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The Orlando Indicator 68
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The Orlando INDICATOR
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NOTE: The Orlando Indicator was a radical newsletter published in
Central Florida from 1976 to 1988. Some of the Indicator's
observations seem worthy of preservation, so Tangerine Network
has made them available in this public domain ASCII file.
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The Orlando INDICATOR
---------------------
excerpts from the 68th edition
published in autumn, 1987
---
WSIK NewsRock74
memorandum
To: All Board Operators
From: Perry Towell
In light of the smoke evacuation which occurred on July 6th,
we need to clarify a very important policy.
When there is any kind of emergency at the station, your first
duty is to notify management immediately. If a gunman is running
through the halls shooting people left and right, if a tornado is
approaching the building, or if the fire alarm is ringing and everyone
else in the building is evacuating, you are to remain in your seat and
telephone me and the General Manager.
Needless to say, we will not be in our offices. If you cannot reach
us at home, try our beepers. We will probably be out having a good
time at an expensive restaurant, or doing something else that you
could never afford on your board op wages.
After you call us, we will gather more information about the
crisis, and we might eventually call back and give you permission to
leave the building.
People who join the military or become board ops at WSIK should
understand that they might be required to sacrifice their lives in
order to protect other peoples' profits. You board ops have this
special duty because you are considered the most expendable members of
the staff.
As I tell you every time you ask for a raise, I believe any
randomly-selected shmo off the street could be a board operator, and I
have recently demonstrated this belief by hiring a few.
I hope you will handle this responsibility professionally. If
an opportunity arises, you should be proud to go down with the ship.
pt
---
GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT:
A FASCIST POLICE STATE
by Rick Harrison
In this article, I shall illustrate that we are becoming a
Big-Brother-type police state, and I shall speculate about why this is
happening. I do not propose a course of action for changing this trend,
because I believe the social momentum is too great for the tide to be
turned. Persons who do not like the police state will have to hide
from it, dodge out of its way, remove themselves from its influence,
or resist it in whatever manner they choose.
The historical trend toward authority and centralization is
obvious (and, to me, horrifying). The invention of agriculture was
probably responsible for the sudden appearance of private property,
and of course one cannot feel secure that one can _keep_ one's prop-
erty unless there is some system for enforcing one's claim to
possession.
In areas of the world that have been hit by the Industrial
Revolution, the majority of people have lost contact with nature and
the earth. The average adult does not know the current phase of the
moon, the identity of the birds that visit his yard, or what it feels
like to walk in the rain. When childhood ends, people are suddenly
thrust into the climate-controlled, locked-up world of cars, shopping
centers, and workplaces/ schools/ prisons/ the military.
This artificial world has no legitimate reason for existing,
therefore it must be carefully controlled and maintained or it will
collapse. The natural world, on the other hand, requires no authority
or justification; the balance of nature is one of the few examples of
anarchist ideals put into practice. Therefore the natural world has
the potential to be eternal, and the artificial world is a temporary
pimple on the face of the planet.
In recent years the artificial world's need for control and
the human desire for security have produced a remarkable increase in
police powers. But, as one pundit observed, those who would give up
freedom in order to obtain security deserve neither.
In any public opinion forum, you can hear the ordinary people
robotically chanting their demand for more police protection and
stiffer penalties for convicts. The target of this desired persecution
is always _poor_and_working-class_ criminals, such as burglars,
muggers, and the stereotype image of rapists and murderers. Rarely
will you hear someone attack white collar criminals such as forgers,
embezzlers, blackmailers and hackers. I think the reason for this is
clear: the working class hates itself. (Proletarians also demonstrate
self-hatred by smoking, drinking, violence, drug use, watching TV,
etc.)
This paranoid mistrust of our fellow humans is producing a
totalitarian state. Young children are being fingerprinted, for their
own good of course, and now the IRS requires that kids have a Social
Security number to be valid tax deductions for their parents. New
employees are required to prove their citizenship, which means produc-
ing official ID. It is very difficult to drive a car, cash a check,
or buy a can of beer unless you have your papers. _Ve demandt zat you
show us your papers!_
Whether it's the witch-hunt against drunk drivers, or the
fear-mongering search for drug dealers, the police will use any excuse
to set up roadblocks and try to intimidate people. You can't get into
the courthouse or onto an airplane without being magnetically scanned,
you can't use an automatic teller machine without being photographed,
and you can't make a long distance phone call free of FBI/CIA/NSA
eavesdropping.
Totalitarianism also touches us at the workplace. This is not
new, but it is increasing. Employers usually demand that workers
"maintain a positive attitude," which means speaking, acting,
gesturing, smiling, thinking, working, dressing, grooming, and living
in a prescribed manner. (That's not too much to ask in return for 4
or 5 dollars an hour, is it?)
Some companies also make their workers take polygraph tests
and/or urinate into a container in front of a witness. (Of course the
temptation would be to piss on your supervisor.) Experiments are being
done with brain-wave monitors that would allow bosses to detect
daydreaming workers. (What next? Will they hire telepaths to read our
minds?) All these violations of one's privacy are nothing but _rituals_
of_dominance_and_submission_. The boss doesn't really care much about
the size of your sideburns or the composition of your urine; he/she
just wants to be sure you're maintaining a submissive, compliant
attitude.
The almost-overwhelming trend toward fascism is as successful
as it is because the majority of people either don't care or actually
want it to happen. Just as the Nazi concentration camp guards could
not escape punishment by saying they had only followed orders,
likewise the people who work in and support the present System cannot
pretend that they do not have blood on their hands. To drive a car,
to accept a paycheck, to pull a lever on a voting machine is to invest
your irreplaceable time in the maintenance of the artificial world and
its illusory conveniences.
Therefore I would urge you to ask yourself if your daily
activities are really taking you down the same path as your true
desires and aspirations.
---
AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS
The only principle we recognize is profit. We'll sell you
anything, as long as doing so is beneficial to our stockholders. If
you want food to eat or a place to live, NO PROBLEM - as long as you
can pay for them. If you don't have enough money, we suggest WORKING
HARDER.
During those few hours when you're not preparing for work,
working, or recovering from work, you can buy almost any form of
recreation you like. Whether you want to destroy yourself with cigar-
ettes, alcohol, unhealthy food, automobiles, firearms, or stupefying
entertainment, we'll gladly sell you the tools for your own self-
destruction. That's what "freedom of choice" really means in our
system: freedom to choose a miserable way to end your misery.
WE ARE THE CAPITALISTS.
Remember, YOU work for US.
P.S. Thanks for your help! With your co-operation, we are quickly
turning the whole planet into a forced labor camp. We're mowing down
the pine forests of Orlando to build mass-produced housing developments
just as rapidly as we're mowing down the rain forests of South America
to provide grazing land for your future hamburgers. Our progress has
been much faster than we anticipated, mainly because of your passive
submission, but also because you don't have a vision of a better world.
You imagine that someday you'll accumulate enough resources to build a
little Utopia for yourself and then you'll get away from the treadmill
and hellish conditions in which most people have to live. You believe
one person can be free when others are enslaved, and as a result,
you're willing to play our game by our rules. Keep it up!
A message in the public interest from
the Union of Concerned Capitalists.
---
Just when you think you're safe from spiritual upheaval, you experience the
REVENGE OF THE BODHISATTVAS*
i.
Buddha said, "I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusions
of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden
brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as
flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a
mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgement
of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and
fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons."
ii.
Subhuti was Buddha's disciple. He was able to understand the potency of
emptiness, the viewpoint that nothing exists except in its relationship
of subjectivity and objectivity. One day Subhuti, in a mood of sublime
emptiness, was sitting under a tree. Flowers began to fall about him.
"We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness," the gods
whispered to him.
"But I have not spoken of emptiness," said Subhuti.
"You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded
the gods. "This is the true emptiness." And blossoms showered upon Subhuti
as rain.
iii.
Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in the country. One day four
traveling monks appeared and made a fire to warm themselves. Hogen heard
them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said,
"There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your
mind?"
One of the monks replied, "Everything is an objectification of mind,
so I would say the stone is inside my mind."
"Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying
a stone like that around in your mind."
*Of course, Revenge of the Bodhisattvas is an oxymoronic title. These
items are from the book _Zen_Flesh,_Zen_Bones_.
---
AGENTS OF FORTUNE
{Those of you who've been reading the _Indicator_ faithfully for the past
12 years will recognize this column's characters and catchphrases. The
rest of you are likely to be bewildered. Too bad.}
i.
Eric Fahrender walked through the pine forest for a while and came to a
tree that looked particularly comfortable. He sat there, leaning back
against the tree, legs folded Buddha-like on the earth's blanket of pine
needles, with his mirrored sunglasses reflecting the forest canopy's
image back up to itself.
After an immeasurable stretch of time, Eric noticed that a bald-headed
man was standing in front of him saying, "Hey, man, what's up?"
Eric said nothing and remained motionless, content in the knowledge that
his eyes were invisible, hoping he might give the impression of being
asleep. The bald man said, "Listen, dude, you're starting to look like part
of the forest. Why don't you get a job and make something out of yourself?"
Eric replied, "Why are you here?"
The man answered, "Well, ya know, sometimes the pressures of work and
the daily grind of household life start to get to me, so I come out here
to the woods to get away from it all."
Eric said, "Your answer to my question is my answer to your question."
ii.
Eric stood in line at the supermarket with a one-dollar food stamp in one
hand and a pint of chocolate milk in the other. A bodybuilder standing
behind Eric tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey, bro, when's the
next full moon gonna be?"
Eric was distracted for a moment as pseudo-random alphanumeric
characters scrolled across the bottom of his field of vision; then he
said, "Ah, about ten days from now." He left the store with the disturbing
thought, `Everyone can tell just by looking at me that I know the phase
of the moon.'
iii.
Eric dropped his black pseudo-duffel-bag onto a plastic chair in the
all-night laundromat and dropped himself onto the adjoining one. He
thought, `Why do I always seek some artificial structure to sleep in?
Surely the forest is no more dangerous at night than in the day. Since
I have virtually no possessions, and since I have been almost completely
destroyed mentally and physically, I have nothing to lose. Perhaps I
should consider --'
His train of thought was derailed by the ringing of the coin-operated
telephone which stood just outside the laundromat. It continued ringing
for such a long time that it apparently was never going to stop. Wearily,
Eric got up, walked to the phone, and answered it. "Hello?"
At first all he heard was static, white noise, like the hissing of a
TV set when the station has signed off. Then, for just a brief moment,
the static seemed to modulate itself into speech; it seemed to whisper,
"Regain your powers."
Eric said, "Ach, a crank call from the gods." He hung up, re-entered
the laundromat, and tried again to fall asleep in the uncomfortable little
chair. The next thing he perceived was the sound of numerical chanting
on a two-way radio; he opened his eyes, looked up and became aware that
a policeman was standing in front of him.
"Greetings," Eric said. `And other xenial exclamations,' he thought to
himself. `Welcome to my humble home. The coin-op laundry. It's not much
but it's my last link with humanity.' He considered speaking these
phrases but did not.
The cop said, "Time to move along. You can't sleep here."
"Evidently not," Eric replied. "Too many interruptions. Next thing you
know, people will be wanting to do their laundry in here."
to be continued...
---
OTHER NEWS TO NOTE
by X. Rayburn
In 1984, the _Indicator_ printed an article entitled "Resisting
Computers" in which we advocated sabotage and mayhem as an appropriate
fate for all devices containing micro-processors. However, as our
sharper readers have already observed, this edition of the _Indicator_
was designed and laid out on a computer. How do we explain this
_apparent_ inconsistency?
As we pointed out three years ago, 95% of all computers are
used for military, police, accounting and business purposes, i.e.
_anti-human_ purposes. _Those_ are the computers it would be most
worthwhile to sabotage,; and if you get a chance to sneak into such an
anti-human enterprise as a police station or a corporate office, the
telephones, typewriters, staplers and other devices are just as worthy
of sabotage as the electronic brains. The other 5% of computers in the
world are used for education and stupid amusements, and we feel that
the _Indicator_ falls into one of those two categories.
In summary, computers are no different from typewriters,
machine guns, radio transmitters, or any other device. They can be
used for positive, neutral, or negative purposes. As I hack away on
this column, I am aware that this computer was produced by exploited
assembly-line workers, and that its production contributed to the
pollution of the earth. However, the same statements could be made
about my old manual typewriter or even the fountain pen I keep on my
desk.
Another apparent inconsistency that has popped up recently
involves the _Indicator_'s editor, Rick Harrison, who has drastically
shortened his hair. This has been a staggering development,
particularly in light of past comments he has made in this newsletter
about the joys of long hair and the wretched nature of those who
'sell out' by shortening theirs. We assume that Rick is either trying
to demonstrate that events on the earthly, physical plane are not very
important to him, or perhaps he is trying to infiltrate some
subculture in which non-controversial hair length is considered
important. Rick's favorite hobby is infiltrating various sub-cultures,
studying them carefully, and then bitterly denouncing all their
imperfections and inconsistencies. No wonder he's unpopular.
Until next time, keep breathing.
---------------------
The Orlando INDICATOR
---------------------
excerpts from the 69th edition
published in spring, 1988
---
INTRODUCTION TO TAOISM
by Rick Harrison
A friend of mine once told me that he sometimes changes
his plans in response to the flow of events. For example, if he
is driving toward a particular destination and he encounters a
long series of red lights, he might turn back and postpone the
journey. Or, if he is working at a particular job and the stream
of events becomes turbulent and polluted with conflict, he looks
for another job. My friend calls himself a Baptist Republican
but in this respect he behaves more like a Taoist.
The Tao was "discovered" by Chinese philosophers about
2500 years ago. Since there is no [Tao ideogram] on American
typewriters, we change it to "Tao" and pronounce it "Dow." One
afternoon I heard a newscaster say "the Dow took a nosedive
today" and it took me a moment to realize she was talking about
the Dow, not the Tao.
Taoism is something between a religion and a philosophy.
It has a lot to do with the "flow" of events. At times it seems
the universe is merely a series of pseudo-random numbers. I call
it pseudo-random (a precise mathematical term) because there _is_
a pattern, although it is not easy to perceive unless you know
the algorithm being used to generate the series of numbers.
Pseudo-random also implies that the most unlikely coincidences
will happen more often than the laws of probability would
indicate. The evolution of life, the chance meetings of good
friends and bitter enemies, the person who is haunted by a
"streak of bad luck" are examples of these outrageously unlikely
coincidences that happen all the time. They're just manifestations
of the Tao. So, in some ways, being alive is like playing the
"one-armed bandits" in Las Vegas, waiting to see what kind of
pattern comes up on the slot machine.
The main "scripture" of Taoism is the _Tao Te Ching_ by
Lao-Tzu, although some historians doubt that Lao Tzu actually
existed (just as some historians doubt that Jesus Christ
actually existed). Ancient Chinese was a poetic but sometimes
ambiguous language, which explains why over 70 different
translations of this book have been published...
Perhaps the Tao can be described as a pathway which is
bounded on one side by external events and on the other side
by your true inner nature. If you try to follow any other path
through life - if you try to suppress your true inner nature,
or if you work against the natural processes of the world - your
journey will be much more difficult than the journey of one who
follows the Tao.
In his final book, scholar Alan Watts wrote, "The Tao
is the course, the flow, the drift, or the process of nature,
and I call it the Watercourse Way because both Lao-Tzu and
Chuang-Tzu use the flow of water as its principal metaphor...
The prinicple is that if everything is allowed to go its own
way, the harmony of the universe will be established... The
political analogy is Kropotkin's anarchism - the theory that if
people are left alone to do as they please, to follow their
nature and discover what truly please them, a social order will
emerge of itself.
"The order of nature is not a forced order; it is not
the result of laws and commandments which beings are compelled
to obey by external violence, for in the Taoist view there
really is no obdurately external world. My inside arises mutually
with my outside, and though the two may differ they cannot be
separated."
Taoists generally do not believe the world was created
by a boss-God who sits above the natural universe and issues
orders to be followed by His underlings (or else!). Lao-Tzu
wrote, "All things depend upon the Tao to exist, and it does
not abandon them. It lays no claim to its accomplishments. It
loves and nourishes all things, but does not rule over them."
Also consider this quotation, which was probably designed to be
irritating to those who have rigid minds: "The Tao does nothing,
yet it leaves nothing undone."
...One of the best-known proponents of Taoism was a
fictitious character: Kwai Chang "Grasshopper" Caine in the
TV series _Kung Fu_ (1972-74). Caine was a Buddhist/Taoist/
Shintoist priest who drifted through the Old West having
flashbacks and saying profound things (often at the most
inappropriate moments). When someone would swing a fist at
Caine, he would (more often than not) dive out of the way and
let their fist smash into a wall or into another attacker's
face. At the end of most episodes, Caine stood in the middle
of whatever road or field he happened to be in, looked around
to "see" which way the Tao was flowing, and started walking
toward his next adventure. Could this be an admirable way
to conduct one's affairs?
In closing, I will leave you with three Taoist
phrases that have been widely incorporated into the American
language:
Hang loose.
Take it easy.
Go with the flow.
---
(advertisement)
WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE FOREVER?
Most humans can't face the fact that they will permanently cease to
exist when they die. But now, thanks to our amazing product called
RELIGION (trademark), people don't have to be realistic about their
mortality.
Here's what Religion will do for you!
*Help you accept lousy conditions here in the real world
because you expect to live better in the afterlife
*Cause you to donate your hard-earned money to hucksters,
hoaxers and hypocrites
*Make you engage in bizarre rituals
*Cause you to study scriptures written in superstitious times
by people who believed in virgin births and burning bushes
that could talk
*Provide you with simple-minded answers to complex questions
like the origin of the universe and the purpose of life
AMAZING LOW PRICE! All you have to do to receive these fantastic benefits
of religion is lose your logic, sacrifice your sanity and relinquish
your rationality!
ORDER NOW! Spaces in the afterlife are strictly first-come, first-served.
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----------------------- order form ------------------------
[] Yes! I am unable to cope with reality. Please send me
Religion quickly!
Name_________________________________________
Address______________________________________
City________________State_______Zip__________
[] I am also interested in buying valuable land in the Everglades.
When I die, I want to go to:
[] Heaven
[] Nirvana
[] Valhala
[] a higher plane
Non-believers will:
[] burn in Hell
[] be re-incarnated as insects
[] other ___________________
I want to get my religious teachings from:
[] a church or synagogue
[] a TV personality
[] the positions of the planets
[] an ancient scripture written in a dead language and
now distorted beyond recognition by fanatical translators
[] quartz crystals and unseen spirits
mail this form to: GOD, 13 Faith Avenue, State of Mind NY 10101
------------------------------------------------------------------
---
EXCLUSIVE ORLANDO INDICATOR COVERAGE
OF A TWINS' SPRING TRAINING GAME
by Anonymous
March 15 - As I cycled down Wastemoreland Boulevard
toward Sinker Field, I pondered the ways in which people can be
manipulated by mere symbols. Pavlov rang a bell at mealtime and
pretty soon his hounds would salivate at the sound even if there
was no Purina Dog Chow in the house. Restaurants in malls allow
a whiff of frying onions to escape from the kitchen in order to
awaken potential customers' slumbering hungers. Poets, preachers,
politicians and other perverts use verbal, visual and auditory
symbols to produce the desired emotions in their audiences' brains.
Wave a flag, flash come cash, rev the engine of a Camaro, wear a
suit and tie or a T-shirt and jeans. No one is immune from being
manipulated by symbols.
It was unseasonably, unreasonably cold; I was shivering
upon my arrival at the timeworn stadium. In the foul smelling
restroom with its hellish odors of sulphur and ammonia, I
remembered an incident from the future in which religious
fanatics will gather at the adjacent Tangerine Bowl and cause
it to vanish into another dimension. But then again, our
premonitions about the past are always 20/20, aren't they?
I got a bleacher seat near thirst base and prepared
to watch this spring draining game between the Minnesota
Twinkies and the Houston Assholes. I was rooting through, I mean
for, the Houston team but who knows why.
How do boys select their favorite athletes? What deep
dark undercurrents run through the arena of sports? Consider
some of the terminology. Hot rookies, hotdogs, big sticks,
ribbies, rubbers, homeruns, in a position to score, good
penetration, a high fly, and most noteworthy of all, switch
hitters. In some semantic senses, "fans"="blowers" and the
power source is AC/DC. The avid baseball fan who knows Glenn
Davis' height and weight or talks about Don Mattingly having
the "sweetest swing in baseball" definitely has something
cooking on his back burner.
The catcher, firmly strapped into his gear, puts a
hand in his crotch to manipulate the pitcher with a symbolic
programming language. A hard-hurled ball smacks into the
squeaky tight receptacle of the leather glove and sends a
slight shiver of sting up the catcher's arm. The next pitch
is hit and a pop-up fly disappears into the bluish-white
glare of clear sky and never comes down.
Telepathically zooming into the outfielder's brain,
all we can perceive is the white noise static of synapses
snapping on and off, an un-interpretable stream of ones and
zeros. Meanwhile my own synapses decide that hazardous
hypothermia is setting in, so I depart at the bottom of the
second, wondering why I came and why I will return.
---
---------------------
The Orlando INDICATOR
---------------------
excerpts from the 70th edition, summer 1988
in this issue:
"HITS" -- a replay of our most popular articles from the 1980's
---
The Orlando Indicator
(the official newspaper of the Great Conspiracy)
June, 1982 edition
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This
explains why God is doing such a lousy job.
SECRET SERVICE VISITS INDICATOR
May 17 - I was minding my own business, as a matter of fact I was
sleeping, when there came a knock at the door of my miserable little
apartment. I fell off my bunk, crawled to the door and yelled, "Who
Goes There?"
"Secret Service," came the reply.
"Secret Service?" I echoed.
"Yes."
I thought this was one of my biker buddies playing a deranged
joke, but when I opened the door, there was a dude wearing a Suit and Tie.
The real thing.
"Are you R K Harrison?"
"Yes," I confessed.
"I need to have a talk with you."
I invited him in, told him to have the seat and looked at his
identification. He asked me if I was the editor of the Indicator, and
again I confessed. I didn't want to confess, but he was torturing me.
(Sleep deprivation is a well-known torture technique.)
The SS man produced a copy of the April Indicator and read aloud
some of my anti-Reagan comments. He said such swill is protected by the
First Amendment, but he expressed concern that my writing will become more
and more vitriolic until it reaches the point of illegally threatening
people. I tried to convince him that I'm not an assassin, but I don't
think he believed me.
He asked, "Have you ever been busted for anything?"
"No," I said cheerfully. My clean police record annoys a lot of
my persecutors.
The SS man told me, "You don't want to do anything to bring
yourself to the attention of the police, who might not have such a liberal
attitude, because they can give you a real hard time if they want to.
You know, they can nickel-and-dime you to death."
Noticing a reference to the Hell's Angels in the Indicator, and
the FTW sticker on my door, he said, "I see you have a little Fuck the
World emblem here. When I was a cop, we used to chase the Hell's Angels
all over the state. Are you a rider? I didn't see any big machine outside."
I laughed, because this was ridiculous. "I'm not a biker trainee,
if that's what you're asking. That's my big ten-speed parked in the
driveway."
The SS man apologized for waking me up and then departed. I
wondered what he was really up to, and I'm sure he wondered the same
about me.
Later, a friend of mine told me he'd been questioned by the SS
after leading an anti-Reagan rally. Evidently the Secret Service
routinely tried to intimidate Reagan's opponents. However, we are not
afraid, because Good always triumphs over Evil (sooner or later).
================
WORK vs. LIBERTY
================
item 1: a page from _the_Orlando_Indicator_, published in 1985
--------------------------------------------------------------
DEARBORN, Mich. - The noise, monotony and pressure of the assembly
line is a natural breeding ground for headaches, but workers say the
recent recession brought with it a new source of pain - bosses who
tell them to "be thankful you have a job."
(newspaper clipping)
For starters, nothing is more social than the endless work-pay-rest-
work cycle which the vast majority of us are forced to engage in.
Our very need to earn money to buy necessities, the boring, demeaning,
treadmill nature of most jobs, the spiritual poverty of shopping,
the channeling of pleasure impulses into conspicuous consumption or
into organized leisure which we pay for (movies, ballgames) - all
these are features of a particular social system. Not only is this
system not eternal, it hasn't even been around very long. Just
another signpost in history.
(from the anarchist newspaper
_The_Daily_Battle_)
I no longer doubt that every ideal and institution in the United
States is subordinated to the right of a small minority among us
to make profits. The resulting desecration of our values and
lives {is} only most blatant and undeniable in our workplaces.
The undeniable and generally accepted truth concerning work in
the United States today is that, on the whole, it is extremely
confining, dehumanized, and meaningless for those who perform it.
To explain this, some say work is a necessary evil. Others say, no,
work in our system is more inhumane than it needs to be; therefore we
can and should carry out reforms to make work more satisfying. Taken
together, these prevailing views mean that the quality of work... at
best can only be improved somewhat and within the system. Their
common, silent message is that no other form of social organization
can offer hope of radical improvement in work.
With these nearly unchallenged views I strongly disagree... I
support meaningful reform, but I do not believe the work process can
be radically improved through reforms within the American system.
(from the book _Working_for_
_Capitalism_ in which college
professor Richard Pfeffer describes
some non-academic jobs he worked at,
and his resulting disillusionment)
People are beginning to doubt the dogma that superseding work
means living in caves and eating small furry insects. Most work
serves the predatory purposes of commerce and coercion and can be
abolished outright. The rest can be automated away and/or transformed
into creative, play-like pastimes whose variety and conviviality
will make extrinsic inducements like the capitalist carrot and the
"Communist" stick equally obsolete. In the impending meta-industrial
revolution, libertarian communists revolting against work will settle
accounts with "Libertarians" and "Communists" working against revolt.
And then we can go for the gusto!
(Bob Black)
Who is the spray-can artiste who has been writing "Work stinks"
on walls all over Orlando? Methinks it is the same malcontent who
sprays all those circle-A anarchy symbols. Whoever he is, he has a
genius slogan. Graffitist, identify yourself so we can join your
Work Stinks movement...
(newspaper clipping, circa 1984)
"Because they know Monday morning is coming, workers say they
become tense 12 hours before they have to be on the job," the
researcher said. "Sunday evening should be a time to relax, and we
recommend they try to find other things to think about so they
aren't dreading a return to work before it actually happens."
(newspaper clipping, circa 1984)
If you liked school, you'll love work.
Work is a prison of measured time.
(anarchist poster, circa 1983)
item 2: column by Charley Reese in _the_Orlando_Sentinel_ 1985/03/15
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Orlando Anarchists: People either work or are parasites
Charley Reese
of the Sentinel staff
There are people in the area - a small group - who call themselves
the Orlando Anarchists. Among other things, they are against work. I have
felt that way myself at times. But unlike an anarchist, I know reality
when I see it.
These folks seem to think that work is a curse put on mankind by the
capitalistic system and that if the system were destroyed, people would
be free, in the words of one of their pamphlets, to be "fully human -
generous, playful, spontaneous, venturesome and unpredictable."
The mind boggles at the depth of ignorance necessary to sustain that
belief.
There is a simple test that anybody can take to demolish the belief
that work is the result of either private or state capitalism. Simply go
off into a wilderness area and be prepared to live off the land for 30
days. You will be alone, beyond the reach of government. For all prac-
tical purposes, you will have achieved a state of anarchy: no government,
no job, no society, no one to tell you what to do.
Rather than being playful and spontaneous, you will find yourself
doing the most dreadful drudge work under the harshest of disciplinarians:
hunger and thirst. You will find out in a hurry about the blessings of
capitalism and the division of labor.
People must work, not because of the dictates of any political or
economic system, but to survive. Every day the human body requires water
and food. In most climates, people require shelter of some sort. And man-
kind, being a weakling by animal standards, also requires tools.
...In this universe, you are either a worker or a parasite living off
other workers. This is the true, natural state of man - to work - as
ordained by biology, not by Adam Smith or Karl Marx.
There are a number of ways that labor an be divided and organized,
but there are no ways to dispense with labor. No work, no eat; no eat,
no live is a scientific statement, not a moral rule.
...Hamburger does not appear in the supermarket by magic. It
begins with a cow and somebody who labors to feed, shelter and doctor it.
Then the cow is moved to the slaughterhouse where someone else must slay
it, skin it, butcher it, refrigerate it and transport it. There is a long
chain of hard, dirty work leading up to the humble hamburger patty we so
casually chew on while musing over the latest political nonsense.
Our local anarchists aren't rebelling against capitalism; they are
rebelling against life and reality. They are looking for the Garden of
Eden. They think it is concealed behind the facade of modern society.
They think the garden will reappear if they destroy society.
They are doomed by their illusion to waste their lives in frustra-
tion. There is no Garden of Eden this side of the grave, nor can one be
created. For as long as people exist on this planet, they will spend the
bulk of their lives at hard labor.
item 3: letter of reply published several days later in the _Sentinel_
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Inadequate analysis
When Charley Reese wrote a column attacking the anarchists' anti-work
literature, he chose a processed and nutritionally worthless product -
hamburger - as an example of food production. He didn't mention that
anyone can grow vegetables, and there are easy, organic ways of keeping
bugs from eating the crops. Apologists for the status quo rely heavily
on the myth that there is "a long chain of hard, dirty work" involved in
producing necessities.
Work that produces useless or hazardous products such as Rolls-Royces
and chemical insecticides need not be done at all. The labor that is
necessary should be made into a playful part of everyday life. Gardening,
weaving and carpentry could be enjoyable hobbies instead of daily drudgery.
I think Reese failed to give an adequate analysis of our view of a
decentralized, non-profit world.
Rick Harrison
Orlando
item 4: letter of reply by Bob Black
submitted to both the _Sentinel_ and the _Indicator_;
only the _Indicator_ printed it
-----------------------------------------------------
To the Editor:
If columnist Charley Reese isn't careful he just might enlarge that
"small group" the Orlando Anarchists into a big one with his transpar-
ently specious arguments that work is inevitable.
I have noticed that nobody believes in work as fervently as those
who don't have to do any. He who intones "there is no free lunch" usually
has an expense account. Reese says that anybody who doesn't work is a
parasite, but the real parasites are the hordes of bureaucrats, politic-
ians, bankers, priests, lawyers, and columnists whose mouths outrun their
minds.
Reese, who has never done so, asserts that anyone going off into the
wilderness to live off the land would "find himself doing the most dread-
ful drudge work under the harshest of disciplinarians: hunger and thirst."
But the question is how cooperating groups (not solitary individuals)
might live, and here the anthropological evidence which Reese ignores is
quite clear. As anthropologist Marshall Sahlins demonstrated in his book
_Stone_Age_Economics_, contemporary hunter-gatherers - despite having been
forced into the most inhospitable environments on the planet by the
expansion of state and market systems - "work" only about four hours a
day, in healthy open-air surroundings, with no bosses, time-clocks and
production quotas, and produce abundantly for their needs. They make no
distinction between work and play because for them there is none, and
indeed their "work" - hunting, fishing, gardening - is what _we_ do to
relax and forget about work!
Since only 4% of Americans produce far more than enough food for all
the rest, it is obvious that most work serves other than useful purposes.
In fact, what it does is sustain parasitic governmental and business
elites and habituate the masses to hierarchy, obedience and deferred
(that is, denied) gratification.
No one can say for sure that work can be eliminated, that is, if its
small useful core can be transformed into a variety of diverse, creative
activities which would by their intrinsic enjoyment attract enough people
to produce as much as is truly needed or desired. But there are reasons
to think it might be done, and columnists might apply themselves to this
constructive task rather than rehash platitudes.
Does Reese know what kind of company he's keeping when he dogmatizes
"No work, no eat"? Almost exactly the same expression appears in the
Soviet Constitution. All authorities and authoritarians, East and West,
religious and secular, left and right agree on this axiom, and this is
why the real movement toward real freedom is ignored, opposed or
oppressed by all of them.
I will leave off by issuing a challenge to Charley Reese. I've been
hard on him because he arrogantly insults a group of his neighbors whose
ideas he doesn't even try to understand. But I will take it all back if
he will publish a confession that he writes for the _Sentinel_ solely
"to survive" as he passes "the bulk of (his life) at hard labor"; that
he just churns out copy to earn his paycheck. Why should anyone take
seriously a guy who writes for such a reason?
I too write a column, for a small San Francisco newspaper called
_Open_City_, and I don't get paid; and yet it's one of my most fulfilling
activities. Why shouldn't everyone be able to live this way?
-Bob Black
item 5: reply to Reese from the staff of _the_Orlando_Indicator_
----------------------------------------------------------------
Orlando Anarchists reply:
WHAT DOES REESE KNOW ABOUT WORK?!?!
Opinion polls reveal that most working-class people do not love their
jobs. They see their work as slavery which they must put up with to
survive. A hell of a lot of people agree with our slogan "WORK STINKS."
Polls also show that people would like to see some drastic changes in their
workplaces, including ownership of businesses by the people who actually
do the work there.
If Reese wants to attack parasites who don't work, he should take a
hard look at landlords, bosses and bureaucrats. The wealthiest 1% of the
people own 98% of all corporate stock; these bloodsuckers sit on their
butts and rake in the profits from _our_ labor. The upper class is where
the real parasites will be found.
Charley's assertion that persons going off into the wilderness will
experience "the most dreadful drudge work" is contradicted by the
experiences of thousands of people who actually _do_ go off into the
wilderness for recreation. If abandoning capitalist society and living,
to varying degrees, off the land were so miserable, why do so many
campers voluntarily do it?
Reese's final remark about "hard labor" is very revealing. Fascists
like him _want_ the world to be run like a concentration camp, where
anyone who refuses to work for the bosses' profit would be shot. We
anarchists want to build a world worth living in, and we believe it is
possible.
And we're gonna make Reese's Pieces out of Charley and his kind.
=========================================================================
+-------------- newspaper clipping 10/86 ----------------+
| |
| Bagging it: A brief obituary here to mark the passing |
| of the Freestone Market, Orlando's first and only food |
| co-op. It will die of natural causes on Nov 15. Eulo- |
| gizes co-founder Scott Terry: "It was always under- |
| capitalized, but served a lot of people in a lot of |
| different ways, both for food and fellowship. The way |
| it is in our society now, one-stop shopping is the key |
| to success. And the co-op never could offer the wide |
| variety of items that lure people to the supermarket |
| instead." Located on robinson across from T. G. Lee, |
| the Freestone Market would have turned 10 on Dec 5. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
above: establishment media moguls Bob Morris and Scott Terry
commiserate over the failure of nothing-is-freestone Market.
CO-OPTED: THE ILLUSION OF WORTHWHILE BUSINESS VENTURES
by Rick Harrison (1987)
We all understand that businesses plunder and pollute the earth and
create artificial demands for unnecessary products. We all know that
employees are nothing but slaves who are forced to work in order to buy
necessities. Most of us understand that businesses exploit and destroy
the earth and its inhabitants.
However, liberals and leftists sometimes suffer from the delusion that
some businesses are okay. If a business is owned by an individual or a
family, or if it sells artsy-fartsy or environmental or spiritual
products, or if it is a so-called cooperative, then some folks think the
business is worth supporting. If the lady at the Spiral Circle bookstore
hugs you before taking your money, then her store is considered more
worthwhile than K-mart where the cashiers never hug you. Never mind the
fact that K-mart at least sells useful items whereas Spinal Circle is
just a superstition supermarket that bilks people out of their hard-earned
money by selling them the most nonsensical goods. The myth that a business
can be socially acceptable is just one example of the foggy philosophy
and murky mentation that plagues New Ageists.
This myth is promoted by the hip entrepeneurs who run these businesses.
Now that I've spent several months working in a cooperative health food
store, I can factually inform you that the concept of a worthwhile
business is a hoax. Business is business, and whether you sell machine
guns or mung beans or mystical books, anyone who engages in selling things
must follow the rules of capitalism. And the rules of capitalism are not
compatible with the rules followed by humanitarians and philosophers.
Calculating prices, making a profit and preventing "theft" are the
inevitable duties of an entrepeneur. However, how can anyone commit
"theft" at a place of business? Isn't the profit margin a form of theft?
Isn't the exploitation of employees a form of theft? Who is ripping off
whom? Nevertheless, I found myself doing all these entrepeneurial duties
with a vengeance. Perhaps superstitious boobs would say I was paying off
a Karmic debt.
When I took the job as co-op manager, I was convined I could use my
superior intellectual capacity to figure out some way to save Freestone
Market from its financial problems. I spent many hours rooting through
the incredibly disorganized financial records; I calculated and counted
and computed. (I should have spent the same amount of time doing
philosophical calculations before getting involved with the store.)
One day -- October 14th to be exact -- my subconscious mind transmitted
the output resulting from all the financial computations. It said,
NO WAY TO SAVE CO-OP
NO REASON TO SAVE CO-OP
DISCONTINUE EXPENDITURES OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ENERGY
ON HOPELESS SITUATION
Although Freestone was in debt for years, floating checks since Day
One, it had continued running on emotion, based on the false belief that
the co-op was more worthwhile than other businesses. Running a store on
emotion rather than sound business practices takes a terrible toll on
the people involved. It's emotionally draining. A lot of people got
burned-out by the co-op, and it was a terrible waste of time.
Businesses are bad enough, but so-called cooperatives exploit their
customers and workers even more than straight-forward capitalists do.
Freestone's managers and cashiers worked long hours for a sub-normal
wage with no insurance, no benefits, no overtime pay, no paid holidays,
no severance pay, few lunch breaks, no relief from the pressures of
running an insolvent business and trying to deal with Boards of Directors
who had neither enough knowledge nor enough time to run a business but
who nevertheless insisted on usurping as much authority as possible away
from the people who actually spent time working in the store.
The co-op's customers also got ripped off; they were required to
provide working capital for the business and to do its physical work,
in addition to the degrading procedure of showing their official
membership (ID) cards to the cashier. No ordinary business could get
away with such a ripoff.
We endured this exploitation because we were hypnotized into believing
the co-op was something better than a business. To use a superstitious
metaphor, you could say that I used my powers to break the evil spell
that had been cast on us. Once again I succeeded in shining the light
of reality into a dark hole where only murky thinking and a mist of
myths had existed previously. With my help, we were able to shake off
the awful daydream that had kept us enslaved in the co-op.
It was quite a struggle. Now Orlando's health-food eaters have been
liberated from the endless work and obligations which were called the
co-op. I immersed myself in the illusion that the co-op was a
worthwhile business, got to the point where I really believed it,
got in tune with all the other people who were having the same bad
dream, and then fortunately I was able to snap us out of it. From the
standpoint of sanity, this was one of the most dangerous missions I've
ever had. Thank goodness it's over.
___________________________
1989 footnote: I could say the same thing as an epitaph for
_The_Orlando_Indicator_: thank goodness it's over. After 12
years of wasting my time and money typing, illustrating,
and printing the Indicator, then mailing it out to an
unappreciative world, I finally wised up in the summer of 1988
and put the rag out of its misery. -RH
<end of file>
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