The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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--------------------- The Orlando INDICATOR --------------------- 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. --------------------- 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. Eternity is available for a limited time only! ----------------------- 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> Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron 415-935-5845 Just Say Yes 415-922-2008 Rat Head 415-524-3649 Cheez Whiz 408-363-9766 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diversive sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. 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