section 
[050],  Cubicle  [C] — in  businessparkfrom- 
hell.  Eachof  the  four  wings  was  1/4  mile  long 
extending  from  the  center  of  the  Mother  Ship. 
Walkways  extended  to  the  vanishing  point 
and  robot  mail  carts  blared  "EX-CUSE-ME- 
EX-CUSE-ME"  when  blocked.  I  particularly 


enjoyed  sending  global  e-mail  informing  all 
personnel  that  the  network  was  about  to  be 
brought  down  the  instant  I  logged  off,  barely 
giving  them  time  to  save  their  voluminous, 
useless  design  documentation.  I  learned  also 
to  leave  cryptic  notes  on  the  white  board  in 
my  "cube"  so  that  nobody  could  find  me 
when  I  took  extended  coffee  breaks  and  long 
walks  with  vicious  black  swans  around  the 
fake  business  park  lagoon  that  existed  to  cool 
the  hermetically  sealed  mother  ship.  On  my 
six-month  review,  the  fact  that  I  had  worn  an 
earring  for  an  hour  was  quite  a  prominent 
black  mark  against  my  kharakteristika. 

You  know  one  you  know  'em  all.  The 
"boys"  DVX-ed  each  other  to  plan  the  first 
dinner  reception  for  employees  of  the  laven- 
der persuasion.  Needless  to  say  when  the 
flyers  hit  the  mail  folders  the  shit  hit  the  fan. 
"The  Psychotic  Boss-Monster  From  Hell"  ac- 
cused us  of  trying  to  start  a  sexual  liaison 
ring — he  didn't  believe  in  "fraternizing"  (de- 
spite the  staff  Golf  and  Baseball  clubs)  be- 
cause if  this  forbidden  activity  took  place  "the 
new  staff  would  be  cluster  fucking  in  the  halls 
of  the  clients."  His  second  in  command,  an 
ex-marine  from  Wawatosa,  Wisconsin,  told 
me  that  the  worst  thing  I  could  do  was  to 
"embarrass  my  supervisor." 

After  I  was  "rolled  off"  (just  who  was  on 
top?)  of  The  Project,  I  was  assigned  to  work 
around  the  clock,  all  weekend  long,  on  The 
Project  Proposal.  Most  of  the  useless,  ridicu- 
lous MacDraw  doodles  I  was  ordered  to 
create  from  hand-drawn  scrawl  were  thrown 
out  and  not  used  in  the  final  draft.  My 
muscle-pecs  jarhead  supervisor  got  pissed 
when  I  slipped  out  at  1:30  am  due  to  my 
cough  and  sore  throat.  I  immediately  began 
updating  my  resume  on  company  time,  on 
company  computers,  on  company  xerox  ma- 
chines, on  company  paper,  of  course. 

Six  months  after  I  left  The  Firm  I  went  into 
The  Office  after  bar  time  with  fellow  Green 
Beans  from  the  London  office.  I  filled  the 
white  boards  in  the  private  offices  and  con- 
ference rooms  with  "UNLEASH  THE 
QUEEN!!"  while  one  of  them  made  multiple 
personal  calls  to  London  on  the  unrestricted 
fax  machine  line. 

— Anonymous,  San  Francisco 

WHICH  WAY  OUT? 

Dear  P.W.  people, 

I  just  got  your  latest  issue.  Not  only  did  it 
have  the  usual  slap-upside-the-eyelids  effect, 
but  it  knocked  loose  an  urge/manifesto/pos- 
sible issue  topic.  Let  me  try  to  wrestle  it  into 
words: 

We  can  crawl  out  of  our  ruts.  (We  know 
that.  Say  it  again.)  The  less  we  partake  of  the 
rat-race,  the  smaller  the  race  becomes.  Yeah, 
there  are  some  things  the  System  appears  to 
have  a  monopoly  on,  though  housing  is  the 
only  one  that  withstands  a  serious  fight — 
food,  clothing,  entertainment  we  can  make 
for  ourselves  if  we  can  spare  the  energy.  OK, 
perhaps  you  can't  go  100%  cash-free  on 
these  things,  but  it  seems  to  me  like  you 


could  make  a  hell  of  a  reduction  of  their  cash 
cost.  Trade  with  people  you  know  for  services 
and  goods,  only  buying  when  no  one  near 
creates.  What  you  get  are  stronger  commu- 
nity, people  doing  work  they're  proud  of, 
and  freedom  from  the  hamster-wheel.  What 
you  give  up  is  Convenience  (i.e.,  the  right  to 
remain  asleep  at  the  wheel).  It  sure  seems 
worth  it. 

This  is  a  screed,  not  a  critique.  I'm  starting 
my  third  "Mental  Health  Month"  and  am 
shocked  to  realize  life  does  not  end  when 
you  don't  pursue  a  career.  In  this  new  frame 
of  mind,  your  cartoon  "Their  real  jobs  are..." 
(p.  79,  PW  30)  raised  the  question  of  what's 
really  worth  doing. 

So  I  pose  this  question,  yearning  for  a 
whole  issue  on  it:  "What  can  we  do  to  get 
ourselves  out  of  the  rat-race,  in  whole  or  in 
more  realistic  part?"  Stop  buying  consumer 
items,  or  think  of  them  in  terms  of  indentured 
servitude  ("2  hours  a  night  x  $7.00/hr.  di- 
vided by  $400.00  =  Is  that  camcorder  worth 
30  nights  of  labor?").  How  far  can  you  really 
get  growing  food?  Trading  roles?  I  would  love 
to  have  hand-made  clothes;  I'd  be  tickled 
pink  to  pay  for  them  with,  say,  yardwork  or 
tutoring.  What  are  other  people  doing? 

—j.B.P— Seattle,  WA 

NOT  QEHINQ  STUCK 

PW: 

We  all  know  that  the  existing  institutions 
are  rotten.  Capitalism,  white  supremacy,  pa- 
triarchy, the  state — you  name  it.  But  what 
alternatives  have  we  proposed?  Not  many. 

I  think  this  is  a  big  problem.  It  means  that 
activists  are  struggling  day  to  day  with  only 
vague  ideas  about  the  kind  of  society  we're 
fighting  for,  or  how  to  bring  it  about.  It  means 
it's  easy  for  us  to  re-create,  in  our  own 
organizations,  the  very  evils  we're  fighting 
against.  It  also  means  we  have  a  hard  time 
convincing  other  folks  to  join  us.  If  major 
social  change  is  going  to  happen,  we'll  need 
some  fairly  specific  ideas  about  what  to 
change  to,  expressed  in  a  way  that  lots  of 
non-activists  can  relate  to.  But  proposing 
alternative  institutions  is  hard  to  do  -  much 
harder  than  criticizing  what  exists  now.  How 
do  we  do  it? 

There  are  people  who  suspect  the  very 
idea  of  envisioning  something  better.  I  mean 
proposals  about  the  kind  of  society  we  want 
to  live  in,  the  kind  of  society  that's  worth 
struggling  for.  (Actually,  "vision"  may  not  be 
the  right  word,  because  it  has  connotations 
of  something  mystical  and  impractical.) 

It's  about  proposing  ideas,  not  imposing 
them.  It's  about  ideas  emerging  from  a  proc- 
ess of  democratic  dialogue.  And  that  is  ex- 
actly the  spirit  in  which  I  am  proposing  these 
ideas  on  how  to  think  about  vision.  In  noway 
do  I  think  I've  got  it  all  figured  out.  THIS  IS 
NOT  A  SET  OF  INSTRUCTIONS  THAT  I 
WANT  YOU  TO  FOLLOW.  Let's  start  a  dia- 
logue on  how  we  can  all  get  better  at  thinking 
about  vision.  Examine  and  criticize  these 
ideas  and  then  propose  your  own.  Nor  is  it 


PROCESSED  WOULD  3« 


about  predicting  the  future,  it's  about  naming 
and  communicating  your  desires,  changing 
that  part  of  the  future  that's  within  your 
control  and  preparing  to  cope  with  that  part 
that's  out  of  your  control.  It's  not  about 
producing  a  fixed  blueprint,  or  a  plan.  It's 
about  an  ongoing  planning  process.  The 
plans  that  come  out  are  only  for  the  purposes 
of  documenting  where  the  process  stands  at 
a  particular  moment.  The  process  is  about 
changing  the  actions  you  take  now,  and 
about  the  human  development  of  everybody 
involved. 

Finally,  it's  not  about  pointless  fantasiz- 
ing, disconnected  from  action.  It's  about 
expressing  the  ideals  that  guide  action.  I 
would  argue  that  any  action  towards  social 
change  is  guided  by  some  ideals  of  a  better 
society.  Most  of  the  time,  these  ideals  are  not 
stated,  so  they  can't  be  examined  and  de- 
bated. I  think  it's  very  useful  to  make  these 
ideals  explicit.  We  should  specify  present 
desires,  not  predict  future  outcomes. 

You  don't  have  to  say  how  this  desired 
future  would  come  about,  or  even  argue  that 
it  is  possible  to  bring  it  about.  There  is  no 
requirement  that  it  be  implementable.  As- 
sume magic.  This  will  help  you  get  clear 
about  what  you  really  want.  One  of  the 
biggest  obstacles  to  creativity  is  letting  imple- 
mentation issues  constrain  your  desires  and 
your  imagination. 

You  do  have  to  explain  how  it  would 
work,  and  how  it  would  maintain  itself  if  it 
did  exist.  No  magic  here.  It  has  to  be  tech- 
nologically, ecologically,  and  humanly  fea- 
sible (for  example,  it  can't  require  saints,  but 
you  can  allow  for  people's  potential  to  be 
better  than  they  are  today).  It  has  to  be 
capable  of  sustaining  itself  over  time.  It  has 
to  be  specific  enough  to  be  reasonably  ar- 
gued with.  It  must  be  quickly  and  easily 
adaptable  (this  helps  to  avoid  the  fixed  blue- 
print problem).  Finally,  it  should  be  inspiring 
because  if  you're  not  excited  about  it,  then 
something  went  wrong. 

Here  is  a  set  of  steps  for  getting  started: 

D  Define  the  issue  you're  working  on 

D  Define  your  criteria 

D  Define  the  components  of  what  you're 
designing 

D  Identify  the  existing  alternatives 

D  Evaluate  the  existing  alternatives 
against  the  criteria 

D  Design  new  alternatives  which  would 
meet  the  criteria  better 

D  Think  about  how  your  design  relates  to 
other  areas 

D  Get  comments  from  people,  incorpo- 
rate new  ideas 

The  opposition  in  this  country  is  suffering 
from  a  vast  failure  of  the  imagination.  We 
know  what  we're  against,  but  we're  not 
nearly  so  clear  about  what  we're  for.  It's  time 
for  us  to  figure  it  out  —  all  of  us,  not  just  a 
few  brilliant  individuals.  Of  course,  develop- 
ing a  new  vision  of  a  better  society  will  not 
guarantee  the  changes  we  want.  But  I  am 


convinced  that  these  changes  cannot  and 
will  not  happen  without  such  a  vision. 
—  D.S.,  San  Francisco 

FRESH  OUT  OF  SCHOOL 

PW: 

I  remember  reading  a  brief  description  of 
Processed  World  in  a  book  called  TechnoCul- 
ture,  but  I've  never  seen  a  copy.  Is  distribu- 
tion limited  to  the  Bay  Area?  [See  page  64  for 
list  of  distributors/cities. J  I'd  love  to  get  my 
hands  on  some  of  your  work  if  you  have 
electronic  versions  you  could  send  me. 
[Nope,  still  confined  to  real  magazines — ed.] 

As  my  introduction  said,  I'm  fresh  out  of 
school  with  most  of  my  youthful  idealism 
intact.  Unfortunately  my  job  search  has 
forced  me  to  realize  what  an  isolated  envi- 
ronment I  am  coming  from,  having  studied 
and  worked  in  a  University  for  so  long.  In  a 
lot  of  ways  I  am  lucky,  though,  because  of 
my  degree  (computer  engineering).  Even  if 
I'm  not  seeing  the  ideal  work  environments 
I  was  hoping  for,  at  least  the  recruiters  I  am 
talking  to  are  happy  to  see  me  and  are 
looking  to  hire.  Of  all  the  people  I  know  who 
live  in  the  City  right  now,  none  of  them  are 
receiving  their  incomes  from  jobs  that  have 
anything  to  do  with  their  majors.  The  best 
they  can  hope  for  is  being  hired  as  an  intern 
somewhere. 


My  girlfriend  (Feminist  Theory/Macy's 
Saleswoman)  and  her  roommates  (Rus- 
sian/Macy's  Saleswoman  and  Art  Stu- 
dio/Temp Worker)  are  all  busting  their  asses 
to  get  shitworker  jobs  where  they  can  watch 
others  doing  what  they  hope  to  do  someday 
"just  to  get  a  foot  in  the  door."  I  have  to  feel 
kinda  ashamed  every  time  I  start  getting 
down — at  least  there's  people  who  want  to 
pay  me  for  what  I  like  to  do. 

There  was  an  interesting  column  in  a 
recent  Maximum  Rock'n'Roll  in  which  Larry 
Livermore  argued  that  the  "antiwork"  activ- 
ists are  mostly  just  white,  middle-class  kids 
(describes  me  also)  who  are  acting  out  their 
rebellion  until  they  land  their  cushy  jobs  in 
their  Dads'  businesses.  Your  opinion  and 
maybe  a  brief  description  of  the  people  who 
write  for  Processed  World  would  be  very 
interesting,  [maybe  next  time? — it  would  be 
interesting! — ed.] 

— M.S.,  e-mail 

A  DEFENSE  CASUALTY 

Dear  Processed  World: 

When  I  received  my  Ph.D.  in  physics  a 
few  years  ago,  I  discovered  that  defense-re- 
lated companies  and  labs  dominated  the  job 
market,  particularly  in  my  subfield.  I  ended 
up  working  for  a  company  90%  of  whose 
business  (slightly  less  now)  is  connected  to 


THIS     W^PUfcl    W0KLP    by  TOM  TOMORROW 
I  ITS  TOK\  TofftoRRpWS  INCOMPLETE  OUIPE  to  TmE  WONDEtFul  WORLD  OP  T£M[Po«Mir  El^PLOYMtNT...  \ 


i-rti£  OFFICE  MANAGER  &IVES 
YOU  A  BRIEF  RUNDOWN  OF  IN" 
COfftPREHENSlSLE  OFFICE  PROCE- 
DURES WHICH  YOU  WILL  BE  EX- 
PECTED TS  im/VIEDlAT£LY  MEAV- 
ORIZE... 


"THEN  F0U>  THE  BLUE  (OPY 
PIAfrON^UY  AND  (Vr  IT  IN 
THE  YELLOW  BASKET-UNLESi 
ITi  TVEiDAX  OF  fOURJE.' 


a  THE  CeKPOKATE  EX£CUTi\lE: 

HlGHSTRUNGi  SElF- IMPORTANT, 
SELlEVESTEmPS  ACE  A  SUB- 
HUMAN LIFE-FORM... 


3.TME  VtoKVPRiaiStNG  iYSTEM : 
YOU  CLAlMe^  TO  8E  AN  EXPERT  AT 
IT  ID  6ET  THli  JoB-TlWE  TO 
5TART  BLUFFING  


UfA     I  FoR&ET    HOW  00 
YOU  TURK  THIS  THIN&  ON  ">  \ 


V 


S.  3AD  OFFICE  COFFEE:  WATCUY 
efioWN  LIQUID  WHICH  BEARS  LIT- 
TLE RE5EA^BL£NCE  To  ANY  KNOWfJ 
BEVERA6e...CDoNT  F0R6ET  TO 
ADD  A  HEAP1N6  5P0ONFUL  OF 
CARcmoOENlC  NOKl-OAlRY  "WUIT- 
fNER"!) 


5.  HOURS  AND  HOURS  OF  TEDIOUS, 
MINt>-HVMBlN6  lABoa:  ALLE^i 
ATED  ONLY  BY  THE  THOUCiHT  OF 
ALL  THE  FREETlfrtE.  YOU'LL 
HAVE  WHEN  TW£  ASSIGNMENT 
ENDS... 


6   F/tEE  Tims:  SPENT  WAITING 
ANXIOUSLY  BY  THE  PHONE  FoR 
THE  NEirr  JOB  AFTER  YOU  REAL- 
IZE. YOU  OONT  HA"JE  ENOUGH 
MONEY  To  PAY  THE  RENT... 


Graphic:  Tom  Tomorrow 


PROCESSED  WODLD  3< 


testing  nuclear  weapons  (we  call  them  "de- 
vices"). 

Today  the  company  is  going  downhill 
quickly — cutting  about  20%  per  year — as  we 
become  part  of  the  "peace  dividend."  It's 
nice  that  we  don't  need  as  much  in  the  way 
of  weapons  these  days,  but  it's  too  bad  that 
our  company's  managers  are  doing  effec- 
tively nothing  to  develop  products  (goods  or 
services)  useful  for  the  civilian  market.  The 
company  has  a  large  number  of  decent  engi- 
neers, physicists,  computer  people  who 
could  do  something  useful,  but  the  manage- 
ment seems  to  feel  it's  just  easier  not  to. 

I  think  their  plan,  conscious  or  otherwise, 
is  to  maintain,  as  nearly  as  possible,  our  total 
"fee"  (budget)  from  the  US  Dept.  of  Energy 
by  doing  less  work  more  inefficiently.  Early 
last  year  our  (multiplicative)  overhead  rate 
was  just  about  e  (2.7  for  the  non-mathema- 
tician). The  last  fiscal  quarter  reported  upon 
had  it  at  about  .'(3.14),  and  now  it  is  running 
at  3.5.  That  is,  for  every  dollar  spent  doing 
something,  another  $2.50  is  wasted.  Of 
course,  in  all  the  company  propaganda,  the 
management  says  how  the  overhead  rate  is 
too  high,  and  should  come  down.  But  actu- 


ii<»ii-i>v/iiir<itlllt,t'J 


M'i  <«^ 

APPLIANCES  5 

ally,  it  is  in  their  financial  best  interest  (at 
least  in  the  near  term)  for  it  to  be  as  high  as 
possible.  In  1991,  we  got  rid  of  about  260 
people,  and  hired  140  or  so.  Almost  all  of 
those  laid  off  were  engineers,  technicians  or 
other  technical  people,  and  almost  all  of 
those  hired  were  administrators/secretaries. 
For  example:  I  work  in  a  group  with  about 
six  people,  one  of  whom  is  the  group  leader 
but  still  a  technical  person  (although  lately 
he  must  spend  nearly  all  his  time  on  admin- 
istrative paperwork).  Over  him  as  well  as 
several  other  similar  groups  there  is  a  bigger 
boss.  He  had  a  secretary.  That  was  it — two 
people.  There  are  now  eleven  overhead  peo- 
ple, including  the  original  boss,  two  assistant 
bosses,  what  we  call  an  "administrative  as- 
sistant" (the  old  secretary),  someone  to  make 
sure  all  the  additional  paperwork  my  imme- 
diate boss  is  doing  is  in  the  right  format,  a 
budget  analyst,  an  EEO/AA  administrator,  a 
safety  person,  and  at  my  last  count  three 
secretaries.  Please  note  also  that  the  com- 


pany has  whole  departments  of  people  for 
budgets,  EEO/AA,  and  safety,  but  our  organi- 
zation now  has  its  own,  just  to  be  safe,  I 
guess.  One  thing  about  it:  there's  always 
someone  to  answer  the  phone  now! 

One  funny  thing:  the  top  managers  of  the 
company  say  they  don't  understand  why  the 
overhead  rate  is  increasing,  even  though  they 
are  laying  off  what  we  call  "direct  job" 
people  and  hiring  overhead  people.  Their 
solution?  Hire  a  whole  set  of  new  overhead 
administrative  people  to  figure  it  out! 

So,  anyway,  I'm  looking  for  another  job, 
hopefully  doing  something  useful  in  the  ci- 
vilian economy.  Of  course,  the  job  market 
now  is  tight  in  the  extreme,  with  the  poor 
economy  in  general  and  government  aero- 
space/defense cuts  putting  particular  pres- 
sure on  the  technical  job  market.  Making 
things  worse,  we  as  a  country  just  do  not 
seem  to  be  able  to  get  into  civilian  products, 
whether  it's  more  efficient  automobiles, 
more  fun  consumer  electronics,  or  anything 
else  people  really  need  or  want  for  them- 
selves. So,  one  thing  I'm  trying  to  do  is  get  a 
teaching  job — out  of  the  country  if  I  can. 

— Anonymous,  New  York 

WHAT  QIVES  WITH  SOMALIA? 

Dear  Friends, 

As  Bill  Clinton's  affirmation  of  bad  faith, 
"I  still  believe  in  a  place  called  Hope,"  was 
quickly  extended  to  the  images  of  the  smiling 
Marines  and  smiling  Somalis  of  Operation 
Restore  Hope  a  few  weeks  ago,  I  wondered 
why  it  was  so  hard  to  (look  at]  this  humani- 
tarian invasion  that  the  news  media  had 
spent  months  preparing  us  for.  True,  the 
images  of  Marines  wading  ashore  on  a  me- 
dia-secured beach  made  us  squirm. 

It  is  hard  to  argue  against  feeding  starving 
people,  and  the  produced  sense  of  emer- 
gency and  speedy  response  was  intended  to 
overwhelm  all  questioning  and  criticism. 
(Note  that  there  have  been  no  published 
opinion  polls.) 

And  there  was  the  anaesthetic  effect  of  the 
presidential  election:  "Clinton"  meant 
"change"  and  wasn't  Operation  Restore 
Hope  merely  Bush's  last  hurrah,  so  couldn't 
we  just  wait  for  it  to  go  away?  Few  shots  were 
fired,  except  by  news  photographers,  who 
"proved"  that  American  troops  were  wel- 
comed by  the  populace.  U.S.  interests  in 
Somalia  didn't  look  blatantly  imperial.  And  1 
suspect  that,  given  our  mainly  theoretical 
interest  in  politics,  Somalia  hasn't  appeared 
"important"  or  "interesting"  enough  to  war- 
rant our  scrutiny.  And  then  there  were  the 
holidays  to  think  of... 

But  shouldn't  we  discuss  a  situation  that 
bears  so  much  resemblance  to  Operation 
Desert  Storm,  even  to  the  point  of  its  being 
initiated  with  no  coherent  articulated  mis- 
sion or  goals?  I  don't  have  anything  profound 
to  say  about  this  episode  in  the  "war  on 
poverty"  (to  recall  a  term  from  the  '60s),  but 
I  would  like  to  offer  these  almost  random 
notes  as  a  starting  point  for  a  collective  look 


at  Operation  Restore  Hope  and  its  place  in 
American  foreign — and  domestic,  for  that 
matter — policy. 

1 .  As  the  campaign  rhetoric  of  "change" 
makes  way  for  the  reality  of  continuity,  it's 
clear  that  Clinton  will  build  on  the  gains  of 
the  Bush  and  Reagan  administrations  (gains 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  State).  These 
gains  include  the  inculcation  of  the  weirdly 
capitalist  reflex  of  turning  every  social  prob- 
lem into  a  business  deal  or  into  a  matter  for 
the  police  or  other  armed  bodies.  Why  not 
then  military  charity — feeding  the  docile, 
starving  niggers  who  flash  their  teeth  at  the 
cameras  and  kicking  the  asses  of  the  gun-tot- 
ing black  teenagers  high  on  drugs?  As  early 
news  stories  made  explicit,  "anarchy"  in 
Somalia  is  to  be  treated  like  "anarchy"  in  Los 
Angeles.  (Note  that  veterans  of  Desert  Storm 
participated  in  the  pacification  of  L.A.  Note 
too  that  some  reformists,  succumbing  to  the 
allure  of  fascism,  wish  that  the  Army  would 
occupy  American  cities  to  "feed  the  hungry," 
"stop  crime,"  and  otherwise  "clean  up  the 
streets.") 

And  why  not  demonstrate  once  again — 
because  the  demonstration  must  be  repeated 
over  and  over  for  the  health  of  the  State — the 
benevolent  nature  of  the  American  show  of 
force?  As  Bush  himself  noted.  Operation 
Restore  Hope  should  be  seen  as  the  next 
entry  in  the  series  Crenada-Panama-lraq; 
each  of  these  interventions  was  covered  by 
humanitarian  rationales:  to  "stop  drugs,"  to 
"stop  aggression,"  to  "save  American  lives," 
and  so  on.  "Feeding  the  hungry"  fits  in  nicely 
with  this  redefinition  of  the  humanitarian 
gesture  as  a  type  of  State  terror,  no  matter 
that  some  Somalis  get  more  to  eat  for  a  while. 
(Bush  in  Mogadishu,  31  Dec:  "Now  we're 
seeing  that  same  kind  of  expertise,  that  same 
kind  of  dedication"  as  in  Operation  Desert 
Storm.  "It's  right,  and  it's  God's  work.") 

In  any  case,  the  Somali  people — like  past 
recipients  of  American  "aid" — are  regarded 
as  passive  objects  of  U.S.  policies:  They  are 
neither  consulted  nor  encouraged  to  join  in 
the  reconstruction  of  the  country.  All  that  is 
done  for  the  Somalis  is  done  to  them — and 
this,  includes  the  U.N. -sponsored  negotia- 
tions between  "factions,"  "clans,"  and  "par- 
ties" (not  that  we  know  what  these  terms 


PROCESSED  WOULD  31 


mean  in  context).  (The  image  of  "feeding 
centers"  in  Somalia  is  overlaid  on  images  of 
the  "strategic  hamlets"  in  Vietnam  and  the 
housing  projects  of  American  cities...) 

2.  Since  Operation  Restore  Hope's  pri- 
mary mission  cannot  be  the  safe  distribution 
of  food  supplies  in  Somalia — such  a  mission 
would  have  taken  place  earlier  and  would 
have  included  other  needy  African  countries 
(Sudan,  Ethiopia,  Kenya,  Liberia) — then 
what  is  the  objective  of  this  rapid  deployment 
of  tens  of  thousands  of  soldiers  backed  up  by 
artillery,  armor,  helicopters,  and  fighter- 
bombers?  Public  relations.  But  public  rela- 
tions for  diverse  audiences  and  purposes. 
[and  oil?  See  review  of  Midnight  Oil  on  page 
53— ed.] 

First,  there's  the  prestige  advertising  of  the 
U.S.  government  itself.  This  show  of  force 
demonstrates  the  continuing  American  re- 
solve and  ability  to  employ  the  military  at 
will  and  to  persuade  the  U.N.  to  follow 
American  interests  under  the  aegis  of  the 
New  World  Order.  Like  an  oil  company 
funding  a  wildlife  refuge,  the  U.S.  needs  to 
sell  itself  (to  the  public  opinion  it  helps  form) 
as  good,  useful,  responsible  and  personal — 
as  representative  of  all  that  is  right  with  the 
world.  Invading  Somalia  restores  faith  in 
government.  The  truly  powerful  can  afford 
largesse... 

Second,  there's  the  advertising  of  the  mili- 
tary at  a  time  when  Pentagon  budgets  are 
being  carefully  examined.  Like  Desert  Storm, 
Restore  Hope  shows  that  the  military  does 
indeed  have  a  post-Cold  War  mission  and 
that  the  collapse  of  the  Soviet  Union  gives 
the  American  military  a  free  hand  at  interven- 
ing in  poor  countries. 

Third,  Operation  Restore  Hope  restores 
prestige  to  Bush's  presidency,  allowing  him 
to  leave  office  with  a  "foreign  policy  tri- 
umph." 

Fourth,  Restore  Hope  effectively  rewrites 
the  history  of  Desert  Storm:  If  this  operation 
is  a  humanitarian  one,  then  so  was  Desert 
Storm.  More  locally.  Restore  Hope  rewrites 
the  recent  history  of  American  involvement 
in  Somalia — involvement  that  was  instru- 
mental in  propping  up  Siad  Barre  as  he 
waged  war  against  the  population.  (History 
now  begins  with  the  civil  war  and  famine 
after  the  overthrow  of  Siad  Barre.) 

Fifth,  Restore  Hope  softens  up  the  public 
for  the  hot  wars  sure  to  come  when  the  U.S. 
decides  to  "save  lives"  or  "stop  aggression" 
in  the  former  Yugoslavia  or  Cuba  or  Iraq 
(again).  (Note  that  for  months  now,  Serb 
leader  Milosevic  has  been  demon ized  by  the 
news  media  as  another  Saddam  Hussein 
(who  was  portrayed  as  another  Hitler,  etc.).) 

Sixth,  taken  together  with  recent  Ameri- 
can moves  in  the  former  Yugoslavia  and  Iraq, 
Operation  Restore  Hope  tends  to  ensure  con- 
tinuity between  the  Bush  and  Clinton  ad- 
ministrations in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 

3.  Public  relations  aside,  the  U.S.  does 
have  more  traditional  material  interests  in  the 
region:  strategic  location  and  oil.  Operation 


TW}ST£D  IMAGE 


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Restore  Hope  reasserts  American  presence — 
broken  off  with  the  fall  of  Siad  Barre — in  a 
potentially  low-risk,  high-gain  way. 

4.  During  the  Gulf  War,  the  peace  move- 
ment merely  reacted  to  events:  No  one 
marched  till  the  bombs  started  falling,  and 
the  movement  evaporated  before  the  brief 
war  was  over.  One  got  the  impression  that 
the  peace  movement — like  other  Americans, 
whether  for  or  against  Desert  Storm — never 
quite  believed  in  the  reality  of  the  war:  The 
video  images  worked  their  magic  on  all. 

While  it's  true  that  the  movement  was 
marginalized  by  the  news  media,  it  did  little 
to  organize  itself  and  its  own  publicity.  Spon- 
taneity was  one  of  the  peace  movement's 
major  weaknesses:  Responding  immediately 
only  to  imminent  danger  to  "our  troops" 
(and,  by  extension,  to  the  movement's  idea 
of  "the  people"),  the  movement  was  unable 
to  catch  up  to  the  strategy  behind  the  Ameri- 
can Blitzkrieg.  Feelings  of  urgency  and  moral 
outrage,  necessary  and  laudable  as  they 
were,  could  not  substitute  for  critical  thinking 
about  the  politics  of  the  Gulf  War — and  the 
wars  it  portended.  (However,  the  peace 
movement  did  think  hard  about  the  role  of 
the  mass  media  in  distorting  and  limiting  the 
movement's  influence  and  in  forming  pro- 
war  opinion.) 

But  as  the  peace  movement  discovered 
during  the  Gulf  War — which  it  imagined  as 
destined  to  become  a  prolonged,  meat-grind- 
ing conflict  like  the  Vietnam  War — easy  vic- 
tories are  hard  to  criticize.  A  constituency 
formed  against  the  "costs  of  war"  (as  one 
series  of  posters  had  it)  is  now  much  harder 
to  organize  or  even  appeal  to — a  kind  of 
politics  of  reaction  has  been  rendered  obso- 
lete by  technical  and  political  developments 
in  warfare.  (Among  the  political  develop- 
ments: the  end  of  the  Cold  War  and  the  threat 
of  Soviet  intervention,  and  the  sophistication 
of  the  government  and  Pentagon  image- 
shapers.  Among  the  technical  developments: 


the  doctrine  of  employing  overwhelming 
force  against  an  enemy  drastically  reduces 
American  casualties:  wars  are  meant  to  be 
one-sided.)  The  American  Blitzkrieg  flat- 
tened Iraqi  opposition  while  disarming  the 
domestic  anti-war  movement.  How  then  to 
protest  Operation  Restore  Hope  when  even 
the  recipientsof  our  imperial  attentions  come 
through  unscathed,  when  the  Marines  raise 
the  dead  and  implicitly  promise — in  a  "new 
convenant" — to  resurrect  the  country? 
— James  Brook,  San  Francisco 

ENOUQH  TOIL  TALES  ALREADY! 

PW: 

I  think  it's  ridiculous  to  just  be  anti-anti 
all  the  time;  after  a  while  one  ends  up 
sounding  like  an  Old  Fboperoo,  and  the  "Bad 
Attitude"  (which  I  was  never  totally  comfort- 
able with)  becomes  a  querulous  whine.  I've 
been  reading  C.L.R.  James  lately  (facing 
Reality  from  1958)  and  what  strikes  me  is 
how  confident  he  is  that  the  means  for  a  new 
society  are  being  worked  out  every  day  by 
"ordinary"  people,  and  because  of  that,  to 
talk  of  a  vanguard  party  is  the  height  of 
counterrevolutionary  arrogance.  Processed 
Worlders  ought  to  ask  how  the  "bad  attitude" 
contributes  to  a  positive  project  of  self-eman- 
cipation. I  think  also  of  Marx's  great  apho- 
rism "these  Germans  do  not  consider 
themselves  to  be  men  who  criticize,  but  as 
critics  who  have  the  incidental  misfortune  of 
being  men."  I  think  Processed  World  could 
well  afford  to  declare  a  moratorium  on  all 
Tales  of  Toil  unless  they  transcend  mere  com- 
plaint; otherwise,  the  tone  will  be  too  much 
the  same.  I  did  receive  PW  30,  by  the  way, 
and  enjoyed  it.  But  Primitivo  should  watch 
his  Latin:  quo  vadis  means  "where  are  you 
going?"  The  phrase  he  was  after  was  cui 
bono?  Secondly,  in  "Processed  Shit"  Adam 
Cornford  mentioned  "Stuart  and  Mary 
Ewen."  I  think  Elizabeth  Ewen  would  be 
interested  to  know  who's  really  been  col- 


PBOCESSED  WORLD  3< 


laborating  on  her  husband's  books.  In  gen- 
eral, I  didn't  like  that  article;  it  tried  to  cover 
too  much  ground  in  too  short  a  space  and 
ended  up  being  superficial.  He  should  have 
invested  more  of  himself  in  a  comparative 
discussion  of,  say,  English  and  U.S.  racism — 
or  the  prevalence  of  all-white  editorial 
boards  among  purportedly  left-wing  theo- 
rists, or  the  ignorance  about  African-Ameri- 
can culture  in  general.  But  all  the  references 
to  thermodynamics  and  shit  clouded  the 
cultural  issue.  Because  of  the  specificity  of 
African-American  culture,  it's  best  read  from 
the  inside,  using  its  poets,  writers,  and  yes, 
theoreticians,  before  any  attempt  is  made  to 
enlist  it  to  a  Marxist  (or  anarchist,  or  what- 
ever) project  of  transformation.  The  Bar!  in- 
terview was  really  interesting,  and  Jon 
Christensen's  piece  on  Brazil  was  terrific! 
More  from  him! 
— C.W.,  New  York 

FROM  SABOTEUR  TO 
SELF-EMPLOYMENT 

Dear  Processed  World: 

PW  29  arrived  today,  jammed  into  the 
new,  undersized,  stainless  steel  post  box 
cemented  into  the  side  of  my  apartment 
building.  I  wrenched  the  magazine  free  and 
read  from  cover  to  cover,  forgetting  the  after- 
noon's work.  Another  encouraging  success 
from  your  collective!  in  a  time  when  most 
activity/publications/scenarios  are  discour- 
aging. 

Waste  is  alive  and  well  in  the  Army.  That's 
not  news  to  anyone  who  has  experienced  the 
Dept.  of  Defense — America's  largest  em- 
ployer and  a  corporation  with  staggering 
assets.  What  caught  my  eye  today  were  the 
actions  of  two  off-duty  DoD  employees. 

At  one  of  the  shopettes  at  Fort  Ord  (several 
of  these  are  located  around  the  sprawling 
post;  they  are  a  kind  of  7-1 1  for  soldiers),  I 
saw  two  moonlighting  CI's  cleaning  the  glass 
doors  of  the  food  freezers.  As  they  worked, 
one  admonished  the  other,  "Don't  work  so 
fast.  She  (the  manager)  will  only  give  us 
something  else  to  do."  They  slowly  cleaned 
the  doors,  running  their  paper  towels  up  and 
down  the  chrome  and  glass,  and  they  mag- 
nanimously stepped  back  when  I  went  to 
select  some  ice  cream.  They  stayed  back 
when  I  walked  away,  shooting  the  breeze 
with  another  soldier  who  had  come  in  to  the 
store  just  to  talk  to  them.  It  did  my  heart  good 
to  see  this,  and  brought  back  memories  of 
my  experience  in  the  civil  service. 

After  I  left  the  military,  I  took  a  clerical 
job  while  I  waited  for  California  residency 
and  the  accompanying  in-state  tuition  and 
educational  grants  that  are  one  of  the  few 
benefits  from  taxes.  I  worked  at  the  Defense 
Language  Institute,  the  world's  largest  lan- 
guage training  school,  in  Monterey,  Califor- 
nia. The  fact  that  DLI  manages  to  graduate 
about  3,000  students  a  year  from  accredited 
language  programs  is  nearly  incomprehensi- 
ble to  insiders,  but  a  source  of  pride  to  the 
school's  joint  military-civilian  leadership.  In 


fact,  the  school,  run  by  the  Army,  is  an 
administrative  nightmare  in  which  the  only 
way  to  survive  is  to  actively  resist  the  nearly 
overpowering  status  quo.  Personal  success 
here  is  always  measured  in  terms  of  obtaining 
the  means  and  confidence  to  quit  DLI  for 
greener  pastures. 

Everyone  who  is  or  will  be  successful 
ultimately  leaves.  I  saw  teachers  with  ad- 
vanced degrees  bail  out  at  the  first  opportu- 
nity. Other  instructors  left  to  create  art,  or 
manage  desks  at  hotels,  or  use  their  language 
skills  in  civilian  education,  which  pays  much 
more  than  DLI.  More  than  one  instructor 
quits  without  even  having  another  job  wait- 
ing. Aggressive  administrative  officers  and 
their  hard-charging  secretaries  worked  at  DLI 
only  long  enough  to  obtain  "permanent" 
status  in  the  federal  civil  service,  which  en- 
abled them  to  apply  for  transfer  at  the  earliest 
opportunity  to  someplace  decent,  like  the 
Naval  Postgraduate  School,  also  in  Mon- 
terey. 

Those  who  stay  at  DLI  are  the  dredges  of 
the  local  civil  service  corps.  Typically,  they 
have  found  niches  in  which  they  may  survive 
indefinitely.  I  realized  that  they  survive  best 
in  offices  where  the  head  honchos  are  mili- 
tary. These  military  officers  rotate  about 
every  three  years.  Since  it  is  nearly  impossi- 
ble to  fire  a  civil  servant,  most  of  these 
officers  leave  before  they  can  garner  enough 
evidence  of  incompetence/bad  attitude  to  get 
rid  of  the  errant  civilians.  Each  new  military 
replacement  means  more  years  may  be  safely 
logged  in  one's  career  book. 

The  exception  to  this  is  in  the  area  of 
Eastern  European  language  instructors.  Typi- 
cally, they  are  defectors  or  well-placed  refu- 
gees who  are  debriefed  by  the  American 
government  and  offered  "jobs"  and  alien 
resident  status  in  the  United  States.  They  are 
brought  to  the  U.S.,  and  most  are  ware- 
housed in  Chicago  until  jobs  open  up  some- 
where. The  government  then  pays  their 
transportation  to  their  new  home.  These  peo- 
ple, many  of  whom  are  professional  archi- 
tects, civil  engineers,  world-class  musicians, 
etc.,  are  reduced  to  teaching  basic  language 
skills  for  approximately  $25,000  per  year  in 
a  place  considered,  after  the  Bay  Area,  to 
have  the  most  expensive  housing  in  the  coun- 
try. These  teaching  positions  are  called  "ex- 
cepted service,"  which  means  that  the 
refugees  are  not  as  solidly  placed  in  the 
federal  career  system  as  "permanent  civil 
service"  employees,  who  are  practically 
guaranteed  employment  for  life  or  thirty 
years,  whichever  ends  first. 

Bursting  with  enthusiasm  for  a  paycheck, 
I  reported  for  work  in  an  out-of-the-main- 
stream  office  in  a  90-year  old  wooden  build- 
ing. My  boss  was  an  easygoing  Army 
lieutenant  colonel  who  was  finishing  his  ca- 
reer. In  the  office  was  an  arrogant  major, 
whose  way  I  tried  to  stay  out  of,  who  was  a 
Mormon  chaplain.  What  he  was  doing  in  this 
office  was  beyond  me,  as  the  other  chaplains 
on  post  worked  out  of  another  building. 


There  was  also  a  young,  bright,  female  Navy 
officer  awaiting  the  termination  of  her  four- 
year  military  contract,  and  finally,  a  dredged 
civilian.  Generally,  the  Navy  officer  and  I 
worked  for  the  lieutenant  colonel,  and  the 
civilian  worked  for  the  chaplain.  At  least, 
that's  how  the  office  oriented  itself  after 
awhile. 

The  civilian,  who  I'll  call  Richard,  had 
been  at  DLI  for  about  12  years,  having  been 
unsuccessful  in  business  endeavors  in  Tai- 
wan. He  was  living  in  what,  in  the  old  days, 
was  called  "reduced"  circumstances.  Even 
though  he  was  60  he  ostensibly  still  had  at 
least  eight  years  to  go  before  retirement,  and 
eighteen  years  before  he  could  realize  the  full 
benefits  of  civil  service  retirement.  He  was 
getting  by  on  $6/hour,  plus  some  extra 
money  substitute-teaching  for  local  public 
schools.  He  was  worried  about  forced  retire- 
ment due  to  his  age,  and  the  effect  this  would 
have  on  his  pension. 

The  office  was  in  a  terrible  state  when  I 
arrived.  The  filing  system  was  incomprehen- 
sible, as  Richard  had  organized  it  only  in  his 
head.  Richard's  desk  was  overflowing  with 
seven  or  eight  huge  piles  of  work  to  be  done. 
At  least  once  a  week,  one  or  more  of  these 
piles  would  fall  off  the  desk,  sending  papers 
and  books  flying.  When  asked  to  do  some- 
thing, Richard  would  simply  say,  "All  right," 
and  then  never  do  it.  He  hardly  bothered  to 
change  his  pants,  a  pair  of  which  he  once 
wore  for  three  straight  months.  I  marveled  at 
Richard  and  his  lackadaisical  attitude,  and 
that  he'd  never  been  fired  or  even  disciplined 
for  his  nonproductivity.  I  also  wondered  that 
he,  clearly  not  liking  this  work,  would  con- 
tinue to  show  up  year  after  year  and  wallow 
in  the  stagnation  symbolized  by  his  messy, 
overflowing  desk.  Richard  was  intelligent 
enough;  he  spoke  well,  though  Chinese  not 
at  all.  But  he  seemed  to  have  no  spirit  beyond 
clipping  out  Wednesday's  newspaper  recipes 
and  trying  them  out  on  his  lovers. 

As  I  watched  Richard,  I  became  con- 
cerned that  this  is  what  happens  when  office 
work  numbs  a  person,  yet  that  person  cannot 
leave  the  situation,  perhaps  (as  in  Richard's 
case)  because  of  finances.  Suffering  under  the 
dreadful  monotony  and  hopelessly  low  pay, 
the  spirit  is  strangled.  One  can  hardly  come 
up  with  the  moral  courage  to  leave.  I  worried 
that  this  might  happen  to  me  in  eight  years. 

I  argued  with  the  Mormon  major  on 
everything  from  religion  to  car  parts.  I  openly 
joked  with  the  Navy  lieutenant  about  the 
state  of  the  office.  Sometimes  we  got  so 
vicious  that  we'd  have  to  leave  the  office 
because  we  were  laughing  so  hard.  I  took 
longer  lunches,  handling  the  personal  busi- 
ness I  usually  reserved  for  after  work.  I  forged 
time  cards  to  give  myself  a  full  week,  even 
when  I  didn't  work  one.  At  the  same  time,  I 
chastised  Richard  for  forging  his  time  card, 
irritating  him  to  no  end  since  he  knew  I  was 
doing  the  same  but  lacked  the  spirit  to  retort 
and  the  innocence  to  snitch. 


le 


PBOCESSCD  WORLD  31 


I  wrote  ferociously  at  work;  writing  is  a 
hobby  I've  enjoyed  for  many  years.  I  pro- 
duced fiction,  essays,  poetry,  even  screen- 
writing.  As  long  as  I  was  supposed  to  be 
doing  something  for  the  office,  I  was  over- 
flowing with  the  passion  to  write.  Not  that 
my  job  was  difficult.  I  could  do  the  day's 
work  by  9  am,  and  then  sit  another  two  hours 
appearing  busy  at  the  screen,  but  actually 
writing  dialogue  or  sketching  office  scenes. 
(At  home  later,  sitting  in  front  of  my  com- 
puter, I  usually  wrote  little  or  nothing.  I  have 
always  wondered  why  I  have  been  seized 
with  the  desire  to  write  while  in  situations 
where  I'm  not  supposed  to:  work,  school, 
church  services.) 

I  also  wrote  fake  letters  to  and  from  differ- 
ent departments  at  DLI,  on  official  letterhead. 
Always,  the  signature  on  the  letter  was  a 
takeoff  on  an  administrator's  name.  Copies 
of  these  letters  often  ended  up  in  the  in-boxes 
of  the  people  I  was  satirizing.  I  was  never 
caught,  or  even  suspected.  But  when  I  was 
preparing  to  quit,  I  was  forced  to  "break"  my 
computer's  hard  drive  and  reinitialize  it  from 
scratch,  to  avoid  prying  eyes  finding  my 
"deleted"  writing  files. 

From  inside  DLI,  I  investigated  person- 
nel/financial abuses  by  the  higher-ups.  I 
groomed  moles  and  deep  throats  all  over  the 
post,  who  provided  me  with  a  steady  stream 
of  juicy  information  and  even  blatant  gossip, 
which  I  repeated  in  broadsheets  and  pam- 
phlets typed  up  on  the  office  computer  and 
copied  at  office  expense.  These  sources  pro- 
vide information  to  this  day. 

A  month  before  I  gained  state  residency  I 
quit  the  civil  service  and  took  a  graphic  arts 
job  in  Carmel.  There  I  would  be  for  the  first 
time  exposed  to  the  civilian  world,  in  its  own 
way  much  worse  than  federal  service  and 
made  doubly  so  by  the  blatant  money-suck- 
ing that  Carmel  businesses  do  in  their  never- 
ending  attempts  to  separate  the  wealthy  from 
their  cash.  After  I  quit  that  job,  I  gravitated 
from  one  place  to  another,  and  finally  to 
self-employment.  Basically,  I  now  temp  for 
myself,  working  when  I  want,  and  not  an- 
swering the  phone  when  I'm  feeling  lazy.  It 
has  its  bad  points.  The  pay  is  irregular, 
meaning  I  have  to  plan  for  two  or  three 
months  at  a  time,  instead  of  expecting  a 
paycheck  every  two  weeks.  There  is  no  medi- 
cal coverage.  There  is  no  vacation.  Much  of 
my  work  must  be  done  on  weekends.  I  must 
discipline  myself  to  complete  jobs  when  I'd 
rather  spend  the  afternoon  drinking  beer  and 
listening  to  music  on  the  back  deck. 

In  the  end,  though,  pluses  outweigh  mi- 
nuses. I  work  less  time  for  more  money  (this 
is  real  job  efficiency).  I  am  free  to  take  care 
of  personal  business  during  the  week.  No 
one,  except  the  client,  looks  over  my  shoul- 
der, and  even  then,  I  dictate  timeliness. 
Dress  code  is  below  casual,  even  when  vis- 
iting customers'  offices. 

Without  the  need  for  control  (read: 
power),  this  way  of  working,  I  believe,  would 
successfully  transfer  to  any  office  environ- 


CMiFE 


ment.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  civilian 
shops  in  Carmel  couldn't  have  operated  this 
way.  Nor,  for  that  matter,  why  the  Depart- 
ment of  Defense  couldn't. 

— Solly  Malulu,  P&cific  Grove,  CA 

More  Work,  Same  Money? 

TO:  pwmag 

I'm  a  grad  student  at  UC  Berkeley,  writing 
a  thesis  on  the  effects  of  local  area  network 
technology  on  relations  between  labor  capi- 
tal/management. The  core  points  are  the 
following: 

1 .  New  technologies  require  different 
kinds  of  effort  from  workers.  Since  the  soft- 
ware is  continuously  changing,  management 
now  needs  workers  willing  to  exert  the  effort 
to  learn  and  relearn  things  all  the  time.  Also, 
since  routines  are  hard  to  establish,  managers 
are  more  dependent  on  workers  to  do  lots  of 
problem-solving,  such  as  figuring  out  why 
the  old  WordPerfect  macros  don't  work  under 
the  new  network. 

2.  Management's  objective  is  to  define 
these  new  tasks  as  "just  part  of  the  job,"  and 
thus  avoid  the  delicate  matter  of  how  these 
new  skills  and  behaviors  should  be  compen- 
sated. They  are  often  able  to  use  computer 
advertisers'  claims  to  support  their  argu- 
ments, "this  technology  is  simple,"  when  all 
end  users  know  it's  never  that  simple. 

3.  I  think  some/most  workers  are  quite 
aware  that  "more"  work  is  being  required. 


What  I  want  to  understand  is  how  workers 
decide  how  much  more  effort  to  put  out: 
D  would  a  wage  increase  be  sufficient?  If 
so,  how  do  you  decide  how  much  is  a 
fair  increase? 
D  if  there  is  no  wage  increase  (which  I 
think  is  what  happens  most  often), 
what  options  do  you  have? 
D  would  you  explicitly  not  do  the  new 
work?  Perhaps  call  for  support  from  a 
help  desk  (or  other  support)  rather  than 
struggling  with  a  computer  problem 
yourself? 
n  do  you  discuss  with  coworkers  how 

they  are  handling  similar  situations? 
I  have  more  questions  in  this  theme,  and 
would  like  to  initiate  an  electronic  discussion 
with  as  many  people  there  at  Processed 
World  who  are  willing  to  participate.  My 
thesis  is  currently  based  on  interviews  with 
word  processors  and  secretaries  in  both  a  law 
firm  and  a  city  government  office.  At  one 
place,  the  managers  complain  that  workers 
don't  use  the  training  they've  gotten.  I  think 
this  is  consistent  with  resentment  over  having 
to  "do  more  with  less,"  but  I  need  to  deepen 
my  understanding  of  why  workers  might  re- 
act this  way. 

I  can  be  reached  at  (510)  549-2754  or  by 
e-mail   at   LIB2IIR@UCBCMSA— Bitnet  or 
©CMSA.BERKELEYEDU— Internet. 
— Libby  Bishop,  Berkeley,  CA 


PBOCESSED  WOBLD  31 


Making  5toopid 


■  very  young  person  is  re- 
in quired  by  law  to  suffer  the 

■  4  best  hours  of  the  day  trapped 
in  an  ugly,  overcrowded  room,  fac- 
ing front  and  listening  to  a  frus- 
trated civil  servant.  The  teacher 
probably  knows  that  school  is  a 
waste  of  time  but  needs  the  pay- 
check and  can't  find  work  else- 
where. He  or  she  answers  to  the 
principal  who  is  subordinate  to  the 
superintendent  who  in  turn  is  subor- 
dinate to  the  District.  The  alleged 
beneficiary  of  this  process,  the  stu- 
dent, is  at  the  bottom  of  a  long  chain 
of  command,  relegated  within  a  hi- 
erarchy of  classes  and  grades  and 
tracks  within  grades.  The  student 
learns  that  he  or  she  is  an  isolated 
object  in  an  undifferentiated  mass 
whose  own  intellectual,  social,  or 
sensual  interests  are  irrelevant  and 
disruptive. 

Schools  indoctrinate  that  life  is  by 
necessity  routine,  impersonal  and  bor- 
ing; that  one's  best  interest  is  to  shut  up 
and  conform;  that  spontaneity,  creativ- 
ity and  free  thought  are  to  be  regarded 
with  suspicion  and  hostility.  Gudessness 
and  apathy  are  rewarded  while  inde- 
pendent initiative  is  deterred  by  fear  of 
failure  and  the  prospect  of  punishment 

Schools  emphasize  students'  rela- 
tionships with  adult  authorities  while 
devaluing  peer  relationships.  However, 
the  crowding  and  rigid  scheduling  al- 
low for  littie  personal  contact  between 
students  and  teachers.  Social  contact 
between  adults  and  children  outside  of 
the  family  is  rare  and  suffused  with  sex- 
ual anxiety.  A  student  gets  individual 
attention  only  through  being  disobedi- 
ent; by  the  time  the  school  shrink  or 
gfuidance  counselor  meets  with  the  stu- 
dent, he  or  she's  been  written  off  as 
incorrigible. 

Even  when  the  classroom  isn't  over- 


crowded, individual  engagement  with 
the  lessons  is  undermined  by  the  ma- 
chine-like structure  of  the  learning 
process.  Lessons  are  largely  handed 
down  by  an  invisible  bureaucracy.  In- 
struction is  programmed  to  shape  ac- 
ceptable responses  according  to  a 
predetermined  goal  -  passing  tests. 
The  academic  material  itself  is  a  kind  of 
trivia  with  planned  obsolescence,  to  be 
consumed  and  thrown  away  after  its 
function  is  served. 

Schools  serve  the  state  and  domi- 
nant institutional  values  by  promoting 
myths  about  history,  politics,  science, 
and  in  fact,  every  subject  they  teach. 
Schools  do  their  best  to  present  a  uni- 
form world  view  and  exclude  alterna- 
tives. To  get  any  real  education,  one  has 
to  unlearn  nearly  everything  school 
teaches  in  the  first  place!  However,  few 
people  emerge  from  school  with  confi- 
dence intact  in  their  own  learning  abili- 
ties. Fear  of  the  hostile  alien  world 
outside  of  us  diminishes  our  belief  in 
our  own  feelings  and  experiences  and 
induces  chronic  anxiety.  Ultimately, 
many  cling  to  the  established  world  view 
for  some  (false)  security. 

School  routines  are  even  more  im- 
portant than  the  curriculum  in  incul- 
cating obedience  and  conformity. 
Permission  is  required  for  the  relief  of 
bodily  needs,  accompanied  by  a  hall 
pass.  Attendance  is  mandatory  for  12 
years  and  constandy  monitored.  Ring- 
ing bells  signal  rigidly  scheduled  peri- 
ods. The  school  grounds  can't  be  left 
during  the  day,  and  the  outside  world  is 
patrolled  by  truancy  officers.  School  fol- 
lows the  student  home  as  homework, 
preparing  for  a  life  of  continuous  work. 
Play  is  routinized  under  adult  surveil- 
lance into  recess  and  students  are  trau- 
matized with  gym  class,  which  can  easily 
mean  pubescent  military  training  at  the 
hands  of  a  sadist. 

School  circumscribes  the  experi- 
ence of  being  young,  taking  over  many 
of  the  social  functions  of  the  extended 
family  while  serving  as  an  agency  of 
military  and  industrial  recruitment.  Ex- 


tended schooling  prolongs  the  process 
of  socialization  and  training  well  into 
adulthood.  "Maturity"  is  defined  as  ac- 
commodation to  and  acceptance  of  an 
irrational  and  destructive  social  order. 
Ubiquitous  propaganda  urges 
young  people  to  stay  in  school,  usually 
featuring  media-appointed  role  models 
like  Magic  Johnson  or  Spike  Lee.  An 
army  of  academic  experts  blame  high 
drofKjut  rates  on  backgrounds  of  pov- 
erty, cultural  characteristics,  family  and 
emotional  problems,  etc.  "No  school, 
no  job,"  they  warn.  Middle-class  status 
and  salaries  come  from  diplomas;  the 
remedy  for  poverty  is  more  schooling. 
And  that  has  become  absurdly  true! 
Even  service  jobs  that  take  five  minutes 
to  learn  require  diplomas  because  schools 
certify  punctuality  and  obedience.  Success- 
ful schooling  indicates  tolerance  for 
monotony  and  accommodation  to  the 


To  get  any  real 

education,  one  has  to 

unlearn  nearly 

everything  school 

teaches  about  history, 

politics  or  science  in 

the  first  place! 


prevailing  hierarchies  of  society. 

Education  also  serves  as  a  warning 
to  potential  employers  about  "over- 
qualification."  A  B.A.  from  a  liberal  arts 
college  indicates  surplus  education. 
This  is  a  growing  phenomenon  in  a 
society  with  less  and  less  need  for  talent 
and  ambition  and  more  need  for 
robotized  service  workers. 

Whatever  learning  occurs  in  schools 
is,  at  best,  incidental  to  the  aims  and 
functions  of  the  school  system.  Educa- 
tion does  not  create  enthusiasm  for 
learning,  enrich  our  experience  of 
growing  up  or  give  us  confidence  to 


PROCESSED  WOULD  3< 


exercise  democratic  initiative.  It  fosters 
cynicism  and  political  withdrawal. 

The  rise  of  public  schooling  beyond 
the  sixth  grade  in  the  late  19th  century 
coincided  with  the  abolition  of  child 


labor  from  the  factories,  where  they  had 
done  the  most  dangerous  and  arduous 
tasks.  "Progressive"  reformers  saw  that 
the  long-range  requirements  of  indus- 
try demanded  a  technically  literate 


workforce;  even  unskilled  lathe  opera- 
tors needed  to  read  blueprints  and  do 
fractions.  Today  literacy  is  less  necessary 
for  the  maintenance  of  industrial  pro- 
duction and  the  clerical  system.  Nu- 


PBOCESSED  WOULD  34 


«3 


merical  control,  cybernation,  picto- 
grams,  telephones,  dictaphones,  etc. 
have  rendered  the  printed  word  in- 
creasingly obsolete  in  sectors  of  the 
economy  with  high  job  growth,  i.e.  re- 
tail, food  service,  etc.  Yet  barebones  lit- 
eracy remains  a  justification  for 
mandatory  schooling. 

If  children  were  taught  basic  lan- 
guage acquisition  in  the  classroom  it  is 
doubtful  anybody  would  be  able  to 
speak  at  all.  Schools  teach  literacy  by 
way  of  mechanical  conditioning  and 
repetition  geared  toward  test-passing - 
a  sure  technique  for  inhibiting  free  ex- 
pression and  understanding.  No  won- 
der so  few  emerge  from  school  who 
enjoy  reading;  fewer  still  who  value  it  as 
a  means  to  enlightened  critical  reason- 
ing. The  content  of  the  reading  mate- 
rial of  the  great  majority  -  best  sellers, 
newspapers,  news  magazines  -  is  intel- 
lectually comparable  to  the  shit  on  TV 
and  radio. 

Literacy  is  required  so  that  people 
can  distinguish  between  brand  names 
and  decipher  headlines.  It's  possible 
that  people  would  be  less  susceptible  to 
propaganda  campaigns  if  they  weren't 
so  literate;  certainly  the  highest  level  of 
political  indoctrination  seems  to  occur 


CONTINUING  EDUCATION 


For  at  least  three  doq  years 

We  d\d  shams 

And  rolled  the  half-pipe 

On  the  qround5  of  the  club  at  night. 

By  day  things  changed 

King  qrsnd  at  a  time. 

Before  long  notes  came  due. 

So  for  a  fine  price 

She  suckled  them  to  sleep 

On  sweet  milk  of  amnesia. 

-  Blair  Ewin^ 


among  the  highly  literate  readers  of  the 
New  York  Times  and  other  "quality"  me- 
dia. Literacy  should  be  a  useful  tool  that 
can  lend  meaning  to  our  imagination 
and  experience  -  not  a  means  of  sym- 
bol manipulation  for  propagating  top- 
down  decisions  and  advertisements. 

From  the  inception  of  the  educa- 
tion experience,  students  are  subjected 
to  a  battery  of  hastily  timed  true/false 


and  multiple-choice  tests.  Such  tests  de- 
value speculative  thought,  which  re- 
quires leisurely  reflection  and  the 
possibility  of  arriving  at  conclusions 
that  negate  the  presuppositions  of  the 
test-makers.  The  intense  pressure  for 
information  retention  and  punishment 
for  failure  hardly  encourage  free  think- 
ing. 

Competitive  testing  and  grading 
replicate  the  pressures  of  the  job  mar- 
ket. There  are  only  a  few  prestigious 
jobs  for  the  good  test-takers.  For  the 
weeded-out  majority,  stupidity  is  a  sen- 
sible reaction  to  the  humiliation  and 
embarrassment  of  the  classroom.  The 
deep-seated  anti-intellectualism  of 
American  society  surely  has  roots  in  the 
resentment  and  hostility  to  learning 
that  school  inculcates  in  its  "failures." 

Popular  views  of  intellectual 
achievement  as  elitism  helps  perpetu- 
ate the  monopolization  of  educational 
resources  by  the  privileged.  However, 
ignorance  of  geography,  basic  political 
rights,  lack  of  foreign  languages,  his- 
tory, etc.  is  just  as  prevalent  at  elite  insti- 
tutions like  Harvard  or  Princeton  as  in 
the  general  population.  Far  from  coun- 
teracting ignorance,  institutionalized 
learning  threatens  to  bring  about  a  new 
reign  of  universal  cretinization. 

Social  reformers  have  long  argued 
that  education  can  solve  all  problems. 
After  a  decade  of  deterioration  and  ne- 
glect, hopes  are  high  that  a  renewed 
commitment  by  the  federal  govern- 
ment to  upgrading  the  schools  will  pro- 
duce a  workforce  competitive  with  the 
U.S.'s  main  industrial  rivals,  Germany 
and  Japan.  This  will  supposedly  curb 
the  downward  slide  of  living  standards 
which  is  actually  caused  by  the  normal 
"healthy"  expansion  of  the  world  mar- 
ket and  capitalism.  Mass  education  has 
been  challenged  at  the  level  of  public 
policy  only  by  rightists  of  the  William 
Bennett  mentality  who  want  to  intro- 
duce free-market  mechanisms  into  the 
existing  system  as  part  of  the  general 
trend  toward  a  two-tiered  society.  But  is 
the  only  alternative  to  privatization 
more  useless  training? 

The  current  school  "crisis"  is  largely 
one  of  its  own  making.  Crisis  is  omni- 
present in  modern  society;  it's  a  way  by 
which  a  small  class  of  managers  and 
professionals  defines  a  problem  to  le- 
gitimize their  continued  control  and 
insure  the  need  for  their  expertise.  This 
is  an  effective  method  of  nullifying  citi- 
zen involvement.  Without  a  radical  re- 
conception  of  the  role  of  education  in 


PBOCESSED  WOBLD  31 


society,  the  remedy  "more  is  better"  will 
only  waste  more  money  and  resources 
and  further  fuck  us  up.  A  more  practical 
approach  might  be  to  just  give  the 
money  to  poor  children  directly  rather 
than  channeling  it  through  a  school 
system  that  wastes  most  of  it  on  middle- 
class  bureaucrats. 

One  of  the  great  claims  made  of  the 
American  public  education  system  is  that 
it  sometimes  brings  under  its  roofs  the 
children  of  different  backgrounds  and 
classes.  But  even  with  a  college  diploma, 
a  black  graduate  is  unlikely  to  earn  as 
much  money  as  a  white  high  school 
graduate.  The  myth  of  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity through  public  schooling  only  im- 
presses on  people  that  their  failure  to  rise 
beyond  their  parents'  status  is  their  ovm 
faiilt,  for  lack  of  intelligence  or  effort  - 
not  the  system's  failure. 

Education  is  a  big  business.  Univer- 
sity campuses  occupy  a  lot  of  valuable 
real  estate,  and  like  any  business,  obey 
an  imperative  to  constantly  expand, 
often  at  the  expense  of  surrounding 
communities.  Universities  consume  bil- 
lions of  taxpayer  dollars  for  research 
and  development  while  foundations 
and  endovsTnents  linked  to  large  corpo- 
rations determine  the  goals  and  meth- 
ods of  research.  Schools  are  gigantic 
markets  for  building  contractors,  text- 
book companies,  computer  sales,  labor 
unions,  testing  services,  giant  sports  in- 
dustries, inept  custodial  fiefdoms,  (pu- 
trid) food  franchises,  etc.  In  constantiy 
seeking  to  maximize  "efficiency"  and 
streamlining  costs,  administrators 
standardize  their  products  and  go 
where  the  money  is  -  usually  war  re- 
search. 

Before  the  GI  Bill  and  the  post-war 
higher  education  boom,  less  than  50 
percent  of  Americans  graduated  from 
high  school,  much  less  college.  To  an 
extent  that  is  difficult  to  appreciate  in 
our  age  of  universal  compulsory  school- 
ing, careers  were  learned  by  experi- 
ence, self-motivation,  trial-and-error, 
and  facing  life  head-on.  Not  so  long 
ago,  for  example,  if  one  wanted  to  be- 
come a  journalist,  one  hung  around  the 
local  newspaper  office  and  did  errands, 
picking  up  the  tools  of  the  trade 
through  immersion  in  the  environ- 
ment. Today,  to  get  a  foot  in  the  door  at 
a  daily  paper  one  must  have  a  Master's 
degree  in  journalism  -  and  the  quality 
of  journalism  is  more  homogeneous 
and  state<ontrolled  than  ever  before 
thanks  to  its  professionalism. 

In  its  role  as  a  credential  factory,  the 


university  insulates  intellectual  work 
from  public  affairs.  Academics  go  for 
patronage  and  status  at  the  expense  of 
hyperspecialization,  abstraction  and  in- 
creasingly rarefied  jargon.  As  Russell 
Jacoby  has  written:  "Universities  not 
only  monopolize  intellectual  life,  they 
bankrupt  independent  producers.  In 
an  economy  of  $3  trillion,  the  means  of 
support  for  non-academic  intellectuals 
relendessly  shrinks.  Circles  of  intellec- 
tuals which  existed  or  subsisted  outside 
the  university.. .belong  to  the  past.  To- 
day even  painters,  dancers  and  novelists 
are  usually  affiliated  with  academic  in- 
stitutions." 

Schools  are  an  essential  component 
of  the  regimentation  of  the  population 
to  the  national  "needs"  as  defined  by 
the  profit  system.  Unqualified  eco- 
nomic growth  is  axiomatic  among  the 


educated  classes;  to  reject  it  is  to  oper- 
ate outside  the  boundaries  of  per- 
missable  discourse  as  defined  by 
academe,  evidence  of  emotional  or  cul- 
tural backwardness. 

Our  productive  capacity  should  ren- 
der scarcity  obsolete,  eliminating  pov- 
erty and  improving  life.  Instead, 
innovation  is  wastefully  harnessed  to 
the  development  of  weapons  and  new 
commodities  that  become  all-pervasive 
while  de-skilling  people,  making  their 
increasingly  mechanized  and  bureau- 
cratic environment  less  and  less  com- 
prehensible. Education  turns  out  more 
PhDs  and  more  experts  to  reinforce  our 
sense  of  powerlessness. 

The  present  school  system  produces 
some  who  find  satisfying  work,  but  the 
vast  majority  are  forced  to  find  their 
human  self-worth  as  consumers  in  a  rat- 


University  of  Califorina 

DEGREES 
OF  ADVANCING 

MBA,  Manager  of  Bulldozing  &  Acquisition, 
MPA,  Monster  of  Power  Administration, 
BA,  Brutalizing  Arts,  BS,  Bomb  Science,  MD,  Mad  Dog 
PhD,  *Phagedenic  Discharge,  JD,  Juvenile  Delinquent. 

*A  rapidly  spreading  destructive  ulcer  or  cancerous  growth. 


Support  David  Nadel  and  Ihe  oiher  victims  of  DCs  Siralegic  Law  Suit  Against  Public  Panicipalion.  (SLA. PR  Suit) 
Contact  Ashkenaz  Defense  Fund.  1317  San  Pablo  Avenue.  Berkeley.  CA  (.MO)  525-5054 


PDOCCSSED  WOULD  31 


ts 


race  of  unnecessary  toil  devoted  to  de- 
structive economic  growth.  The  present 
school  system  obstructs  our  ability  to 
participate  in  shaping  the  policies  that 
afifect  our  lives. 

No  single  institution,  like  the  mono- 
lithic school  system  programmed  by  a 
National  Education  Association,  can 
prepare  everybody  for  a  social  role.  The 
current  system  needs  to  be  decentral- 
ized, emphasizing  other  possibilities  of 


educating,  appropriate  to  various  abili- 
ties, conditions  and  communities.  We 
need  to  make  our  whole  environment 
more  educative  rather  than  ghettoizing 
the  concept  of  education  in  the  schools, 
which  amounts  to  littie  more  than  a 
system  of  social  engineering  for  the  cor- 
porations and  the  state. 

"School"  in  Greek  originally  meant 
"serious  leisure."  Young  people  went 
about  the  city  of  Athens  meeting  citi- 


zens and  observing  the  different  occu- 
pations and  activities  that  took  place.  It 
would  be  infinitely  better  to  let  kids 
hang  out  and  investigate  society  by 
themselves,  especially  if  they  have  ac- 
cess to  workplaces  and  homes  where 
they  could  question  the  division  of  la- 
bor (manual  vs.  intellectual)  and  the 
distinction  between  work  and  play. 

-  Mickey  D. 


If  you  want  them  to  be  very  brilliant  tell  them  even  more  fairy  tales. 

Albert  Einstein 


PROCESSED  WOBLD  3« 


A  YEARIMESPAfslOLA 


SEPTEMBER  18, 1991.  Central 
Office,  Espanola  School  Dis- 
trict, Espanola,  New  Mexico. 
The  Director  of  the  district's  Title 
Vn  bilingual  program  reads  to  us 
five  "paraprofessional  tutors"  from 
a  prepared  statement:  "At-risk  LEP 
students  wUl  participate  in  an  Eng- 
lish language  development  program 
in  which  conceptual  understanding 
is  enhanced  using  the  interactive  in- 
structional media  of  Uterary  arts, 
music,  drama,  visual/media  arts 
and  creative  writing.  Subcompo- 
nent objectives:  LEP  students  will 
gain  cognitive/academic  language 
proficiency,  English  language  con- 
ceptual development,  and  content 
area  knowledge  by  participating  in 
an  interactive  literary  arts  instruc- 
tional program." 

She  meets  our  glazed  eyes  and,  real- 
izing that  perhaps  the  statement  itself  is 
not  English,  puts  it  aside  and  tells  that, 
to  put  it  simply,  our  goal  is  to  build  the 
children's  "self-esteem"  so  that  they  do 
better  on  something  called  the  Califor- 
nia Test  of  Bzisic  Skills. 

California,  apparendy,  is  the  meas- 
ure of  all  things,  even  in  rural  New 
Mexico;  California  decides  which  skills 
are  basic.  Even  the  whole  idea  of  "self- 
esteem"  as  personal  commodity,  a  meas- 
urable quantity  that  can  be  added  to  or 
subtracted  from  depending  on  the  pres- 
ence or  absence  of  the  proper  thera- 
peutic environment,  sounds  very 
California  New  Age.  If  this  facile  idea  of 
self-esteem  were  in  fact  true,  I  can  envi- 
sion a  Skinner  Box  world  controlled  by 
professional  esteem-builders,  in  which 
we  all  do  very  well  on  our  "skills"  tests 
and  become  happy  and,  above  all, 
highly  productive  citizens. 

Of  the  five  tutors  for  this  twice- 
weekly  after-school  program,  I  am  by  far 
the  most  unqualified.  But  if  someone 
doesn't  fill  the  "Imaginative  Writing" 
slot,  federal  funds  will  remain  unspent. 


and  that  would  be  unthinkable.  The 
public  schools  are  collectively  the  larg- 
est employer  in  Rio  Arriba  county, 
which  is  one  of  the  poorest  counties  in 
the  second-poorest  state  in  the  nation. 
So  the  federal  pump  must  be  kept 
primed.  The  main  thing  is,  the  Director 
has  asked  me  in  my  interview,do  I  like 
children?  Well,  I  say,  in  a  tone  that  sug- 
gests I  like  them  mosdy  fricasseed  with 
onions  on  the  side,  a  recipe  I  learned 
from  the  W.C.  Fields  cookbook,  well... 
Great,  says  the  Director;  sign  right  here. 

October  8, 1991.  My  first  day  teach- 
ing! I  have  prepared  an  opening  ora- 
tion worthy  of  address  to  the  U.N. 
General  Assembly,  full  of  high-flown  no- 
tions of  discovering  identity,  heritage, 
roots,  through  writing  and  self-expres- 
sion. The  10  or  so  6th  grade  faces,  all 
mestizo,  regard  me  with  a  mixture  of 
amusement,  boredom,  and  scorn. 

'You  talk  funny." 

"Is  the  art  teacher  your..?  (giggle)." 

"Yeah,  do  you  and  her  (snicker)  get 
busy?"  (Peals). 

Welcome  to  6th  grade,  fool.  Don't 
you  remember? 

October  15.  I'm  not  ready  to  give 
up  on  my  theme  yet;  hope  springs  eter- 
nal for  the  new  teacher,  or  at  least  until 
mid-fall.  Columbus  Day,  or  as  it's  called 
in  Mexico,  Dia  de  las  Razas  (Day  of  the 
Races),  is  around  the  corner,  and  I 
would  like  to  get  some  student  reflec- 
tions on  their  Hispanicity.  What  might 
be  their  thoughts  on  the  "discovery" 
and  the  conquest?  The  question,  which 
I  put  to  them  in  various  ways,  draws  a 
blank.  I  have  expected  at  least  the  kind 
of  laconism,  no  less  poignant  for  its 
impassivity,  expressed  on  the  Mexico 
City  plaque  at  the  site  of  Cortes'  decisive 
victory  over  the  Aztecs:  "Neither  good 
nor  bad  but  the  painful  birth  of  the 
Mexican  people."  These  children,  how- 
ever, appear  to  have  not  even  a  clue  as 
to  their  racial  identity.  They  have  never 
heard  the  word  mestizo,  and  they  ada- 
mantiy  refuse  to  recognize  their  Indian 
blood.  Instead,  they  call  themselves 
"Spanish."  It's  as  if  Juarez  and  Bolivar 
and  the  wars  of  independence  from 


Spain,  which  ushered  in  a  proud  mestizo 
identity  to  the  rest  of  the  Americas,  had 
never  taken  place. 

What  is  to  account  for  this  abysmal 
ignorance?  The  U.S.  educational  sys- 
tem, plainly.  Detractors  of  this  system, 
which  is  practically  everybody  these 
days  including  members  of  the  ruling 
elite,  who  cynically  enrich  themselves 
from  this  ignorance  while  denouncing 
it,  often  complain  that  the  system's  too 
"centralized."  But  let's  see  what  "local 
control"  of  education  has  meant  to  Rio 
Arriba  county  schools.  For  one  thing, 
the  local  tax  base  is  so  low  that  these 
schools  get  about  half  the  funding,  per 
capita,  as  compared  to  richer  school 
districts,  such  as  neighboring  Los 
Alamos  county,  an  enclave  of  middle- 
class  atomic  scientists.  For  another,  the 
school  board  consists  of  five  men  who, 
like  virtually  all  Rio  Arriba  county  ofil- 
cials,  are  pawns  of  political  boss  Emilio 
Naranjo  and  his  Democratic  Party  ma- 

How  can  I  get  them 
to  accept  that  I  might 
possess  cultural  tools 
they  can  use  to  over- 
throw the  culture  I 
represent? 

chine.  Twenty-five  years  ago,  a  radical 
named  Reies  Lopez  Tixerina  led  a  na- 
tionalist uprising  in  Rio  Arriba  county 
which  was  ultimately  quashed  by  the 
tanks  and  machine  guns  of  the  National 
Guard.  Tixerina  had  an  accurate  name 
for  his  people,  indo-hispanos,  and  told 
them  their  modem  history,  which  is  the 
history  of  the  rip  off  of  their  land  by  the 
U.S.  Government  and  the  land-hungry 
capitalists  it  serves  following  the  Mexi- 
can-American War.  When  all  the  forces 
of  repression  came  down  on  Tixerina, 
he  served  his  prison  time  and  then  re- 
tired to  the  village  of  Coyote  to  teach  his 
children  at  home.  Meanwhile,  Mr. 
Naranjo  and  his  Democrats  tightened 


PROCESSED  WOULD  31 


their  grip  on  local  politics  and,  by  ex- 
tension, the  schools,  for  the  purpose  of 
propagating  the  ignorance  that  has 
served  them  so  well.  This  year,  the 
Espaiiola  city  fathers  have  commis- 
sioned a  statue  of  Juan  de  Onate,  the 
region's  greedy  Spanish  conquistador. 
A  statue  of  a  conquistador,  a  stone's 
throw  from  two  Indian  pueblos!  Such 
a  thing  would  be  unthinkable  in  Latin 
America  (except  for  some  very  special- 


ized purpose,  such  as  at  the  Cortes  Pal- 
ace in  Cuernavaca). 

October  29.  It's  Halloween  time, 
and  the  children's  thoughts  are  red 
with  gore.  The  stories  they  devise  are  all 
rehashes  of  the  nightmares  on  Elm 
Street  and  the  antics  of  Freddy  Kruger 
and  litde  Chuckie.  Tales  of  terror  in  the 
white  suburbs;  nothing  autochthonous, 
nothing  set  in  their  own  rural  environ- 
ment, nothing  involving  figures  from 
their  own  traditions,  such  as  La  Llorona, 


the  ghostly  woman  who  wanders  in 
search  of  her  drowned  children.  The 
children  are  imbued  with  television  and 
Hollywood  culture. 

November  12.  After  a  month  of 
teaching,  I  can  say  that  nearly  all  my 
students  are  deficient  in  attention,  over- 
stimulated,  aggressive.  What  makes 
them  this  way?  I  have  canvassed  a  few 
veteran  teachers  on  this,  and  they  all  tell 
me  whatever  the  cause  (television  gets 


Jan's  Story 


The  teacher  is  ranting  on  in  an  inaudi- 
ble mumble  about  something  that  has  to 
do  with  Chapter  12.  I  don't  really  care, 
the  class  starts  at  7:40  in  the  morning 
and  all  I  want  to  do  is  sleep,  anyhow.  It's 
like  this  every  day.  Doesn't  seem  to 
matter  much,  I  get  A's  in  the  class  on  my 
report  card.  Never  study  for  it,  either. 
It's  an  American  Democracy  class, 
which  is  a  bit  dull  to  me  since  it  covers 
what  I  studied  in  about  two  weeks  in  my 
Advanced  Placement  US  History  class. 
Boring — yes.  A  waste  of  time — yes.  But 
it's  a  graduation  requirement  so  I've  got 
to  live  with  it  or  I'll  never  get  out  of  this 
place.  Too  bad — I'd  really  like  to  be  in  a 
humanities  class.  Oh  well,  just  86  days 
to  graduation. 

Well,  now  that  I've  had  my  morning 
nap,  it's  time  for  Psychology.  It's  a  great 
class  led  by  one  of  the  seemingly  few 
interactive  teachers  left  in  the  world.  He 
gives  great  lectures  and  is  good  at  getting 
people  to  think.  It  would  probably  be 
even  better  if  we  had  textbooks  to  study 
from.  But  such  is  the  nature  of  a  class 
whose  budget  is  controlled  by  our 
friendly  California  governor  Pete  Wilson. 
I  guess  he  didn't  like  school  as  much  as 
I  do.  We  learn  to  make  the  best  of  it  at 
any  rate.  Well,  at  least  most  of  us.  We 
have  about  a  20%  drop-out  rate  in 
California.  It's  impossible  to  say  how 
many  more  students  would  care  about 
their  education  and  stay  in  school  if 
society  showed  that  it  cared  about  their 
education,  too. 

The  next  class  is  my  favorite.  Creative 
Writing — my  love,  one  of  my  main  rea- 
sons for  living.  No  complaints  here.  Ex- 
cept that  the  class  is  not  always 
available.  This  is  the  first  year  of  its 
reinstatement  since  I  don't  know  when, 
and  it  is  only  a  one-semester  class  this 
year.  In  the  second  semester  it  is  Film 
Lit,  which  doesn't  realty  work  out  all  that 
badly  for  me.  Film  is  another  reason  to 
live. 


Fourth  period — Art  History.  This  is  a 
new  class  for  me,  I've  just  dropped 
Physics.  (I  couldn't  hear  that  teacher 
either,  and  I  couldn't  wing  it  through  like 
Am.  Dem.)  I  had  the  teacher  when  I  was 
a  freshman  and  he  was  great,  but  the 
past  three  years  have  aged  him  five  times 
their  length.  He  has  slowed  down  quite 
a  bit,  and  relies  on  mindlessly  dull  videos 
narrated  by  people  with  snobby  English 
accents  that  drag  out  the  last  three 
syllables  of  every  sentence.  This  is  cou- 
pled with  background  Baroque  classical 
music  and  the  dull  lighting  of  the  room. 
The  whole  class  sleeps.  Even  the  teacher 
sometimes.  It's  nothing  contemptuous, 
we  try  to  watch  the  films,  but  they  have 
quite  a  strong  lulling  effect  to  them. 

The  bell  rings  waking  us  up  for  lunch. 
Everybody  splits  into  their  lunch  crowds. 
Mine  is  comprised  of  those  who  claim  to 
have  rejected  the  rest  of  the  school, 
which  in  turn  claims  to  have  rejected 
them.  You  know  who  I'm  talking  about — 
the  punks  (people  in  the  punk  scene,  not 
thugs),  the  hippies,  and  the  original 
(what  you  might  call  weird).  A  few  peo- 
ple pass  by  us  every  day  to  ask  if  we  want 
to  buy  any  pot  or  acid;  those  that  have 
money  do.  The  cafeteria  food,  as  at  all 
public  schools  on  earth  as  I  understand, 
is  utterly  repulsive  (and  never  vegetar- 
ian), so  we  rely  on  the  neighborhood 
restaurants,  which  are  too  expensive.  We 
usually  end  up  getting  30-cent  bread 
rolls  from  a  Chinese  pastry  place.  Some 
of  my  friends  roll  a  joint  and  get  stoned 
in  the  driveway.  Not  me.  My  afternoon 
classes  are  too  important  to  me.  By  the 
time  we've  had  a  couple  of  cigarettes, 
it's  time  for  fifth  period. 

If  there's  anybody  with  a  more  mo- 
notonous voice  than  my  Advanced 
Placement  English  teacher,  I  don't  want 
to  know  about  it.  I  love  English,  and  the 
guy  isn't  that  bad  of  a  teacher,  I  guess, 
it's  just  difficult  to  be  interested  in  him 
when  he's  talking.  He  gives  me  sort  of 
lousy  grades  because  he  doesn't  like  my 
style  much.  He  likes  words  for  their 
technical  value,  not  for  what  they  con- 
vey from  the  writer's  heart.  Oh  well. 


that's  his  trip.  I  can  live  through  a  year 
of  B's  and  C's,  I  suppose,  but  I  work  my 
butt  off  in  the  class  anyway. 

Last  class  of  the  day — Advanced 
Drama.  A  third  reason  for  living.  In  the 
lower-level  classes  my  drama  teacher 
proves  that  it's  possible  to  take  a  large 
group  of  rowdy  kids  who,  for  the  most 
part,  are  taking  the  class  only  to  fulfill  a 
performing  arts  requirement,  get  them 
focused,  and  interest  them  under  per- 
haps the  most  difficult  of  conditions. 
(The  drama  classes  are  usually  very  large 
and  meet  in  the  auditorium,  which  has 
horrible  acoustics.)  The  Advanced  class 
is  full  of  people  who  really  do  care  about 
acting.  Today  we  do  improv  scenes. 

The  final  bell  has  rung  and  it's  time 
to  get  to  my  after-school  job,  I  guess  my 
school  isn't  really  all  that  bad.  It's  by  no 
means  ideal,  but  at  least  it  works  for 
some.  Unfortunately  not  many  of  them 
are  African  American  (a  couple  years 
ago  there  were  something  like  78  Afri- 
can Americans  in  the  graduating  class 
and  only  one  graduated),  and  unfortu- 
nately there  are  lots  of  classes  missing 
that  should  be  there,  and  lots  that  need 
materials  to  meet  their  full  |>otential. 
But's  it's  something  for  those  who  are 
really  determined  to  extract  the  most 
they  can  out  of  it.  Sometimes  I  feel  like 
I'm  trying  to  squeeze  a  gallon  of  juice 
out  of  a  single  lemon.  And  sometimes  all 
I  can  think  about  is  all  the  hate  I  see 
taught  in  my  classrooms — most  teachers 
I've  had  have  only  brought  up  homo- 
sexuality as  a  joke  to  be  immediately 
followed  by  several  more  from  the  stu- 
dents. I  had  a  teacher  last  year  who  also 
taught  Sunday  School.  She  would  come 
into  our  history  class  to  preach  that 
abortion  was  murder.  I  know  of  several 
people  she  taught  who  had  more  than 
enough  other  people  telling  them  that 
the  decision  they  were  making  was 
wrong.  I  haven't  given  a  very  optimistic 
image  of  my  school,  but  there's  a  lot  to 
be  angry  at,  a  lot  to  be  changed.  I'm  not 
complaining  for  myself,  I'm  complaining 
for  a  generation.  Me — I've  only  got  85 
days  to  graduation. 


«s 


PBOCESSEO  WOBLD  3« 


¥^  gH  ssssa  [gl  g^ 


|i»y»iCH2IiaiLW5 


Graphic:  Fred  Rinne 


most  of  the  blame),  these  things  have 
been  getting  a  lot  worse  in  recent  years. 

December  10.  It's  getting  near 
Christmas,  presumably  a  family  time, 
and  I  would  like  my  students  to  write 
something  about  their  families.  They 
are  eager  to  tell  me,  orally,  about  an 
uncle  on  the  lam  from  the  law,  a  dope- 
dealing  cousin,  a  brother  who  stole  and 
pawned  the  family's  log-splitter  last 
week.  But  they  don't  wish  to  commit 
these  confessions  to  paper;  they  don't 
want  to  get  into  trouble,  they  say.  So  this 
week  we  setde  for  composing  obscene 
poems  about  Santa  Claus,  which  is  the 
only  other  writing  topic  that  seems  to 
inspire  them  today. 

January  7.  Inauspicious  beginning 
of  a  new  semester.  I  would  like  to  begin 
a  long-term  project,  such  as  keeping  a 
journal,  but  they  find  that  overwhelm- 
ing. I  try  to  convince  them  its  easy;  I  tell 
them  I'm  keeping  one  about  this  very 
class.  Alarmed,  they  demand  to  see  it, 
but  I  tell  them  they  can't  undl  they 
begin  to  write  their  own.  Nah,  forget  it 


then.  So  it's  back  to  the  usual  daily 
topics:  "The  Story  of  a  Dime,"  "If  I  Were 
Invisible,"  "My  Favorite  Pet."  Clarence, 
who  has  rings  of  weariness  under  his 
eyes  but  is  also  one  of  the  more  hyper- 
active, as  though  he  is  kept  up  every 
night  and  given  stimulant  pills  for 
breakfast,  has  a  typical  opening  to  "If  I 
Could  Fly":  "If  I  could  fly,  I  would  fly 
over  the  school  and  piss  and  shit  on  all 
the  teachers  (except  Mr.  Ferret)..." 

February  15.  I  can  appreciate  the 
children's  loathing  of  teachers  and 
schools;  I  never  cared  for  them  much 
myself.  I  am  convinced  that  the  schools 
are  part  of  what  Althusser  called  the 
Ideological  State  Apparatus,  or  what 
Gramsci  called  hegemony,  that  finely- 
tuned  combination  of  police  repression 
and  ideological  control.  And  that  I,  in 
my  capacity  as  a  teacher,  am  both  po- 
liceman and  administrator  of  that  ide- 
ology. But  I  am  also  concerned,  like 
Gramsci,  that  their  nearly  total  incom- 
petence in  reading  and  writing,  in 
either  English  or  Spanish,  will  leave 


them  wanting  in  some  of  the  tools  and 
skills  they  need  to  overthrow  the  domi- 
nant culture.  My  situation,  then,  is  ex- 
tremely awkward. 

They  are  well  aware,  if  not  of  my 
particular  dilemma,  then  certainly  of 
the  master-slave  dialectic  that  exists  be- 
tween us.  If  they  were  a  couple  of  grades 
younger,  I  might  be  able  to  get  them  to 
perform  just  to  please  me,  like  pet  dogs. 
But  now  they  are  old  enough  to  be 
aware  that  my  own  identity  as  a  success- 
ful teacher  depends  on  their  perform- 
ance. I  need  them  more  than  they  need 
me.  It's  my  "self-esteem,"  not  theirs, 
that  is  at  stake.  And  within  the  logic  of 
this  dialectic  of  dominance  and  submis- 
sion, they  are  right,  of  course.  So  how 
can  I  get  them  to  accept  that  I  might 
possess  cultural  tools  they  can  use  to 
overthrow  the  culture  I  represent? 

I  don't  think,  as  teacher,  I  can.  Ask- 
ing them,  as  I  do  this  day,  to  do  the  work 
"for  themselves,"  that  it's  "for  their  own 
good"  sounds  so  ridiculous  that  it  sticks 
in  my  throat. 


PBOCESSED  WOBLD  31 


<9 


February  25.  These  children's 
threats  of  violence  to  each  other,  which 
they  sometimes  carry  out,  are  enough 
to  make  you  cringe.  Particularly  disturb- 
ing are  the  boys'  threats  to  rape  the 
girls.  At  this  age,  the  girls  are  as  big  as 
the  boys  and  are  often  the  aggressors. 
But  what  happens  when  sexual  dimor- 
phism sets  in  and  the  boys  get  big 
enough  to  overpower  the  girls?  Last 
week  I  got  fed  up  with  their  threats  and 
yelled  at  them  and  kicked  a  chair  across 
the  room.  That  got  their  attention,  and 
they  were  very  subdued  the  rest  of  the 
day,  but  I  felt  ashamed,  because  it  was 
such  a  contradictory  thing,  using  vio- 
lence to  assert  that  violence  is  wrong. 

This  week  I  return  humbled  by  my 
own  conscience,  hoping  that  last  week's 
rage  hasn't  crushed  or  alienated  them 
completely.  Fat  chance.  They  greet  me 
warmly,  if  a  littie  smugly.  "You  lost  it  last 
week,  huh?"  says  Tony,  our  main  bully. 
I  have  shown  that  I  am  human,  and  this 
pleases  them,  and  I  have  shown  that 
they  can  get  to  me,  and  some  of  them, 
especially  Tony,  like  that  even  more. 

From  what  I  have  gathered  from 
other  teachers  and  from  Tony  himself, 
he  has  a  wretched  home  life,  and  so  he 
is  probably  "acting  out"  a  lot  of  his  un- 
happiness.  Most  bullies,  however,  if  we 
are  to  believe  the  famous  recent  Swed- 
ish bully  study,  are  not  at  all  the  fragile 
emotional  vessels  the  liberal  therapy  es- 
tablishment likes  to  claim  they  are,  but 
are  in  fact  well-adjusted  litde  thugs  that 
go  on  to  bully  their  way  to  the  top  of  all 
kinds  of  businesses  and  institutions.  So 
when  so  much  anti-social  behavior  is 
rewarded  by  success  in  present  society, 
what  exacdy  does  it  mean  to  build  "self- 
esteem"  and  "security"?  In  Tony's  case, 
I  guess  it  means  smoothing  out  a  few  of 


the  rougher  psychotic  edges  (which 
would  handicap  him,  however,  if  he 
were  to  be  called  to  serve  his  nation's 
military  in  some  far-off  land)  and  con- 
trolling his  tears  of  frustration  (also  a 
handicap  if  he  were  to  be  called  to  con- 
gress or  court  to  explain  why  he  massa- 
cred all  those  people).  Apart  from  that, 
it's...  Go  get  'em,  litde  tiger! 

In  fact,  self-esteem,  as  I  understand 
it,  does  not  appear  to  be  much  lacking 
in  these  children,  at  least  to  my  thera- 
peutically untrained  eye.  For  one  thing, 
they  are  highly  arrogant  about  their 
ignorance.  Well,  maybe  there's  a  basis 
to  this  arrogance;  it  must  take  a  good 
deal  of  concentration  and  willpower  to 
sit  through  twelve  years  of  school  and 
come  out  not  knowing  how  to  read,  as  a 
large  percentage  of  students  these  days 
do.  In  any  case,  "self-esteem"  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  be  something  terribly 
lacking  in  the  American  character.  As 
an  example,  a  graph  in  Andrew 
Shapiro's  book  We're  Number  One!  (New 
York,  1992)  shows  68%  of  American 
13-year-olds  saying  they  are  "good  at 
math,"  and  only  23%  of  South  Koreans 
saying  the  same.  The  Americans'  aver- 
age math  proficiency  score  is  473.9,  be- 
low the  mean  of  500;  the  Koreans'  is 
567.8. 

April  7.  It's  the  middle  of  basketball 
season,  and  basketball  is  all  that  is  on 
the  children's  minds.  Having  given  up 
on  getting  them  to  write  (save  for  a 
couple  of  pieces  on,  what  else,  basket- 
ball), I  allow  them  to  go  out  and  play  it. 
On  the  basketball  court  I  see  them,  for 
the  first  time,  really  work  together,  with- 
out coercion,  and  have  a  good  time 
doing  it.  My  presence  is  scarcely  noted 
or  needed.  Basketball  is  the  best  thing 
that's  happened  to  this  class  all  year.  I 


decide  to  let  them  play  basketball  as 
much  as  they  want  for  the  rest  of  the 
term;  if  my  superiors  call  me  on  it,  I  will 
tell  them  it's  all  preparation  for  writing 
more  basketball  stories.  Besides,  my 
classroom  is  always  locked  now:  the  cus- 
todian died  of  acute  alcohol  poisoning 
the  other  day,  and  nobody  ever  seems 
to  have  another  set  of  keys. 

May  12.  The  basketball  scheme  has 
worked.  I  haven't  been  called  on  this 
unusual  method  for  teaching  writing, 
and  the  school  year  is  now  slouching 
toward  its  end.  Part  of  my  superiors' 
indifference  to  my  method  is  no  doubt 
owed  to  the  fact  that  this  particular  pro- 
gram will  probably  not  be  funded  next 
year  because  of  some  kind  of  malfea- 
sance or  neglect  at  the  central  office  (it 
has  been  like  pulling  teeth  to  get  paid 
and  sometimes  we  weren't  paid  for 
months  on  end,  but  finally  we  did  get 
all  that  was  owed  us). 

May  19.  Last  week!  In  sum,  what  can 
I  say  my  experience  taught  me  about 
teaching?  Right  off,  I'd  say  that  we 
shouldn't  even  try  to  "teach"  children 
after  a  certain  age.  Teach  them  the  ba- 
sics when  they're  young,  probably  by 
good  old  rote  methods,  and  when  they 
get  to  the  age,  around  fifth  grade,  when 
they  become  aware  of  school  as  the 
prison  or  factory  it  is,  let  all  those  who 
want  to  go  play  and  explore  and  dis- 
cover things  on  their  own,  but  always 
with  academic  or  didactic  resources  at 
their  disposal,  should  they  want  them. 
Maybe  only  by  giving  them  their  free- 
dom will  they  actually  learn  something 
worthwhile. 

-   Salvador  Ferret 


TWISTED  IMAGE  ^y   Ace  Backwords  ©h« 


GBlZf  THERE'S  t^OTHINa  IN  THE 
FRIDGE  BUT  SOMB  CftRRorS  AtJD 

For  a  3DB  / 


THEN  AGAIN,  THERL'S  Pl  LOT  HO\J 
CftN  -DO  VJ\rH  C/)RR0r5  At4't>       J 


PROCESSED  WORLD  31 


JOBS  ARE: 


toying 


MOST  JOBS  ARE  USELESS— 
OR  WORSE! 

Sure,  there's  work  that  needs  to  be  done  if 
we  want  to  live  well.  But  even  useful  jobs 
waste  a  lot  of  time  shuffling  papers  and 
satisfying  arbitrary  company  procedures. 
A  lot  of  work  is  utterly  worthless:  war 
production,  making  wasteful  &  toxic  things, 
advertising,  insurance,  banking,  real  estate. 

WE  WANT  DIGNITY  (NOT 
BULLSHIT!) 

We  don't  just  get  income  from  work,  we 
also  get  self-respect  — or  at  least  we  expect 
to.  We  want  the  dignity  that  comes  from 
pulling  our  own  weight,  not  the  abuse, 
boredom  and  threats  to  our  health  and 
sanity  that  most  jobs  impose. 

JOBS  ARE  AN  ASSBACKWARDS 
WAY  OF  ORGANIZING  WORK 

The  job,  or  wage-slavery,  co-opts  our  basi- 
cally sound  human  desires  to  contribute  to 
society.  Jobs  pit  us  against  each  other  for 
"scarce"  work,  even  when  it's  obvious  that 
there  are  plenty  of  important  things  going 
undone.  The  power  attributed  to  money 


keeps  us  from  considering  unpaid  work  as 
"real  work."  From  so-called  women's  work 
(maintaining  the  home,  raising  children, 
i.e.  new  workers),  to  volunteer  labor  in  its 
many  forms,  meaningful  work  often  lacks 
respect  — and  pay.  When  we  define  "real 
work"  as  that  which  is  paid,  the  important 
things  in  life  (family,  arts,  fun)  are  de- 
graded and  undervalued. 

WE  HAVE  BETTER  THINGS  TO 
DO  THAN  WORK! 

Jobs  keep  us  from  doing  things  that  are 
meaningful  to  us.  Whether  it's  playing 
music,  viriting,  cooking,  socializing,  reading, 
fixing  things,  losing  ourselves  in  contem- 
plation or  just  plain  goofing  off,  there  are 
countless  better  ways  to  pass  our  time  than 
on  the  job. 

WHEN  YOU  GO  TO  WORK,  YOU 
GIVE  UP  A  LOT 

You  don't  just  trade  your  time  for  money, 
you  lose  any  say  over  what  work  is  done, 
why,  and  how  it's  organized.  Freedom  of 
speech  or  assembly,  basic  American  rights, 
don't  exist  on  the  job.  And  in  some  cases 
you  give  up  your  health,  or  even  your  life. 


We  don't  want  more  enforced 

powerlessness  and  misery.  It's 

time  to  drastically  REDUCE  the 

work-week  (the  10-hour  week 

sounds  like  a  good  beginning!) 

and  that  means  severing  the  link 

between  work  and  income.  After 

all  these  decades  of  "progress," 

isn't  it  time  that  we  all  enjoyed 

the  fruits  of  automation?  Isn't  it 

time  we  control  our  own  lives 

and  create  a  life  worth  living, 

reducing  burdensome  work  to  a 

minimum,  and  erase  the  perverse 

distinction  between  useful  and 

pleasurable  activity? 

Respond  on  bach  of  $50  bill  and  send  to: 
Committee  for  Full  Enjoyment 

A  SUBSIDIARY  OF  THE  ANTI  ECONOMY  LEAGUE  Of  SAN  FRANCISCO 

Clo  41  Sutter  St.  //I829 
San  Francisco.  CA  94104 


NO,  WE  DON'T  WANT  JOBS! 


Fast  Learner 


N 


ow,  what's  that  in  hexadeci- 
mal?" 


"Um..."  Luis  managed,  his  face  con- 
torted with  a  mix  of  consternation  and 
concentration. 

"You  remember  hexadecimal,  don't 
you?" 

"Get  real,  man!"  he  shot  back,  blush- 
ing with  insulted  pride. 

"Well,  Where's  the  problem  homes?" 

A  deeply  introspective  expression 
animated  the  pupil's  face,  and  he 
opened  his  mouth  to  speak  when  the 
school  bell  rang.  "Well,  we'll  try  it  again 


Graphic:  JRS 


tomorrow,"  the  teacher  said  to  the  tat- 
too of  Luis'  sneakers  as  they  carried  Luis 
out  of  the  classroom  door  and  down  the 
hall. 

Bill  sank  into  his  worn  oak  swivel 
chair  at  the  teacher's  desk  and  emitted 
a  sigh  barely  audible  over  the  growing 
cacophony  of  students  flooding  the  cor- 
ridor at  recess.  He  pushed  his  glasses  up 
on  his  forehead  with  both  fists  and 
rubbed  his  slightiy  bloodshot  and  burn- 
ing eyes. 

"How's  the  master  pedagogue  this 
fine  morning?"  Tim's  voice  sounded  in 
a  practiced  professional  pitch  intended 


to  convey  optimism  and  authority.  Bill's 
delayed  response  reflected  a  lack  of 
sleep  caused  by  his  latest  affair.  He 
hoped  it  came  across  as  careful  rumina- 
tion. 

"We  seem  to  have  hit  another  snag 
at  memory  blocks  and  hexadecimal," 
he  finally  replied,  adjusting  his  specs 
and  eyeing  the  assistant  principal's  im- 
peccably professional  grooming.  Tim's 
flawless  coiffure  and  pressed,  stylish 
shirt  reminded  Bill  that  he  had  not 
showered  in  five  days,  but  at  least  he 
hopefully  camouflaged  his  funk  in  suf- 
ficient deodorant,  cologne  and  clean 
clothes.  Bill's  hygiene  suffered  from  the 
time-consuming  nightly  hedonism  with 
Wild  Donna. 

"We  may  have  to  try  another  tack 
with  Luis,"  Bill  offered.  Tim's  left  eye- 
brow arched  in  inquiring  anticipation. 
Bill's  renewed  eye-rubbing  bought  him 
more  time  as  he  recalled  the 
strategy  he  was  using  in  Luis' 

^^^  teaching.  "Let's  go  grab  some 
coffee  in  the  lounge  while  we 
discuss  this,"  Bill  said.  "Sounds 
good  to  me,"  Tim  replied. 

Bill  shovelled  some  papers  into  his 
briefcase  and  slung  it  under  his  arm.  As 
the  two  teachers  headed  down  the  hall 
toward  the  lounge.  Bill  began  to  discuss 
his  strategy.  "I've  reached  a  plateau  in 
the  effectiveness  of  the  transdermals  at 
this  stage,"  he  began,  referring  to  the 
devil's  brewof  methamphetamine,  ben- 
zodiazepines, and  Du  Pont  TA-437  he 
administered  to  Luis  every  morning  be- 
fore classes.  "TA"  stood  for  "teaching 
z^ent,"  one  of  the  family  of  new  com- 
pounds being  used  to  enhance  involun- 
tary absorption  of  information 
presented  in  an  educational  setting. 

"I  think  adding  the  stimulator  at  this 
point  will  speed  us  over  this  hurdle,"  he 
continued.  The  stimulator  was  an  elec- 
tronic teaching  aid  that  could  be 
plugged  into  the  surgically  implanted 
jack  located  at  the  intersection  of  Luis' 
spinal  column  and  skull.  The  device 
could  be  switched  to  various  intensity 
settings  for  either  positive  or  negative 
reinforcement.  NeuroTek,  the  IBM  and 


Eli  Lilly  consortium  which  developed 
and  marketed  the  fantastically  popular 
and  profitable  device,  disavowed  the 
popular  notion  that  it  operated  on  the 
crude  but  effective  principles  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain,  since  it  had  no  outward 
physical  effects.  However,  the  facial  ex- 
pressions of  someone  under  its  influ- 
ence told  an  altogether  different  story. 
Nonetheless,  its  dramatic  impact  on 
various  behavior  modification  indus- 
tries from  penology  to  pedagogy  over- 
whelmed the  objections  of  its  moralistic 
detractors. 

Bill  nervously  fingered  the  stimula- 
tor jack  behind  his  left  ear  as  he 
brought  the  topic  up.  When  he  ac- 
quired his  implant,  the  stimulator  was 
still  a  relatively  experimental  device, 
and  its  application  was  strictly  control- 
led by  laws  requiring  that  its  use  be 
totally  voluntary.  Bill  attributed  his  at- 
tainment of  both  a  Ph.D.  in  behavioral 
neurology  and  an  M.D.  within  3  years  to 
itsjudicious  self-application.  His  success 
made  it  much  easier  for  him  to  accept 
its  increasingly  widespread  involuntary 
application  in  teaching  and  behavior 
modification. 

"So  the  regular  rewards  and  demer- 
its aren't  enough  together  with  the 
transdermals  to  jump  this  hurdle  in 
your  opinion?"  Tim  asked. 

"Well,  it's  not  a  matter  of  their  in- 
ability to  influence  the  lad's  progress," 
Bill  replied.  "It's  more  a  matter  of  the 
time  constraints  we  have  in  this  project. 
As  you  well  know,  Luis'  corporate  spon- 
sor has  awarded  us  with  his  contract  on 
the  condition  of  some  pretty  specific 
goals  that  we  have  to  attain  by  the  time 
he's  18." 

"What  were  they  again?  They  expect 
him  to  become  one  of  their  chief  sys- 
tems design  experts  by  then  -  or  some- 
thing like  that?" 

"Well,  without  getting  bogged  down 
in  specifics,  we've  agreed  to  train  him 
to  the  level  of  a  double  -  no,  actually  a 
triple  Ph.D.  by  the  time  the  contract 
runs  out  when  he's  18." 

"So  that  gives  us,  what,  six  more 
years?"  "Five  and  a  half,  actually.  But 


22 


PROCESSED  WORLD  3« 


because  his  parents  contracted  with  us 
to  take  over,  and  because  of  the  leeway 
we're  granted  by  the  Federal  Excep- 
tional Pupils  Development  Act,  we  can 
concentrate  on  his  training  without  a 
lot  of  childhood  ephemera  making  de- 
mands on  his  time,"  Bill  replied  as  they 
reached  the  coffee  counter  in  the  teach- 
ers' lounge. 

"No  teaching  tricks  to  puppy  dogs, 
no  newspaper  routes,  and  no  teenage 
lust  getting  in  the  way,  eh?"  "With  a 
child  of  Luis'  exceptional  potential, 
such  trivial  childhood  activities  would 
be  an  incredible  waste  of  developmen- 
tal potential.  Frankly,  they'd  run 
counter  to  the  imperative  of  speeding 
up  his  development  toward  a  preco- 
cious economic  contribution." 

"Point  well  taken,"  Tim  replied, 
pouring  them  both  a  mug  of  steaming 
coffee.  "It's  kids  like  Luis  and  teaching 
like  this  that'll  enable  us  to  regain  all 
the  ground  we've  lost  to  Japan  eco- 
nomically." 

"With  the  subliminal  motivation  ori- 
entation we  provide  him  during  his 
sleep  and  daily  video  viewing,  he'll 
never  miss  the  crap  most  teenagers  find 
indispensable  to  their  happiness,"  Bill 
continued.  "Frankly,  he's  happy  as  a 
clam  just  striving  to  meet  his  instruc- 


tional quotas.  He's  really  livingjustifica- 
tion  of  the  whole  program.  He  vs'as  as 
happy  mastering  integral  calculus  as 
any  average  kid  would  be  learning  how 
to  masturbate."  "Yes,  Luis  is  quite  an 
exceptional  lad,"  Tim  said,  nodding 
sagely. 

Bill  took  a  deep  draught  of  his  cof- 
fee and  made  a  satisfied-sounding  sigh. 
He  basked  in  Tim's  appreciation  of  his 
student's  abilities  and  felt  the  accolades 
reflected  positively  on  his  own  accom- 
plishments as  Luis'  mentor.  The  re- 
tainer paid  by  Luis'  future  employer 
added  signlficantiy  to  the  school's  fi- 
nancial viability,  and  Bill  felt  their  in- 
vestment would  pay  off  handsomely  in 
the  research  and  development  depart- 
ment. Bill  also  felt  good  about  enabling 
Luis  to  have  such  a  great  head  start  in 
his  career. 

"Well,  I've  got  to  be  getting  back  to 
work,  recess  is  almost  over,"  Bill  said, 
draining  his  mug.  After  setting  it  on  a 
tray  in  front  of  the  dishwashing  room, 
he  headed  out  the  door  vsdth  a  fiiendly 
nod  toward  Tim. 


Dusk  had  settied  over  the  campus  by 
the  time  Bill  had  finished  the  adminis- 
trative paperwork  and  headed  across 
the  shady  grove  of  eucalyptus  trees  to- 
ward his  car.  A  twig  snapped  behind 
him,  and  before  he  could  react,  two  sets 
of  arms  grabbed  him  from  behind.  A 
plug  violentiy  snapped  into  his  stimula- 
tor jack,  and  someone  stepped  out  from 
behind  a  tree  trunk  in  front  of  him  and 
drenched  his  face  with  fluid. 

Blinking  drops  from  his  eyes,  Bill 
focused  on  Luis  holding  an  emptyjar  of 
transdermal  solution.  Bill  jerked  invol- 
untarily as  the  stimulator  was  cranked 
to  maximum  negative  reinforcement. 

"On  your  knees,  asshole!  We're  go- 
ing to  teach  you  some  tricks!"  Luis 
crowed,  waving  the  stimulator's  con- 
trol. As  his  knees  began  to  buckle.  Bill 
gasped  in  admiration.  "Christ,  these 
kids  learn  fast!" 

by  R.L.  Tripp 


PBOCCSSED  WOULD  3< 


23 


Fat  Lot  of  Good  it 

Did  Me! 


Before  I'd  even  gotten 
through  my  first  "Dick  and 
Jane"  saga,  I  was  being 
Hrmly  nudged  in  the  direction  of 
college.  "With  a  college  degree 
you'll  be  set  for  life,"  my  working- 
class  parents  constandy  intoned,  as 
if  they  could  seal  my  fate  by  sheer 
repetition  of  the  phrase.  Although 
they  had  never  experienced  such 
higher-educational  wonders  first- 
hand, they  firmly  believed  in  the 
first  tenet  of  American  Progress  - 
a  college  education  guarantees  "the 
good  life"  -  even  if  their  faith  in 
Catholic  dogma  had  gotten  a  litde 
shaky. 

To  set  me  on  course  towards  the 
American  Dream,  my  parents  enrolled 
me  in  the  local  parochial  schools  for 
their  strict  discipline  and  purported 
academic  excellence.  Although  most 
"publics"  shudder  at  the  thought, 
Catholic  education  does  have  its  pluses: 
learning  how  to  follow  orders  unques- 
tioningly,  brown-nose  authority  figures 
shamelessly,  tolerate  oppressive  condi- 
tions and  absurd  rules,  maintain  a  cool 
head  while  evading  said  rules,  and  lie  so 
convincingly  you  even  begin  believing 
your  own  Reaganesque  whoppers  -  all 
invaluable  in  the  workplace. 

You  can  imagine  my  future  shock  at 
my  college  dorm-mates'  descriptions  of 
their  "Open  School"  experiences, 
which  to  my  parochial  ears  sounded  like 
some  new  form  of  child  abuse.  I 
couldn't  understand  how  such  indul- 
gence and  laxity  could  do  anything  but 
set  my  tender  classmates  up  for  a  life  of 
frustration,  failure,  and  bitter  disap- 
pointment. Unhampered  self-expres- 
sion? What  nonsense!  My  education 
had  posed  no  such  hazards. 


As  an  added  plus,  the  thoughtful 
Catholic  school  student  develops  an 
amazing  capacity  to  view  even  the  most 
petrified  and  all-encompassing  belief 
systems  with  a  heaping  helping  of  skep- 
ticism. To  this  day  I  relish  mentally  de- 
molishing every  sacred  cow  in  creation. 

My  radical  skepticism  was  consider- 
ably enhanced  after  I  ran  across  a  dusty 
two-volume  set  of  biographies  of  great 
men  and  women  in  the  elementary 
school  library.  Not  one  to  let  my  school- 
ing interfere  with  my  education,  I  al- 
ways kept  a  good  book  on  hand  to  get 
me  through  the  more  boring  classroom 
bullshit.  However,  the  revelations  in 
those  two  volumes  generated  more  ex- 
citement than  I'd  bargained  for. 

For  one  thing,  their  author  had  the 
audacity  to  suggest  that  Saint  Joan  of 
Arc  wasn't  really  a  saint  at  all  but  a  nut 
case,  and  that  the  great  Queen  Cleopa- 
tra of  Egypt  was,  in  the  parlance  of  my 
elders,  a  "nigger!"  Of  particular  interest 
was  the  secdon  on  Karl  Marx,  which 
made  the  social  system  advocated  by  the 
original  Godless  Communist  sound  sus- 
piciously like  the  early  Christian  life- 
style our  religion  text  kept  praising  to 
high  heaven.  Moreover,  to  a  miner's 


The  thoughtful 

Catholic  school 

student  develops  an 

amazing  capacity  to 

view  even  the  most 

petrified  and 

all-encompassing 

belief  systems  with  a 

heaping  helping  of 

skepticism. 


daughter,  this  brief  introduction  to 
Marxist  economic  theory  was  akin  to 
first  noticing  in  a  lifetime  in  coal  coun- 
try that  coal  is  black. 

Unfortunately,  my  new-found  ap- 
preciation of  Marxism  led  me  to  vote 
for  the  Communist  Party  presidential 
candidate  in  the  eighth-grade  mock 
election,  a  faux  pas  which  under- 
standably generated  the  mother  of  all 
lectures  from  our  black-gabardine- 
shrouded  keeper.  Mercifully,  because 
the  voting  was  anonymous,  her  outrage 
was  directed  at  the  kids  in  my  row  of 
desks  in  general  instead  of  myself  in 
particular. 

My  new  class  consciousness  was  to  be 
rapidly  obliterated  after  my  matricula- 
tion at  the  local  Catholic  high  school, 
where  Time  magazine  was  as  subversive 
as  the  library  got.  Timev/as  then  singing 
the  praises  of  something  called  "supply- 
side  economics."  What  a  revelation!  I'd 
never  before  realized  that  giving  ob- 
scenely wealthy  people  a  lot  more 
money  could  work  such  wonders  for  the 
likes  of  me.  Being  cured  of  this  delusion 
in  due  time  did  have  its  plus  side:  after 
realizing  that  the  supply-siders'  "unseen 
hand"  would  make  a  great  Three-card 
Monte  dealer,  I  developed  a  healthy 
disrespect  for  the  printed  word.  In  the 
meantime,  my  faith  in  the  superiority  of 
Catholic  education  received  a  serious 
jolt  when  I  learned  that  the  local  public 
high  school  had  quite  a  few  of  those  new 
wonder  machines  called  computers, 
whereas  we  had  a  grand  total  of  none. 
As  a  result,  I  began  to  shop  around  for 
colleges  outside  the  Catholic  ghetto. 
On  a  visit  to  a  well-regarded  nearby 
university,  I  received  some  invaluable 
assistance  from  a  black  Barbadoan  grad 
student  in  navigating  the  rough  seas  of 
higher-education  planning.  Before  I 
left,  he  gave  me  one  last  word  of  advice: 
"For  most  people,  education  can  be  a 
double-edged  sword:  it  teaches  you  to 


S4 


PROCESSED  WOULD  31 


value  a  lifestyle  you'll  be  hard-pressed 
to  ever  live."  Faced  with  the  choice  be- 
tween four  years  of  college  and  working 
as  a  payroll  clerk  in  my  overbearing 
mother's  office,  I  dutifully  ignored  this 
advice  and  decided  to  go  for  the  sheep- 
skin. "After  all,"  I  reasoned,  "I  ain't  got 
nothin'  better  to  do." 

After  my  near-perfect  grades  and 
brown-nosing  ability  won  me  a  scholar- 
ship to  a  prestigious  Quaker-founded 
liberal  arts  college,  I  was  sure  I  was  well 
on  my  way  to  "the  good  life."  My  parish 
priest  was  equally  sure  my  soul  was  well 
on  its  way  to  hell.  Litde  did  Father  Mac 
realize  that  the  heavy  dose  of  morality  I 
received  under  his  auspices  (reinforced 
by  assurances  that  the  slightest  misstep 
jabbed  poor  Jesus'  sacred  heart  like  a 
stiletto)  would  be  fully  reinforced  at 
Swatmore  College.  However,  Swat- 
more's  heavy  emphasis  on  educating 
students  to  busy  themselves  promoting 
"social  justice"  would  prove  a  cruel  dis- 
service in  the  "real  world."  For  a  contest- 
ant entering  that  rat  race,  enduring 
such  well-meaning  brainwashing  is 
much  like  paying  to  have  your  legs  tied 
together  before  the  starting  bell 
sounds.  Moreover,  any  genuine  desire 
to  do  socially  beneficial  or  even  neutral 
work  makes  torment  and  frustration  a 
sure  bet.  Fortunately,  my  matriculation 
at  Swatmore,  an  intellectual  pressure- 
cooker  notorious  for  student  suicides, 


would  postpone  this  agony  with  a  more 
rarified  one. 

I  entered  my  first  English  Literature 
class  by  default,  since  the  best  classes 
were  all  filled  before  I  got  a  clue  about 
how  the  byzantine  course  registration 
system  operated.  The  default  course  left 
me  a  litUe  cold,  but  as  a  budding  fiction 
writer,  I  wanted  to  get  an  early  start  on 
my  all-important  Literature  Degree,  so 
I  took  what  I  could  get. 

The  class  started  out  entertainingly 
enough  with  the  professor  leading  us  in 
an  analysis  of  several  bawdy  medieval 
limericks.  But  after  cranking  out  several 
well-thought-out  term  papers  on  more 
complex  works  and  being  rewarded 
with  several  D's  and  F's,  I  soon  realized 
that  my  evaluator  didn't  give  a  pound- 
ing butter  churn  about  what  I  honestiy 
thought  the  authors  were  trying  to  con- 
vey. Being  a  dirty  old  Freudian,  he 
wanted  smut  Being  dependent  on  fed- 
eral grants  that  were  collectable  for  a 
maximum  of  4  years  (those  days  are 
gone  forever!),  I  soon  realized  I'd  bet- 
ter give  the  guy  what  he  wanted  or  risk 
remedial  education  I  couldn't  under- 
write. So  for  my  next  term  paper  topic, 
I  selected  the  sweetest  little  sonnet  I 
could  find-  and  proceeded  to  read  as 
much  raw,  unbridled  lust  into  it  as  hu- 
manly possible.  By  the  time  I  finished 
analyzing  that  dewy  violet  straining  to 
grow  uphill,  it  had  been  transformed 
into  a  gushing  priapus  of  epic  propor- 
tions. 

Although  driven  to  this  new  tactic  by 
desperation,  I  doubted  whether  the 
professor  would  fall  for  it.  I  even  wor- 
ried he'd  interpret  my  effort  as  a  sarcas- 
tic  slight  against  his  analytical 
proclivities.  Not  to  worry:  he  not  only 
took  the  bait,  he  relished  it.  I  got  my  first 
A,  and  from  then  on  even  my  most 
lukewarm  efforts  were  graded  kindly. 
What's  more,  I  had  learned  my  most 
important  higher-education  lesson: 
screw  intellectiuil  honesty!  If  you  want  to 
bag  your  degree  before  you're  30,  fig- 
ure out  what  the  professor  wants  and 
then  give  it  to  him  -  preferably  on  a 
silver  platter. 

So,  having  learned  it's  better  to  join 
a  Freudian  than  fight  him,  I  decided  to 
skip  the  literature  major  in  favor  of  psy- 
chology. 

As  a  psych  major,  I  thoroughly  en- 
joyed being  able  to  read  deep-seated 
pathology  into  every  last  eyebrow  twitch 
of  my  fellow  classmates  (particularly  the 
really  snobby  ones),  but  I  was  dismayed 
by  the  contentious  subjectivity  of  it  all. 


For  every  purportedly  comprehensive 
theory,  there  seemed  to  be  an  equal  and 
opposite  competing  theory  (see  also 
"Confessions  of  an  Atheist  Priest,"  page 
42).  In  contrast,  biology  had  an  appeal- 
ing objectivity.  As  a  result,  I  was  blown 
away  by  my  first  course  in  physiological 
psychology,  taught  by  a  charismatic,  en- 
couraging professor  who  prided  him- 
self on  seeding  future  research  mavens 
with  every  cross<ampus  stroll. 

When  Professor  Oppenheim  ac- 
cepted me  into  his  senior  seminar  and 
lab  practicum  in  learning  and  memory, 
I  was  thrilled  beyond  words.  Soon  he 
was  encouraging  me  to  look  into  gradu- 
ate programs  and  voicing  his  concern 
that  the  word  "social"  was  appearing 
much  too  frequendy  in  the  tides  of  my 
senior  course  selections. 

One  such  selection  was  a  senior 
seminar  in  social  and  political  philoso- 
phy taught  by  a  macho  aficionado  of  the 
cult  of  the  strenuous  intellect.  He  em- 
ployed something  he  called  the 
"pseudo-Socratic  method,"  a  teaching 
technique  based  heavily  on  public  hu- 
miliation. Whenever  a  student  ex- 
pressed even  the  most  tentative 
opinion.  Professor  Schuldenliess  would 
verbally  beat  her  down  so  hard  that 
she'd  become  a  petrified  mute  and  ac- 
cept everything  he  said  as  Gospel.  This 
experience  did  litde  to  boost  my  self- 
confidence  as  I  gingerly  prepared  to 
face  the  "real  world."  However,  it  did 


PBOCCSSED  WORLD  34 


29 


provide  me  with  an  invaluable  lesson  in 
the  true  nature  of  participatory  democ- 
racy -  namely,  that  we  should  let  the 
"experts"  run  our  lives  because  we  obvi- 
ously can't  figure  out  how  to  do  it  our- 
selves. 

"Statistics  for  Social  Scientists"  was 
another  course  that  taught  me  a  few 
things  I  hadn't  bargained  for.  The  pro- 
fessor's examples  of  statistical  applica- 
tions shed  more  light  on  his  social 
prejudices  than  on  the  subject  matter. 
Some  of  these  examples  included  the 
discovery  of  a  positive  correlation  be- 
tween a  female's  attractiveness  and  her 
social  class  status  and  between  being 
black  and  performing  poorly  in  school. 
A  lack  of  attractiveness  caused  by  my 
working-class  background  earned  me  a 
D  in  the  class  despite  my  comprehen- 
sion of  the  material. 

Meanwhile,  back  in  the  lab,  my  re- 
search efforts  were  coming  to  fruition 
just  as  grad  school  application  dead- 
lines began  rearing  their  ugly  heads. 
But  the  more  absorbed  I  became  in 
puzzling  out  how  sleep  etches  memo- 
ries, the  more  my  own  sleep  was  dis- 
turbed by  vivid  nightmares  in  which  my 
beloved  professor  injected  me  with  gro- 
tesque parasites  under  the  watchful 
gaze  of  vengeful  rats. 

What's  more,  I  started  having  sec- 
ond and  third  thoughts  about  the  value 
of  our  research,  particularly  consider- 
ing the  torment  I  regularly  inflicted  on 
my  scaly-tailed  friends  in  the  lab.  The 
human  brain  was  a  lot  more  compli- 
cated than  I'd  suspected  after  acing  the 
introductory  course,  and  I  was  begin- 
ning to  wonder  whether  frying  a  rat's 
frontal  lobes  could  realistically  be  ex- 
pected to  shed  light  on  the  subject.  Plus, 
I  had  a  tendency  to  laugh  hysterically 
while  juicing  the  rats'  electrodes,  more 
out  of  nervous  tension  than  sadistic  joy 
-  although  I  vras  beginning  to  wonder 
about  the  psychic  calluses  forming  on 
my  own  mind. 

I  would  not  have  to  ponder  such 
repercussions  for  long,  as  a  dearth  of 
funding  put  grad  school  quite  out  of  my 
reach.  As  I  began  scanning  the  classi- 
fieds and  grimly  noting  the  rent  I'd 
have  to  pay,  the  jobs  I'd  be  qualified  for, 
and  the  salary  I'd  earn,  I  soon  realized 
I  was  facing  a  different  nightmare  alto- 
gether 

After  spending  a  few  months  after 
graduation  and  my  meager  savings 
avoiding  the  inevitable,  I  accepted  a 
part-time  secretarial  job  in  the  P.R.  of- 
fice of  my  alma  mater's  nearby  clone. 


HEY! YOU 
LOOKING 
AT  ME?!? 


Graphic:  CC 


You  can  imagine  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  I  executed  my  duties  considering 
the  fine  career  opportunities  I  had  to 
choose  from  after  earning  my  precious 
degree.  Twenty  hours  a  week,  $4.50  an 
hour,  no  benefits  -  and  this  was  the 
pick  of  the  litter.  With  such  a  windfall,  I 
was  able  to  move  in  with  a  maiden 
cousin  who  lived  in  a  run-dovm  suburb 
near  an  abandoned  quarry.  Nothing 
like  a  college  degree  to  set  you  up  for 
life. 

It  soon  hit  me  that  there  really  was 
no  socially  meaningful  and  personally 
rewarding  vocational  slot  out  there  for 
me,  prestigious  degree  or  no.  Most  of 
the  employers  I  spoke  to  were  mostiy 
concerned  with  how  fast  I  typed.  Fortu- 
nately, I  could  type  pretty  fast.  Several 
years  of  odious  editorial  work  inter- 
spersed with  welcome  stints  of  poorly 
subsidized  unemployment  got  me  a 
writing  job  in  the  P.R.  office  of  a  nearby 
mediocre  university  known  for  coop- 
erative education.  Along  with  a  priestly 
salary  in  the  high  teens  and  full  bene- 
fits, I  could  get  myself  a  free  night- 
school  graduate  technoeducation  zis 
well.  Since  the  rent  had  to  be  paid  and 
nothing  better  presented  itself,  I  took 
what  I  could  get. 

Although  most  of  the  job  involved 
cranking  out  press  releases  on  award- 


winning  buck-toothed  students  for 
hometown  newspapers,  things  occa- 
sionally got  more  interesting.  Some- 
times we  got  to  write  about  faculty 
research.  Making  basic  research  on  the 
sex  life  of  some  fungus  sound  like  it 
holds  the  cure  for  cancer  was  anything 
if  not  challenging,  particularly  consid- 
ering that  because  the  faculty  believed 
we  fiacks  and  our  stupid  projects  were 
worthless,  their  cooperation  was  nil. 
However,  they  did  muster  the  enthusi- 
asm to  fight  tooth  and  nail  against  any 
attempts  to  make  their  research  sound 
more  relevant  than  it  actually  was. 

Of  course,  it  wasn't  always  that  hard 
to  make  the  university's  activities  sound 
relevant  For  instance,  although  I  was  a 
strong  supporter  of  the  nuclear  freeze 
movement,  I  was  asked  to  acclaim  the 
honorary  degree  the  university  had 
awarded  the  nearby  General  Electric 
plant's  president  This  plant  cranked 
out  "reentry  vehicles"  -  nuclear  missile 
bodies  -  with  the  help  of  our  many 
engineering  graduates.  (Those  few 
D.U.  yuppies-in-training  with  enough 
social  conscience  to  detest  "defense" 
work  complained  bitterly  about  the  lack 
of  engineering  jobs  in  non-mayhem-re- 
lated fields.)  Because  I'd  just  been 
scolded  for  consistent  lateness,  I 
couldn't  really  decline  the  assignment 


20 


PROCESSED  WOULD  3< 


but  my  finished  product  was  less  than 
glowing. 

Such  workaday  distractions  were 
counterbalanced  by  the  nighdy  distrac- 
tions of  graduate  school.  Although 
some  of  my  technical  communications 
class  work  was  worthwhile,  mostof  itwas 
a  miniature  version  of  what  I  was  ex- 
pected to  do  all  day  at  the  office  and 
could  practically  do  in  my  sleep  (and 
often  did). 

Of  course  my  family  did  hint  that  life 
might  not  be  all  peaches  and  cream  no 
matter  how  much  education  I  got.  My 
depression-era  father  had  always 
stressed  that  bank  accounts  and  regular 
paychecks  could  evaporate  at  any  time. 
He  also  told  tales  of  people  pushing 
wheelbarrows  full  of  money  to  the  store 
for  a  loaf  of  bread,  and  suggested  that 
such  events  were  not  necessarily  re- 
stricted to  newsreels  of  1920s  Germany. 
An  organic  gardener  before  ecology  be- 
came a  P.R.  ploy.  Daddy  stressed  the 
importance  of  being  as  self-sufficient  as 
possible  and  showed  me  how  to  pick 
teaberries  and  snack  on  birch  bark  in 
the  nearby  woods.  'You'll  eat  anything 
if  you're  hungry  enough,"  he  ex- 
plained. 

After  a  lifetime  of  working  with  dy- 
namite in  all  kinds  of  weather,  my  father 
was  rewarded  with  a  fatal  heart  attack 
before  retirement  ever  came  in  sight. 
Development  is  now  fast  encroaching 
on  our  old  foraging  grounds,  and  even 
the  deer  are  finding  free  goodies  hard 
to  come  by.  Today,  after  all  those  hours 


in  the  classroom,  it's  finally  dawned  on 
me  that  I  let  one  major  free  goodie  slip 
right  by.  I  was  slated  to  inherit  Daddy's 
lakeside  cabin  when  I  turned  21,  but 
owing  to  other  people's  greed  and  neg- 
ligence and  my  own  lack  of  resources 
zmd  legal  moxie,  I  have  yet  to  obtain  this 
crucial  buffer  between  myself  and  com- 
plete dependence  on  a  paycheck.  "Pur- 
suing Your  Legal  Rights"  was  one  course 
I  was  never  offered  in  school  -  and  for 
that  matter  neither  was  "Coping  with 
Your  Leeching  Landlord." 

After  16+  years  of  formal  education, 
I  am  now  conversant  with  the  structure 
and  function  of  DNA,  the  color  theories 
of  the  Impressionists,  Maslow's  hierar- 
chy of  needs,  and  many  other  fascinat- 
ing concepts  I  can  entertain  myself  with 
while  feeding  the  office  xerox  machine. 
I  do  not  know  how  to  build  or  maintain 
my  own  home,  grow  my  own  food,  pro- 
duce my  own  energy,  or  sew  my  own 
clothes  -  basic  skills  my  grandparents 
took  for  granted.  Everything  I  need  to 
survive  must  be  earned  by  suffering 
endless  indignities  in  exchange  for  a 
paycheck  that  could  be  cut  off  at  any 
moment.  The  job  market  and  the 
money  system  it  feeds  could  care  less 
about  my  well-being,  but  without  them, 
I'm  a  fish  out  of  water.  This  is  progress? 

I  recentiy  thought  I'd  made  some 
real  vocational  progress  after  finding  a 
job  educating  people  about  how  to 
cope  with  their  health  problems.  But 
although  I  was  grateful  to  finally  be 
doing  something  worthwhile,  I  was  re- 


warded with  a  skimpy  wage  and  no 
benefits  and  couldn't  accept  having  ba- 
sic medical  care  remain  just  outside  my 
do-gooding  reach.  So  now  I'm  earning 
a  reasonable  vrage  and  full  health  bene- 
fits by  editing  half-assed  articles  for  an 
odious  HMO  that  jerks  its  patients 
around  like  a  3-year-old  with  a  new 
puppy  on  a  short  leash.  Has  my  hyper- 
literacy  finally  paid  off?  Well,  I  now 
make  the  same  damn  yearly  wage  as  an 
old  college  friend  who  managed  to 
reach  sophomore  status  before  drop- 
ping out.  By  the  way,  this  college  friend 
happens  to  be  male. 

Despite  this,  by  any  stretch  of  the 
imagination  I'd  be  considered  middle 
class,  so  I  guess  my  precious  degree  did 
vaunt  me  out  of  the  socioeconomic 
lower  depths.  But  working  class  or  no, 
I'm  still  a  working  stiff.  The  basic  intol- 
erability  and  insecurity  of  this  situation 
has  convinced  me  there's  gotta  be  a 
better  way.  As  we  go  to  press,  I'm  still 
working  on  it  If  I  manage  to  construct 
an  escape  hatch  out  of  a  system  that's  at 
best  indifferent  to  our  needs  and  de- 
sires and  at  worst  death-dealing,  you'll 
be  the  first  to  know.  In  the  meantime, 
I'll  take  what  I  can  get,  and  get  away  with 
as  much  as  I  possibly  can.  At  least  I've 
learned  to  appreciate  the  limitations  of 
a  good  education. 

by  Dolores  Job 


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Graphic:  I.B.  Nelson 


PBOCESSCD  WORLD  31 


sr 


THE  HIGH  COST  OF  SLEEP 


So  tired,  so  very  tired.  Even  hav- 
ing trouble  thinking  clearly. 
But  now,  at  last,  a  lucid  mo- 
ment: *^e  must  not  allow  this,*'  I 
kept  telling  them,  "and  if  that  means 
takii^^  it  to  the  streets,  so  be  it" 
Unfortunately,  they  didn't  listen, 
and  Fm  too  exhausted  to  continue. 
If  I  could  only... only...  What  was  I 
going  to  say?  Oh  yeah,  sleep.  Hah! 
Now  that  is  funny.  Takes  me  back, 
too.  When  was  that,  five  years  ago  or 
six?  Back  when  it  was  free.  Probably 
about  the  only  thing  that  still  was, 
Mliich  made  its  regulation  by  "the 
overpowering  force  of  the  market- 
place" inevitable.  Everything  else 
was  big  business,  after  all  -  from 
sex  to  air  fresheners. 

Suddenly  I'm  marching  down  a 
street  with  thousands  of  people.  They 
seem  to  be  chanting  something  like, 
"Sleep  for  rest,  not  for  profit."  What  was 
I  doing  there?  Of  course,  I  was  there  to 
protest,  too.  In  fact,  as  I  recall,  I  helped 
organize  the  whole  thing  -  and  what  a 
success  it  was!  All  those  people,  unified 
and  angfry.  And  for  good  reason.  It  was, 
after  all,  such  an  outrageous  idea,  or  at 
least  it  seemed  to  be  until  the  govern- 
ment launched  its  counterattack.  How- 
ever, by  the  time  the  hack  ministers, 
pseudocommissions,  and  media  surro- 
gates finished  flooding  the  public  with 
"study"  results  and  misinformation 
about  the  scheme's  purported  advan- 
tages, a  lot  of  them  actually  started  to 
believe  in  it 

My  thoughts  drift  slowly  toward  re- 
laxation, raising  my  hopes.  Sleep  seems 
to  be  coming... wonderful  sleep... bliss- 
ful nothingness... I  can  just  begin  to  feel 
it. ..trying  to  get  in  around  the 
edges.. .but,  no,  it's  not  to  be.  Damn  it, 
this  is  really  awful.  Now  where  was  I?  Ah 
yes,  all  those  people  falling  for  the  gov- 
ernment line.  How  could  they  have 
been  so  stupid!  But  the  government 
promisedjobs,  economic  growth  -  and 


who  can  argue  with  that?  Certainly  not 
me,  although  I  tried.  "Dignity!"  I  cried, 
"we  must  have  dignity!"  "Jobs!"  they 
cried  back,  "we  must  have  jobs!" 
Strange  thing  was,  there  weren't  even 
that  many  jobs  to  be  had  from  it,  what 
with  automation.  But  times  were  tough 
and  people  will  take  what  they  can  get. 
A  faint,  mournful  dirge  is  coming 
from  my  living  room.  I've  been  hearing 
a  lot  of  strange  things  recendy,  so  I  only 
allow  myself  to  be  distracted  by  it  briefly. 
So,  what  tactic  did  we  try  next?  Well,  we 
compared  the  enterprise  to  a  tax.  That 
worked  better,  but  in  the  wrong  way. 
"The  rich  must  pay  more,"  cried  one 
side.  "An  hour's  sleep  is  an  hour's  sleep, 
whether  you're  rich  or  poor, "  the  other 
responded.  The  debate  became  so  ran- 
corous it  threatened  to  undo  the  whole 
scheme.  Cursing  my  fading  memory,  I 
have  to  ask  myself  why  it  didn't.  Several 
more  moments  reflection  provide  the 
answer:  we  were  outmaneuvered  by  the 
government's  proposal  for  a  "Guaran- 
teed Social  Minimum."  With  that  single 
stroke,  they  defused  a  raucous  mob, 
turned  it  into  a  genteel  cheering  sec- 
tion, and  earned  accolades  from  the 
populists  for  standing  up  to  the  rich.  My 
last  card?  "It's  unholy  to  interfere  with 
our  sleep!"  It  triggered  great  theologi- 
cal debates,  but  in  a  secular  society, 
those  debates  have  littie  impact;  they 
certainly  didn't  in  this  case. 


They  checked  my 
file.  Everything  was 

in  order.  They 

explained  that  they 

can  only  stop  me 

from  sleeping,  not 

make  me  sleep  when 

I  can't,  but  I  was 

getting  suspicious. 


Now  wait  a  second  -  what's  hap- 
pening? The  dirge  has  grown  quite 
loud.  There  are  people  marching  right 
in  front  of  me.  They  seem  quite  happy, 
judging  by  the  smiles  on  their  faces, 
even  if  their  dirge  remains  grimly  som- 
ber. And  quite  a  cross-section  of  people 
they  are  too  -  white-collar,  blue-collar, 
even  the  clergy  -  all,  it  seems,  except 
the  poor.  None  takes  any  notice  of  me 
as  they  pass  by,  which  is  something  of  a 
relief.  At  least  they  haven't  come  for 
me. 

For  a  few  seconds  I  try  to  figure  out 
how  they  got  into  my  apartment.  When 
they  pass  through  the  wall  on  their  way 
out,  I  have  my  answer  -  it  was  a  halluci- 
nation. They  say  when  you  can't  sleep, 
you  start  to  dream  while  you're  awake 
-  and  they're  right.  How  long  has  it 
been  now?  Two  and  a  half  days.  That's, 
let's  see,  how  many  hours?  One  is  24,  so 
two  is.. .is.. .48.  Halifof  that  again  comes 
to  50.  No,  that's  not  right.  Why  can't  I 
think?  Sixty,  it  comes  to  60.  Sixty  hours 
without  sleep!  Must  be  some  land  of 
record. 

A  scientist  materializes  in  front  of 
me.  He's  wearing  a  white  lab  coat  and 
steel  rimmed  glasses,  and  he  has  a  thick 
accent.  "Ve  ha£F  develupt  a  cheemekul 
dat  keepz  you  from  sleepink,"  he  says 
proudly,  holding  up  a  test  tube  filled 
with  clear  liquid.  He  then  picks  up  a 
vial  of  pills  and  adds  "Unless  you  take 
theess."  He  starts  detailing  how  the 
chemical  interferes  with  the  function- 
ing of  the  hypothalamus  and  the  sleep 
cycle,  but  before  I  can  ask  him  any  ques- 
tions, he's  replaced  by  a  bearded  man 
in  a  wrinkled  suit.  Puffing  on  a  pipe,  he 
asserts  that  adding  the  chemical  to  the 
water  supply  could  create  a  vast  new 
pharmaceutical  industry;  charging  "x" 
amount  of  money  for  each  pill  (that  is, 
for  each  hour's  sleep)  would  generate 
"y"  amount  of  profits  and  "z"  amount  of 
reinvestment.  He  starts  babbling  about 
growth  curves,  elasticity  of  demand,  job 
markets.  As  I  start  to  object,  he  too 
dissolves.  I  find  myself  talking  to  a  po- 
liceman who  intends  to  arrest  anybody 
distributing  untreated  water.  "To  hell 


PBOCESSED  WOBU»  3f 


PD«>CESSED  WOBLD  31 


Sleep  With  Mouth  Open 


Place  it  here     Don't  rise  up  so  impatiently     We  are  with  a  morning  all  the  untidy 
waves  creep  toward     Underneath     Capture     Moments  when  the  flood  fills 
And  years  ago  they  swept  Johnstown  with  my  backside     Morning    The  clock 
strikes  the  back  post     Unfortunately,  I  climbed  before  the  tide     I  closed  your  eyes 
with  my  lids      I  sunk  down  and  took  oblivion     This  is  a  generation     The  mo- 
ment you  bare  yourself 

Funk  isn't  my  word  in  someone  else's  breath      Hello     I'm  being  me    The  televi- 
sion isn't  on     Place  it  here     I  sink  down    The  bellydancer  reminds  me  of  my  na- 
vel   The  time  between  time    Moment    Moment  when  the  sound  ends    There 
is  sweat  down  my  back 

Happen     Then      I  call  you  Night 

I'm  awake     I  got  my  body  to  rise 

Hello    If  I  answer  will  I  get  paid?     Cycles  of  nature  freaks  sink  the  shoulders  in 
front   You're  not  vision     Your  sleep  is  maintaining  slips 

People  like  us 

Sleep  with  our  mouths 

Wide  open 

Sometimes  we  get  so  cra2y    We  drive  right  in  front  of  water    The  bars  are  closing 
Holier  kisses     Lips  she  laughs    The  thought  of  striking  someone     Pretty  soon 
gasoline  takes  the  place  of  needles    It  doesn't  take  one  out  into  the  clearing  salt 

Break  pace    Day  never  before  being  this  way    Being  this  way    Before       Forget 
to  remember  the  pace     Break  open  the  food    Preserve  and  place  it  here     Patience 
We're  getting  over  the  flight    Turbulence    The  activity  of  the  jive  jumbling  stag- 
nant day 

Hello     Hello    Are  you  there!    Areyouawakel        Does  it  sound  like  people  rest- 
ing? 

—Marina  Lazzara 


TWISTED  IMAGE  ^y   Ace  Backwords  ewi 


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*  INSURftNCE 


with  you!"  I  yell  at  him.  He  starts  laugh- 
ing. "Sleep  well,"  he  sneers  as  he  fades 
out. 

At  least  for  the  moment  nobody 
takes  his  place.  A  cold  shower  might  not 
only  keep  him  from  coming  back,  but 
wake  me  up  enough  to  figure  out  what 
to  do.  Before  I  can  act  on  this  impulse, 
my  mind  wanders  back  to  the  first  night 
I  couldn't  sleep.  I  tossed  and  turned, 
but  nothing  approaching  sleep  ever 
came.  Yesterday,  I  went  to  the  doctor. 
She  said  I  was  fine-  at  least  physically- 
and  she  prescribed  some  medication.  It 
didn't  help.  I  went  to  the  customer  serv- 
ice center  this  morning.  They  checked 
my  file.  Everything  was  in  order.  They 
explained  that  they  can  only  stop  me 
from  sleeping,  not  make  me  sleep  when 
I  can't,  but  I  was  getting  suspicious.  I 
went  to  some  of  my  friends,  the  ones  in 
high  places.  Too  high,  as  it  turned  out 
They  had  pushed  the  hardest  for  a 
Guaranteed  Social  Minimum  ("GSM") 
of  5  pills  a  night,  which  made  them 
popular  and  influential.  None  was  in- 
terested in  rocking  the  boat,  especially 
for  somebody  who'd  continued  to  agi- 
tate against  the  whole  scheme  long  after 
it  had  become  unfashionable  to  do  so. 
Besides,  with  the  GSM  firmly  in  place, 
such  deprivation  was  impossible,  they 
explained.  When  I  suggested  that  I  was 
deliberately  being  given  placebos,  they 
just  accused  me  of  being  paranoid.  "See 
a  doctor,"  they  suggested.  I  told  them  I 
had.  "Try  a  different  one,"  they  said.  I 
did.  And  still  no  sleep... 

I'm  hearing  a  voice  now,  a  familiar 
voice.  It's  mine.  It's  asking  me  how  long 
I  can  live  without  sleep.  I  tell  myself  I 
don't  know.  From  the  way  I'm  feeling, 
not  too  long.  How  long  is  "not  too 
long"?  A  day  or  two  at  most. 

A  walk,  maybe  I'll  take  a  walk.  Fresh 
air  sounds  better  than  a  cold  shower. 
Can  I  walk?  Yes  I  can,  though  not  very 
steadily.  Well  enough  to  get  me  outside, 
though.  Now  which  way  should  I  go? 
This  way,  I  think.  God,  I  feel  so  awful!  If 
I  cross  this  street  here,  I'll  be  at  the  park. 
That  should  be  a  good  place  to...  Good 
grief!  What's  coming  toward  me?  It's 
sure  making  a  funny  noise... 

"James  Russell,  political  activist  and  so- 
cial critic,  was  killed  in  an  automobile  acci- 
dent last  night  on  Bellevue  Street.  Russell, 
43,  died  instantly  when  he  stepped  into  the 
street  against  the  traffic  light  and  was  struck 
by  an  oncoming  car  " 

-  Greg  Evans 


39 


PBOCESSED  WOULD  3< 


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Whether  you  drive  a  car  or  suffer  public  transportation, 
you  are  likely  to  spend  ludicrous  amounts  of  time  commuting. 
Getting  from  place  to  place  wastes  our  time,  subjects  us  to 
absurd  levels  of  stress  and  dirties  our  air  to  boot.  It  is  also 
unpaid  time,  spent  for  the  benefit  of  your  employer. 

Is  commuting  the  separation  of  work  and  residence  by 
ever  greater  distances,  necessary,  useful  or  sheer  wasted  What 
of  the  human  interactions  that  take  place  in  the  anonymous 
but  public  space  that  is  our  time  en  routed 

Public  transportation  is  underfunded,  overtaxed  and 
expensive.  The  car  industry  continues  to  benefit  from  massive 
subsidies  to  roads  and  personal  expenditures  for  health  care 
(how  many  road  kills  does  it  take?...)  Alternative  transpor- 
tation ideas  have  been  kicked  around  for  some  time  without 
impact. 

Yet,  there's  stuff  happening  out  there.  If  transit  issues  rile 
you  up,  write  us.  We'd  like  to  hear  more  and  disseminate  it. 
So  we're  starting  a  regular  Transit  Zone  section.  Send  your 
ideas,  opinions  and  experiences.  Are  cars  here  to  stay  ?  What 
does  a  Green  City  transit  future  look  like? 


THE  THIN  SHEET- 
METAL  LINE 

Car  hijacking  has  occurred  for  as  long  as  cars  have 
been  around,  but  police  departments  and  media  pun- 
dits have,  for  the  first  time,  started  compiling  separate 
statistics  for  this  so-called  "new"  crime.  They've  even 
trumpeted  a  "new  word"-  "carjacking."  Carjacking  is 
distinct  from  mere  auto  theft  in  that  it  is  often  inflicted 
upon  an  occupied  car  rather  than  a  parked  one. 
Paradoxically,  the  presence  of  the  car  owner  makes  the  vehicle 
more,  rather  than  less,  vulnerable. 

Carjacking  is  usually  performed  for  the  sheer  per- 
verse pleasure  of  theft  and  joyriding.  The  majority  of 
carjacked  autos  are  not  stolen  for  long-term  use,  profit 
or  resale,  but  simply  for  an  evening's  worth  of  destruc- 
tive jaunting  and  then  abandoned.  One  exception, 
though,  is  New  Jersey's  hardened  carjackers,  who 
often  seek  out  and  steal  a  specific  make,  or  even  color, 
of  car  (usually  sporty  models)  to  fill  an  "order"  for  a 
hot  vehicle,  but  even  there  the  specially  targeted  autos 
are  usually  taken  only  for  an  evening  of  drag  racing. 
Hotly  pursued  carjackers  driving  at  incredible  speeds 
have  died  in  gruesome  crashes.  It  is  an  illogical  and 


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PDOCESSED  WOBLD  31 


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iVilWHOIS 

IN  THE  CAR 

BEHIND  YOU? 

AND  WHY? 


uneconomical  crime.  The  trivial 
payoff  of  a  night's  use  of  a  car 
doesn't  come  anywhere  close  to 
compensating  for  the  incredible 
risk  of  death  or  punishment. 

Carjacking  is,  at  bottom,  a  so- 
cial crime,  both  vengeance  and 
reparation  directed  towards  those 
wealthy  enough  to  acquire  these 
overvalued  icons.  This  degree  of 
self-  and  other-destructive  action 
reflects  the  rising  tide  of  social 
chaos  following  in  the  wake  of  the 
Los  Angeles  riots  (remember 
those?).  While  the  massive  disor- 
der in  L.A.,  along  with  echoing 
mayhem  in  such  cities  as  San  Fran- 
cisco, West  Las  Vegas,  Chicago  and 
New  York,  has  been  minimized  as 
much  as  possible  by  the  main- 
stream media,  it  nevertheless  has 
left  deep  wounds  in  the  collective 
unconsciousness  of  the  nation. 
Recorded  and  broadcast  by  live 
cameras  in  eyeinthesky  helicop- 
ters, these  riots  demonstrated  the 


a 


tm  WHOSE 

PIPELINE 

ARE  YOU 

SUCKING? 


If  I  I  I  I  I  t 


o 


Pt: 


fragility  of  the  social  order.  "Law 
and  Order"  most  of  the  time  de- 
pends on  the  mere  expectation  of 
the  application  of  police  force. 
When  that  expectation  is  demon- 
strably frustrated,  "Law"  evapo- 
rates except  in  those  few  places 
where  it  can  directiy  apply  fire- 
power. 

This  primal  knowledge  has  fil- 
tered into  public  awareness.  L.A. 
yuppies  have  responded  by  arming 
themselves  to  their  teeth  with 
shiny,  trendy  littie  automatic  hand- 
guns. No  Gucci  bag,  they  now  re- 
alize, is  complete  or  safe  if  it 
doesn't  contain  some  metal  with 
which  to  defend  it.  An  illusion  of 
safety  has  been  exposed,  as  has 
been  the  case,  in  spades,  regarding 
cars. 

For  decades,  cars  projected  a 
facade  of  safety,  privacy  and  immu- 
nity, a  bubble  of  social  space  in 
some  ways  as  isolated  and  personal 
as  the  home  itself  (of  course,  for 
many  people,  the  family  car  is  the 
home).  This  sense  of  safety  and 
power  has  always  been  mostiy  an 
illusion  since  the  speed  that  iso- 
lates the  car  from  casual  interven- 
tion also  puts  its  owner  at  severe 
risk: 

The  tinted  or  mirrored  glass 
provides  privacy  but  wall  not  stop  a 
well-tossed  brick  or  botde; 

A  cellular  phone  can  hook  one 
up  to  91 1  but  it  is  doubtful  carjack- 
ers  will  wait  the  five  minutes  it  takes 
to  actually  get  a  live  person  on  the 
line; 

One  can  get  "The  Club"  to 
freeze  the  steering  wheel  or  an 
electronic  code  that  cuts  off  the 
fuel  in  case  of  tampering,  so  much 
more  reason  for  the  thief  to  assault 
a  driver  in  a  car  that  is  warmed  up 
and  ready  to  go; 

Car  alarms  are  more  likely  to 
wake  up  one's  neighbors  with  in- 
cessant false  warnings  (and  per- 
haps motivate  petty  vandalism  on 
their  part)  than  deter  a  deter- 
mined thief. 

If  vandalism,  rather  than  theft, 
is  the  goal,  then  any  car  is  dead 


m 


^ 


meat.  Antennae  snap  right  off; 
tires  are  easily  booby-trapped  with 
nails  or  screws  set  carefully  into  the 
tread  so  that  a  flat  occurs  many 
miles  from  the  scene  of  the  sabo- 
tage; sugar  in  the  gas  tank  will  dis- 
able most  vehicles.  Irate 
pedestrians  often  punish  piggly 
parked  cars  blocking  sidewalks  by 
"keying"  them,  (scraping 
housekeys  along  the  sides  or  hood 
to  scratch  their  expensive  finish). 

How  did  these  fragile  bubbles 
project  their  illusionary  isolation 
for  so  long?  Part  of  the  answer  lies 
in  the  massive  hype  that  has  sur- 
rounded the  automobile  since  its 
debut  as  massmarketed  merchan- 
dise. From  the  beginning,  the  car 
has  been  presented  as  more  than 
mere  transportation.  It  is  a  sex 
symbol,  a  phallic  signifier  of  social 
status  and  importance.  For  in- 
stance, is  anything  more  silly  and 
ostentatious  than  a  stretch  limo, 
something  whose  functions  could 
clearly  be  better  filled  by  a  bus  or 
van? 

Cars,  we're  told,  set  you  free. 
You  can  take  them  on  the  freewdcy 
and  go  anywhere  you  want!  But 
this  freeAom  is  indeed  expensive, 
with  many  families  spending 
onethird  to  onehalf  their  income 
to  maintain  "wheels."  Consider 
the  cost  of  the  vehicle  itself;  inter- 
est on  the  unpaid  principal  of  a  car 
loan  (few  cars  worth  anything  are 
owned  outright);  insurance  on  the 
car,  unpaid  loan  principal  and  li- 
ability of  the  driver (s);  fuel,  main- 
tenance and,  probably,  constant 
repairs.  This  is  freedom? 

In  many  ways,  cars  have  cruised 
for  decades  on  a  road  paved  with 
false  assumptions,  hidden  costs 
and  illogical  contradictions.  They 
poison  the  air  while  toxic  cleanup 
costs  are  endlessly  deferred.  So 
called  "freeways"  are  heavily  subsi- 
dized at  taxpayers'  expense  while 
public  transit  systems  slowly  dete- 
riorate or  are  actively  sabotaged  by 
the  petroleum  industry.  Gas  costs 
less  in  the  U.S.  than  any  other  na- 
tion not  a  member  of  OPEC.  Cars 


Q^^^^^ 
^^^^^P 


32 


PROCESSED  WOULD  3« 


v*"wfl 


have  survived  their  current  cushy 
and  affordable  status  due  only  to 
incessant  and  subtle  subsidization 
by  a  generally  wealthy  and  placid 
culture.  Now  that  said  culture  is 
breaking  apart  and  its  imposed  so- 
cial calm  evaporating,  the  private 
vehicle  is  being  exposed  as  the  di- 
nosaur it  is. 

None  of  the  remedies  pro- 
posed to  stem  the  tide  of  carjacking 
have  much  chance  of  success. 
High  speed  chases  have  resulted  in 
an  unacceptable  number  of  acci- 
dental deaths.  Suffer  penalties  are 
unlikely  to  deter  the  hopeless 
youth  perpetrating  such  crimes. 
There  are  no  "quick  fixes"  for  the 
social  ills  that  begat  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  carjacking  cur- 
rently thrives.  When  the  LAPD  was 
televised  pulling  back  from  that 
disputed  corner  on  Fairfax  Ave- 
nue, they  thought  they  were  simply 
abandoning  the  ghetto.  In  retro- 
spect, one  can  see  they  were  expos- 
ing the  myth  of  the  American 
automobile  as  well. 

-  Kwazee  Wabbit 


I  Love  What 
You  Do  For  Ne 

While  working  in  a  building 
downtown  I  spotted  an  Earthday 
lobby  display  on,  "What  you  can  do 
to  save  the  environment"  which 
suggested,  "Buy  a  fuel-efficient  car 
and  keep  it  tuned.  Combine  trips 
and  drive  as  little  as  possible."  Nice, 
but  it  falls  short,  and  timidity  has 
never  saved  the  world.  The  only 
acceptable  advice  is,"don't  drive. 
Ever." 

People  say,  "But  I  can't  get 
around  without  a  car."  or,  "My  job 
requires  that  I  drive."  Bullshit. 
Granted,  the  present  state  of  ab- 
surdity makes  it  hard  to  do  without. 


N^ 


^ 


Want  ads  for  office  Jobs  read, 
"transportation  required"  but  bicy- 
cles don't  count.  I  even  saw  one  a 
while  ago  for  a  counsellor  to  teach 
the  handicapped  to  use  public 
transit,  car  required.  Ads  praising 
mass  transit  are  made  by  people 
who  don't  use  it  and  transporta- 
tion officials  are  given  official  cars. 

Cars  pollute  the  air.  No  amount 
of  efficiency  will  change  that.  Alter- 
nate fuels  are  a  variant  of  the  effi- 
ciency scam.  Making  and  disposing 
of  batteries  and  generation  of 
power  for  electric  vehicles  only  dis- 
places the  point  of  pollution.  All 
the  pollution  of  manufacture  re- 
mains 

The  post  combustion  oil  waste 
that  drips  from  cars  is  far  more 
toxic  than  what  we  pump  from  the 
ground.  No  amount  of  tuning  will 
stop  all  the  leaks,  and  as  long  as 
private  autos  exist,  home  mechan- 
ics will  pour  waste  oil  down  sewers, 
tainting  huge  amounts  of  ground 
water.  Tens  of  thousands  of  people 
in  America  die  every  year  in  auto 
impacts.  A  recent  study  by  UCLA 
confirms  up  to  fifty  percent  reduc- 
tion in  lung  efficiency  among  peo- 
ple living  amidst  high  pollution 
levels.. 

People  say  "Yes,  all  that's  true, 
but  millions  of  people  do  it.  You 
not  driving  won't  change  any- 
thing." They're  right,  it  won't;  but 
it  makes  me  not  guilty.  "Then  you're 
a  hypocrite.  Trucks  brought  the 
food  you  eat,  the  clothes  you  wear." 
Sometimes  a  crafty  light  sparks  in 
their  eyes  and  they  say  trium- 
phantly, "But  you  use  oil  on  your 
bike  chain,  don't  you?"  pinning  me 
with  guilt.  But  I'm  not  burning  it, 
and  besides,  it's  vegetable  oil.  (Oc- 
casionally someone  brings  up  the 
metal  and  rubber  in  my  bike;  a 
valid  comparison  in  which  the  hun- 
dred to  one  difference  in  weight 
does  more  damage  to  their  cause 
than  mine.)  The  truck  thing  is 
tough,  because  true.  But  if  recog- 
nizing an  evil  and  doing  what  I  can 
to  stop  it  while  others  blithely  ig- 
nore the  problem  makes  me  a 


!»-  ^ 


nil    HOW 
J  LONG  IS 
YOUR  COMMUTE? 
7  A.M. -9  A.M. 
5  P.M.  -  8  P.M. 

.   Save  Time,  Ride  a  Bil(e! 


hypocrite,  then  I'm  proud  to  be 
one.  I  don't  like  that  my  food  is 
trucked  hundreds  of  miles  before  I 
buy  it,  but  the  only  other  choice  is 
to  dry  up  and  blow  away  and  that 
won't  do  the  Earth  any  good. 

I'm  young  and  healthy,  and 
have  a  young  person's  viewpoint.  I 
can  ride  everywhere  and  not  use 
gas,  some  can't.  I  use  a  bicycle  be- 
cause it  allows  me  to  compete  and 
win  on  the  road  against  engines 
harnessing  hundreds  of  times  the 
.5  horsepower  I  can  generate,  but 
there  are  other  ways  not  to  drive. 
Granted,  walking  is  an  effort,  and 
riding  a  bicycle  in  the  polluted, 
sonic  hell  of  our  streets  is  intimidat- 
ing, and  taking  the  bus  is  of  course 
a  thing  poor  and  sweaty  people  do; 
but  they  are  the  right  choices.  If  all 
good  things  took  less  effort,  then  it 
seems  we  would  all  be  doing  them 
already.  Doing  right  has  never 
been  the  easiest  choice  and  no  one 


a 


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PROCESSED  WORLD  31 


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33 


Pt^ 


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ii 

f 


I  respect  has  ever  said  that  life  was 
meant  to  be  effortless. 

Cars  have  existed  for  less  than 
a  hundred  years;  people  for  hun- 
dreds of  thousands.  The  great  civi- 
lizations on  which  we  base  our 
culture  lasted  for  thousands  of 
years  without  the  internal  combus- 
tion engine.  Even  the  Wheel, 
which  we  rank  with  Fire  and  Lan- 
guage as  cornerstones  of  civiliza- 
tion, is  trivial.  The  Pyramids  were 
built  without  it. 

In  your  mind's  eye,  watch  the 
detritus  cluttering  our  world 
evaporate.  Imagine  your  dead 
friend  alive  again  and  the  scar 
where  your  teeth  met  the  dash- 
board melt  away.  We  don't  live  in  a 
perfect  world,  but  maybe  we  can 
make  it  so.  Today,  roads  so  cover 
the  land  that  it  is  possible  to  live 
and  die  without  ever  touching  the 
Earth  until  being  buried  in  it. 
Imagine  how  much  land  would  be 
freed  if  we  peeled  back  the  roads, 
tore  up  the  parking  lots,  knocked 
down  the  distributorships  and 
parts  stores  we  no  longer  needed 
so  the  people  once  employed  there 
could  plant  food.  Then  people 
could  walk  to  where  things  grow 
and  get  food  enough  for  them- 
selves, even  enough  for  those  too 
frail  to  make  the  trip,  and  it  would 


be  a  pleasant  stroll  through  gar- 
dens. 

-  Kash 

Critical  nass 

"Critical  Mass"  is  a  bicycle  ride 
(a.k.a.  "Commute  Clot")  on  San 
Francisco's  Market  Street  on  the 
last  working  Friday  of  every  month. 
The  first  ride  in  September  '92 
drew  about  60  cyclists,  while  the 
Feb.  '93  ride  has  grown  to  about 
250.  Speaking  for  myself,  I  join 
this  ride  for  several  reasons.  On 
one  hand  I  just  want  to  have  fun 
riding  my  bike  \vith  other  cyclists 
and  see  that  we  are  not  alone  in 
trying  to  make  bicycle  commuting 
work  in  this  city.  I  favor  a  radical 
change  in  the  city's  infrastructure 
wherein  we  would  construct  wild 
eco-corridors  criss-crossing  the 
city.  Within  these  corridors  would 
run  restored  creeks,  various  flora 
and  fauna,  and  bike  paths  and 
walkways.  "Normal"  traJBFic  would 
be  rerouted  around,  under  and 
over  such  eco-corridors.  (Such  in- 
frastructural  changes,  while  radi- 
cal, are  not  sufficient  in  and  of 
themselves  either.  We'll  have  to 
push  for  bike  safety  training  in 
schools,  driver's  education  about 


bikes,  and  a  general  transforma- 
tion of  social  priorities) . 

Just  as  important,  this  bike  ride 
is  a  public  space  where  real  politics 
between  real  people  can  unfold  - 
not  that  bogus  electoral  spectacle 
that  passes  for  "politics"  -  politics 
about  urban  living,  transportation. 
Green  City-ism,  work,  and  so  on. 
Perhaps  the  most  satisfying  aspect 
to  the  first  rides  has  been  the  nu- 
merous open  discussions  during 
and  after  them. 

One  of  the  stickier  issues  exist- 
ing just  beneath  many  "progres- 
sive" political  views  addresses  the 
locus  of  political  action.  Should  it 
be  at  the  point  of  consumption  or 
the  point  of  production?  My  bias 
is  strongly  toward  the  latter.  This 
has  become  an  issue  on  the  Critical 
Mass  rides  because  a  number  of 
people  put  a  lot  of  effort  into  yell- 
ing at  people  in  cars,  urging  them 
to  abandon  the  auto,  often  using 
language  heavily  laden  with  g^ilt- 
tripping. 

We  can  count  on  a  certain 
amount  of  verbal  violence  and  abu- 
sive behavior  from  some  drivers 
any  time  we  take  to  the  street  en 
masse.  But  if  our  goal  is  to  promote 
bicycling  as  a  superior  form  of  tran- 
sit it  makes  littie  sense  to  turn  our 
bikes  into  barricades  and  use  them 
to  block  people  getting  through  to 
their  destinations.  Such  actions 
are  even  more  self-defeating  and 
absurd  when  they  are  com- 
pounded by  a  primitive  moralism 
that  insists  that  anyone  in  a  car  is 
somehow  the  "enemy,"  that  we  bi- 
cyclists are  inherentiy  morally  su- 
perior, and  that  the  car-bound 
must  "see  the  light"  and  join  us  or 
else  remain  lazy,  greedy  barbarians 
and  immoral  savages  worthy  of  our 
scorn  and  our  own  forms  of  abu- 
sive behavior. 

It  just  ain't  that  simple.  The 
vast  majority  of  motorists  are 
locked  in  to  a  whole  series  of  un- 
pleasant compromises,  from  the 
work  they  do  to  the  food  they  eat 
and  the  recreation  they  pursue, 
pST  UKE  US!!  We  do  not  freely 


Qr=w 


PROCESSED  WOBLD  31 


W0*VS^ 


'^  -  -    


"choose"  the  pathetic  options  left 
to  us  in  this  world,  they  are  chosen 
for  us  by  investment  and  produc- 
tion decisions  made  by  the  captains 
of  industry,  the  world  market,  and 
the  stooges  occupying  govern- 
ments who  serve  those  interests. 
Granted,  we  do  create  this  absurd 
world  every  day  with  the  work  we 
do.  Granted,  some  of  us  find  ways 
to  lessen  our  personal  tax  on  the 
planet  by  making  better  decisions 
about  personal  transportation  and 
consumption.  But  it  is  a  great  fal- 
lacy of  contemporary  "progressive" 
politics  that  we  can  shop  our  way  to 
freedom!  Finally,  our  individual 
consumption  choices  are  not  the 
most  significant  way  we  contribute 
to  the  ongoing  ecological  catastro- 
phe. If  we  are  personally  responsi- 
ble at  all,  it  is  primarily  through  our 
individual  acquiescence  to  a  social 
system  that  depends  on  our  impo- 
tent acceptance  of  other  people's 
decisions  about  what  we  do,  how  we 
do  it,  and  to  what  end.  And  it  is  at 
work,  regardless  of  our  specific 
jobs,  that  we  relinquish  control  of 
the  aggregate  decisions  in  society 
that  determine  what  kinds  of 
choices  we  can  make  zis  individuals. 
I  know  many  people  disagree 
with  this,  and  are  busy  pursuing 
their  50  things  to  save  the  planet, 
getting  centered  and  in  touch  with 
themselves,  etc..  Life  is  such  a  mess, 
and  politics  is  so  (rightly)  discred- 
ited, that  we  feel  helpless  to  change 
the  big  picture.  The  best  many  of 
us  feel  we  can  do  is  to  get  our  own 
house  in  order,  walk  as  softiy  as  we 
individually  can,  and  so  on.  But  as 
two  decades  of  New  Age-ism  has 
shown,  capitalism  is  unique  in  its 
capability  to  turn  the  best  personal 
intentions  into  new  products,  slo- 
gans, and  marketing  campaigns, 
and  when  you  stop  to  take  a  look  at 
the  "paradigm  shift"  that  some 
claim  is  already  inevitably  under- 
way, all  you  find  is  new  packaging, 
new  stock  options,  and  more 
homeless,  misery,  toxic  shit,  and 
barbaric  wars  than  ever. 


GET  OUT  OF  OUR  VITAY! 


Our  Critical  Mass  should  be 
critical!  We  won't  gain  friends  and 
newcomers,  especially  ex-motor- 
ists, by  guilt-tripping.  Our  purpose 
in  publicly  riding  home  together 
should  be  to  demonstrate  the  supe- 
riority of  our  way  of  transit,  that  we 
have  a  right  to  radically  improved 
conditions,  and  most  importandy, 
we  have  to  show  people  that  IT'S 
MORE  FUN!!  Staging  punitive, 
moralistic  blockades  is  hardly  a  way 
to  demonstrate  the  ease  and  pleas- 
ure of  bicycling.  A  rolling  party  of 
several  hundred  friendly  and  jubi- 
lant bicyclists,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  a  powerful  statement  to  even  the 
most  impatient  and  jaded  ob- 
server, and  is  way  more  fun  to  par- 
ticipate in  as  well! 


Pleasure  is  our  best  selling 
point.  We  should  turn  this  into  a 
rolling  Carnaval  with  costumes, 
music  and  cacophonous  noise  and 
messages.  Everyone  should  feel 
free  to  create  and  distribute  litera- 
ture among  riders  and  bystanders. 
And  if  we  ever  get  hassled  by  peo- 
ple, either  irate  motorists,  pedestri- 
ans or  the  cops,  our  best  strategy  is 
to  smile  and  melt  away.  We  are  a 
guerrilla  army  fighting  an  invisible 
war  with  trick  weapons.  Any  time 
we  face  a  real  battie  over  a  specific 
place  or  space,  let  us  stage  a  tactical 
retreat  and  return  another  day  to 
fight  again!  Mobility  is  our  means  ^  . 
and  goal,  let's  use  it!  See  you  at  the  V  ^ 
next  ride! 

-  Chris  Carlsson 


r^ 


JbsJI, 


«^      ^ 


PROCESSED  WORLD  31 


DISTANCE  NO  OBJECT 


In  the  large  peach-colored  room 
of  the  recently  remodeled  em- 
ployment office,  beneath  a 
framed  print  of  a  Monet  waterlily, 
Lopo  Ramu*ez  answered  every  ques- 
tion put  to  him  by  a  tired  clerk  who 
that  day  had  already  interviewed 
several  fishmongers.  The  Natural 
Fish  over  in  Berkeley  needed  a  new 
man  and  they  didn't  want  union. 
The  clerk  leaned  across  his  glass  top 
desk  to  hand  Lopo  Ramirez  a  blank 
application. 

"Whatever  I've  done  for  a  living," 
Lopo  Ramirez  said  sadly  as  he  reached 
for  the  form,  "after  a  while,  I  find  myself 
having  to  do  something  else." 

During  the  last  several  years  that  the 
clerk  worked  in  personnel,  job  tran- 
siency had  become  a  commonplace 
though  unpleasant  pattern  in  anyone's 
career.  "We  see  many  clients  with  simi- 
larjob  histories,  Mr.  Ramirez,"  the  clerk 
commented  disinterestedly. 

Lopo  Ramirez  smiled,  his  dark 
milky  eyes  seeking  a  focus.  It  had  been 
established  in  the  early  moments  of  the 
interview  that  Ramirez  and  the  clerk 
shared  common  origins.  The  clerk  was 
fluent  in  Ramirez'  native  language.  But 
then  he  demurred,  switching  back  to 
English  with  a  slight  defensiveness,  sud- 
denly remembering  instructions  from  a 
training  program  he'd  attended:  Keep 
applicant  at  a  polite  distance.  Using  Eng- 
lish, he  made  clear  in  a  tone  that  rein- 
forced his  remove  that  it  Wcis  his  parents 
who  came  from  the  same  country  as 
Lopo  Ramirez.  But  Lopo  Ramirez 
spoke  plaintively  with  his  eyes,  enor- 
mous soft  pools  that  begged  for  an  ad- 
vocate. Let  me  tell  you  my  story,  they 
said,  just  give  me  your  permission  not 
even  your  enthusiasm. 

The  day  was  waning.  The  amber 
light  of  late  autumn  seeped  into  the 
room  through  the  half-turned  blinds, 
casting  shadows  on  the  leaves  of  a  large 
tropical  plant  next  to  the  men.  There 
were  no  other  interviews  scheduled.  As 


Lopo  Ramirez  bowed  his  head  slighdy, 
the  clerk  fingered  a  pen  and  suppressed 
a  yawn,  which  made  the  veins  in  his 
otherwise  unlined  forehead  protrude. 

"Back  home,  I  used  to  fish,  sir.  I  used 
to  fish  professionally,  you  know,  and  I 
stank.  Forgive  my  frankness,  sir.  Every 
day  I  came  home  stinking,  bits  of  fish 
scales  stuck  to  my  pants,  threads  of  sea- 
weed wrapped  around  my  ankles.  But  I 
was  young,  my  life  was  my  own,  and  the 
bay  was  mine  and  the  waters  were  warm. 
And  I  hadn't  the  usual  impatience  of 
youth,  I  was  good  with  the  nets,  good 
with  the  flounder.  But  I  stank.  The  smell 
of  fish  stained  my  fingers,  it  settied  be- 
neath my  skin  and  I  couldn't  get  rid  of 
it.  I  wished  I  didn't  stink.  Believe  me,  I 
wished  I  could  fish  and  not  stink. 

"Rosalora  said  she'd  marry  me  if  I 
quit.  I  quit.  Then  we  moved  to  America. 

"One  thing  led  to  another,  as  it  al- 
ways does. 

"Now  sir,  my  shirt  has  been  starched 
for  years,  my  aiftershave  is  still  strong 
after  a  long  day,  Rosalora  doesn't  com- 
plain. And  after  all  that's  happened, 
what  do  I  know  best  but  fish?  Granted, 
selling  fish  is  different  than  catching 
fish,  but  I'm  worthy  sir,  I  know  the  parts 
of  a  fish  better  than  the  parts  of  speech. 
And  I'm  experienced  at  standing." 


How  upset  I  was  all 

day,  not  because  of 

what  happened  later, 

but  because  my 
dream  didn't  come  to 

my  rescue!  Dreams 

have  been  that  for  me 

often,  warnings  that  I 

don't  pay  attention  to 

until  it's  too  late. 


How  quaindy  Ramirez  phrased  his 
appeal,  the  clerk  mused.  Twenty  years 
ago  this  guy  stuck  a  fishing  pole  out  of 
a  rowboat  and  now  he  thinks  he  can 
compete  with  kids  half  his  age?  Oh  but 
these  peasants  are  so  naive  when  they 
try  to  sell  themselves. 

"Make  sure  you  note  your  previous 
experience  on  the  application,  all 
right?"  The  clerk's  smile  froze  as  he 
pointed  to  the  appropriate  blanks. 

"Let  me  tell  you  sir,"  Lopo  Ramirez 
insisted,  "how  I've  incorporated  my 
knowledge  offish  with  my  great  skill  in 
standing.  And  how  the  two  should  qual- 
ify me  for  the  very  job  you  offer.  With 
all..." 

"But  I  don't  have  thejob.  I  mean..." 
interjected  the  clerk,  now  irritated.  He 
leaned  across  the  desk,  pointing  again 
to  the  application.  As  the  pitch  of  his 
voice  rose,  his  hand  shook  slighdy.  Frus- 
trated, then  composing  himself,  he 
switched  to  Ramirez'  native  language. 

"Mr.  Ramirez.  You  don't  under- 
stand. I  screen  applicants  for  compa- 
nies, I  don't  own  the  fish  market." 

"I  understand  completely,"  Mr. 
Ramirez  replied  confidendy  in  his  na- 
tive language.  The  clerk  sat  back  up 
straight  in  his  chair,  adjusting  his 
glasses.  "With  all  due  respect,  sir,  I'm 
not  ignorant.  I  am  a  patient  man.  I  am 
a  man  who  is  skilled  at  waiting  and 
watching.  In  my  last  job,  I  used  to  stand 
along  the  walls  of  a  giant  atrium  in  the 
middle  of  a  museum  and  watch  a  twelve 
foot  circle  of  white  rocks.  Would  you 
like  to  know  about  the  Chalk  Circle?" 

Now  the  clerk  sighed  noticeably  and 
could  no  longer  suppress  his  fatigue. 
He  sank  into  his  seat,  listlessly.  He 
glanced  at  the  hands  of  the  pale  aqua 
clock  next  to  the  waterlily  print,  de- 
cided to  allow  the  rhythm  of  Ramirez* 
story  lull  him  until  it  was  time  to  go 
home. 

White  walls,  grey  trim,  pale  grey 
marble  floors.  Footsteps,  brief  whispers 
at  the  threshold.  Clicking  of  the  claws 
of  blackbirds,  pigeons  landing  on  the 
skylight  -  these  were  part  of  the  instal- 
lation I  was  hired  to  watch.  And  part  of 


3« 


PBOCESSED  WOKU»  3« 


PROCESSED  WOULD  31 


37 


my  days,  which  were  installations  in 
time.  I  watched  them,  as  I  once  watched 
the  sea,  which  taught  me  how. 

Visitors  often  saw  me  as  part  of  the 
installation.  Imagine!  A  young  woman 
dressed  in  black  leather  is  leaning 
against  the  wall  opposite  me,  close  to 
the  Chalk  Circle,  taking  notes.  Her  face 
is  fair,  her  lips  red  and  shiny  like  var- 
nish. She  stares  at  me  across  the  giant 
room,  pretending  to  observe  the  instal- 
lation, then  she  scribbles,  her  hair  falls 
in  front  of  her  eyes,  she  sweeps  it  back, 
looks  up  at  me  again,  returns  to  her 
notebook.  She's  noticed  how  small  I 
am,  how  grey  my  hair  has  become,  how 
dark  my  skin  is,  how  I  look  like  a  hun- 
dred other  men  working  in  similar  jobs. 

She  knows  nothing  about  me  yet  she 
pities  me.  She  thinks,  how  boring  to 
have  to  stand  there  all  day  wearing  a 
green  suit  and  a  badge!  To  her  I  am  a 
dead  end.  She  walks  on  to  the  colorful 
abstractions  in  the  next  gallery. 

The  rocks  of  the  Chalk  Circle  were 
one  layer  deep,  piled  about  eight  inches 
high,  all  relatively  uniform  chunks, 
each  perhaps  six  inches  in  diameter. 

I  feel  I  knew  every  rock  or  I  didn't 
know  any  at  all. 

It  was  the  light  that  descended  from 
the  glass  panels  of  the  atrium  that  gave 
me  confidence  or  not.  With  the  fish,  it 
was  the  same,  the  light  from  the  heav- 
ens on  the  waters,  making  them  opaque 
or  transparent. 

I  wasn't  permitted  to  read  while  on 
duty,  I  could  only  walk  around  the 
room,  straighten  my  tie,  feel  my  wallet 
in  my  pocket,  stand  against  a  wall,  bend 
my  legs,  gaze  into  the  vents  along  the 
opposite  wall,  watch  the  hands  of  my 
watch,  watch  the  Chalk  Circle,  and  the 
visitors.  My  days  were  full  and  I  hardly 
noticed  them  passing. 

For  ten  minutes  every  couple  of 
hours,  I  was  relieved  by  another  guard. 
Because  my  English  was  poor,  I  ap- 
peared shy  and  ignorant,  I  was  hired  to 
do  nothing  all  day  but  pay  attention, 
and  that  served  my  employers  who  se- 
credy  believed  I  came  from  a  stupid 
country.  But  really,  I  didn't  mind  what 
they  thought,  for  they  didn't  treat  me 
according  to  their  thoughts. 

Every  night  after  the  museum 
closed,  the  dust  from  the  chalk  had  to 
be  swept  back  into  the  circle.  This  was 
my  favorite  part  of  the  job. 

Once  I  told  my  supervisor  that 
sweeping  the  dust  into  a  black  dustpan 
and  carefully  sprinkling  it  among  the 
rocks  was  the  moment  I  looked  forward 


to  every  day. 

My  supervisor  said  he  had  to  laugh. 
"You're  a  nut,  Ramirez.  How  can  you 
stand  this  job?  You  wetbacks  have  the 
simplest  minds  on  earth.  You  just  know 
you're  almost  out  the  door  when  you 
clean  up.  Listen,  Ramirez,  you  don't 
have  to  brown  nose  me.  Get  iti*  Ha  ha." 

But  my  supervisor  misunderstood 
the  pleasure  of  my  work,  and  though  he 
was  fair  to  me,  we  weren't  friends  on  the 
outside  because  he  belittied  the  work 
we  did  and  mocked  the  visitors.  When 
he  spoke,  I  felt  his  gloom  surround  me 
like  a  fog  and  chill.  Rosa  told  me,  when 
that  happens,  Lopo,  put  your  right 
hand  over  your  stomach,  over  your  belly 
button,  Lopo,  so  his  bad  feelings  can't 
enter  you.  Sometimes  I  did  this  if  I 
joined  him  for  a  beer  at  night,  but  drink 
only  increased  his  resentment 

He  would  make  obscenejokes  about 
the  Chalk  Circle,  about  the  wall  sculp- 
ture I  usually  stood  next  to,  about  an- 
other piece  across  the  room,  a  large 
steel  tube  called  "Distance  No  Object." 
No  matter  how  close  you  got  to  this 
tube,  it  looked  far  away.  I  had  a  certain 
fondness  for  it,  though  really,  it  was  a 
predictable  trick  next  to  my  Chalk  Cir- 
cle. 

My  supervisor  said  people  were  kid- 
ding themselves.  He  said  art's  not  what 
it  used  to  be.  He  said  he'd  worked  at  the 
museum  ten  years,  so  he  supposed  he 
knew  something.  I  knew  nothing  about 
art,  only  about  the  Chalk  Circle. 

What  did  art  used  to  be?  I  don't 
think  I  could 've  guarded  the  Mona  Lisa 
all  day,  I  really  don't.  Could  you?  I  think 
her  smile  would  sour  after  a  while.  I 
think  I  understand  why  kids  draw  those 
mustaches  on  cheap  reproductions  of 
her,  to  perk  her  up. 

The  chalk  rocks  were  so  very  white. 
Some  people  thought  they  were  cold. 
But  to  me,  cold  is  San  Francisco,  where 
the  sailboats  float  on  a  bay  you  can't 
swim  in,  where  you  go  to  an  ocean  you 
can  only  look  at  It's  so  cold  in  the 
summer  that  one  year  I  wore  a  turtie- 
neck  to  work  for  a  month!  Sometimes  if 
it's  damp  and  windy,  I  don't  even  feel 
like  looking  out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye. 
If  it  was  cold  like  that,  I  would  stand 
where  I  could  watch  the  rocks  straight 
on.  They  gave  off  heat  sometimes,  like 
armies,  like  the  ocean  of  my  country.  Or 
they  appeared  melancholy.  Some  days 
they  even  looked  like  tall  elegant 
women  dressed  in  black. 

They  depended  on  light.  In  the 
right  light,  white  can  look  black,  you 


know. 

One  day  the  artist  of  the  Chalk  Cir- 
cle appeared  in  the  atrium,  standing 
away  from  it  with  two  curators.  Then  the 
artist  decided  to  donate  the  Chalk  Cir- 
cle to  the  museum.  This  made  the  cura- 
tors very  happy,  now  they  wouldn'thave 
to  convince  the  director  to  buy  it.  I  was 
overjoyed  at  the  news!  When  the  exhi- 
bition was  over,  the  museum  would  have 
to  store  the  Chalk  Circle.  They  would 
have  to  put  the  pieces  into  cardboard 
boxes  with  exact  instructions  to  set 
them  up  again.  I,  Lopo  Ramirez, 
wanted  to  stand  watch  over  the  boxes. 
After  all,  I  knew  those  rocks  better  than 
anyone.  I  knew  their  moods  and  they 
knew  mine.  I  could  even  read  a  book 
while  I  was  guarding  the  rocks,  because 
few  people  besides  museum  personnel 
use  the  archives.  Oh,  I  thought,  then  I 
could  have  a  long  beach  of  time  before 
me  every  day. 

But  another  guard,  Perez,  already 
had  thejob  of  watching  the  archives.  He 
said  it  was  lonely  work,  a  long  shift  and 
hardly  anyone  to  talk  to  or  look  at  As 
for  me,  I  had  seen  enough  people,  the 
startied  expressions  on  their  faces  as 
they  entered  the  atrium.  Most  were  too 
reserved  to  laugh,  but  you  can  tell  when 
a  person  wants  to  and  doesn't 

They  didn't  think  my  Chalk  Circle 
was  anything,  some  of  them. 

Some  didn't  question  what  it  was, 
since  it  was  there. 

Most  just  walked  through,  never 
thought  about  it  again. 

But  I  had  to  live  with  the  Chalk 
Circle,  I  had  to  look  at  it  and  I  tell  you, 
it  was  God. 

I  stared  at  that  circle  of  rocks  for 
months  and  I  should  also  tell  you,  I  was 
never  a  believer  before  it  arrived. 

One  night  I  dreamt  I  had  fallen 
asleep  standing.  I  went  to  work  the  next 
morning  and  I  actually  fell  asleep  stand- 
ing. Not  from  boredom,  from  fatigue. 
From  practicing  English  verbs  over  and 
over,  silendy  to  myself,  leaning  against 
the  wall  in  front  of  the  Chalk  Circle.  In 
the  dream,  words  floated  by  on  index 
cards,  parts  of  words,  speaking  in  their 
own  voices,  fluttering  away  before  I 
could  pronounce  them.  Repeat  after 
me,  a  word  shouted,  repeat  after 
us.. .they  cried  as  they  disappeared... 

How  upset  I  was  all  day,  not  because 
of  what  happened  later,  but  because  my 
dream  didn't  come  to  my  rescue! 
Dreams  have  been  that  for  me  often, 
warnings  that  I  don't  pay  attention  to 
until  it's  too  late. 


38 


PDOCESSED  WOBLD  3t 


"Ramirez,"  somebody  was  shaking 
me.  Through  the  triangle  of  a  woman's 
bare  legs  I  could  see  my  chalk  circle  way 
across  the  room.  A  fuzzy  view  of  it, 
smaller,  more  horizontal. 

"Ramirez,  you  must  have  passed 
out" 

Aldo,  my  relief  man,  stood  by  me  so 
close  I  could  count  his  mustache  hairs. 

"Ramirez,  get  up,  what's  with  you? 
Sick?" 

"No,  I  must  have  dropped  off  and 
slid  down." 

"You  hurt  anything?" 

"Don't  think  so." 

"Well,  amigo,  you  been  to  your 
locker  yet?" 

For  a  moment  I  couldn't  connect 
my  dream  and  my  falling  asleep  on  the 
job  with  something  he  called  "locker." 
Sometimes  the  meaning  of  English 
words  is  delayed  for  me,  as  though  sev- 
eral people  were  talking  over  an  echoey 
loudspeaker,  the  sounds  take  time  to 
reach  me. 

"Your  locker,  man.  Check  it  out. 
You've  got  a  nice  present  wrapped  up  in 
litde  yellow  envelope,  just  like  the  rest 
of  us." 

The  layoff  notice  did  not  faze  me  for 
several  days.  I  tucked  it  into  my  shirt 
pocket,  straightened  my  tie,  and  went 
back  to  my  post.  Later,  when  I  put  it  on 
the  kitchen  table,  Rosa  glanced  at  it, 
and  left  it  under  the  salt  shaker.  It 
wasn't  news.  We  all  anticipated  losing 
our  jobs.  A  few  weeks  earlier,  the  mu- 
seum decided  to  contract  out  with  a 
private  security  guard  company,  for  a 
dollar  an  hour  less.  The  choice  was, 
accept  less,  no  protection,  no  griev- 
ance, no  benefits.  Or  accept  notiiing. 
Two  guards  quit  the  union  then,  but 
even  my  supervisor  knew  there  was  no 
choice  for  us. 

Who  would  take  our  jobs?  People 
newly  arrived  from  my  country,  I  guess, 
people  who  travelled  a  long  ways  to  find 
a  piece  of  future.  All  they  wanted  was  to 
leave  their  misery  behind.  Distance  was 
no  object  to  them.  People  with  fire- 
works in  their  heads,  big  ideas,  young 
dreams.  But  no  one  who  would  appre- 
ciate the  Chalk  Circle  like  I  did. 

The  union  settied  on  a  littie  sever- 
ance pay  and  the  last  week  on  the  job,  I 
helped  the  curators  disassemble  the 
Chalk  Circle.  I  wrapped  tissue  paper 
around  each  rock,  placed  the  pieces 
into  file  boxes,  labeled  each  box.  The 
curators  were  friendly,  in  their  way, 
sorry  I  wouldn't  be  staying  on,  but 
didn't  know  how  to  get  personal,  or 


didn't  want  to.  They  never  asked  any- 
thing about  me,  where  I  came  from, 
what  I  did  back  home.  Did  they  assume 
the  least  of  me?  I  never  volunteered 
anything.  They  understood  I  knew  the 
rocks  well.  And  of  course,  as  I  picked 
each  one  up,  held  it,  turned  it  around, 
why,  I  discovered  for  the  first  time  that 
each  piece  had  a  different  side  I'd  never 
noticed  before,  and  every  rock  its  own 
patterns.  Variegated  striations,  one  cu- 
rator said. 

For  a  few  weeks,  I  joined  the  picket 
line  outside  the  museum.  It  was  a  rag 
tag  crew,  four  or  five  unemployed  secu- 
rity guards  and  a  few  homeless  men  the 
union  hired  to  pad  the  ranks,  marching 
around  in  a  small  circle,  singing  sad 
union  songs. 

A  few  photographers  stopped  to 
take  pictures,  and  sometimes  a  young 
person  would  lean  against  a  stone  pillar 
and  give  us  the  peace  sign. 

"Ramirez,"  one  of  the  curators  I  es- 
pecially liked  called  out  the  first  morn- 
ing. "I'm  sorry.  Normally  I  wouldn't 
cross  a  picket  line,  but  I've  got  so  much 
work,  you  know.. .I've  got  to  help  hang 
that  big  Salgado  show,  I..." 

"It's  okay,  Mr.  Phillips,  it's  okay, 
we're  out  here  to  stop  visitors,  not  work- 
ers. Hey,  say  hello  to  'Distance  No  Ob- 
ject' for  me,  Mr.  Phillips." 

"What's  that  Ramirez?"  Mr.  Phillips 
shouted  back,  as  he  pulled  open  the 
heavy  brass  door  and  disappeared  into 
the  lobby. 


The  pale  aqua  clock  on  the  wall  of 
the  employment  office  struck  five,  and 
as  the  clerk  stood  up,  he  closed  the  file 
in  front  of  him  and  straightened  his 
glasses  with  both  hands.  "Thank  you  for 
coming  in,  Mr.  Ramirez.  We'll  be  sure 
to  call  if  the  fish  market  wants  an  inter- 
view." 

Lopo  Ramirez  also  stood  up  and 
held  out  his  hand  to  shake  the  clerk's. 
The  clerk  did  not  notice  as  he  turned 
from  his  desk  to  switch  off  the  lights. 

-  Gloria  Frym 
Gloria  Frym 's  new  book  is  How  I  Learned  (Cof- 
fee House  Press) 


MMXrCSSED  WOBLD  31 


39 


FIRST-YEAR  ENGUSH  FINAL 

These  seem  papers 
singed  by  fire 
-  documents  left  scattered 
in  a  hectic  retreat  of 
battalion  headquarters 
or  the  abandoned  records 
of  an  overthrown  regime 

Fear  and  pain 

shimmer  over  the  disorganized  pages 

hover  above  the  words  scratched  along  the  slots 

lined  onto  the  white  surface 

And  rage 

flares  in  the  ink 

deposited  frantically  here 

It  is  anger  that  matches  my  own 

knuckle  to  knuckle 

as  I  read  the  words 

as  my  red  pen 

descends  toward  its  victims 

toward  what  is  written 

Once  more 

I  have  failed 

to  convince,  to  inform 

to  teach 

So  I  hold  their  fury 

stacks  of  it 

sheets  of  it 

and  press  down  on  theirs 

with  my  own 

How  did  literature 
become  so  filled 
with  hate? 

Document  your  sources  correctly 
the  red  nib  admonishes 
You  must  provide  examples 
to  show  what  you  mean 

The  blue  paragraphs 

howl 

WE  DID  NOT  ASK  TO  DO  THIS 


THE  MANAGEMENT 


They  contrive  havoc  in  the  shipyard,  every  day. 

We're  just  out  here  rolling,  setting  up 

Three  rounds  and  a  sound. 

Now  they  make  us  make  our  brothers 

Step  down,  and  down  again. 

Sonny  Hammett  fi-om  Fayette  County: 

You  left  a  grieving  widow,  Judith 

Tried  to  stop  you. 

You  found  Misters  Abbott  and  Gabelt 

hi  the  Quality  Control  Office  and 

Punched  a  sightiess,  bloodshot  eye 

In  their  foreheads. 

Just  like  Roger  the  Dodger  used  to  say: 

They're  cooking  up  new  recipes. 

Some  of  you  will  float  to  the  top 

And  some,  like  sludge,  drift  to  the  bottom. 

And  some  will  just  evaporate 

Carried  off  by  the  steam  rising  up 

From  the  bowels  of  the  bank. 

Uncooperative  radical  particle  I 

Stick  to  my  guns  like  glue. 

Defensive  readiness  is  at  a  very  high  premium. 

If  only  they  had  marked  us  all 

Not  just  one 

We  could  play  defense  as  a  team 

And  all  of  us  would  be  captains. 


— Blair  Ewing 


No  one  is  listening 


—Tom  Wayman 


PBOCESSED  WORLD  31 


ON  REARING  fflS  YOUNG 


JOB  APPUCATION 


Content  with  becoming  unlike 
the  sea,  he  denies  the  past 
and  dust,  puts  in 
long  hours  in  an  office.  Yet 

here,  or  nowhere,  there  are  laws 

chisels  convinced  stone  of 

and  the  storied  mist, 

beard  ofancestor  and  beast.  And  what 

but  Where  is  Once  or  When? 
would  he  expect  them  to  demand 
had  they  not  as  children  known 
whose  fallen  hand  was  raising  them? 


-  Harry  Brody 


Gilt 


I'd  like  to  apply  for  a  job. 
Yes,  the  job  you  have  available; 
my  manner  is  most  saleable 
and  I  hope  youll  find  me  suitable 
for  $5.15  an  hour. 

I  really  have  the  skills,  you  see, 

I've  been  to  university 

and  though  I  studied  history 

I've  found  my  heart  to  truly  be 

in  men's  ties  and  socks/glass  figurines/the  discount  shoe  industry 

What  makes  me  think  I'd  be  good  for  this  job? 

um,  I  love  working  with  people. 

...and  I  love  riding  the  subway  an  hour  and  a  half  each  wajr; 

lef  s  see,  add  those  hours  to  my  day 

and  111  be  making  a  whopping  $3.75  an  hour! 

oh,  no  -sir-  I  do  want  the  job.  Can't  you  tell  by  my  suit' 

No,  actually,  I  don't  own  a  dress; 

I  don't  feel  comfortable,  I  confess. 

But  hell, 

for  $5.15  an  hour 

I'll  endeavor  to  wear  some  colors  other  than  black- 

um,  I  enjoy  working  with  the  public,  and  I'm  good  with  money... 

Oh  yes,  you're  right 

all  us  girls  are  good  with  money  - 

yes,  thaf  s  charming,  yes,  how  funny. 

You  know,  I  like  a  good  work  atmosphere 

where  the  boss  says  whatever  he  wants 

and  the  rest  of  us  just  listen... 

I'm  a  very  fast  learner 

and  I  promise  that  if  you  give  me  this  job 

111  be  the  perfect  subhuman 

and  never  let  my  contempt  shine  in  my  worshipping  eyes! 

I  love  working  with  people, 

and  lef  s  see  -  what  else  was  I  going  to  tell  you? 

No,  I  don't  expect  vacation  pay 
and  yes,  I'm  available  every  day 
and  though  I  don't  like  the  evil  way 
you're  looking  at  me,  I've  got  rent  to  pay. 
And  yes,  I  can  start  on  Saturday. 

-  ©  Meryn  Cadell  1991 

from  the  Sire/Reprise  album  ANGEL  POOD  PORTHOIXJHT 


Photo:  D.S.  Black 


PDOCESSCD  WORLD  3« 


41 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 
ATHEIST  PRIEST 


Soon  after  I  began  training  as  a 
psychotherapist,  I  knew  that  I 
was  going  to  have  a  major 
problem  with  Faith.  I  hoped  that 
these  doubts  would  fade,  that  my 
initial  cynical  mistrust  of  what 
seemed  like  self-serving,  made-up 
gibberish  would  soon  be  challenged 
by  the  irrefutable  (or  at  least  plausi- 
ble) evidence  of  Science  and  direct 
experience.  Alas,  it  only  got  worse 
as  I  went  along. 

Upon  close  examination  the  bi- 
zarre, competing  theories  of  psycho- 
therapy turned  out  to  be  even  cheesier 
than  they  looked  from  a  distance.  The 
empirical  data  was  just  as  damning;  no 
reputable  researcher  has  ever  managed 
to  document  much  significant  benefit 
from  head-shrinking.  And  my  personzil 
experience,  as  a  properly  trained  and 
well-respected  therapist,  only  con- 
firmed my  initial  impression  that  the 
vast  majority  of  psychotherapy  is  a  waste 
of  time,  equally  likely  to  harm  as  to 
help. 

Back  when  I'd  first  considered  the 
Profession  it  seemed  uniquely  attrac- 
tive. Sitting  at  my  desk  at  my  clericaljob, 
which  I'd  held  for  nearly  three  years  at 
that  point  (a  "personal  best"  in  my  oc- 


Anything  that  didn't 
drive  the  patients  to 

suicide  or  litigation 
was  acceptable.  The 

"standard  of  care" 
was  so  low  that  just 

about  anyone  not 

actively  hallucinating 

can  meet  it. 


cupational  history),  I'd  had  plenty  of 
time  to  contemplate  the  meaningless 
quality  of  most  Work,  and  especially  of 
my  particular  work.  In  fact,  that  was  the 
period  of  my  life  when  I  first  consciously 
embraced  my  Bad  Attitude.  Previously 
I'd  simply  avoided  and  ignored  the  phe- 
nomenon of  Work  as  much  as  I  could  in 
a  naive,  unthinking  way,  without  ever 
truly  coming  to  grips  with  it. 

There  were  a  number  of  purely 
pragmatic  and  practical  advantages  to 
Becoming  a  Psychotherapist.  Qualify- 
ing for  The  Profession  required  (at 
least)  four  years  of  graduate  school,  or 
from  my  perspective,  that  much  more 
heavily  subsidized  prolonged  adoles- 
cence and  absence  from  the  full-time 
workforce.  Thus,  craftily,  I  committed 
to  ending  my  career  of  perpetual  post- 
ponement by  taking  just  one,  last  half- 
decade  detour.  For  me,  at  least.  School 
was  fun  as  well  as  meaningful,  in  stark 
contrast  to  my  current  situation  which 
was  neither. 

It  was  also  prestigious,  and  would 
delight  my  bourgeois  relatives  (who 
found  my  career  up  to  then  somewhat 
disappointing)  and  piss  the  hell  out  of 
my  boss,  to  say  nothing  of  boosting  my 
own  self-esteem  as  I  ascended  from 
lowly  clerk  to  haughty,  intellectual  "pro- 
fessional." 

Finally,  while  I  was  still  far  from  shar- 
ing the  consumerist  aspirations  of  the 
vast  mzyority  of  my  peers,  I  was  begin- 
ning to  feel  the  allure  of  a  comfortable, 
middle<lass  existence.  If  I  absolutely 
had  to  work  to  support  myself  I  might 
as  well  have  a  cushyjob  that,  at  its  basic 
level,  amounted  to  sitting  around  and 
talking  to  people  and  telling  them  how 
to  run  their  lives  better.  Frankly,  I  felt  I 
had  some  natural  talents  in  this  direc- 
tion. 

I  still  think  I  do,  but  I've  given  up  on 
the  notion  of  shrinking  heads  for  a  liv- 
ing. I've  also  surrendered  to  the  pain- 
ftilly  obvious  fact  that  Psychotherapy  is 
most  certainly  no  "Science"  (though  it 


may  qualify  as  an  "Art")  and  is  a  sad 
species  of  Profession,  offering  litde  of 
value  in  return  for  its  amazingly  steep 
fees.  Overall  I  would  judge  it  as  valid, 
helpfial  and  consistent  a  practice  as  the 
fortune-telling  done  by  the  brujas  who 
run  litde  botanicas  in  marginal  urban 
neighborhoods  across  the  U.S.:  the  cus- 
tomers are  satisfied  and  keep  coming 
back,  but  it's  difficult  for  the  rest  of  us 
to  detect  any  true  benefits  from  these 
questionable  ministrations. 

Declining  health  due  to  AIDS  gave 
me  a  good  excuse  to  retire  from  the 
field  after  only  a  few  years  as  a  proces- 
sional psychotherapist.  In  fact,  counsel- 
ing is  an  easy  profession  for  a 
fatigue-disabled  person  (after  all,  you 
get  to  sit  the  whole  time  and  can  limit 
your  client  load  to  match  your  energy 
level);  but  I  had  no  stomach  for  it.  If  my 
time  were  limited,  as  it  pretty  much 
seems  to  be,  did  I  really  want  to  spend 
my  precious  hours  listening  to  people 
whine  and  rationalize  about  why  they 
had  to  live  their  lives  exactiy  as  they 
were,  despite  how  miserable  it  was  mak- 
ing them? 

Viewed  from  that  cold,  harsh  per- 
spective, the  answer  was  clearly  "no," 
and  so  I  retired,  not  quite  seven  years 
after  I'd  started. 

INITIATION 

Reagan  was  just  beginning  his  sec- 
ond term  (1984)  when  I  entered  gradu- 
ate school.  I  was  one  of  a  cohort  of  seven 
neophytes  being  initiated  into  the 
Counseling  Psychology  program,  a  sub- 
group of  the  department's  crop  of  30  or 
so  first-year  graduate  students.  About  a 
dozen  or  so  more  were  students  in  Clini- 
cal Psychology  -  the  differences  be- 
tween "Counseling"  and  "Clinical" 
Psychology  were  endlessly  debated  but 
are,  for  all  intents  and  purposes,  non- 
existent, having  more  to  do  with  aca- 
demic turf  division  than  anything  else. 
The  remaining  Psych  grad  students 


PBOCESSCD  WOULD  3< 


TWISTED  IMAGE  *>>   AceBackwords  ©.g^s  r*'^) 

'  THAT'S  PlDICOtOUSi!    WHEN 


Fhow  po  vou  like  mV 
MEW  HWRCUT?     WHEN- 
EVER I'M  DEPRESSED  I 
GO  TO  -THE  BARBER  AMt> 
GET  MV  HAIR  DOMF/.'    THAT 
ALWAVS  CHEERS  ME  UP. 'I     . 


I'M  PEPRtSSeD  I  GO  To  A 
TRAIHED,  PROFESSIONAL 
PSVCHIATRIST  AND  DEAL 
WITH  MV   MENTAL  PR0BLE>^5 
IW  A   MATURE.  AWt>  RA- 
TIONAL MftNNER .'.' 


'^EAH,  AND  VOU  ALWAV5  ^ 
COME   BACK  FROM    HIS 
OFFICE   WiCE  AS  SCREWQ 


WHEN  VoU  LEFT. 


were  in  the  "Experimental"  (i.e.,  non- 
clinical, research  oriented)  program. 

But  Experimental,  Counseling  or 
Clinical,  we  were  all  selected  for  our 
promise  as  academics  and  researchers, 
rather  than  for  clinical  skills  potential 
and  this  showed.  It  was  well-known  that 
expressing  any  interest  in  the  profes- 
sional practice  of  psychotherapy  was  the 
kiss  of  death  as  far  as  getting  accepted 
into  programs  like  ours  at  large,  cheap 
state  universities,  which  (mosdy)  sup- 
ported you  while  providing  training  as 
a  clinician.  There  are  also  urban  profes- 
sional schools,  but  these  are  upscale 
private  institutions  along  the  lines  of 
law  and  business  schools,  charging  top 
dollar  in  return  for  the  prospect  of  easy 
entry  into  profitable  guild,  providing 
"meaningful"  work. 

Few  of  us  were  really  interested  in 
becoming  academics  or  researchers 
and  we  mosdy  had  our  hearts  set  on 
Becoming  Therapists,  but  we  were  all 
savvy  enough  to  figure  on  concealing 
this  for  the  next  four  years. 

In  line  with  this  largely  inaccurate 
assumption  that  we  were  all  primarily 
motivated  as  researchers,  the  bulk  of 
our  classwork  focused  on  statistics  and 
a  review  of  the  relevant  body  of  research 
on  clinical  psychology,  rather  than  on 
clinical  skills  -  not,  but  the  way,  that 
these  can  really  be  taught,  but  it  was 
distressing  to  see  them  dismissed  so  eas- 
ily. The  statistics  were  boring.  The  re- 
search was  horrifying  in  its  revelation  of 
psychotherapy's  emptiness,  at  least  as 
regards  empirical  evidence.  The  clini- 
cal skills  stuff,  when  we  finally  got 
around  to  it,  was  fun  but  worrisome. 

We  began  by  doing  role  plays,  acting 
out  the  part  of  shrinker  and  shrinkee 
and  practicing  the  basic  therapeutic 


techniques:  simple  reflective  state- 
ments and  reframings  ("It  sounds  like 
you  feel  that  your  boyfriend  is  a  psy- 
chotic, abusive  creep  and  you're  won- 
dering what  you  should  do  about  it") 
It  was  spooky  how  much  shallow  inter- 
actions sounded  like  "real"  psychother- 
apy. 

Then,  in  our  second  semester,  we 
graduated  to  working  on  live  clients, 
depressed  freshmen  who'd  reported  to 
the  university  counseling  center  and 
been  turned  over  to  us  as  guinea  pigs. 
Therapy  is  one  of  those  things  that  can 
only  be  learned  by  doing.  Sessions  were 
taped  and  presumably  reviewed  by  su- 
pervisors, though  in  practice  (as  I 
learned  as  a  fourth  year  student,  when 
I  provided  such  supervision  to  the  fresh 
crop  of  neophytes)  this  uninteresting 
chore  was  often  sloughed  over;  it  was 
enough  that  you  knew  that  someone 
COULD  be  listening  to  your  efforts. 

As  we  progressed,  we  received  more 
advanced  clients,  seriously  flipped-out 
seniors  instead  of  just  homesick  fresh- 
men. You  were  expected  to  justify  all 
interventions  by  one  of  the  half-dozen 
or  so  generally  accepted  competing 
theories  of  therapy  (e.g.  psychoanalytic, 
humanistic,  or  rational-emotive  [isn't 
that  an  oxymoron?]  approaches) ,  but  it 
really  didn't  matter  too  much  which 
you  used.  Anything  that  didn't  drive  the 
patients  to  suicide  or  htigation  was  ac- 
ceptable. 

In  our  later  years,  we  did  internships 
at  local  mental  health  centers  and  agen- 
cies. If  you  were  a  good  finangler  or 
kissed  the  right  butts,  you  could  get  one 
that  actually  paid  money.  Otherwise  you 
had  to  do  unpaid  therapy  as  part  of 
paying  your  dues  and  logging  your 
hours.  There  was  no  serious  attempt  to 


evaluate  the  effectiveness  of  your  work, 
as  the  standards  of  practice  were  broad 
and  lenient.  Only  the  most  blatandy 
and  monumentally  incompetent  thera- 
pists ever  had  any  trouble  getting  by- 
and  even  those  ended  up  getting  their 
degrees  (and,  subsequendy,  jobs)  with- 
out too  much  trouble.  The  "standard  of 
care"  is  so  low  that  just  about  anyone 
not  actively  hallucinating  can  meet  it. 

THE  LAW  OF  INVERSE 
EFFORT 

An  ironic  thing  about  head-shrink- 
ing, a  phenomenon  that  illustrates  its 
paradoxical  nature,  is  that  the  more 
dangerous,  useful  and  necessary  your 
work,  the  less  it  pays  and  the  less  train- 
ing it  requires.  Most  suicide  prevention 
hodines  are  staffed  by  unpaid  volun- 
teers. Looking  after  dangerously  psy- 
chotic people  in  a  halfway  house 
requires  only  a  high  school  diploma 
and  pays  little  above  minimum  wage. 
Doing  essentially  the  same  work  in  a 
high-security  private  psych  hospital 
(like  the  multitudinous  Barclay's 
chain)  usually  requires  a  2-year  degree, 
but  pays  like  a  medium-scale  union  job. 
Many  of  these  "Psych  Techs"  are  on 
exactly  the  same  anti-hallucination 
meds  as  their  "clients"  (but,  presum- 
ably, are  responding  more  effectively  to 
them). 

Doing  field  work  to  prevent  child 
abuse,  ostensibly  one  of  our  nation's 
sacred  duties  and  highest  priorities,  is 
poorly  paid  and  often  acutely  danger- 
ous. Child  protection  workers  in  rural 
areas  have  a  high  mortality  rate  because 
of  trigger-happy  backwoods  molesters 
with  no  patience  for  the  Law's  endless 
quibbles  about  age  of  consent  and  de- 
grees of  consanguity.  Often  counselors' 


PBOCESSCD  WORLD  3t 


only  training  is  an  advanced  home  ec  or 
"mental  hygiene"  class  in  high  school; 
accordingly,  the  job  tends  to  pay  small 
town  librarian's  wages,  maybe  $15,000 
per  year.  But  a  dozen  years  down  the 
road,  counseling  the  wounded  "Inner 
Child"  that  (presumably  results)  from 
such  early  abuse  easily  pays  $100  an 
hour. 

A  shrink  who  focuses  on  traditional 
psychotherapy  (i.e.  hour-long  weekly 
meeting  for  perhaps  many  years  [or 
even  decades]  vsdth  high-functioning, 
well-paid  but  slightiy  neurotic  yuppies) 
can  hope  to  earn  close  to  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  with  a  decent  practice. 
To  do  this  safe  and  well-paid  work  re- 
quires, oddly,  several  years'  training  and 
numerous  degrees,  licenses,  and  cre- 
dentials. 

This  rule  of  inverse  effort  holds 
across  the  board  in  the  The  Profession 
with  logarithmic  consistency.  An  agency 
therapist,  like  the  staff  at  a  Counseling 
Center,  gets  the  stability  of  a  regular 
wage  and  benefits  but  earns  half  of  what 
s/he'd  make  with  a  good  practice.  To{>- 
line  therapists  can  hold  lucrative  train- 
ing seminars,  or  even  found  new 
theoretical  schools  of  psychotherapy. 
This  is  well-paid,  prestigious  and  re- 
warding work:  it  also  removes  you  from 
direct  contact  vnth  those  whiny,  de- 
manding clients. 

THE  HELPING  VAMPIRES 

There  are  three  things  that  keep 
Psychotherapy  from  becoming  a  worth- 
while profession.  They  are:  the  pseudo- 
scientific  system  of  training;  the 
potential  shrinks  who  present  them- 
selves for  this  training;  and  the  clients 
who  indiscriminately  patronize  these 
"helpers"  who  seem  mostly  to  help 
themselves. 

The  ability  to  read  someone's  vibes, 
to  detect  phoniness  and  the  lurking, 
evil  glint  of  psychotic  madness,  is  to 
some  extent  an  inborn  skill.  You  got  it 
or  you  don't;  and  as  with  learning  to 
draw  or  sculpt  or  play  music,  natural 
abilities  can  be  enhanced  (or  disfig- 
ured) but  not  created  out  of  nothing. 
Contemporary  psychology,  determined 
as  it  is  to  assert  its  full  status  as  a  Science 
rather  than  a  mere  Art,  refuses  to  ac- 
knowledge this.  Thus  it  shuns  its  proper 
-  and  do-able  -  task  of  weeding  out 
the  deadheads  and  fine-tuning  the 
naturals,  instead  opting  to  teach  all  and 
sundry  a  rigid  and  largely  ineffective 
psychometric  technology. 


A  true  Art  of  psychotherapy  would 
put  much  more  emphasis  by  selection 
of  both  shrinks  and  shrinkees,  use  a 
more  pragmatic  and  practical  teaching 
approach,  and  critically  evaluate  results 
stricdy  on  the  basis  of  clinical  effective- 
ness. Currentiy  most  therapists  are  cre- 
dentialed  on  the  basis  of  academic 
achievement  (e.g.  passing  classes,  writ- 
ing these,  etc.)  and  evaluated  just  once 
in  their  careers  -  at  licensing  time  - 
by  their  score  on  a  written  test.  Existing 
technology  would  permit  performance- 
based  testing,  but  the  gatekeepers  of 
The  Profession  are  painftilly  aware  that 
the  majority  of  its  established,  creden- 
tialed,  high-ranking  practitioners  could 
not  pass  such  an  exam. 

Then  there  is  the  question  of  who 
wants  to  become  a  shrink,  and  why.  I 
described  my  own  frankly  self-inter- 
ested motives  above.  They  may  seem 
mercenary  or  tangential,  but  people 
whose  primary  drive  is  to  Help  are  usu- 
ally lousy  therapists,  ranging  from 
merely  ineffectual  to  actively  destruc- 
tive. I  call  them  the  "Helping  Vam- 
pires." They  long  to  rescue  the  world,  to 
bond  with  the  confused  and  downtrod- 
den, to  straighten  out  the  disordered 
lives  of  their  hapless  clients  by  their  ovm 
sage  advice  and  moral  vigor.  Crazies 
often  really  cotton  to  them,  which 
sometimes  gives  them  a  deceptive  aura 
of  competence;  but  they  mosdy  exacer- 
bate their  helpee's  symptoms  until  they 
blow  up,  at  which  point  the  Helping 
Vampire  dumps  them  on  a  competent 
colleague  or  into  whatever  safety  net 
offers  itself. 

Finally,  there  are  the  clients.  Some 
are  people  in  crisis,  briefly  disoriented 
and  wanting  help  to  get  back  on  an  even 
keel  but  basically  sound.  Motivated  and 
competent,  they  are  easy  to  work  with, 
quickly  identify  and  resolve  the  issues 
that  brought  them  to  therapy,  and  move 
on. 

Most  clients,  however,  are  chroni- 
cally afflicted  long-term  neurotics  who 
only  want  an  hour  to  complain  and  carp 
v^dthout  fear  of  contradiction.  They  will 
pay  for  this;  most  of  them  have  to,  as 
their  friends  certainly  won't  listen  to 
this  stuff  for  free.  They  seem  to  have  no 
center,  let  alone  any  central  issues,  and 
are  content  to  stay  "In  Therapy"  indefi- 
nitely. 

Thus  these  chronics  and  lifers  natu- 
rally tend  to  dominate  the  market  by 
lingering  in  it  forever,  while  the  acute- 
crisis  short-termers  pass  swiftiy  through 
it.  Mediocre  therapists  soon  learn  to 


cultivate  clients  who  can  be  sold  on 
endless  re-living  of  early  experiences 
and  Healing  the  Inner  Child. 

Sigmund  Freud,  the  great  Viennese 
inventor  of  "the  talking  cure,"  would  be 
horrified  by  contemporary  professional 
psychology  as  practiced  in  the  U.S.  Even 
in  the  '30s,  he  damned  the  easy-minded 
blandness  of  American  psychiatry. 

But  contemporary  psychoanalysts, 
the  direct  descendants  of  Freud,  arejust 
as  kooky;  what's  more,  they're  generally 
politically  conservative,  impossibly  rigid 
and  frankly  exploitative.  True  psycho- 
analysis requires  at  least  five  years  of 
meeting  three  times  a  week.  It  could 
take  more  if  you  express  too  much  "re- 
sistance." To  be  admitted  to  the  official 
psychoanalytic  society,  you  must  have 
successfully  completed  analysis  with 
someone  who  was  shrunk  himself  in 
direct  link  back  to  Freud  himself,  as  if 
this  confered  some  spiritual  or  mystical 
immunity  upon  the  shinkee. 

If  this  requirement  is  consciously 
based  upon  the  "touch  of  Peter" 
(whereby  each  new  pope  is  sworn  in  by 
a  cardinal  who  was  sworn  in  by  a  pope, 
etc.,  in  a  direct  line  back  to  St.  Peter,  the 
founder  of  the  Vatican's  authority),  it  is 
horrifyingly  reactionary.  And  if  it's  not, 
you  have  to  wonder  how  such  insightful 
introspectors  as  the  successors  to  Freud 
could  have  overlooked  the  similarity.  In 
any  case,  such  requirements  reflect  su- 
perstitious and  magical  thinking  ad- 
mixed with  a  blatant  self-interesL 

GET  A  LIFE 

The  U.S.  has  more  shrinks  per  cap- 
ita (depending  on  how  you  define  the 
term:  I'm  counting  everyone  who 
claims  to  provide  "counseling")  than 
any  other  country.  Psychotherapy  is  far 
less  common  in  Europe,  even  less  popu- 
lar in  Latin  America,  and  almost  un- 
heard of  in  Africa  and  Asia. 

Thus,  everywhere  outside  of  North 
America  and  Western  Europe,  the  role 
of  "counselor"  is  taken  by  family  or  spiri- 
tual advisors,  paid  or  otherwise.  North 
America  needs  more  shrinks  because  it 
has  so  much  less  emotional  infrastruc- 
ture. 

Lacking  meaningful  relationships 
with  those  around  them,  many  people 
vainly  seek  attachment  and  identity  in 
unusual  and  rather  unpromising 
places.  Thus  churches,  cults  and  coun- 
selors flourish.  Just  as  much  of  our  proc- 
essed, packaged  supermarket  food  is  so 
drained  of  genuine  nutritive  value  as  it 


PBOCESSED  WOULD  3f 


ANOTHER  FUTURE  MISFIT 


Graphic:  JF  Batallier 


travels  from  its  source  to  the  market 
that  it  needs  to  have  vitamins  and  min- 
erals re-added,  so  are  our  lives  drained 
of  meaning  by  our  processing  until 
many  are  driven  to  seek  re-injections  of 
Meaning  via  Therapy. 

According  to  the  research  done  by 
scientists  attempting  to  verify  the  bene- 
fits of  psychotherapy,  it  is  the  least  cost- 
efficient  of  all  possible  alternatives. 
Drugs  are  cheaper  (and  work  faster). 
Daily  exercise  regulates  the  mood  bet- 
ter than  the  "talking  cure"  (and  treats 
"excess"  weight  more  efficiendy  than 
any  professional  weight-loss  program) . 
Taking  up  a  hobby,  getting  a  new  sex 
partner,  changing  jobs:  all  of  these  are 
far  more  likely  to  improve  your  quality 
of  life  in  less  time  and  at  lower  cost  than 
it  takes  to  have  your  head  shrunk. 

Psychotherapy  makes  the  most 
sense  for  someone  in  crisis  or  transi- 
tion. By  definition,  "crisis"  can  only  last 
so  long,  and  even  "transition"  is  some- 
thing that  should  occur  within  a  few 
months.  Anyone  who  has  been  "in  ther- 
apy" for  years  should  frankly  ask  them- 
selves what  they  have  gotten  in  return 
for  the  hundreds  of  hours  of  talking 
and  the  thousands  of  dollars  spent. 

Good  therapy  should  produce 
change.  Yet  most  clients  are  actually 
seeking  to  avoid  change,  to  continue 


living  the  way  they  are  but  to  somehow 
stop  hurting.  Their  jobs  drive  them 
crazy,  so  they  consider  taking  Prozac  or 
talking  with  you  for  an  hour  every  week. 
But  the  best  thing  they  could  do,  prob- 
ably, is  change  jobs.  This  is  usually  one 
of  the  last  things  they're  willing  to  con- 
sider. Instead,  they  want  a  quick  fix  that 
allows  them  to  change  as  litde  as  possi- 
ble. 

This  is  even  more  obvious  when 
"treating"  the  number-one  psycho- 
therapeutic complaint:  "Bad"  relation- 
ships or  dysfunctional  families.  Is  your 
partner:  addicted,  abusive,  asexual,  in- 
different, cruel,  neglectful,  insensitive, 
stupid,  lazy,  evil,  dishonest,  and/or  no 
fun  to  be  with?  Well,  then,  leave  the 
bum!  Is  that  so  difficult  to  figure  out? 
Should  conveying  that  really  take  more 
than  a  few  sessions?  But,  but,  but!  they 
will  stammer,  and  go  on  to  explain  why 
this  isn't  "possible". 

Their  problem  is  a  dysfunctional  re- 
lationship. Yet  instead  of  refusing  to 
participate  in  it,  they  seek  you  out  for 
another  lopsided,  dysfunctional  rela- 
tionship of  a  different  sort  By  piling 
one  unbalanced  relationship  upon  an- 
other, they  hope  to  reach  equilibrium. 
And  that's  exactiy  what  they  get,  the 
perpetuation  of  a  poor  compromise 
that  makes  them  miserable. 


Why  can't  people  just  talk  (for  free) 
to  their  friends  and  partners?  Because 
that  is  exacdy  what  they  seek  to  avoid. 
By  restricting  these  revelations  to  a 
hired  stranger  one  further  alienates 
them,  moves  them  away  from  their  cen- 
tral issues.  The  rising  popularity  of  long- 
term  psychotherapy  is  a  symptom  of 
declining  emotional  stability  and  in- 
creasing alienation.  Like  TV,  it's  a  cure 
that  makes  the  illness  worse. 

If  families  spent  less  time  silentiy 
glued  to  their  televisions,  they  might  be 
able  to  support  one  another  emotion- 
ally without  sub-contracting  this  chore 
to  outsiders.  If  people  lived  in  genuine 
groupings  based  on  common  interests, 
instead  of  being  isolated  in  "nuclear" 
families  by  accident  of  birth,  they  could 
avoid  much  of  the  pain  currentiy  ex- 
pressed, quietiy,  in  the  private  cham- 
bers of  psychotherapists. 

And,  finally  and  most  importandy,  if 
people  led  meaningful  lives  in  the  first 
place  instead  of  being  yoked  to  point- 
less and  painful  careers  performing 
worthless  labor,  perhaps  they  wouldn't 
suffer  so  much.  As  it  stands,  this  pain 
merely  justifies  one  more  mosdy  mean- 
ingless profession:  psychotherapy 

-  Kwazee  Wabbitt 


PBOCCSSCD  WOULD  31 


POBUCEDOCATIOM: 

REMAKING  A  POBUC 


Public  schooling  has  become 
the  current  line  of  defense 
against  dismantling  the  pub- 
lic sphere.  Defending  public  school 
as  we  know  it  requires  re-legitimiz- 
ing the  notion  of  a  public  good  to  be 
provided  or  at  least  guaranteed  by 
the  state.  The  past  decade  of  Rea- 
ganism  enshrined  privatization, 
which  shrank  the  entidements  and 
rights  associated  with  the  pubUc 
sphere.  Besides  schools,  what  else 
does  the  public  have  anymore  ex- 
cept some  poorly  tended  parks,  a 
few  cash-starved  museums  and  li- 
braries, and  rapidly  deteriorating 
roads,  rails  and  bridges?  If  the  pub- 
lic schools  were  eliminated,  the 
state's  functions  on  behalf  of  the 
public  would  be  reduced  to  taxa- 
tion, repression  and  subsidizing 
business. 

No  one  can  defend  public  educa- 
tion without  serious  qualification,  but 
such  a  defense  must  include  an  unquali- 
fied endorsement  of  the  public.  Public 
life  is  the  arena  in  which  we  verify  truth, 
share  experiences,  and  fully  develop 
our  humanity  as  social  beings.  Public 
life  is  also  a  prerequisite  for  democracy. 
For  all  its  flaws  and  mystifications,  what 
is  democracy  if  not  a  public  process  of 
politics  and  decision-making?  A  social 
institution,  like  school,  that  is  self-con- 
sciously public  and  subject  to  politi- 
cal/popular control,  however 
compromised,  is  important  to  a  radical 
agenda  that  hopes  to  extend  demo- 
cratic social  control  over  the  whole  of 
public  life. 

But  instead  of  pouring  our  efforts 
into  defending  the  few  public  institu- 
tions that  still  exist,  we  have  to  re-create 
and  re-animate  a  public  life  that  goes 
considerably  beyond  existing  institu- 
tions. Our  goal  should  not  be  simply  to 
reclaim  public  education,  but  to  estab- 
lish a  new  way  of  life  in  which  public 


control  over  social  matters  (including 
"economic"  ones)  is  understood  as  a 
political  process  subject  to  democratic 
norms  (norms  which  are  themselves  de- 
termined by  social  processes).  To  do 
this  we  need  to  educate  people  to  self- 
confidentiy  participate.  Public  educa- 
tion's role  looms  large,  not  because 
specific  curricula  lead  to  specific  re- 
sults, but  because  school  is  where  we 
most  intensively  interact  with  and  learn 
about  others  outside  of  the  family, 
neighborhood  or  work.  Public  schools, 
at  their  best,  bring  together  people  of 
widely  different  cultural,  ethnic,  and 
linguistic  backgrounds  and  socialize 
them  to  participate  in  cooperative  ac- 
tivities, develop  respect  for  others,  and 
so  on.  The  public  schools  could  be  the 
best  arena  for  us  to  learn  what  public 
life  is  about,  and  how  we  can  participate 
in  it. 

It  is  easy  to  criticize  schools  as  insti- 
tutions of  social  control  which  create 
unthinking  zombies  that  will  become 
the  pliable  workers  and  consumers  of 
the  future.  But  most  of  us  who  might 
make  such  a  glib  critique  are  living  ex- 
amples of  the  porous  nature  of  school- 
ing's  social  control  agenda.  For 
instance,  almost  everything  of  value 
that  I  learned  in  school  resulted  from 
social  interactions  and  experiences  that 
took  place  in  spite  of  the  twisted  logic 
of  the  school  system.  Learning,  for  bet- 
ter or  worse,  goes  on  everywhere,  not 
just  at  school.  Television  has  at  least  as 
much  influence  as  schooling  in  shaping 
our  ideas  about  the  world  and  ourselves 
and  our  sense  of  what's  possible.  Even 


Public  schools  could  be 
the  best  arena  for  us 
to  learn  what  public 
life  is  about,  and  how 
we  can  participate  in 


it. 


if  zealous  right-wing  Christians  took 
over  the  public  schools  and  instituted 
their  narrow,  authoritarian  curriculum, 
there  is  no  guarantee  that  it  would  reli- 
ably produce  the  kind  of  obedient. 
God-fearing,  hard-working  citizens  they 
dream  about.  Similarly,  a  more  left- 
leaning  school  curriculum  may  not  pre- 
dictably  produce  critical, 

self-motivated,  responsible  citizens 
ready  to  assert  themselves  as  part  of  a 
wider  public  life. 

AN  INTEGRATED 
IMAGINATION? 

Curriculum  is  not  the  most  impor- 
tant educational  issue.  Rather,  it  is  the 
people  we  meet,  the  relationships  we 
establish,  and  whether  or  not  we  are 
encouraged  to  think  for  ourselves  and 
to  believe  our  own  experiences,  that 
finally  have  the  greatest  influence  on 
what  kind  of  people  we  are  when  we 
emerge  from  our  education.  Educa- 
tion's role  in  shaping  our  imagination 
is  one  compelling  reason  for  school  in- 
tegration. Racial  tension  encourages 
even  neo-liberals  to  see  school  desegre- 
gation as  an  ameliorative  policy,  al- 
though their  "solution"  of  busing  led  to 
more  social  conflict,  reactionary  back- 
lash and  white  flight  than  it  led  to  ra- 
cially balanced  schools. 

Racial  integration  in  public  schools 
is  a  necessary  foundation  for  a  racially 
integrated  public  life.  In  spite  of  spasms 
of  ethnic  "cleansing"  and  chronic 
world-wide  racism,  a  vibrant,  ever-evolv- 
ing, cross-pollinating  multiculturalism 
is  spreading  across  the  globe,  gradually 
becoming  the  new  dominant  culture. 
Some  of  the  best  things  about  living  in 
San  Francisco,  New  York,  or  other  big 
cities  are  the  astounding  possibilities 
for  cross-cultural  experience.  Unfortu- 
nately these  possibilities  are  most  often 
limited  to  our  role  as  consumers.  You 
can  breakfast  Chinese  Dim  Sum,  tour  a 
Modern  Art  Exhibit,  lunch  Italian, 
check  out  Latino  murals  in  the  after- 
noon, shop  New  Age  White  Profes- 
sional Thrift  Store,  dine  Thai  or  Indian, 


PROCESSED  WORLD  34 


and  dance  the  night  away  at  a  rap  club, 
salsa  disco,  white  kid  rock  club,  what- 
ever, and  top  it  o£f  at  an  Irish  bar  or  a 
Salvadoran  Taqueria.  But  it  is  consider- 
ably more  rare  to  hang  out  at  your  white 
friend's  house,  then  head  over  to  Bay- 
view  to  your  black  friend's  house,  and 
then  to  Chinatown  and  see  your  friends 
there,  then  everyone  heads  over  to  the 
Hispanic  Mission  District,  and  so  on. 

Luckily  there  are  plenty  of  pockets 
of  genuine  cross-cultural  interest  and 
respect  in  big  cities,  which  are  (hope- 
fully) sources  of  cultural  dynamism  and 
new  thinking.  Developing  a  respect  and 
appreciation  for  other  cultures  may 
even  help  stem  the  erosion  of  cultural 
diversity  caused  by  public  education 
and  market  pressure  to  "Americanize." 
(While  environmentalists  have  been  de- 
crying shrinking  biodiversity,  an  equally 
serious  problem  for  human  society  is 
shrinking  cultural  diversity,  with  a  ma- 
jority of  known  languages  falling  into 
disuse,  and  astonishing  reservoirs  of 
knowledge  disappearing  as  the  inexora- 
ble march  of  "progress"  squashes  re- 
maining pockets  of  indigenous  culture 
worldwide.  This  process  continues  in- 
dependent of  the  expanding  multicul- 
tural mass  culture  mentioned  above.) 
Accommodating  different  cultures  in 
public  schools  counters  the  push  to  em- 
brace monocultural  white-bread  values, 
even  if  in  adapting  to  a  multi-ethnic 
society  each  individual  culture  begins 
to  change  too.  Moreover,  multicultural 
education  accurately  reflects  the  real 
"new  world  order,"  which  will  no  longer 
have  the  U.S.  and  European  culture  as 
its  imperial  standard.  In  adapting  to  a 
multi-polar,  multi-ethnic  world,  it's  cru- 
cial to  have  the  educational  opportuni- 
ties and  intensity  of  social  experience 
available  in  a  city  like  San  Francisco. 

In  1993,  though,  segregated  and  un- 
equal public  education  is  the  norm 
throughout  the  United  States.  The  at- 
tempt to  address  a  deeply  racist,  pre- 
dominantly segregated  society  by 
integrating  public  schools  (ignoring 
the  basic  question  of  wealth/invest- 
ment, etc.)  has  often  led  to  more  open- 
mindedness  and  less  overt  racism.  But 
that  apparent  achievement  by  "progres- 
sive forces"  has  proven  to  be  a  very 
limited  -  even  empty  -  victory.  School 
desegregation  has  been  isolated  and 
outflanked  by  white  flight,  privatization 
and  anti-tax  revolts  (like  the  1978  Cali- 
fornia Proposition  13).  Compare  al- 
most any  white  suburban  school  to  its 
non-white  urban  counterpart  and  the 


THIS  M«»fclH  W«IL» 


by  TOM  TOMORROW 


50WE.  PEOPLE  SELlEVfrj<AT  OUR  NATION'S  SCHOOLS 
5H0ULD  BE  PRlVATizea  AND  RUN  WITH  THE. 
FREE-VlAPKtT  EFRCiENCf  OF  OOR  MAJOR  CPR 
P0RATlOMS...mKW  LEAPS  US  TO  WINDER; 
WOULb  TH6  mEAN  THAT  SCHOOL  PRiNOPALS 
COOLD  REWARD  THEMSELVES  WITH  MOLTl-Zt^lU* 
LION  OoLLtKR.  BONUSES  /2E6AaDLE5S  OF  PEK" 
FORMANCE? 


-AND  50,  rm  PROUD  TO  PRESENT  THE  TW0  dRAD-l 

UAT/M&  membehs  or  the  class  of  •<13...      I 

1/^ 


WOULD  CORPORATE  RMDEES  TAKE  OVER  ELgMEN- 
TARt  SCHOOJi  IN  LeVEPAGED  BUYOUTS- 
ANb  THEM  SELL  OFF  THE  5CH0OL5'  ASSETS  TO 
PAY  OFF  THE  DEBTS  \NCuRRED? 


results  are  clear.  Overall  education 
spending  has  gone  up,  but  the  gap  be- 
tween rich  and  poor  is  wider  than  ever. 
Many  poor  districts  are  spending  less 
now  than  they  were  a  decade  ago.  Rich 
school  districts,  which  tax  their  local 
property  at  rates  far  below  poverty 
stricken  areas,  spend  as  much  as  five  to 
eight  times  as  much  as  nearby  poor 
districts.  The  result  is  sharp,  self-per- 
petuating racial  and  class  divisions. 

UNPACKING  EQUALITY 

Racial  integration  remains  an  im- 
portant goal  for  public  schools.  But  it  is 
patently  absurd  to  expect  integrated 
public  schools  alone  to  overcome  this 
society's  deeply  entrenched  institu- 
tional and  personal  racism.  School  inte- 
gration falls  even  farther  short  of  the 
mark  when  the  goal  is  "equality."  What 
is  the  "equal  education"  integrated 
schools  are  supposed  to  deliver?  Shall 
we  measure  equality  of  opportunity  or 
equality  of  results?  How  do  you  measure 
equality  of  opportunity?  In  dollars  per 
pupil?  By  holding  everyone  account- 
able to  some  national  standards  for 
spending,  facilities,  and  classroom  size? 
By  evaluating  teachers  and  determining 
teacher/student  ratios?  Certainly  equal 
education  mandates  national  standards 


IN  ORDER  TO  MA  1^1  mi ZE  PROFITS,  WOULD  TriE 
WASTEFUL  EKTEAVAOANCE  OF  LIVE  TEACHERi 
BE  eL|MINATEX)--lN   FA>iOR  OF  A  MORE  COST- 
EffiaEHX  AUTOMATED  INSTRUCTIONAI- 
WEfriOD? 


Al^D... WOULD  7WESE  PRWATl^ED  FlZEE- 
MAftXET  SCHOOLS  RESPOND  TC>  iNEVITASLE 
FOREIGM  COWPETiTiOM  IN  TME  TRADITION- 
AL /V^AMNER.  OF  AmEiZlC^N  eDSiWESS...  BY 
WW/V/A/6  AND  BE6&ING  FoR  GOVERN t^ENT 
HANDOUTS? 


regarding  equalized  resource  alloca- 
tion. 

But  even  if  resource  distribution 
were  equalized,  how  could  we  know  that 
it  led  to  equality?  Can  test  results  help 
us  assess  equal  education?  One  of  my 
earliest  lessons  in  critical  thinking  came 
in  the  10th  grade  when  we  engaged  in 
a  lengthy  analysis  of  the  stupidity  of 
grades  and  tests  as  meaningful  meas- 
urements of  anything.  Grades  are  obvi- 
ously highly  subjective,  and  after  a  brief 
analysis  even  the  most  "objective"  test 
turns  out  to  be  laden  with  racial  and 
class  biases  that  taint  any  results  it  may 
provide. 

Does  equal  education  mean  giving 
specific  cultural  communities  control 
over  curriculum  and  assessment?  Or 
does  "equality"  imply  instead  that  spe- 
cific cultures  should  be  subsumed 
within  the  larger  "community,"  and  eve- 
ryone evaluated  on  some  "objective"  na- 
tional norms?  If  so,  what  constitutes  the 
dominant  cultural  norm,  and  what 
makes  us  so  sure  it  is  sufiiciendy  fixed 
that  we  can  evaluate  whether  or  not 
people  have  been  adequately  trained  to 
meet  it? 

Is  there  some  new  way  of  under- 
standing and  appreciating  the  role  of 
education,  independent  of  measurable 


PROCESSED  WOULD  31 


results?  If  we  can  recreate  an  animated 
public  life,  the  participation  of  students 
and  young  adults  may  be  a  better  gauge 
of  good  education  than  any  test  results. 

"Equality,"  whether  witJi  respect  to 
educational  opportunity  or  outcome, 
or  even  citizenship,  is  one  of  the  am- 
biguous concepts  that  undergird  our 
similarly  vague  notions  of  "democracy." 
Democracy  remains  an  all-purpose,  ut- 
terly malleable  expression  that  encom- 
passes radical  egalitarianism, 
middle-class  meritocracy,  and  the  vio- 
lent, oligarchical  class-  and  race-divided 
society  in  which  we  are  allowed  an  occa- 
sional vote  for  pre-selected  candidates, 
representing  minor  differences  in  em- 
phasis rather  than  true  political  alterna- 
tives. The  concept  of  democracy  is 
elastic  enough  to  accommodate  even 
the  brutal  liquidation  of  minorities  in 
foreign  lands  under  the  auspices  of  U.S. 
intelligence  agencies  promoting  "ma- 
jority rule."  Whatever  definition  of 
"equality"  or  "democracy"  one  might 
choose  to  embrace,  there  will  surely  be 
several  dozen  others  embraced  just  as 
passionately. 

If  there  are  no  objective  standards 
for  evaluating  educational  success  or 
failure,  what  are  the  subjective  stand- 
ards and  whose  interests  do  they  repre- 
sent?  When  you  hear  someone 
addressing  the  failure  of  education, 


what  is  their  vision  of  success  and  what 
social  values  does  that  vision  embody? 
How  do  such  educational  goals  affect 
democracy?  How  does  a  democratic  so- 
ciety shape  its  public  sphere  without 
being  coercive?  In  other  words,  what 
are  the  limits  of  individual  freedom  in 
a  real  democracy? 

THE  MIND  ITSELF 

From  its  Jeffersonian  roots  in  the 
one-room  schoolhouse  of  mid-19th 
century  rural  America  to  its  expansion 
into  assimilation  factories  during  the 
great  waves  of  immigration  at  the  turn 
of  the  last  century,  public  schooling  has 
always  been  an  arena  of  conflicting  so- 
cial interests.  The  U.S.  ruling  class 
feared  generalized  literacy  for  many 
generations,  and  the  fight  for  public 
education  was  a  popular,  democratizing 
opposition  to  those  interests.  But  even 
in  its  most  progressive  forms,  educa- 
tion's structure  kept  it  well  within  the 
limits  of  capitalist  society. 

In  fact,  for  most  of  this  century, 
mandatory  public  schooling  primarily 
served  to  create  useful  workers  at  public 
expense  to  be  exploited  in  the  market- 
place for  private  gain.  Of  course,  the 
educators  assumed  they  were  serving 
society  at  large  and  generally  gave  littie 
thought  to  how  they  were  direcdy  filling 
the  needs  of  business.  Now  the  econ- 


omy has  become  increasingly  auto- 
mated and  the  demand  for  (fewer)  new 
workers  with  different  skills  has  grown. 

An  equally  important  purpose  of 
education  is  pacification.  Keep  the  kids 
unwaged  and  safely  within  institutions 
as  long  as  possible.  Adapt  them  to  pas- 
sive, isolated  lives  of  alienated  con- 
sumption at  best,  and  if  they  are 
well-connected  or  hard-working,  give 
them  a  repetitive,  meaningless  job.  For 
the  select  minority,  upscale  private 
schools  lead  to  expensive  private  uni- 
versities and  a  slot  in  the  policy-  and 
profit-making  professions. 

In  the  new  world  market,  the  prole- 
tarianizing  and  pacifying  model  of 
school  and  work  no  longer  holds  much 
promise.  In  the  old  economic  model, 
what  workers  thought  about  was  irrele- 
vant so  long  as  they  did  their  jobs  and 
didn't  cause  trouble.  Most  of  them 
"failed"  at  school  in  any  case.  With  the 
drastic  cheapening  of  manual  and 
manufacturing  labor  in  the  expanding 
world  market,  reform  rhetoric  stresses 
that  new,  supposedly  more  intelligent 
workers  are  needed  to  compete  success- 
ftiUy. 

Either  congealed  as  computerized 
data  or  as  human  capital,  thinking  itself 
is  now  a  necessary  prerequisite  for  capi- 
tal accumulation,  as  well  as  something 
to  be  accumulated.  Economic  competi- 


COMPETENT 
FOR  WHAT? 


Australia  is  currently  experiencing  a 
drive  to  reform  their  educational  system 
along  the  lines  pioneered  by  the  Thatcher 
Government  in  Britain.  The  new  policies 
being  developed  promote  vocational 
competence  over  academic  knowledge, 
with  "less  emphasis  on  students  as  self- 
determining  subjects ,  more  on  producing 
the  students  that  employers  want" These 
reforms  have  the  support  of  both  Labor 
(the  ACTU  [Australia  Central  Trades  Un- 
ion, equivalent  to  the  U.S.  AFL-CIO]  and 
Business  (the  Business  Council  of  Austra- 
lia), a  fact  that  has  contributed  to  their 
momentum  and  bi-partisan  acceptance. 
In  this  excerpted  version  of  his  article 
from  Arena  Magazine,  Simon  Marginson 
takes  a  critical  look  at  Australia's  push  for 
competency-based  reform  in  education.] 

Competency  is  the  new  buzzword  in 
education.  Competency  is  not  about  book 


learning  or  knowledge  per  se,  but  about 
what  people  can  do  in  the  workplace. 
Work-related  competence  tends  towards 
a  behaviorist  approach,  in  which  the  out- 
comes of  education  are  defined  in  terms 
of  transparent,  observable,  and  measur- 
able qualities  of  an  individual.  In  turn,  this 
narrows  the  educational  program  and  the 
normal  curriculum  becomes  closed  to  all 
but  vocational  objectives.  Other  objec- 
tives become  exceptional  and  must  be 
fought  for  every  time.  Most  important,  the 
outer  limits  of  what  students,  and  to  some 
extent  workers,  are  able  to  achieve  are  set 
by  the  imagination  and  generosity  of  the 
designers  of  the  competency  measure- 
ment. 

An  Australian  Government  Committee 
set  up  to  develop  educational/vocational 
"generic  competencies"  has  defined 
seven  "Key  Competency  Strands"  as  fol- 
lows: 

D  Collecting,  analysing  and  organiz- 
ing ideas  and  information; 

D  Expressing  ideas  and  information; 

D  Planning  and  organizing  activities; 

D  Working  with  others  and  in  teams; 


n  Using  mathematical  ideas  and  tech- 
niques; 

D  Solving  problems; 

D  Using  technology. 

The  competencies  are  free  of  context 
and  content.  The  idea  is  that  the  generic 
competencies  are  the  same  in  all  fields  of 
education  and  work  —  that  it  should  be 
possible  to  measure,  say,  problem-solv- 
ing skills  in  physics  and  electrical  engi- 
neering so  as  to  render  them  equivalent 
to  problem  solving  in  studying  Indonesian 
or  sculpture.  'Skills'  are  to  be  homoge- 
nized and  socialized;  the  centersof  power 
remain  heterogenous,  uneven  and  pri- 
vate. 

Measured  generic  competencies 
would  enable  employers  to  decide  which 
future  workers  will  be  suitably  flexible, 
malleable,  and  transferrable  —  the  ideal 
subjects  for  management.  Many  employ- 
ers distrust  educational  credentials  as  se- 
lection criteria,  and  with  good  reason: 
academic  training  as  such  does  not  con- 
stitute preparation  for  work. 

In  economic  debate,  the  case  for  com- 
petency-based reform  is  grounded  in  the 


48 


PDOCESSED  WORLD  31 


tiveness,  we  are  told,  now  depends  on 
die  expansion  of  "knowledge  work"  and 
the  creation  of  more  flexible  "knowl- 
edge workers."  Therefore,  education 
reform  must  colonize  the  mind  in  new 
ways.  Education  reformers  seek  a  new 
style  of  schooling  that  will  turn  more 
human  thinking  into  work,  which  will 
insure  further  capital  accumulation 
(the  real  measurement  of  "health"  in 
our  society) .  For  this  project  to  succeed, 


students  must  -    at  a  higher  level  and 
more  comprehensively  than  before  - 
accept  their  role  as  trainees  in  search  of 
scarce  niches  in  the  projects  of  transna- 
tional capital. 

The  extension  of  capitalist  disci- 
pline from  the  muscle  to  the  brain  has 
been  underway  for  decades  in  the  re- 
structuring of  work  and  leisure  and  the 
amazing  expansion  of  merchandising 
and  mass  media  (this  is  sometimes  re- 


ferred to  theoretically  as  the  change 
from  "the  formal"  to  "the  real"  domina- 
tion of  capital).  To  ensure  its  control  of 
our  imaginations,  modern  capitalism 
requires  more  than  the  threat  of  unem- 
ployment or  even  homelessness.  We 
must  be  sold  on  active  and  enthusiastic 
participation.  Everyone  must  work  for  a 
"healthy"  economy!  We  must  do  a  good 
job!  The  problem  for  capitalist  educa- 
tion planners  is  producing  enthusiastic 
workers  with  extremely  narrow  compe- 
tence. 

President  Clinton  promises  great  re- 
forms in  education  to  bolster  U.S.  com- 
petitiveness in  the  world  market. 
Robert  Reich,  his  Secretary  of  Labor, 
wrote  recendy:  "There  is  no  simple  way 
to  enlarge  upon  the  number  of  Ameri- 
cans eligible  for  the  high-wage  jobs  of 
the  future.  More  money  for  education 
and  training  is  necessary,  but  is  hardly 
sufficient.  The  money.. .must  be  focused 
on  building  two  key  capacities  in  the 
workforce:  first,  the  ability  to  engage  in 
lifelong  learning,  and  second,  the  of>- 
portunity  to  engage  in  it  on  the  job.  The 
most  important  intellectual  (and  eco- 
nomic) asset  which  a  new  entrant  into 
the  workforce  can  possess  is  the  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  learn."  [S.F.  ChronicleDec. 
5, 1992] 

Clinton,  firmly  within  the  main- 
stream of  the  ruling  class  in  his  alle- 


now  familiar  argument  about  the  need  for 
international  competitiveness.  It  is  na- 
ively assumed  that  if  workers'  competen- 
cies are  increased,  then  their  productivity 
will  rise  automatically,  along  with  their 
contribution  to  wealth  creation  and  meas- 
ured economic  growth.  Economic  pro- 
ductivity is  a  function  of  jobs,  rather  than 
the  attributes  of  people,  and  there  is 
plenty  of  evidence  that  existing  skills  are 
under-used  in  the  workplace. 

The  ACTU  also  sees  competency  re- 
form as  the  basis  for  a  more  egalitarian 
and  meritocratic  system  of  work  organi- 
zation and  selection,  objectives  of  little 
interest  to  employers.  Competency  meas- 
urement is  seen  as  a  way  of  overcoming 
the  old  divisions  of  power  and  status  in 
which  educational  advantage  was  always 
coupled  to  social  advantage.  The  ACTU 
says  that  competency  reform  will  mean 
that  unions  will  no  longer  act  for  their 
membership  according  to  a  model  of  col- 
lective struggle.  Rather,  they  will  provide 
'professional  development  assistance  and 
career  advice'  for  individual  members.  ... 


However,  these  'happy'  outcomes 
depend  on  the  willingness  of  the  employ- 
ers to  fully  utilize  workers'  competencies 
and  to  pay  them  accordingly.  There  is  no 
guarantee  of  this.  Further,  a  more  merito- 
cratic system  can  only  be  created  if  com- 
petency reform  is  extended  to  the 
regulation  of  university  entrance  and  uni- 
versity credential!  ng,  including  full  recog- 
nition of  work  experience  as  the  basis  for 
entry  into  formal  education.  These 
changes  are  unlikely  to  be  achieved,  and 
the  old  divisions  of  power  and  status  will 
remain  as  the  distinction  between  the 
academically  trained  and  the  competency 
trained. 

Competency-based  training  is  a  prin- 
cipal example  of  what  Foucault  has  called 
'technologies  of  the  social'  -  systems  of 
regulation  that  are  designed  at  one  and 
the  same  time  to  mold  individuals  and  to 
control  the  relationship  of  social  groups. 
Formal  educational  institutions  perform 
certain  social  functions  that  have  become 
indispensible  to  modern  production  and 
governance.  Education  is  where  subjec- 
tivities are  formed.  The  reorganization  of 


education  to  produce  competence  is  the 
latest  and  most  effective  of  a  long  line  of 
policies  designed  to  ensure  that  the  kind 
of  people  produced  in  education  are  cen- 
tered on  work. 

What  is  at  stake  today  is  work  of  a 
particular  kind.  Controlled  flexibility  is 
seen  as  the  key  to  industrial  performance. 
Competency-based  reform  has  its  sights 
on  the  modernized,  universal,  polyvalent 
worker  whose  desire  for  autonomy  and 
control  is  redefined  as  the  desire  for  an 
individual  career,  based  on  a  history  of 
compliance  and  programmed  responses. 

Of  course  for  many  trainees  in  compe- 
tency there  will  be  no  jobs  to  be  had, 
multiskilled  or  not.  Here  the  chameleon- 
like education  system  plays  other,  equally 
important  roles.  Education  delays  entry 
into  an  over-stocked  labor  market  while 
transferring  the  responsibility  for  unem- 
ployment, poverty  and  failure  from  gov- 
ernment and  employers  to  teachers, 
individual  students  and  their  families. 

—Arena  Magazine,  Box  18  P.O.  North 
Carlton,  Victoria,  Australia  3054 


PROCESSED  WOBLD  31 


giance  to  the  market  as  the  source  of 
human  improvement,  sold  educational 
reform  as  Governor  of  Arkansas  by 
pitching  it  as  the  basis  for  economic 
renewal,  "...the  plain  evidence  in  every 
state  in  this  country  is  that  you  must 
have  a  higher  threshold  of  people  with 
college  degrees  if  you  want  low  unem- 
ployment-not  because  most  of  the  new 
jobs  in  the  economy  will  require  college 
degrees;  mostof 'em  won't  But  because 
most  of  them  will  be  created  by  entre- 
preneurs who  have  that  kind  of  educa- 
tion." [American  Educator,  Fall  1992] 

But  what  about  the  majority  who  will 
be  forced  into  the  bottom  tier  of  our 
2-tiered  society,  left  to  fight  for  those 
jobs  that  "don't  require  college  de- 
grees"? Clearly  work  has  been  restruc- 
tured to  the  point  where  most  jobs  do 
not  need  much  prior  training.  As  long 
as  you  "know  how  to  learn,"  you  can 
become  an  efficient  worker  in  a  matter 
of  minutes,  or  at  most,  days.  Schooling 
as  it  is  now  prepares  one  for  long  hours 
of  repetitive,  uncreative  labor.  Will  the 
reformers  extend  academic  tracking 
even  further  to  try  to  prevent  the  bot- 
tom-tier from  becoming  too  critical  and 
aware?  If  not,  how  can  the  system  sur- 
vive if  most  of  the  people  who  are  con- 
demned to  part-time  and  precarious 
temporary  work  are  able  to  think  criti- 


cally about  their  situation?  The  hegem- 
ony of  the  capitalist  way  of  life  may 
erode  rapidly  if  educational  reforms  ac- 
tually produce  more  thoughtful  citi- 
zens. 

A  more  realistic  forecast  is  that 
schools  won't  change  much.  New 
books,  curriculum,  and  tests  will  be  an- 
nounced with  much  to-do,  while  the 
underlying  reality  of  education  won't 
budge.  Fortunately,  learning  is  more 
about  experiences  than  curriculum. 
Whatever  reforms  are  implemented, 
real  education  will  come  from  the  rela- 
tionships formed  in  and  around  each 
classroom.  The  increase  in  parent  par- 
ticipation in  public  schools  gives  us  all 
an  opportunity  to  bring  the  experi- 
ences we  think  are  important  into  our 
kids'  education.  The  focus  and  scope  of 
learning  is  always  being  contested,  and 
we  can  intimately  affect  them  if  we  want 
to. 

SWAMP  SURFING 

I  have  a  daughter  in  the  3rd  grade 
who  attends  an  alternative  public 
school.  The  school  retains  some  of  the 
spirit  of  its  founding  in  the  early  '70s, 
with  faculty  and  parents  who  are 
strongly  committed  not  only  to  parent 
participation,  but  to  alternative  peda- 
gogy, integrated  cultures,  ages,  and 


grades,  and  conflict  resolution  as  well. 
Rather  than  serving  under  a  principal, 
the  school's  faculty  elects  a  "head 
teacher,"  a  job  that  rotates.  It's  very  ra- 
cially balanced,  with  no  group  over 
30%.  This  year  the  school  has  been  a 
pilot  test  site  for  an  alternative  ap- 
proach to  curriculum  in  which  kids  se- 
lect special  interdisciplinary  projects  - 
beginning  oceanography,  farmers* 
market  calendar,  multicultural  cook- 
book, kids'  guide  to  Bay  Area  Transit, 
pre-Colombian  ocean  kayaks  -  that 
they  work  on  intensively  for  3-6  weeks. 
By  most  standards,  this  school  is  a  gem. 

Having  listed  its  rosy  attributes,  I 
have  to  say  that  it  is  still  a  public  school. 
The  building  is  cramped  and  awful,  sur- 
rounded by  a  big  asphalt  yard.  Parents 
chip  in  up  to  $300  to  pay  a  Phys  Ed 
instructor's  salary,  for  which  there  is  no 
public  funding.  The  library  is  a  large 
closet,  and  the  nearby  city  library  only 
allows  classes  to  visit  once  a  year!  My 
child  is  often  bored.  I  don't  think  she  is 
challenged  by  a  lot  of  what  she  does  all 
day,  but  I  don't  blame  the  school  or  the 
teacher  because  I  think  both  are  good. 

The  frustration  comes  when  you  be- 
gin to  imagine  how  different  schooling 
could  be  if  it  were  more  integrated  into 
the  web  of  daily  life.  Children  are  curi- 
ous and  infrequentiy  satisfied  by  the 


so 


PROCESSED  WOULD  3< 


knowledge  gained  through  school.  But 
if  you  let  them  help  do  a  real  job  that 
needs  doing,  the  experience  is  much 
more  meaningful,  and  teaches  the 
child  to  believe  in  her  own  experiences 
rather  than  representations  of  other 
people's  experiences.  Practical  knowl- 
edge of  mechanics,  gardening,  comput- 
ers, transportation,  and  so  on,  are  all 
more  thoroughly  and  interestingly  ab- 
sorbed from  being  out  in  the  world,  not 
from  sitting  around  listening  to  lec- 
tures, watching  videos,  or  even  reading 
books  (although  they  have  their  place) . 
But  life  is  not  organized  to  accommo- 
date groups  of  children  participating 
usefully.  And  we  know  that  it  is  not 
education's  goal  to  produce  active,  in- 
quisitive, resourceful  people.  Even  al- 
ternative schools  foster  socially- 
approved  attitudes  and  behaviors. 

It's  a  cop-out  to  blame  everything  on 
the  institutions  that  constrain  our  lives. 
Because  the  really  great  things  that  hap- 
pened to  me  in  the  educational  envi- 
ronment were  nearly  always  social,  I 
recognize  my  responsibility  to  enter  the 
educational  swamp.  Unless  I  opt  for 


homeschooling,  I  will  continue  sharing 
my  daughter's  development  with  public 
schools.  The  least  I  can  do  (which  is 
unfortunately  usually  all  that  I  do)  is  to 
go  on  camping  and  field  trips  and  get 
involved  with  the  kids  and  other  adults. 
I  bring  a  different  perspective  to  the 
school  environment,  and  I  love  meeting 
people  from  other  walks  of  life,  which 
always  leads  to  interesting  exchanges. 

Of  course,  most  parents  have  to 
work  all  day  and  don't  have  time  to 
make  up  for  the  inadequacies  of  public 
schooling  by  volunteering  for  extracur- 
ricular activities.  Hinging  improved 
schooling  on  parent  participation  en- 
dorses the  generalized  speed-up  and 
intensification  of  labor  that  is  already 
exhausting  most  working  people.  While 
admirable,  the  incredible  number  of 
hours  parents  spend  raising  money 
through  thankless  garage  and  bake 
sales,  raffles  and  carnivals,  passes  a  pub- 
lic cost  onto  theirhacks  and  extends  their 
work  week.  Yet  somehow,  we  who  are 
committed  to  radical  change  must  find 
the  extra  energy,  time  and  effort  to  par- 
ticipate in  arenas  such  as  public  school. 


even  if  in  the  short  term  it  just  feels  like 
more  (unrewarded)  work. 

My  daughter's  entire  school  takes  a 
camping  trip  to  nearby  San  Bruno 
Mountain  every  October.  I've  partici- 
pated three  times  now.  When  I  showed 
up  at  San  Bruno  Mountain  this  year,  two 
boys  with  whom  I'd  shared  a  cabin 
nearly  a  year-and-a-half  earlier  came 
running  up  to  me,  excitedly  yelling  my 
name.  I  suddenly  realized  how  much 
the  time  I'd  spent  playing  and  talking 
with  them  meant  to  them.  During  that 
earlier  trip,  I  had  felt  rather  over- 
whelmed. I  did  my  best  to  treat  the  boys 
well  and  show  them  respect,  but  at  the 
time  I  v^ras  struck  by  how  fundamentally 
impossible  the  public  school  teacher's 
job  is.  How  can  one  adult  give  30-odd 
kids  the  enormous  emotional  and  intel- 
lectual energy  and  discipline  they 
need?  A  lot  of  kids  don't  get  much  of 
this  at  home,  and  when  they  get  to 
school,  they  need  a  lot. 

Although  the  problems  children 
face  are  not  going  to  be  solved  by  any 
one  relationship,  you  cannot  underesti- 
mate the  importance  of  honest  friend- 
ship. This  society  is  a  very  cold  place, 
and  many  kids  never  experience  other 
people's  trust  and  confidence,  or  get  to 
discuss  things  with  someone  interested 
in  their  opinion.  Even 
a  brief  encounter  with 
someone  who  helps 
you  understand  why 
things  are  as  crazy  as 
they  are  can  make  a 
huge  difference  in  sur- 
viving this  absurd  soci- 
ety. 

Helping  to  dispell 
children's  confusion 
has  everything  to  do 
with  the  shape  and 
content  of  future  social  movements. 
Ways  of  thinking  and  relating  to  others 
are  inculcated  early.  A  culture  enriched 
by  difficult  questions  and  dialogue 
could  help  spawn  a  21st-century  genera- 
tion of  revolutionaries  worthy  of  the 
name.  We  all  have  a  lot  to  contribute  in 
making  that  culture  a  living  reality.  But 
this  means  reinhabiting  public  life,  cre- 
ating and  participating  in  public  events, 
and  challenging  the  fatigue  and  passiv- 
ity that  keeps  so  many  of  us  home  watch- 
ing TV  instead  of  out  among  our 
friends,  neighbors,  and  strangers.  Can 
we  rise  to  the  occasion? 

-  Chris  Carlsson 


graphic;  cc 


PROCESSED  WORLD  3< 


S« 


Commemorating  Operation 
Give  'Em  Enough  Hype  this 
beatitiful figurine  lovingly 
re-creates  the  image  of  U.S. 
fiireign  policy  through  the 
magic  medium  of  the 
NewCaste''  sculpting  process. 


Hungry  Mohammed 

Honoring  the  proud  heritage  of  the 
starving  Somali  people,  the  Conoco 
Mint  in  assocation  with  the  Pentagon  is 
proud  to  present  this  magnificent 
collector  doll — Hungry  Mohammed 

Designed  by  the  same  team  that  created  such  unique  porcelain 
treasures  as  Kumar  the  Gratejul  Kurd,  and  Henri  the  Homebound 
Haitian,  Hungry  Mohammed's  emaciated  features  are  lovingly 
handcrafted  in  bisque  porcelain. 

Re-created  with  unprecedented  care  and  accuracy,  and  clothed  in 
authentic  rags  hand-sewn  by  U.N,  relief  workers,  Hungry 
Mohammed  is  extraordinarily  lifelike — detail  for  detail  as 
heartwrenching  as  the  original. 

Days  after  the  crisis  has  faded  from  ourTV  screens,  you  will  admire 
and  cherish  the  exquisite  craftmanship  of  this  stirring  miniature, 
and  the  though  tfiilness  of  your  investment. 

A  Conoco  Mint  exclusive,  Hungry  Mohammed  is  attractively 
priced  at  $175,  payable  in  five  monthly  installments  of  $35,  the 
first  due  prior  to  shipment.  Send  no  money  now.  Simply  return 
your  Reservation  Application  today.  Order  before  June  14,  1993 
and  you  will  receive  a  ftilly  functional  begging  bowl  absolutely  free! 


The  Conoco  Mint 
1600  Pennsylvania  Ave.  NW  •  Washington,  DC  20500 


r 


RESERVATION  APPLICATION 


n 


YES,  I  CARE!  Please  accept  my  reservation  for  Hungry  Mohammed,  a  beautiful 
collectordoU  with  emaciated  featuresof  fine  porcelain.  ACertificateofAuthenti  city 
and  stand  are  included  at  no  additional  charge.  I  will  pay  for  my  doll  in  five 
monthly  installments  of  $35,  the  first  to  be  billed  before  shipment. 

Name  &  I.D.  Number 

Address 


City  . 


State  of  Mind  , 


Zip 


Check  here  if  you  want  each  installment  charged  to  your: 

□  Visor         G  Master  Race         □  Discoverer       G  American  Excess 

Credit  Card  Number  Expiration  Date  

Signature 

Name  to  print  on  Certificate  of  Authenticity  , 

(if  different  from  above). 


98%  Lean 


L 


Please  allow  4  to  8  weeks  after  initial  payment  for  shipment. 


J 


REVIEWS 


MIDNIQHT  OIL:  Work,  Energy,  War 
1973-1993  by  the  Midnight  Notes  Col- 
lective ($12,  Autonomedia,  POB  568 
Williamsburg  Station,  Brooklyn,  NY 
11211-0568) 

I  was  reading  Midnight  Oily/hen  the 
news  was  published  in  late  January  1993 
that  Conoco,  Amoco,  Chevron  and 
Phillips  had  exclusive  concessions  to 
about  two-thirds  of  Somalia's  future  oil 
and  gas  discoveries.  Conoco's  head- 
quarters, the  only  multinational  corpo- 
rate office  still  open  through  Somalia's 
civil  war,  became  the  de  facto  American 
embassy  when  the  U.S.  military  moved 
in. 

With  this  knowledge,  the  Somalian 
"humanitarian"  effort  became  more 
understandable,  and  strongly  illustrates 
the  Midnight  Notes  Collective's  thesis 
that  recent  history  must  be  seen  firom 
the  working  class  point  of  view  through 
the  lens  of  petroleum. 

The  collective  basically  sees  eco- 
nomic crisis  as  capital's  response  to  the 
working  class  movements  (working 
class  defined  as  broadly  as  possible)  of 
the  late  '60s  and  early  '70s,  which  man- 
aged to  win  major  increases  in  wages 
and  social  benefits.  Oil  price  shocks  in 
1973-74  ended  the  post-war  "deal,"  be- 
ginning the  rollback  of  living  standards. 
Later,  after  1979,  cheap  oil  was  reim- 
posed  as  an  attack  on  the  heightened 
expectations  of  the  people  of  oil-pro- 
ducing countries,  with  a  subsequent  ex- 
plosion of  international  debt.  This  in 
turn  allowed  (and  still  allows)  capital  to 
force  dov«i  living  standards  in  nation 
after  nation  through  "structural  adjust- 
ment programs"  imposed  by  the  IMF 
and  World  Bank.  The  need  for  contin- 
ued high  production  demands  new  in- 
vestments, but  capital  is  unwilling  to 
invest  when  the  proletariat  threatens  to 
not  work  hard  enough  for  littie  enough. 
According  to  Midnight  Oil  and  its  very 
informative  and  detailed  account  of  the 
economy  of  the  six  million  guest  work- 
ers in  the  Middle  East,  these  many  peo- 
ple and  their  expectations  of  sharing 
the  oil  wealth  were  a  major  source  of 
fear  for  international  capital.  Before 
capital  would  reinvest  massively  in  oil 
production  in  the  Middle  East,  it  had  to 
be  confident  of  its  control  there  and 
back  in  the  major  market,  the  U.S. 
When  Americans  accepted  the  Persian 
Gulf  War  in  the  Middle  East,  both  ends 
were  achieved,  at  least  for  the  moment: 


A  Post-Good  Life  Generation? 

We're  living  in  tlie  Age  of  Piummeting  Expectations  and  most  people  seem  sadly  resigned  to 

ttiis  fate.  Ecological  disasters,  more  wars,  depression  -  you  know.  As  the  next  millenlum 

approaches,  prophets  (and  profits)  of  doom  are  a  dime  a  dozen.  But  what  constitutes  a 

future  worth  living  for?  Certainly  not  more  of  the  long  bankrupt  American  Dream!  Life  could 

be  so  much  better  -  what's  your  idea  about  a  better  life?  The  next  Processed  World  will  be 

dedicated  to  "The  Future  of  the  Future."  Please  contribute! 


the  Middle  East  is  completely  milita- 
rized and  millions  of  potentially  trou- 
blesome guest  workers  have  been  sent 
back  to  Egypt,  Pakistan,  Sri  Lanka,  and 
Malaysia.  Meanwhile,  the  "peace  move- 
ment" and  their  antecedents  in  the  anti- 
nuke,  pro-alternative  technology  crowd 
were  rendered  practically  mute  in  the 
face  of  the  onslaught.  (See  also  in  Mid- 
night Oil  "Strange  Victories,"  an  essay 
included  from  the  first  issue  oi  Midnight 
Notesin  1979,  written  by  bolo'bolo author 
p.m.,  which  examines  exactiy  who  the 
anti-nuke  movement  was  in  terms  of 
class,  race  and  sociology) .  Oil  compa- 
nies have  been  free  to  raise  the  price  of 
oil  over  30%  in  the  past  year  in  the  U.S., 
while  there  is  no  longer  any  public  dis- 
cussion about  abolishing  the  massive 
use  of  fossil  fuels  as  soon  as  possible. 
Military  occupation  of  Saudi  Arabia  and 
Kuwait  and  the  maintenance  of  a  police 
state  in  Iraq,  as  well  as  the  theocracy  in 
Iran,  all  work  to  hold  down  the  people 
of  those  countries  and  preserve  the  ex- 
tremes of  wealth  and  poverty. 

Midnight  Oil  incorporates  essays 
from  Midnight  Notes  during  the  '80s,  in- 
cluding several  from  the  recent  "New 


Enclosures"  issue.  A  number  of  pieces 
from  the  original  1975  Zerowork  are  re- 
published here  and  lay  out  some  of  the 
theoretical  foundations  of  the  Mid- 
night Notes  perspective.  The  opening 
100  pages  of  the  book  are  all  new,  offer- 
ing some  of  MN's  best  work  ever  once 
you  get  used  to  the  emphasis  on  work- 
ing class  composition,  re-composition 
and  de-composition  as  explanatory 
concepts. 

Midnight  Notes'  emphasis  on  see- 
ing things  from  the  working  class  point 
of  view  provides  a  refreshing  reminder 
of  the  usefulness  of  some  of  Marx's 
original  analyses  about  the  broader 
categories  of  capitalist  society.  I  have 
quibbled  with  my  friends  at  MN  for 
years  over  the  semantic  emphasis  on 
capital  and  the  working  class,  as  though 
there  were  two  clear  entities  making 
unified  but  opposed  plans  and  taking 
action  on  them.  I  occasionally  feel  like 
I'm  hearing  a  crackpot  conspiracy  the- 
ory. But  Midnight  Oil  overcame  that 
with  clear  although  abstract  analysis. 
They  still  use  language  that  can  sound 
silly  and  conspiratorial,  not  to  mention 
a  bit  stodgy,  but  given  the  real  course  of 


PROCESSED  WOBLD  31 


33 


events  during  the  past  20  years,  it  is 
fascinating  how  their  analysis  parallels 
and  predicts  history.  The  next  time  you 
want  to  go  deeper  than  "Those  Unfair 
Oil  Companies!"  or  "No  Blood  for  Oil" 
or  "Why  is  the  Middle  East  so  crazy?"  get 
yourself  a  copy  of  Midnight  Oi/and  setde 
in  for  an  illuminating,  challenging,  and 
extremely  informative  read. 
-  Chris  Carlsson 

The  Art  and  Sdcncc  of  Dumpstcr  Div- 
ing by  John  Hoffman  Copyright  1993 
(Loompanics  Unlimited,  P.O.Box 
1197,  Port  Townsend,  WA  98368 
$12.95) 

The  Art  &  Science  ofDumpster  Diving 
made  me  late  for  work  twice  and  almost 
miss  my  train  stop  once.  I  have  a  fragile 
stomach  and  it  turns  over  at  the  thought 
of  diving  into  a  dumpster  or  even  read- 
ing a  book  on  the  subject.  I  changed  my 
mind  at  the  sight  of  the  bright  cover  by 
Ace  Backwords,  a  cartoonist  oft  publish- 
ed in  these  pages. 

The  earnestness  and  aptness  of  this 
book  is  fascinating  in  these  fragile  times . 
Here  is  the  wisdom  gleaned  from  a  life- 
time practice  of  dumpster  diving  as 
both  a  means  of  survival  and  an  art 
form.  There  is  advice  about  what  to 
wear,  look  for,  avoid  and  how  to  behave 
with  people  you  encounter  diving  such 
as  competitors,  residents,  cops  and 
building  managers.  And  watch  out  for 
glass  and  beware  of  bio-hazards  such  as 
red  pouched  "sharps"  in  hospital  waste 
bins. 

Raucous  happiness  underscores  his 
every  description  of  people  engaging  in 
economic  activities  such  as  dumpster- 
ing  that  deny  the  taxman  and  various 
local  profiteers  any  gain.  Beyond  mere 
physical  survival,  the  spirit  of  diving 
gives  "Hoffmanville"  its  identity  as  a  col- 
lective endeavor.  Hoffman  conveys  well 
the  individual  and  sharedjoys,  learning 
and  discoveries  of  these  forays. 

Hoffman  points  out  that  grassroots 
trash  recyclers  re-inject  wealth  into  the 
economy  and  save  a  lot  of  dump  site 
space.  But  too  littie  and  too  late.  Recy- 
cling works  well  only  when  discards  are 
sorted  at  the  household  level.  If  your 
neighbors  are  as  subhuman  as  mine 
are,  good  luck  getting  the  work  done! 
Local  laws,  locked  dumpster  areas  (gar- 
bage is  precious  private  property!)  and 
trash  compactors  are  used  to  frustrate 
the  whole  dumpster  underground 
economy  and  should  be  actively  fought 
(see  "W.O.R.C.  will  make  you  free"  on 
page  119,  that's  "War  On  Refuse  Com- 


pactors".) In  truth,  I  recycle,  that  means 
sort,  my  garbage  and  do  not  care  who 
takes  it.  This  is  controversial  in  places 
where  people  think  the  city  or  half- 
assed  non-profit  organization  should 
make  a  buck  at  it.  Not  so  in  this  book: 

"Think  about  the  stupidity!  Dumpster 
divers  and  small  recyclers  are  working  effi- 
ciently, recycling  things  and  injecting  money 
into  the  economy.  The  waste  recovery  plant 
lives  off  tax  money  like  a  junkie,  sucking  the 
local  economy  dry.  Who  gets  blamed?  The 
dumpster  diver  of  course!  And  when  he  stops 
picking  through  the  trash,  the  facility  still 
doesn't  make  any  money.  And  it  will  never 
make  money  because  the  whole  idea  is  flawed 
from  the  start,  based  upon  an  irrational  fear 
of  garbage. "  (page  125) 

There  is  more  here  than  dumpster 
diving  techniques  and  wilted  vegie  reci- 
pes, etiquette  and  fashion.  There's  the 
Loompanics  libertarian  I-Love-Guns 
persona  with  amazing  Inalienable 
American  Rights  to  bear  arms  and  con- 
stitutionally topple  any  iniquitous  gov- 
ernment. But  stay  away  from  the  cops, 
they're  nothing  but  trouble: 

"Cops  piss  me  off.  They  come  at  you  with 
an  attitude  that  you  are  guilty  and  they  are 
going  to  get  you  to  admit  it  mth  a  few  verbal 
tricks.  Just  once,  I'd  like  to  meet  a  pig  with 


an  attitude  like  I  have  a  shining  aura  of  civil 
rights  around  my  body  and  possessions. 
Criminals  with  guns  and  badges,  that's  all 
they  are.  "  (page  58). 

It's  indeed  lamentably  obvious  that 
cops  are  trained  in  harassment  tech- 
niques and  lack  concern  for  the  rem- 
nants of  civic  liberties.  At  least  in  my 
adopted  hometown,  Berkeley.  No  Peo- 
ple's Republic  but  Pig  Sty  Supreme. 
"'Nuff  said". 

Hofirnan  convinced  me  that  there  is 
hidden  treasure  in  the  bins,  that 
dumspter  diving  is  a  respectable  occu- 
pation and  even  better,  a  subversion  of 
the  consumer  society.  He  has  a  predis- 
position for  what  he  calls  "post-apoca- 
lyptic" landscapes  and  attitudes.  I 
personally  don't  twig  to  apocalyptic  vi- 
sions, especially  when  they  are  com- 
bined with  the  closing  of  the  second 
christian  millennium.  But  I  appreciate 
the  images  Hoffman  evokes  and  his  way 
of  living  off  the  plentiful  discards  and 
discords  of  our  consumer  society. 

There's  lots  of  juicy  stuff  on  the  art 
of  putting  "found  information"  to  good 
use,  and  bushels  of  illegal  possibilities 
should  the  reader  be  half  a  jailbird  at 
heart.  The  worst  story  was  garbage  mail 
being  used  by  a  "church  lady"  and  her 


S4 


PnOCESSED  WOBLD  3« 


group  to  close  an  abortion  clinic.  The 
enemy  is  using  this  found  shit  and  so 
should  you.  That's  the  book  talking,  not 
me...  really,  Officer. 

The  best  stories  were  on  how  to 
make  your  local  legislator  look  bad  in 
the  press  through  a  careful  read  of  his 
discarded  info.  Pohce  mail  is  the  best. 

Sexy  pictures  from  neighbors  or 
high  school  classmates  aren't  bad 
either.  And  the  future  is  now: 

"In  the  last  few  years,  I  have  seen  an 
amazing  dumpster  phenomenon.  People  are 
discarding  jloppy  disks  and  computer  related 
material  by  the  ton....  Finding  a  floppy  disk 
is  like  finding  a  cabinet  full  of  papers  -  but 
in  a  compact,  easy-to-use  format.  Once,  I 
actually  found  the  famous  PLO  virus.  No 
wonder  they  threw  it  away. "  (page  139) 

There  is  a  somewhat  didactic  tone 
which  can  annoy  the  reader.  But  hey! 
Hoffman  is  a  survivalist  (without  the 
vengeance,  which  he  deplores  as  com- 
mon amongst  that  group  ) . 

He  preziches  his  stuff  with  plenty  of 
religious  fervor  and  admonitions  to  have 
fun  at  it,  get  back  at  the  enemy  (power 
companies,  taxman,  retail  industries, 
banks...),  use  your  imagination  and  thrive 
in  the  cracks  of  a  dying  capitalist  economic 
web.  There  is  a  downplayed  survivalist  anti- 
abortion  stance  perhaps  because  the  more 
(armed  survivalists)  the  merrier?  Women 
have  the  inalienable  right  to  their  body  at 
all  times  in  my  script  Hoflfrnan's  bias  also 
shows  in  the  statement  that  businesses  are 
a  fix)nt  for  government 

"Ifthegorvemment  demanded  all  persons 
buying  books  show  proper  ID,  K-Mart  would 
slavishly  obey  the  edict.  Don 't  pity  the  "poor 
businessman",  he's  a  whore  for  the  govern- 
ment. You  might  as  well  be  shopping  at  the 
IBS  store..."  (page  100) 

I  used  to  think  that  governments 
were  a  front  for  businesses,  then  I  grew 
up.  Now  I  know  it  is  a  two-headed  Cere- 
bus.  Don't  hesitate  to  use  the  singular: 
BIZGOV. 

The  most  basic  advice  works  regard- 
less of  your  ideological  leanings.  Don't 
pay  full  price  if  you  don't  have  to,  mat- 
tresses being  the  sole  exception  accord- 
ing to  the  author.  I  know  a  lot  of  people 
whose  predilection  favors  flea  markets 
above  malls  for  the  thrill  and  challenge 
of  barter  and  that's  what  Hoffman 
pushes:  free  thrills.  And  a  cash  bonus  to 
boot.  "THAR'S  GOLD  IN  THEM 
THAR  DUMPSTERS!"  He  claims  it's 
better  than  bill  posting  or  spray  paint- 
ing because  it  furthers  family  interests. 
Well,  to  each  her  cup  of  tea. 


In  the  meantime  and  as  times  do  get 
mean  (have  been  getting  meaner  for- 
ever really),  Hoffman  does  his  part  in 
sharing  his  way  to  get  from  under  the 
heavy  economic  boot  of  the  "best  sys- 
tem in  the  world",  well  known  for  its 
recurrent  crashes,  depressions,  reces- 
sions, etc.  So  if  you  have  a  steady  nose, 
go  hound  out  those  treasures.  It  could 
be  a  fun  hunt  The  book  certainly  is  a 
fun  read. 

-  Petraleuze 


DOWNSIZE  ME 
WILL  YOU?!? 


Graphic:  CC 


THE  LONDON  HANQED:  Crime 
and  Civil  Sodety  in  18th  Ccntuiy  Eng- 
land by  Peter  Linebaugh  (Cambridoc 
University  Press,  New  York:  1992)  $25 

Midnight  Notes  contributor  Peter 
Linebaugh,  once  a  student  of 
reknowned  British  labor  historian  E.P. 
Thompson,  has  fulfilled  the  promise  of 
that  apprenticeship  by  publishing  an 
incredibly  detailed  account  of  the  use 
of  capital  punishment  in  London  from 
the  late  iVth  century  through  the  18th 
century.  This  is  a  long,  very  serious 
book,  that  microscopically  covers  the 
daily  lives  of  London's  working  class 
during  the  crucial  century  in  which  con- 
temporary work  and  property  relations 
became  firmly  established.  As  Line- 
baugh shows,  these  relations  were  often 
enforced  with  the  gallows.  In  an  era 
when  history  is  increasingly  absent,  de- 
nied, and  manipulated,  this  book 
stands  out  as  a  beacon  of  clear,  engag- 
ing historical  writing.  Linebaugh's 
analysis  of  the  establishment  of  capital 
punishment  for  property  crimes,  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  death  penalty  with 
changing  labor  needs,  and  the  rise  of 
wage-slavery  and  factory  work  sheds  in- 
teresting light  on  the  current  resur- 
gence of  capital  punishment  in  the 
United  States.   20th-century  work  and 


property  relations  are  more  precarious 
than  ever  thanks  to  new  technologies, 
and  new  forms  of  resistance  and  refusal. 
Perhaps  most  compellingly,  using  work 
as  a  measure  of  social  wealth  makes  less 
and  less  sense  when  capital  itself  is  sys- 
tematically reducing  the  use  of  human 
labor  in  most  areas  of  production.  The 
ultimate  punishment  is  making  a  come- 
back as  society  descends  into  criminal 
chaos  and  as  desperate  poverty  be- 
comes more  widespread.  The  London 
Hanged  helps  us  see  the  social  processes 
and  decisions  that  make  reliance  on  the 
death  penalty  "natural"  and  "obvious" 
and  confronts  us  with  their  absurdity  as 
reflected  in  a  similar  but  vastiy  different 
moment  in  history,  a  history  as  much 
ours  as  Londoners'.  Check  it  out! 

-  Chris  Carlsson 

REAL  QIRL:  The  Sex  Comik  for  all 
genders  and  orientations...by  cartoon- 
ists who  are  good  in  bed!  Edited  by 
Angela  Bocage.  (Fantagraphics  Books, 
7563  Lake  City  Way  NE,  Seattle,  WA 
98115)  $2.95 

Real  Girlis  real  good.  Cowgirls  make 
horns  at  the  blues.  Maybe  the  some- 
times beautiful  and  sometimes  not  too 
aesthetic  genitalia  would  scare  your 
mother.  That's  not  the  raison  d'etre  for 
this  diverse  collection  of  cartoons.  The 
philosophy  here  is  of  exploration  and 
acceptance.  It's  so  varied  in  scope  that 
anyone  can  find  a  romantic  soft  touch 
or  g-spot  to  hook  on  to.  It  is  amazingly 
moral  in  essence. 

I  passed  it  to  my  favorite  teenagers 
(it's  restricted  as  in  not  for  sale  to  minors) 
and  the  favorite  story  from  Real  Girl  #3 
was  "Signed  Sister  Ende"  by  Chula 
Smith,  a  historical  dream  sequence  of 
sorts,  in  which  a  20th  century  woman 
teacher  introduces  the  religious  illumi- 
nations of  a  13th  century  woman 
painter.  She  signed  her  work  "Ende  Pin- 
trix,  Dei  Autrix":  Ende,  Woman  Painter 
&  servant  of  god.  In  the  background, 
modern  school  kids  practice  jungle  war 
on  each  other. 

That  just  shows  it's  not  about  sex 
only.  Everything  is  acceptable  so  long  as 
it  promulgates  understanding  and  ac- 
ceptance. I'd  recommend  it  for  all 
those  pesky  teenagers  still  in  your  life  or 
soon  to  be.  But  if  I  were  you  I'd  grab  it 
first,  'coz  it's  a  great  read.  Make  this 
comix  required  reading  in  all  high  schools! 

-  Petraleuze 


PBOCCSSED  WORLD  3f 


SS 


I  BEG  TO  DISAGREE 


Passing  billboards  that  proclaim  -  "Working  together 

to  stimulate  economic  growth  and  job  creation," 
Hearing  over  the  radio   -  'Tactories  in  orbit 

flourishing,  healthy,  growing," 
Reading  in  the  paper  -"Declining  job  market 

for  trained  elephants  spells  trouble," 
The  interviewer  appears  again  before  me  - 
"Gaps  in  your  work-record, 

gaps  in  your  work-record, 
don't  look  good  to  us,  Mr.  Antier  - 
you  don't  expect  us  to  believe 
all  those  years  you  wrote 
poetry?" 

What  could  I  say?  What  did  I  say? 
"We've  come  from  a  nation  in  which  one-sixth  were  slaves 
to  a  nation  600  times  larger  in  which 
we  are  all  slaves." 
"No  doubt  before  long  factories  vidll  be  totally  extinct 
Well  probably  label  factories  an  endangered  species 
and  preserve  one  or  two 

for  people  to  wander  through 
to  remember  what  they  were  like." 
"Employer  and  employee,  this  is  Pussysmell  Fingertips  speaking 
you  knew  all  along,  didn't  you,  work-ethic  as  cattleprod, 
cemetery  of  timeclocks,  vomitgas  canisters 
ready  and  waiting." 

Tell  the  work-ethic  you'll  live  to  shit  on  its  grave 

and  have  it  regard  it  as  a  blessing, 
a  blessing  and  not  a  curse. 
Why?  Because,  with  a  grin  of  chagrin  - 

salves  rather  than  slaves, 

peonies  rather  than  peonage, 

prisms  rather  than  prisons, 

surfboards  rather  than  serfdom, 

wild  rice  rather  than  tame  rice, 

meteors  rather  than  meat-eaters, 

violins  rather  than  violence, 

warble  rather  than  war. 

Rather  than  business  as  usual,  loafing  as  usual. 

Instead  of  the  Misery  Index  throwing  people  out  of  work, 

throwing  the  work-ethic  out  the  window. 
Instead  of  warhead  payload, 

blowjobhead  semenload. 
Instead  of  warhead  payload, 

givinghead  mouthload. 
Children  made  angels  in  the  snow 

before  the  pyramids,  before  Stonehenge, 
before  Pleistocene  creatures 

were  painted  miles  within  on  the  walls  of  caves. 
The  Ghost  Dance  is  still  going  on. 
The  Ghost  Dance  never  died. 

If  Descartes  had  lived  today 

would  he  say  -  "I  work,  therefore  I  am"? 
The  Holocaust's  cost  -  who  will  pay? 
Roadkills  in  the  Rearview  Mirror? 
Deathbed  on  Rollerskates? 
Rubric  of  frolic  and  rollick  and  romp  and  roam 

all  with  a  gleaming  plump  rump? 


D.  Minkler  1993 


Low  level  radioactive  waste 
can  kill  you  in  two  minutes. 

"Low  Level"  is  a  misnomer  used  to  lull  the  public 
into  thinl<ing  that  such  radioactive  waste  is  harmless. 


People  say  Factories  are  closing  down, 

Yeah,  just  like  acid  rain  is  closing  down. 

Like  tofflc  waste  dumps  are  closing  down. 

Like  deforestation  and  stripmining  are  closing  down. 

Yeah,  like  slaughterhouses,  terrorism,  Star  Wars,  oil  spills, 

handgun  murder  and  AIDS  are  closing  down. 
Factories  are  closing  down,  but  opening  up  somewhere  else, 

bigger,  faster,  producing  more  than  ever  somewhere  else. 
Somewhere  else  doors  open  and  workers  enter  in. 
Somewhere  else  workers  daydream  being  free. 
The  smokestacks  rise  somewhere  else, 
The  timeclocks,  the  paychecks,  the  drive 
To  and  from  work  somewhere  else. 

If  we  can  retread  a  worn-out  tire, 

how  retread  a  worn-out  life?  Retire? 
Recycle  aluminum  cans,  sure,  but 

how  recycle  the  wasted  lives, 
that  question 

not  answered. 

Something  I  had  not  bargained  for. 

Something  I  did  not  count  on: 

They  peeled  the  skin  off  the  father's  face 

in  front  of  his  children, 
Then  put  a  grenade  in  his  mouth 

and  pulled  the  pin. 
They  gang-raped  the  mother  in  front  of 

her  children's  eyes, 
Then  cut  off  her  breasts 

and  rammed  a  lighted  stick  of  dynamite 
up  her  cunL 

On  your  tombstone  an  ant  crawls 
in  the  chiseled  dash 

between 
the  dates  of  your  life. 

—Antler 


sc 


PBOCESSED  WORLD  3< 


OOWINTIMC! 


Bank  of  America 
Infiltrated! 

The  57-floor  Bank  of  America  build- 
ing towered  over  us,  its  black  granite 
grid  menacing  us  like  a  giant  waffle  iron 
ready  to  snap  shut  Posing  as  contrac- 
tors, we  were  about  to  remove  an  inte- 
rior wall  from  an  office  and  take  it  home 
with  us.  Carrying  a  motorcycle  helmet 
and  a  shoulder  bag  I  explored  most  of 
the  building  as  a  lost  courier.  Identical 
offices  line  identical  halls  on  identical 
floors  -   perfect  for  the  job. 

BofA  suffers  from  the  muddled 
management  structure  typical  of  large 
American  corporations:  distant,  over- 
paid executives  direct  redundant  levels 
of  middle  managers  who  supervise 
countless  specialized  workers.  We  sus- 
pected we  could  enter  an  office,  cut  out 
a  wall,  cover  a  hole  with  toxic  danger 
signs  and  leave  without  anyone  know- 
ing we  hadn't  been  hired  to  do  it.  We 
wanted  to  be  as  disruptive  as  possible 
without  attracting  the  authorities.  We 
would  create  chaos  and  pretend  to  be 
in  control  of  it. 

According  to  our  computer-pro- 
duced IDs,  we  were  Halyard  Semmins 
and  Laila  Finecke,  field  investigators  for 
Spemtech,  a  toxics  testing  company.  A 
work  order  detailed  the  rest:  Spemtech 
had  been  authorized  by  the  State  Toxics 
Board  to  conduct  tests  for  commercizd 
Health  and  Safety  Certification.  We 
were  testing  for  Thorofil™,  a  carcino- 
genic DuPont  fiber  once  used  to  fire- 
proof drywall.  Required  by  law,  the  work 
was  free.  Could  they  say  no? 

To  make  our  appointment  we  called 
on  a  Thursday  just  before  5  p.m.,  hop- 
ing the  building  manager  had  left  for 
the  day.  He  had.  We  left  a  message  say- 
ing we'd  be  there  Friday  afternoon,  and 
we  supplied  a  random  fax  number  to 
slow  down  verification.  It  might  buy  us 
time  if  anyone  decided  to  check  us  out 
while  we  were  in  the  building. 

Friday  at  4:15  p.m.,  Laila  adjusted 
her  tool-company  baseball  cap,  I  tucked 
in  my  "Perot  for  America"  t-shirt,  and 
we  went  in  with  toolboxes  and  bored 
contractor  expressions.  The  assistant  in 
charge  was  confused  by  our  work  order. 
He  kept  asking,  "You  want  to  do  whati*" 


and  saying  "I  don't  know  anything 
about  this."  I  repeated  ourjob's  descrip- 
tion, which  was  to  remove  a  small  sec- 
tion of  drywall  for  testing. 

"You're  going  to  have  to  come  back 
Monday  so  I  can  clear  this  with  my  boss," 
he  decided. 

"Look,"  I  said,  "we  just  came  all  the 
way  from  Hayward  to  do  a  20-minute 
job.  You  send  us  back,  we're  going  to 
have  to  refile  your  paperwork  with  the 
state,  which  is  going  to  delay  your  certi- 
fication. You  know  what  the  late  fine 
would  be  on  a  building  this  big?" 

He  ushered  us  up  to  the  Office  of 
Overseas  Affairs,  which  we  had  chosen 
for  its  sinister  name  and  proximity  to 
freight  elevators.  While  I  removed  cor- 
porate art  {matches  the  carpets)  from  the 
wall  and  stacked  furniture  in  a  comer, 
Laila  explained  our  presence  to  nearby 
workers. 

"We're  just  doing  some  routine  fiber 
separation  tests  here,"  she  announced. 
"Shouldn't  take  more  than  a  few  min- 
utes." 

The  workers  seemed  satisfied.  Laila 
put  down  dropcloths  and  duct-taped  them 
to  the  floor  while  I  ran  an  electronic  stud 
sensor  over  the  walls,  selected  for  the  irri- 
tating beep  it  produces  when  it  senses  a 
nail.  We  marked  these  spots  with  a  graffiti- 
grade  permanent  marker.  I  drew  a  square 
around  them  and  marked  big  right  angles 
in  its  comers,  adding  equations  where  ap- 
propriate. It  was  time  to  put  on  the  suits. 

The  suits  were  the  key  to  creating 
chaos.  We  would  put  on  as  much  fright- 
ening emergency  gear  as  possible  while 
reassuring  the  workers  around  us  that 
they  were  completely  safe.  The  suits, 
made  of  bright  white  Tyvek  and  embla- 
zoned with  red  "Spemtech,"  "Biohaz- 
ard"  and  "Extreme  Danger"  logos,  had 
draw-tight  hoods  and  rubberized  feet. 
Donning  latex  gloves,  safety  goggles 
and  respirators,  we  were  extra  careful  to 
tuck  everything  in.  Laila  handed  me  a 
three-quarter-inch  hole  drill. 

"Are  you  sure  we  don't  need  suits?" 
a  worker  asked,  laughing  nervously. 
Others  were  closing  their  doors  or  peer- 
ing cautiously  over  partitions.  "Abso- 
lutely," I  said  through  my  respirator. 
"You're  perfecdy  safe." 


As  I  drilled  holes  in  the  wall,  Laila 
plugged  them  with  black  rubber  stop- 
pers. After  drilling  each  hole,  we  care- 
fully shook  the  drill-bit  dust  into  a  plastic 
sample  bag.  Workers  watched  us  from 
behind  glass  doors  now.  I  sweated  in  my 
suit  After  I  slashed  deep  into  the  white 
wall  with  a  utility  knife,  we  pulled  out  a 
3x5-foot  wedge  of  wall.  While  I  cut  it 
into  pieces  sized  to  fit  our  yellow  sample 
bags  (marked  "DANGER"),  Laila  spread 
plastic  over  the  wound  and  sealed  it  with 
duct  tape.  Then  we  plastered  the  sur- 
rounding wall  with  warning  stickers  - 
French,  English  and  Spanish  versions  of 
"Do  Not  Ventilate"  and  "Danger  of 
Death." 

We  cleaned  up  and  got  out  with  our 
drywall  trophies.  Two  days  later  a  friend 
photographed  our  work.  The  wall  had 
been  fixed,  all  evidence  removed. 

What  did  this  act  prove?  Did  the 
assistant  who  let  us  in  get  in  trouble? 
Lose  his  job?  It's  easy  to  get  swept  up  in 
the  excitement  and  ignore  the  down- 
side -  something  we  can't  afford  to  do 
in  the  future.  But  the  possibilities  that 
this  "practice  run"  opened  up  are  heart- 
ening. With  the  right  preparation  and 
attitude,  structures  can  be  infiltrated. 
With  added  content,  ideas  could  be  in- 
troduced and  minds  opened. 

-  Ace  Tylene 


Wake  Up  and 
Smell  the  Tiers! 

inncrvoice#10-   2/10/93 

On  Friday,  Febmary  5,  1993,  Bank 
of  America  announced  in  its  particu- 
larly arrogant  fashion  that  it  was  cutting 
all  (or  most)  of  its  full-time  tellers  and 
administrative  support  staff  to  less  than 
20  hours  a  week.  Along  with  the  cut  in 
hours,  the  Bank  sheds  all  the  burden- 
some (to  its  bottom  line)  benefits  such 
as  sick  pay,  paid  vacations,  and  medical 
insurance  while  reporting  record  prof- 
its! The  result  for  bank  workers  is  a 
major  cut  in  living  standards  and  an 
urgent  push  toward  the  door  if  they 
want  to  hold  on  to  the  income  they've 
become  accustomed  to.  But  if  they  leave 
the  Bank  of  America,  many  are  no 
doubt  thinking,  where  will  they  go? 


PROCESSED  WORLD  3< 


sr 


The  Monday  newspaper  revealed 
that  the  local  monopoly  utility  PG&E  is 
planning  to  cut  back  its  San  Francisco- 
based,  white  collar  workforce  by  as  much 
as  10%  over  the  next  few  months,  and  is 
bringing  in  management  consultants  to 
help  in  this  "downsizing,"  supposedly  be- 
cause of  market  competition!  Then  the 
Tuesday  newspaper  reports  that  Safeway, 
the  nation's  largest  supermarket  chain, 
based  in  Oakland,  is  also  going  to  be 
trimming  its  home  office  staff,  and  is  pub- 
licly targeting  its  85  stores  in  the  Cana- 
dian province  of  Alberta  as  a  major 
cost<utting  area.  "If  eflForts  to  address  our 
labor  costs  fail,  we  may  have  to  abandon 
the  Alberta  market  altogether,"  said  Peter 
Magowan,  Safeway's  CEO  (the  same 
Magowan  who  recently  led  the  purchase 
of  the  SF  Giants  and  signed  outfielder 
Barry  Bonds  to  a  $43  million  contract) . 
Dozens  of  small  businesses  go  under 
every  week,  and  many  self-employed  are 
also  choking  on  recessionary  dust 

Years  after  the  advent  of  the  Rust 
Bowl  and  the  gradual  deindustrializa- 
tion  of  the  United  States,  the  purge  of 
workers  and  rationalization  of  labor 


processes  have  finally  begun  to  hit  white 
collar  workers  as  hard  as  blue  collar 
workers  were  hit  in  the  1970s  and  '80s. 
And  not  surprisingly,  it's  being  done 
using  the  same  methods:  BofA  insiders 
reported  that  the  cutbacks  were  the  re- 
sult of  Taylorist  time-and-motion  stud- 
ies conducted  last  year  on  branch 
operations.  After  analyzing  how  long  it 
took  to  do  typical  operations  such  as 
cashing  checks,  opening  accounts  and 
selling  traveler's  checks,  management 
came  to  the  obvious  conclusion  (obvi- 
ous to  anyone  who  has  ever  worked  in  a 
bank)  that  a  lot  of  the  work  time  they 
were  buying  from  workers  wzisn't  being 
used  to  carry  on  bank  activities  and 
increase  bank  profits.  Hence  the  dra- 
matic cuts  and  speedup  for  those  who 
hold  on. 

Daily  reports  of  economic  recovery 
and  wildly  improved  productivity  meas- 
urements underscore  the  reality  that 
this  wave  of  wage-cuts,  rationalization 
and  layoffs  is  no  fluke.  The  assault  on 
living  standards  is  precisely  the  mecha- 
nism by  which  "economic  health"  is  re- 
stored.   Historically,  renewed  business 


activity  led  to  increased  employment, 
but  that  was  before  the  enormous  wave 
of  computerization  and  generalized 
automation  of  the  past  two  decades. 
Glowing  reports  of  improved  productiv- 
ity and  profits  will  not  lead  to  wide- 
spread hiring.  In  fact,  Clinton's  plans  to 
link  health  care  coverage  to  employ- 
ment is  already  a  major  incentive  for 
companies  to  rid  themselves  of  as  many 
employees  as  possible,  replacing  them 
where  necessary  with  temporary  work- 
ers supplied  by  other  companies. 

Moreover,  the  big  picture  of  social 
change  looks  like  more  and  more  people 
are  being  thrown  down  the  stairs,  out  of 
the  upper  tier  which  offered  middle  class 
living  standards  and  some  sense  of  secu- 
rity and  guaranteed  material  well-being, 
and  into  the  much  larger  lower  tier.  In  the 
lower  tier  (which  in  turn  rests  on  the 
burgeoning  underclass  of  homeless  and 
permanently  unemployed),  people 
never  quite  get  enough  income  or  work, 
and  find  themselves  jmxiously  awaiting  a 
call  from  the  employment  or  temp 
agency,  hoping  for  another  few  days, 
weeks  or  months  of  steady  work,  only  to 
find  the  periods  between  paid  work  grow- 
ing longer  as  the  paid  work  becomes  in- 
creasingly part-time  and  intermittent 
Fear  and  desperation  in  turn  increases 
one's  willingness  to  endure  intolerably 
dull,  stupid  and  dangerous  work. 

So  how  do  we  respond?  Do  we  or- 
ganize ourselves  to  demand  jobs?  Do  we 
insist  that  the  government  guarantee 
employment  or  mandate  that  compa- 
nies make  new,  larger  unemployment 
payments  to  offset  the  loss  of  paid  worL' 
Why  not? 

Or  do  we  finally  begin  to  look  be- 
yond the  existing  setup  to  demand  a  new 
relationship  between  human  society,  the 
work  it  does,  and  the  way  the  products 
of  human  work  are  distributed? 

Isn't  it  long  overdue  that  we  ex- 
pand our  social  rights  to  include  our 
RIGHT  TO  DO  USEFUL,  MEANING- 
FUL WORK> 

Isn't  it  long  overdue  that  we  guaran- 
tee all  members  of  society  a  decent 
standard  of  living,  regardless  of  what 
contributions  they  actually  make?  After 
two  centuries  of  automation  and  dra- 
matic increases  in  productivity,  there  is 
no  justification  for  maintaining  40- 
hour  work  weeks,  50  weeks  of  work  per 
year.  It  is  time  to  restructure  the  work  in 
society  so  no  one  has  to  spend  more 
than  a  few  hours  a  week  at  anything 
(although  everyone  should  be  free  to 
spend  as  long  as  they  like  at  activities 


98 


PROCESSED  WOULD  31 


they  enjoy,  useful  or  "frivolous").  It  is 
time  to  make  a  permanent  break  be- 
tween work  and  income,  a  break  that 
will  be  resisted  to  the  death  by  the  own- 
ers and  managers  of  this  society.  In  the 
short  term,  we  should  begin  discussing 
and  insisting  on  our  right  to  worthwhile 
work.  In  the  medium  and  longer  term 
we  should  begin  imagining  how  much 
better  life  could  be  without  the  absurd 
economic  structures  that  promote  over- 
work and  conspicuous  consumption  at 
one  end,  desperate  homelessness  and 
crime-ridden  insanity  at  the  other,  and 
precarious  insecurity  for  all  in  between. 
The  current  assault  on  white  collar 
workers  in  the  Bay  Area  is  just  the  latest 
installment  of  a  long  process  that  will 
lead  to  an  increasingly  barbaric  society 
unless  we  forcibly  resist. 

Those  of  you  still  inside  have  a  lot 
more  power  than  you  think.  You  control 
valuable  hardware,  data,  and  other  vul- 
nerable links  in  the  corporate  empire. 
Use  your  imagination,  find  your  allies; 
they  are  all  around  you!  Abandon  the 
false  comfort  that  comes  from  the  belief 
that  if  you  are  sufficiently  docile  and 
obedient,  the  Paternal  Corporation  will 
take  care  of  you.  Nothing  could  be  fur- 
ther from  the  truth  in  this  dog-eat-dog 
(or  is  that  company-eat-people?)  world. 
The  two-tiered  society  is  being  created 
by  design,  not  by  accident.  Your  place 
in  it  is  not  certain,  but  it  is  certainly  not 
at  the  top!  The  longer  they  are  allowed 
to  pursue  this  process,  the  weaker  we 
become.  While  you  still  have  some  lev- 
erage over  things  they  care  about  (data 
integrity,  hardware,  software,  attitudes, 
and  so  on) ,  take  advantage!  And  let  us 
know  what's  happening,  and  we'll  try  to 
get  the  word  out. 

-  Nasty  Secretary  Liberation  Front 


Struggle  Against 
Study: 

How  To  Scam  Your  Way  Through 
College   -  with  Pay 

"What's  wrong  with  education?" 
many  people  like  to  ask,  as  if  to  fix  it. 
What's  "wrong"  is  that  education  - 
particularly  the  university  -  is  under 
attack  from  within  by  its  students'  re- 
fusal of  work,  and  nothing  can  be  done 
about  it  short  of  abolishing  the  schools, 
which  is  fine  with  me.  Many  of  us  want 
it  all  now,  and  this  doesn't  often  in- 
clude work,  waged  or  unwaged.  Scam- 
ming  is  the  way  we  satisfy  our  needs: 
cheating,  using  financial  aid  for  things 


There's  a  place  for  you 


Alhe  Learnin  | 

Annecks 


Repeat  After  Me: 


eat 
fittf 


iscover  m^ 


jieaningru 
pa  St- life 
careers 


nd  less 


learn  the 
ABCs  of 
community 
surveillance 

sacrifice 
&  save — 
wedding 
altruism  vs^ith 
the  economy 


It  goo 


iTC/ 


besides  school,  and  graduating  after 
having  done  litde  or  no  work  whatso- 
ever. I'm  a  scammer,  and  when  I'm 
done  I  hope  to  have  a  Ph.D.  This  is  a 
guide  for  you  to  get  one  too. 

Scamming  as  a  Tactic.  In  one  sense, 
universities  are  merely  factories  that  ex- 
pect students  to  do  the  unwaged  work  of 
teaching  ourselves  to  work  endlessly, 
without  direct  supervision,  but  with 
periodic  productivity  checks  (tests, 
grades,  GPAs).  The  crisis  in  higher 
education  suggests  that  we  have  been 
relatively  successful  at  both  refusing 
and  transcending  this  process:  There 
has  been  some  transformation  of  the 
university  into  spaces  that  serve  our 
desires  to  learn  about  ourselves  and 
our  histories. 

Refusal,  however,  is  not  limited  to 
"multiculturalism"  or  "student  activism," 


but  includes  scamming  and  refusing  all 
school/work  no  matter  what  its  con- 
tent. And  it  occurs  on  such  a  wide- 
spread level  that  it  already  has  networks 
that  circulate  tests,  notes,  papers,  and 
other  information  and  techniques. 
Scamming's  significant  advantage  over 
traditional  student  movements  that 
make  demands  through  protesting  is 
that  it  focuses  on  undermining  the  logic 
of  the  system,  and  the  processes  within 
which  we  are  forced  to  operate;  merely 
protesting  for  changes  in  the  system 
does  not  The  best  part  of  it  is  that  this 
can  go  undetected  indefinitely,  while 
protesters  can  be  easily  identified  and 
cut  oflF. 

Scamming  can  combine  using  "alter- 
native" courses  whose  content  is  generally 
antagonistic  to  the  purposes  of  the  univer- 
sity -    although  many  times  they  merely 


PROCESSED  WOBLD  3< 


99 


reproduce  the  university  system 
through  grades,  homework,  teacher- 
student  hierarchy,  etc.  -  with  using  the 
system  against  itself.  This  can  be  done 
individually,  or  in  groups  (fiats  and  so- 
rorities are  very  good  at  this)  that  have 
circulated  informadon  among  them- 
selves over  time.  There  may  not  be  an 
ultimate  end  -  other  than  just  hanging 
out  and  enjoying  life  -  but  a  long-term 
payofiF  like  a  diploma  indicates  nothing 
about  how  much  one  worked  to  get  it 
Some  scamming  students  may  even  end 
up  with  a  high  standard  of  living,  unre- 
lated to  the  amount  they  worked  in 
school. 

No  Work...Of  the  121  hours  I  com- 
pleted 11  were  knocked  off  before  I 
started,  by  taking  placement  tests.  Since  I 
receive  financial  aid,  I  got  to  take  the  tests 
for  fi-ee.  As  a  result  I  skipped  my  first 
fi"ench  semester  and  the  intro  classes  in 
my  major  and  english.  This  worked  out 
well  since  my  first  fi-ench  and  english 
profe  told  me  to  my  face  that  I  should  not 
have  skipped  the  intro  courses. 

Self-designed  courses  also  work  well, 
if  you  pick  the  right  people.  Just  find 
professors  who  are  willing  to  let  you 
design  and  pace  your  own  course  of 
study.  One  possibility  is  to  find  one  who 
needs  a  little  assistance  on  his  or  her 
own  project.  Organize  it  so  you  can  get 
away  with  doing  very  litde.  I  did. 

Internships  -  working  for  a  busi- 
ness for  the  piece  wages  of  grades-  are 
possibly  the  most  exploitative  offshoot 
of  school,  if  you  don't  use  them  with 
some  imagination.  In  the  late  1980s,  I 
found  myself  working  as  a  legislative 
aid.  I  decided  that  I  might  as  well  use  it 
to  get  some  grades.  I  signed  up  for  an 
internship  credit  and  got  six  hours  of 
A's  for  a  job  I  was  getting  paid  to  do. 
The  two  papers  I  had  to  write  were  done 
mosdy  at  work,  on  the  state's  computer. 

Use  pass/fail  options:  Majors  in  my 
department  can  take  six  hours  of  classes 
this  way,  and  I  used  them  all.  This  means 
you  can  take  a  class  and  do  very  litde  work, 
since  even  the  slightest  effort  usually  re- 
sults in  at  least  a  passing  grade  of  D. 

For  those  remaining  classes  you 
have  to  take,  there  is  litde  need  to  actu- 
ally go.  I  learned  too  late  that  if  you 
borrow  at  least  two  people's  notes  (so 
you  can  compare)  for  the  classes  you 
missed,  it's  as  good  as  being  there.  Most 
intro  courses  have  notes  available  for 
purchase  from  local  note-taking  busi- 
nesses. But  don't  give  them  your  money 
unless  you  have  to.  Just  trade  notes  with 


BY    CONG-RESSMAN    FRANK     R/G-G-S 


people  in  class.  It  already  happens  all 
the  time. 

If  you  don't  do  as  well  as  you  like,  go 
talk  to  the  TA.  They  will  frequenUy  tack 
on  a  few  points  just  to  get  you  to  leave 
them  alone. 

...and  Pay.  The  key  to  scamming  is 
getting  paid  while  you  do  it.  Although 
financial  aid  means  some  work  (and 
increasingly  so  to  discourage  us  from 
it),  it's  been  my  subsistence  and  has 
paid  for  traveling  -  for  fun  and  stu- 
dent conferences  -  and  has  bought 
everything  I  own.  Since  you  only  need 
to  take  12  credit  hours  to  get  full  aid, 
the  above  scams  can  help  you  get 
through  in  four  years  and  a  summer  if 
you  want  -  and  I  stupidly  did  before 
waking  up  to  the  possibilities. 

This  university  gives  you  three 
"strikes"  for  violating  aid  rules.  You  get 


a  strike  for  falling  below  12  hours  or  the 
minimum  GPA,  or  dropping  out.  (I  was 
able  to  avoid  a  strike  when  I  dropped  to 
nine  hours  by  explaining  how  a  fascist 
professor  threatened  to  fail  me  if  I 
didn't  drop  the  course.  A  true  story,  but 
it  doesn't  have  to  be.)  You  can  drop 
your  courses  by  a  specified  date  and  get 
back  your  full  tuition  and  fees,  plus 
keep  the  aid  money.  For  the  next  semes- 
ter all  you  need  to  do  is  apply  for  a 
Student  Loan  Supplement  (an  "SLS") 
to  cover  the  amount  they'll  subtract 
from  the  aid  money  you  were  supposed 
to  return.  Check  into  how  they  do  it  at 
your  school.  I've  made  up  for  the  re- 
duced aid  by  taking  out  an  SLS. 

To  use  an  SLS  you  have  to  be  an 
independent.  I  had  to  have  my  parents 
sign  a  paper  stating  that  they  would  not 
deduct  me  from  their  next  return.  As  an 


PROCESSED  WORLD  34 


independent,  you  get  nearly  full  Pell 
Grants  (likely  to  increase  dramatically 
according  to  a  recent  congressional 
proposal)  and  you  can  use  SLSs  (which, 
unlike  Stafford  loans,  begin  to  accrue 
interest  immediately  -  for  those  who 
for  some  reason  intend  to  repay  their 
loans) .  Another  good  use  for  SLSs  is  to 
borrow  the  amount  calculated  as  the 
"student  contribution"  (i.e.  a  second 
job),  something  financial  aid  doesn't 
tell  you  outright. 

In  all,  I  scammed  on  35  of  the  re- 
quired undergraduate  120  hours.  And 
this  has  all  become  easier  in  grad 
school,  since  I  had  only  four  required 
classes  and  have  to  take  only  nine  thesis 
hours  to  have  a  "full  load." 

Aid  for  grad  students  is  superb.  You 
can  borrow  up  to  $50,000  for  a  master's, 
and  $105,000  total  in  Stafford  loans  and 
SLSs  to  complete  a  Ph.D.  At  about 
$9,000/year  (including  the  summer)  I 
can  work  on  my  master's  for  five  years. 
Employed  grad  students  can  get  full  aid 
on  top  of  their  salary.  That  means  work- 
ing, but  having  more  money  to  fund 
traveling  when  you're  supposed  to  be 
working  on  your  thesis  or  dissertation. 
In  fact,  if  you  invest  the  extra  money  you 
can  make  a  few  thousand  extra  off  the 
backs  of  other  workers  by  the  time  you 
decide  whether  to  repay  the  loans. 

It  has  certainly  been  easy  for  me  to 
spend  three-and-a-half  years  working 
on  my  piddling  MA  in  Fine  Arts.  Al- 
though financial  aid  only  allows  you  to 
take  30  hours  of  course  work,  I  can 
graduate  with  incompletes  if  they  are 
not  in  my  department.  I  could  theoreti- 
cally keep  taking  classes  outside  of  my 
department  until  my  aid  runs  out  and 
still  graduate!  I  might  as  well  soak  up  all 
the  $50,000  (or  more  if  congress  in- 
creases the  ceiling)  since  I  don't  plan  to 
pay  it  back. 

After  two  more  semesters  I'll  begin 
on  my  dissertation,  which  could  still  last 
for  a  while,  since  I  haven't  borrowed 
even  half  the  $105,000  I  can  borrow 
through  Stafford  and  SLSs.  Since  I 
wrote  enough  for  a  dissertation  while 
writing  my  thesis  I'll  have  littie  work  to 
do.  I  figure  I  can  go  for  another  four 
years  "working"  on  my  dissertation: 
Traveling  around  every  semester,  com- 
ing back  to  get  my  aid,  and  making 
some  gratuitous  visits  to  my  committee. 
I  hope  by  that  time  the  loan  cap  will  be 
hiked  agziin. 

Eating  the  Insides  Out  Fmancial  aid 
has  been  a  mzyor  source  of  the  crisis  of 
the  universities  both  in  the  US  and  inter- 


nationally. In  the  US,  a  growing  number 
of  students  are  refijsing  -  because  they 
don't  want  to  reduce  their  standard  of 
living,  or  they  don't  care  -  or  are  un- 
able to  repay  their  loans.  Total  defaults 
have  doubled  since  the  mid-' 80s.  In  the 
meanwhile,  guarantors  have  gone 
bankrupt,  banks  refuse  to  loan  students 
money  or  delay  processing  applica- 
tions, the  government  and  universities 
are  divesting  from  aid  programs,  trade 
schools  are  being  banned  ft-om  the  pro- 
gram, and  banks  are  going  under. 

Student  debt  default  is  considered 
one  of  the  top  reasons  for  the  collapse  of 
banking  (along  with  "Third  World"  debt, 
farming  loan  defaults,  etc.,  thus  indicat- 
ing a  link  between  student,  third-world, 
and  farmers'  struggles).  Like  the  shift 
firom  grants  to  loans  in  the  US,  using 
loans  to  replace  fi-ee  schooling  in  the  UK 
and  Australia  can  be  seen  as  a  response 
to  students'  taking  and  using  the  money 
without  doing  much  work. 

Scamming  makes  it  damn  near  im- 
possible for  the  folks  who  worry  end- 
lessly about  what's  fucking  up  their 
factories  to  realize  what's  really  going 
on.  While  Business  Week  and  the  rest 
cry  about  the  universities  churning 
out  "lemons"  who  don't  want  to  work 
(they  say  we  "don't  know  how"  or  are 
"unprepared"),  we  should  be  looking 
at  ways  to  circulate  tactics  for  continu- 
ing the  quiet  insurgency.  Much  of  the 
right-wing  attack  on  so-called  "PC"  is 
predicated  on  reimposing  discipline 
in  the  universities  on  students  who 
don't  so  much  read  Marx  instead  of 
Plato,  but  don't  do  anything  the  univer- 
sity plans  for  us  to  do-  that  is,  endless 
hours  reading,  writing,  studying,  going 
to  class,  etc.  Instead,  we're  busy  doing 
what  we  want  in  our  own  way  while  using 
their  money,  and  learning  a  hell  of  a  lot 
more  as  a  result.  It's  no  coincidence 
that  right-wing  organizations  such  as 
Madison  Center  and  the  National  Asso- 
ciation of  Scholars  are  funded  by  huge 
corporations  like  Coors,  Mobil, 
Bechtel,  KMart,  and  Olin.  By  learning 
how  not  to  work  we  are  threatening  not 
only  the  universities,  but  capital's  con- 
trol over  us  through  work  itself. 

The  beauty  of  scamming  through 
school  is  getting  paid  to  have  fun.  And 
because  it's  not  a  concerted,  organized, 
explicit  movement,  it  is  beyond  the 
grasp  of  both  the  university  planners 
and  the  left.  While  the  Progressive  Stu- 
dent Network  suggests  we  "study  and 
struggle,"  I  say  "struggle  against  study" I 
-  Sal  Acker 


ta 


January  13, 1993 

DEAR  RIDER: 

Due  to  the  current  U.S.  military  action  in  the  Mid- 
dle East  and  the  resulting  potential  for  domestic 
terrorist  attacks,  BART  has  reluctantly  been  forced 
to  undertake  certain  enhanced  security  measures 
for  the  protection  of  our  patrons  and  staff. 
Special  undercover  BART  Police  units  have  been 
established  to  determine  and  intercept  any  poten- 
tial threat  to  BART  security.  To  facilitate  their  op- 
erations, the  following  Security  Directives  are  now 
in  effect: 

1)  All  persons  and  packages  within  the  paid  areas 
of  BART  or  any  location  within  1/2  miles  of  BART 
property  are  subject  to  inspection,  search,  and/or 
seizure  at  the  discretion  of  BART  security  person- 
nel. 

2)  Detention  of  suspicious  persons  for  the  pur- 
poses of  identification,  outstanding  warrant  checks 
and  personal  searches  may  be  initiated  by  BART 
security  personnel  for  a  period  of  no  more  than  72 
hours. 

3)  Persons  subjected  to  such  detention  and/or 
search  and  seizure  of  property  shall  have  no  legal 
recourse  against  BART  or  its  employees. 

We  apologize  for  any  inconvenience  these  meas- 
ures may  create,  and  appreciate  your  cooperation 
during  this  difficult  period.  Thank  you  for  taking 
BART 
Frank  J.  Wilson,  General  Manager 


FOR  IMMEDIATE  RaEASE 

FAKE  BART  "lEHEfi"  8HNG  CIRCULATED 

A  bogus  "Dear  Rider"  letter  using  tfte  BART  logo 
afKl  car  and  allegedly  "signed"  by  8ART  General 
Manager  Frank  J.  Wilson  is  being  circulated  along 
the  BART  system  and  in  office  buildings  in  the  Bay 
Area, 

The  tetter  says  that  because  of  the  situation  in 
the  MiddSe  East,  BART  j-as  established  "special  m- 
dercover"  pdice  units  and  that  people  could  be  de- 
tained for  72  hours. 

THIS  LEHER  IS  A  FAKE.  NO  SUCH  POLICY  EX- 
ISTS AT  BART,  NOR  IS  Of^E  CONTEMPUTED, 

Anyone  who  is  approached  by  someone  claiming 
to  be  a  BART  police  officer,  employee  or  official  of 
BART  should  ask  to  see  identification.  AJi  BART 
employees  carry  employee  identificatiofi  cards 
with  the  employee's  picture,  ft  there  is  any  doubt, 
the  person  should  contact  the  nearest  BART  Sta- 
tion Agent,  Train  Operator  or  any  uniformed  pcriice 
officer. 

BART  police  regularly  patrol  ail  stations,  trains 
arxj  parking  facilities  during  BART  operating  hours. 
Most  are  uniformed  and  some  are  in  street 
clothes.  But  ail  BART  police  carry  identification. 

When  the  peopte  behind  the  forged  letter"  are 
ictentifled,  they  wilt  be  prosecuted  to  fte  fullest  ex- 
tent of  the  law, 

-30- 


PBOCESSCD  WOULD  31 


«« 


f  ■^'^*^^**^^^!X^^^^>^i^Si^x^!^^^^>^^^'^  -  '^^"""fmmfm^f^- 


TAKE  NO  CHANCES 


I'm  sorry,  but  I  just  can't 
do  it.  Insurance  regula- 
tions, I'm  sure  you  under- 
stand." She  closed  the  window 
abruptly  and  cUcked  the  lock. 

I  turned  back  to  the  lobby,  try- 
ing not  to  notice  the  stares  di- 
rected at  me,  the  failed 
supplicant.  I  stepped  into  the 
smoggy  haze,  ignoring  the  3D 
holographic  advertisement  urg- 
ing me  to  "Vote  Yes  on  the  Manda- 
tory Safe  Pedestrian  Act."  It 
seemed  to  follow  me  for  a  few  feet, 
admonishing  me  that  "We  would 
all  be  better  off  if  pedestrians 
were  required  to  wear  safety  gear 
such  as  pads  and  helmets,  and  if 
people  such  as  yourself  were  re- 
quired to  take  a  simple  written 
and  walking  test  to  obtain  a  li- 
cense, don't  you  agree?"  I  walked 
out  of  range  before  it  could  offer 
me  a  chance  to  sign  its  petition. 

I  waited  at  the  next  intersec- 
tion until  the  guard  rails  at  the 
crosswalk  were  lowered,  carefully 
looked  in  each  direction  and 
joined  the  crowd  hurrying  across 
the  street.  A  couple  of  White  Mus- 
lims tried  to  sell  me  a  copy  of  their 
paper,  but  I  declined  with  a  curt 
"Can't.  Insurance  regulations..." 
I  turned  into  the  familiar  faux 
crash-barrier  facade  of  the  law 
firm  I  worked  for. 

After  showing  my  badges  and 
signing  the  standard  disclaimers, 
I  deposited  my  money  in  the  ele- 
vator call  box  and  waited.  Some- 
body next  to  me  was  explaining 
how  her  client,  a  giant  in  the  reas- 
surance industry,  had  been  able  to 
prevent  the  construction  of  a  new 
hospital,  thereby  foreclosing  on 
the  possibility  of  malpractice  suits 
and  medical  claims.  I  was  soon  in 
my  own  cubicle  working  through 
a  pile  of  claims  and  legal  forms. 
The  afternoon  passed  quickly.  I 
thought  about  getting  a  cup  of 
Cofifie  ,  but  the  idea  of  enduring 
the  lengthy  line  of  applicants  sign- 
ing releases  and  submitting  bio 
scans  was  more  than  I  could  en- 
dure. 


Shortiy  before  dusk  and  man- 
datory curfew  I  left  work,  signed 
out,  and  returned  my  short-term 
medical-coverage  bracelet.  I 
walked  the  13  blocks  to  my  Kondo 
rather  than  go  through  the  re- 
leases, searches  and  abuses  of  the 
crowded  transit  system.  Two 
stores  refused  to  sell  me  food  on 
my  way  home  ("Insurance  regula- 
tions -  after  all,  we  hardly  know 
you!").  My  lucky  third  was  willing 
though;  a  quick  transaction  in 
black  market  money  (after  all, 
credit  chips,  although  universal 
and  mandatory,  left  records  and  if 
my  medical  company  discovered  I 
was  buying  corned  beef  hash  and 
eggs,  Well!  I  don't  have  to  tell  you 
what  that  would  lead  to!). 

I  made  it  homejust  before  the 
grates  came  down,  feeling  all  nice 
and  snug  in  my  little  fortress. 
There  had  been  cases  in  which 
one  of  the  tenants  went  berserk 
and  slaughtered  the  whole  build- 
ing, the  barriers  keeping  every- 
one in  and  the  police  companies 
out.  Of  course,  the  SecCams  re- 
corded it  all,  so  the  lawsuits  went 
smoothly  enough  afterward,  but 
still  ... 

I  shared  my  illicit  dinner  with 
my  cat,  had  an  even  more  illicit 
glass  of  wane,  and  soon  dozed  off 
to  the  faint  sounds  of  the  sublimi- 
nal advisor:  "Do  what  you're  told 
to  do." 

"Look  both  ways  at  the  cross- 
ings." 

"Never  take  chances." 

I  woke  to  the  sound  of  the 
grates  sliding  up  and  the  cleanup 
crews  hitting  the  corridors.  I 
showered,  paying  out  almost  3 
dollars  in  overtime  charges,  and 
ran  the  morning  MedComp  scan 
for  the  block  health  authorities. 
Apparentiy  I  was  still  healthy,  be- 
cause the  door  from  the  bath- 
room slid  open  and  I  was  allowed 
to  leave.  I  put  on  my  best  suit  and 
a  small  insurance  premium  was 
charged  to  my  account  for  the 
extra  risk  to  my  personal  property. 

It  was  a  beautiful  morning. 
The  simulated  birdcalls  echoed 


«2 


PBOCESSED  WOULD  31 


through  the  holographic 
branches  over  the  crowded 
streets.  I  checked  my  schedule, 
and  having  the  time  and  not  hav- 
ing exceeded  my  sunlight  quota 
for  the  month,  I  walked  to  work. 
I  got  there  earlier  than  usual,  so  I 
was  able  to  beat  the  crowds 
through  the  checkpoints  and  was 
hard  at  work  by  the  time  most  of 
my  coworkers  came  in. 

I  was  so  immersed  in  the  saga 
of  the  pitiful  insurer  and  the 
wicked  old  widow  who'd  foiled 
the  disease  monitors  that  I  didn't 
even  notice  when  Rogers  came 
up.  He  slapped  down  a  pink  war- 
rant for  my  interrogation  ("exit 
interview  and  debriefing"  in  the 
company  parlance).  I  turned 
pale  and  sweaty  and  leaned  back. 
My  desk's  biomonitors  started 
winking  red,  but  the  company 
had  already  disabled  my  bracelet, 
so  there  was  no  reassuring  flood 
of  hormones.  The  two  police  be- 
ings (PBs)  helped  me  to  my  feet 
with  a  firm  yank,  and  I  was  on  my 
way! 

Rogers  stripped  me  of  my 
badges  and  personal  effects  be- 
fore we  go  to  the  elevators.  One 
of  the  policebeings  obligingly 
pressed  my  thumb  on  the  com- 
pany's release  form.  The  elevator 
arrived,  the  PB  on  my  left  slid  a 
credit  chip  into  the  machine's  call 
box,  and  we  entered.  The  eleva- 
tor shot  down,  far  deeper  than  the 
deepest  subbasement.  When  the 
doors  opened,  I  was  dragged  to  a 
small  cubicle  and  locked  in. 

Many  hours  later  I  was  booked 
on  a  preliminary  charge  of  "Illicit 
Animal  Intoxication"  in  the  first 
degree.  There  w^as  no  bail.  I  had 
been  caught  in  a  routine  cat  drug 
test.  After  finger,  palm,  foot, 
voice  and  retinal  prints  I  was  is- 
sued a  baggy  jumpsuit  and  al- 
lowed to  sign  a  form  debiting  my 
account  for  the  cost  of  my  food, 
lodging,  guards,  etc. 

As  it  turns  out,  I  was  actually 
acquitted  of  the  charge  (my 
spouse's  young  nephew  had 
brought  the  catnip  and  I  hadn't 


known  about  it,  as  a  lengthy  inter- 
rogation ascertained).  Unfortu- 
nately I  had  been  fined  for 
missing  work  without  authoriza- 
tion, and  then  fired  for  it,  and  then 
fined  automatically  for  not  having 
ajob;  all  that  plus  the  hundreds  of 
dollars  a  day  for  my  prison  lodg- 
ing had  been  allowed  by  my  bank, 
which  left  me  deeply  in  debt  to  the 
bank.  I  was  beginning  to  feel 
hopeless  when  it  occurred  to  me 
that  if  I  cashed  in  my  insurance 
policy  it  might  just  cover  my  debt. 
I'd  be  an  uninsured  pauper  and 
subject  to  arrest  at  any  time,  but  at 
least  not  actually  in  jail.  I  bribed 
a  guard  with  my  infinite  (ly  nega- 
tive) bank  account  and  was  al- 
lowed to  send  a  brief  message. 

After  a  couple  hours  of  solitary 
the  doors  to  my  holding  cell 
opened.  My  spouse  walked  in, 
flanked  by  the  largest  PB  I'd  ever 
seen.  Without  preliminaries  I  was 
offered  a  release  form  to  sign. 
"It's  important  ...  please  sign  it 
without  making  a  fuss.  It's  for  the 
children." 

"Oh,  thank  god  you're  here!  I 
was  hoping  you'd  come  quickly." 

Looking  embarrassed  -  I  as- 
sumed at  my  eagerness  -  I  was 
urged  to  sign  a  second  form.  I  did 
so  without  even  looking  at  it,  my 
eyes  fixed  on  my  angel's  face. 

As  my  spouse  turned  to  leave  I 
was  grabbed  from  behind  by  the 
PB,  who  began  dragging  me  away. 
He  slapped  a  red  "DONOR  - 
ALL  ORGANS"  card  on  my  chest 
and  began  dragging  me  back  to 
the  processing  shops  on  that  floor 
of  the  prison.  I  fought  and  yelled: 
"Darling,  can't  ...  can't  you  help 
me?  ...  Get  me  out ..." 

Pat  turned,  smiled  a  sunny  re-  ij 
ceptionist  smile  and  said  "We  get 
more  money  for  your  organs  sepa- 
rately than  we  do  for  them  to- 
gether. I'm  sorry,  but  I  just  can't 
do  it.  Insurance  regulations,  I'm 
sure  you  understand." 

by  Primitivo  Morales 


Graphic:  JRS 


PBOCESSED  WORLD  34 


63 


PLUG  IN...TURN  ON...  JACK  OFF...  a.  u,. 

Summer 
of  Silicon 


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After  a  hard  day 
slaving  for  The  Man- 
or knocking  on  opportunity's  door- 
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Go  gentle.  Disintegrate. 

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(Dim