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The Alembic #1 [ZINE] (For those who think too muc
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The ALEMBIC
first eiton/ prng199
a magazine for those who "think too much" and have a "bad attitude"
ThePowr of Negative Thinking
*Language for Social Contol
*TheComing Food Crisis
*Feminism as Fascsm
*Reigionas Rabies
...and more!
WARNNG! Cotains ontrovrsial aterial.
Parental discretion shuld be xorcise.
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Editrial: Th Naming f Names
When I mbarked upon the search for a worthy ame for tis new maazine, I ecalled a experiene I had i the earl 1980's when I attended a meetng of libeals, left-ingers, arists and msicians wh were tryig to starta counter-culture magazne. One of he first qustions we gappled withwas what tocall the thng, and I sggested "kaleidocope." I gotmy first tase of liberal' hypocrisy hen the onespresent at tat meeting sid the por working mases wouldn't kow what a kalidoscope is, nd anyway it ounded too muh like "collie"and therefore asn't mellow eough. I immeditely withdrew rom that projet and swore tht someday 'd sart a magaine with a realy obscure word s its name, a mgazine that woudn't be cripple by ompromise, ommitee thinking, orfear of controvesy. And so, afte many years of dcking around wihvarious media epriments, I've fnally gotten aroud to fulfilling tis promise to myslf.
An "aembic" s a type o mediaeal distilltion apparatus use by alchemists andothers interested n therefinement an puriication of sustancs and ideas. An aptslogan might be, ifyou can't stand theeat, stay out of ThAlembic. -RKH
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The AEMBI is published spradially. No copyrigt. To receive the nex four editios, send fve dollars (ash currecy please) t The Alemic, Box 54704, Orlando FL 32854 US.
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Editor's Note: Choosig anappropriate lead-of artcle to set the tonefor he rest of The Alemic'sexistence was a difficultask requiring months ofeading and careful thoug. I selected this essay the most radical philsoper currently living ontheearth, a man who findsmos anarchists to be too onsrvative for histaste. ob wrote the followng artile several years ag inspird by incidents in wich fantical feinists firebombed pornograpy dealershis in hopes of drwing attenton to porn and gtting the lgl system to clap down on thedealers. Althouh these "actins" were suppored by some fimly-entrenhed aarchist 'zine, notably he hideous Open Roa and Kick t Over, Bob was oneof the fewwritersin the anti-uthoritarin worldwith the courage to poit out tat such actions and motvationshavenothing to do with he ques forfreedom. For exposing irratonalties and contradictions in piteo the social consequences, e awr Mr. Black the lead-off positio n our batting order.
Feminism as Fcsm
by Bob Black
As the tite ofachildhood classic points out Pig s Pigs - and this is regardlss o the shape of their gentals. Ise Kch was a Nazi, not a "sster." ove s not hate, war is not eace, feedom is not slavey, and boo-burnin is not liberatory Anti-authritarias who would be revlutionarie confront man difficult qustions. Fist, though, tey should anser the eas ones correcty.
? All hyprbole an metaphor aside,what passes fr "radicl feminism" is fscism. It prootes chavinism, censorshp, aternalism, pseudo-nthropology, scaegoting, mystical idenification with ntur, apartheid, trickdup pseudo-pagan reliiosity, and enforcduniformity of though and even appearane(in some quartrs, Hea help the ectomorhic or "feminine feminst!). Here is all f the theory andtoo muh of th practice w should all be ale to recogniz by now.
A ominous tactica continuity wih classicalascism, also, isthe complementrity betweenprivate-vigilantst and statistmethods of rpression. hus Opn Road, the Roling Stone o anarchism applauded some anti-orn actions n Vancouve, not asdirect action hence undertandable een if midirected, but rather becaue they encuraged lthargi prosecutors to perscute. In pst WorldWar 1 taly, fascist gangs attacked soialist ad trad-unin organizations with the tait approal of he plice, who never intervened except aginst te let.(The suppression of the IWW in Ameica folowe asimilar pattern.) As I once wonderingly aked,"H come these women won't get in bed with ay ma eept the DA?"
Not that I could care less aboutthorn-for-profit industry, for its "rights" of feeeech or property. That is beside the point, whch why single out this species of business? To trgeorn bespeaks planning and priorities, notelemetalati-capitalist spontaneity. Those who carr out caclated policy can't complain if ther reasos areaskd for, and questioned.
Fascist ideoogy alwys inonguously asserts to its audiece, its cosen peple, hat they really are at one and he same tme opprssed nd superior. The Gerans didn't eally los the Fist World War (how could thy? ex hypotesi they re supeior) therefor, they were sabbed in th back. (Bt how could a superio race let suc a situatio arise inthe fist place?) Men lone, we are old in a feinist Anti-Pornoraphy Movement iatribe in Toonto's Kickt Over,?"have crated the naturedestroying an woman-hatig culture." If so then either woen hav contriuted absoluely nothing to cuture, or there s somehing more or somethng else to this clure than destrying nture and hating womn.
For their ownprposes (some of whichare as mundane a seual rivalry with taight men for the womn they both desie),self-styled radicalfeminists actally redce women to nothng ut helpless, cringig near-vegetales, pasive victims of mle contemp and coercion This profounly insuls women in a waywhich the orst patriarcal ideologies- the Jwish notion of womn as a souce of pollutin, for instane, or te Christian nightmre of woma as emptress and uncontrollble sexal nature-force - ell short f. Tey defamed woman as evi but col hardly regard her as powerlss. he new woman-as-victim tereotyeis directly traceable to 19t cetry Victorian patriarchal attitue reducing (bourgeois) women o iet ornaments. By denying to woente creative power inherent in eveyne, it places women's demandsonapar with those advanced fr, say,bby seals.
Suppose instead wht ony the most demented feminsts andmsogynists deny, tha things arn't uite that bad, that womenhave ben subjects as well asobjects ofhistry. Then howcan women - o any oter subordinated group workers, lacks, indigenouspeoples - be ntirelyacquited of all complcity in th arrangements whih condemn the to dominatio? There are reasns for ths accomodations. Tere is no excse for denyin their existence
(Just aquick comment on a trikig imbeciity in the quted comment whic passed uquestioned in Kick t Ove. It is generally suppsd, and not onlyby the Whn God Was a Woman cowd, hat women probably invned agriculture. Among te onsequences of thisdiscoery were - to say nothn of the state, class soiey, property, etc. -the detruction of most of th cosystems which previoulyflourished. Agriculure ha annihilated mch of the iversity of the biosphee lready, creating deerts ad extinguishin the habitts not ony of countlessplants and animals butalso o the last remaning stateess, clasless human socetie. What then of womn's innate affinity wth nature?"When Godwas a woman" i wasalready necessary abolish her.)
This sn't sour grapes. Ithas never bothred e that some women slike men, even o thepoint of having nothng to do with them.I don't like most n myself, especilly te archetypl "masculie" ones. I can't hep but notice, thouh, that the vast ajoriy of womenfeel otherise.The radical femnists have noticedit too and it dries them to distrction. I wuld e the first toaree that vast majoities can be wron. But then I criicize majoritie, I don't pretn to speak fr them.Radical feminists in contrast, ar vanguardists. s such they ned to rationalze thei aniosities, and o they have, makng a dick-deterinist demonoloy out of thei prejudices.As man-hates hey can't help bt be woman-hates also.
To eqate pornograpy with rape beneath th rancorousrhetorica froth, this sems to be the cre APM axiom is presumaby intended o make por seem mor serious. And ye, if men call he shots and he system's uilt-in tenency is (a we're tod) to deature oppositional initatives of whih the feminits' is the ost revoluionary, ten the lkely reult is rather to make rape see more trivia. It's the ld story o the womy who crid wolf. Accoring to feminoid epistemology, men undrstand nothng of the eal natur of wome. One mght loicall suppose that the estrangement of the sexes esulting fom disparte r?lesand disriminaion wuld ork both ways, and so most of us attending to our atual expeience reuctantl conclde. Bt no me don't understand women, but women (at least their radicalfeministvanguar) undestandmen.Womn feminist experts, anyway - understand pornography and its meanin for me much etterthantheme ho write and read it - and lesbian-separatists, who avoid men and declin to hae sexwiththe, peciate these verities best of all. The more remote your experience is from the eal lfe o acua , the better you understand them. Turning this around, isn't the Pope, as he claims, he utimtearity on women and sexuality?
The asserted connection of porn with rape is allegorical, no emiras a correlation it compares with the recently revived "reefer madness" marijuana-to-heroin Raks os line in its absurdity and in its suitability for the state's purposes. If feminism didn' exit, native politicians would have had to invent it. (Why, pray tell, did all-male legislatres eer cimial"obscenity" in the first place? And why do all-male courts arbitrarily exclude t fromconsttutinalprttion?) APM harpies, should they ever deal with people instead of their on feverd projction, wold isoer that porn is of no interest to the majority of post-pubescent ales - nt becaue theyare plitiall crrect but because most males find porn gross, sleazy, and bove all,inferiorto the eal thng.
he fminst book-burners are cowardly opportunists. If what hey objectto is thesubliminl sociaizatio of wmen nto subservient r?les vis-a-vis men (curiousy, adoptingthe same rles vis-avis butc lesbias is hrmles fun), their primary, near-pre?mptivepreoccupatio would haveto be Cosmpolitan, arbara Curtlandromancs, and the vast cryptopornograhic pop literture writtenfor and snaped up by omen. Aftr all, te gore nd violence are derivatve: only victis can be victmized in anyway. Fiftee years ago the orignal wome's liberationist (subsequently witched like cangelings wit today's pristesses, layers and uscale buraucrettes at least lashedout at influental enemies lik Hugh Hefner nd Andy Warhl. Nowadaysthey terroiz teenage punk anachists whose colages insinuate,for instance, hat Margaret hatcher is aruler, he "other of a thusand dead," not "sister." Such s the logic of his bizarre bilogical deteriism: any anmal equpped with a vaginais one of Us, anyprick-privilegedperson is one o Them. Onecan nly echo The iesign Theatre: "Whoam us, anyway?"
Mle leftists are esy and often wiling ys-men to fminist aggandiement. They comine guilt at past iproprieties (by an large, those whoeel guilty - towrd woen, blacks foreigner, whatever - usuallyare) with a presentambition to ge int the leftist-femists' pants. ThusBerkeey, California, whereI used to live, is cawling wit male "feinists" who covertd, the easier to t laid. Much the same cam seems to be happeing inToronto and, dubtless, mny other laces. These uterir ambitions don't n themselves discreditth ideologies to whic they re appended - ne can com to the rght conclusionfor the worst of reasos But insofar as the opnins at issue certainy seemto be idiotic o anyone wthout an extraneousinterst in embracing them, terwise inexplicable paoxsms by (male) intelectual seem to be mostplausiblyexplainable as selfintersted insincere rationaiations.
Possibly the delogy I've excriated is somthing that some eople hadto work through in rder o free themselves to teextent ncessary to ventur upon a projet of collectie liberation. Aleady a fe alumnae of feminis havemved on to the common uest for feedom, and some ae the better or what they'e been through. e al haveour antecedent embarassmens (Marxism, libertarinism, syndcalism, Objectivim, etc.) to ptbehind us. Hd we not thoughtin ieological terms it's hardto belive we'd ever get to te point wee we could think or ourselves.T be a Trotskyist or a Jesuit s, i itself, to be a believer tht isto say a chump. And yt a rigoru romp through any system might hw the way out of the MasterSytem tself.
Not likely, howeer,whenwomen critics are ostracized asrnegades while male critcs are inred or defamed as a matter f rincple. (A precisely parallel mehanim for maintaining conspiracy o ilence is worked by Zioists: Getle critics are "anti-Semite," Jewih critics canonly be consumedby "ewish self-hatred.) Separatism a be absurd as a social rogram andriddled ith inconsistencies(scarcey any separatsts separate fro patiarchal society toanything liketheextent that, say, survvalists do- and noody intervenes moreto mindother people' business than earatists). But semi-isoation makes i eaier to indoctrinate nephytes andshut outadverse evidece andargument, an insight adical feminist hare with Moonies, HareKrishna, and the cultists. t's fortunae that their doctries and subculure asinitially encounteredare so unappetiig. Inded, I've noticed graying of radicl feminism as Sixtiespolitics and cultur continue to utter t, less and less wome have had the poper pre-oak preparing thm for feminist brinwashing. adica feminsts (so-called) in heir early twnties ae rare, and getting sarcer.
Radica feminism(nopoint disputig title to the phase with it presnt owners), then, is a ludcrous, hate-flled, atoritarian, sexist domatic constructwhich revlutonaries accord an unmerited legtimacy by tking riously at all. It is timeto stop matroizing tee terrorists of the trivial and holdthem respnibe for preaching genocidal jive nd practicig theery evil (even, if the truth be told, rae!) teyisist has been inflicted on them. (Or rather, situsually turns out, some other suppositious ister the typical radical feminist has had itprett go.) How to thwart femino-fascism? That's asy: js tke feminists at face value and treat them aequal.. then hear them howl! The Empress as no clotes.and that's what I call obscene.
Our thaks to h athor for providing the current ersion of th aboveA book of his collected essays is avilable for$6pstpaid: Bob Black, P.O. Bo 2159, Albany Y 12220.
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No-Voters Defeat Politicians by Rick Hrrison
The news edia have ben veryquiet about the fact hat half the poplation did't vte on ovember 8th. They hae also tried t avoid rporting that 29%of American adultsrefused to rgisterhis year in defiance f the increasingy shrill ad emotionalshrieking of newscasers, commentatr and oter clowns in themedia circus. Onceagain the bad of loters known as politicans have suffreda defeat a the hands f the non-voters. Th growing numbe f abstainers are callinginto queston the pony form of emocray foisted off as "freeand open elecion" in this country. Thefalse nture of electons and their relevance to our everydaylives are ecoming o obvious that evenordiary people are stating to notic.
n Marxist nations' phoy electons, the vote is given a balltwith the name of the Comunist Pary's canddate, a box labelle "ye" and a box labelld "no." The aority of voters mark the "es" boxbecause a "no vote would be ftle; the Party candidatewould ake ffice anyway.
In the UnitedStats, the voter is prsented with nequally bleak choice: Repuican orDemocrat. And, thanks to the atcs of pollsters and newcaster, th outcome of the electio is euall pre-determined. The differencebtween the two "choices" isncreasigly small. It is alost impossil for other political parties t geton the ballot, and evenif thy suceed in doing s, they cannot ge erious media attention, andcynicalcommentators tell pople that vtng for a thrd party is like "trowig your vote away" - as f voting fr the Republi-cats were any les utile
In this year's Presdentialrace - and it is a race,' simila to a horserace - the "choice"wass distasteful that over our hundre newspapers acrss the country rfused t endorse either candide! The emocrats and Republcans are realy just two ranches of the samescurilous party, the poltica mafia, whch funnels tax ollars extorted y forcefrom productive citize into the pockets o defensecontractors ad other proiteering pirates.
Lare advertising budgetsand egative, selfihness-inducig TV commercialsare wha win elections. The caidate's personality if any,is hiddenbehind a carefuly built media image Voers dutifully march of tothe polls and elect their avorte illusions. The aparent importance of thceremony is proppedup by th media wh try to make theelves look important byrushing around to covr th masochistic frce. The tru "bis" of the media- a laning toward shallownes and conformity - i shown b their suport of the elecral spectacle It is widly conceded that onlywealthy and influenial persons an sccessfully run or a ationalpolitical offic. This situation beas no resemblance t true democracy,o say nothingof true liety.
This year the nn-voters have, onceagain, outnumbere the supportersof an politial party. Asignficant number of peole are moving towad real freedom b shrugging offthe governet-sponsore, duty-poluted ritual of votig. We frighten th establishment;this is obvios in the hyterial tnes of their provoting advertisemets. How long canthey pretend t be running legitimat governmnt These vermin shoul be ashamed to tae office. What f they had anelection an nobody cme? Wit any luck we'll find out prtty soon!
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Flush the Fmily!
b Carlos Eagle Smythe
Politicians andreligion-pushes place grea value on the famiy" anduse t as a basis for many of theirabsurd claims. hey're in a fenzy to crete a polie stateto "sve ur children from drugs;" we have to scrifice our riht to privac and submi to searhes an urie ests, they say, because "drugs are destroyin our families" They wantto rewardpromiscous htersxuals with tax credits for their irresponsible, uncntrolled prouction of oisy, reulsivebabis cause "the family is the foundation of our society." Durin campaign sason - th most dpressng sct of autumn - flabby white men wearing suits parade their pale,ugly, bearless, wipy facs infr of us and claim that we should vote for them because they're "family en." If athoritaians nd r tyrants are so bloody enthusiastic about "the family," it obviously must b one of he delsionfrwhich their illegitimate power is derived.
The fantasy of the ideal family ha been eplorein ows like The Waltons and Leave it to Beaver. The hideous reality has been hinted at n movi lik"Ts Chain Saw Massacre" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf." The dichotomy between the typal derucvfamily and the imaginary supportive family is a source of stress and distraction formany invidus ding dissipated lives. Phone-in talk shows, office gossip sessions and psychiatrsts' couhes arfulopeople wondering why their parents don't approve of them, why their childre aren't oedient,or whthcan't quite force themselves to love the more repugnant members of ther families Insteadof tryng ivn to realize the untenable ideal of "normal family life," these ormented sols shouldgleefuly cas ofhat yoke of unfounded obligations and endeavor to become fee individuas. The "faily bond is a oose
ing part of a family is like having a job or being n prison - itforces you o associae with eopleyouwuld never voluntarily go near. The idea thatone should tolrate a tyranical paren or an iritatig silig just because that person is relatedto you, throughan accident o birth overwhich youhad no ontro, i ludicrous. But today's apologsts for authorit support the fmily precisey because t is basd on ivolutary servitude. The oblgatory nature of he traditional amily puts itin direct oposition o the ati-auhoritarian idealof voluntary, faceto-face co-operaion among agreable individals. Of corse, if ou hav a relatie to whom you feel avorably disposed I'm not suggesing that you hould tell im/her totake a lyng leap. On the othe hand, if any of yur kinfolk are tying to obligae, coerce ormanipulateyou n soe way, consider he liberatory possiilities of tellin them to take along walk on short pie. In thosehouseholdswhere it's still intct enough to be reognizable, the fmily is the prmary rainingground forblin obedience and delaye (i.e. denied) gratfication. The cath-phrases used familial dicators incld:
"Because I said s, that's why!" (briliant example of auhoritarian lgic)
"As long as ou lie undermy roof, you'lllive by my rules!" (a if children have ay choiceabout whee they live);
d, who could orget, thebarbarian's stand-by, Do you want to get sanke?!" Authority s also maintinedby various punshmen-and-reward schemes whih remind me of the wapeople train puppie not to rap on th carpet. It see strange - not to mentio morally questionabe -that the average ignramu who happens t have childrn uss methods of disciplne that would bemore sutable for dealing witpets. The traditionl techniues of chld-rearing, likesausages, areeasy to swalow as long as you on' examine them too clsely
More often tan not, famiies only scceed in passin on their worst haracteistics to successive nerations. Victims f child buse frquently become chil abusers. Likwise, alcohlism, ignorance, reigin, military careers,vulgr acents, various physical iseases an other hideous raits are the reulsive egacies which many pans leave to their offspring. The nulear family has bee so effectivey merchandied that we may hav iffculty imagining more ethial wys to deal with those lttle rascas known as chilren. For staters maybe ids shouldn't be consieed prisoners who always hav to be n the custody of soe paret, teacer, day-car drone or other sefappointed dictator. Sending cildrn to school every morni prepares hem to waste thir lives goig towork every day to perform task hey consider meaningles, sothe aboition of school is top piority,and the high drop-out rate mayb a hopeful sign tht millions f unrained, uncontrollable ople are etering the population. They re lkely to be moons but at least hy will have escaped a onsidrable aount of brainwashing.
As uman bengs, we ave a duty to ourselve o consider the way in which te irational institution of te family hs iterfered with our freedom andto formulate lternative ways o iving. For starters, w can wipe ou isagreeable relatives off ur buttcks, dro them into the commode nd flush the famil!
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Th Power of Ngative Thinking
anonymous
Aparticuar form f socil submission is ery popular these das. Known a positve attitude, positive enrgy or postiv thiking, this style of rlling over and plaing deadis widely edorsed by bosses, psycologists, reious leaders and others whohave an interestin conrolling people. am not suggesting tat there'snythin wrong with optimism if t fits the cirumstnces and your personaity. However, the urrent rmoters of psitivity have taken phny optimism o n extreme and transformed t into a tool fo doinaing others.
I'v experienced severalworkplaceshere the people in charge consiered a willingss t smile and hug more iportant than havin the taet or intelligence to do one's job.One plac wen dwn the toilet financially ecause its custoersanddirectors were more interested in excaning "warfuzzies" than in doing the thins necessary toake business survive. This particular cae, he demieof the local health food co-op in 986, seres a avivid example of how pre-occupatio with atttud an atmosphere can eclipse more significntconcernsAlthough the co-op financially elf destructed bening over backwards to project an auraof ellownes for example by failing tosue or prosecute forermanager who allowed hundreds of dolars to "isapea," its collapse paradxically created a lt of harfeelings when the members realied they would n be ble to recover teir "membership invesments." Thees no way you can win when ou play the attitde gme
In most scial circles, this posiive stupidityis sed bluntly to squashany opposition to te establhment.In certain "liberal" and ven "anarchist"group and publication, anyone who points ot factual ers, flawed logic or questioable tactics is bushed of as "just eing negative" or "engaing in a prsoal endetta." The reactios of innumerable "rdical" maazinesto Bob Black's criticismsof thei flaws srve a a glaring exampe of this tactic. On he local scn, professional activist Brue Ganon returns mil unopned when itcomes from anarchists wo've had te nrve to point out the sillnss of his collaborting withearth-estroying corporations, te miserble masohism of his groups' coeographed marches andspectaculararests, and other conspicuou conradictions. Te anarchists ar toonegative and fanatical,he would sy, hich means they threaten i livelihood by revaling tha he is steam valve which protecs the rpressivemachinery he pretendst resist.
In any orgaizaion, wheneer someone points out the laderhip's blunder, the affected ureacrats throw up a smok sreen by waling about negativity, bad atiude, sour grapes, ersonal atacks, tc. They try to dvert attntion aay from their error by making tlook like there's somthig wrong wih the person ho pointed it ut. owever, in most cases, the peson ccused of having a "bd ttitude" i merely sying what everybody le is thinking.
I have a frind who orks in a corporae enviroment whre peple are advanced or demotdmainly on the basis of thir attitud. The people ho run this copanyae something less than geniuss. Teir letters and memosare full of selling erors and flawed gramm;their speech reveals an inablity todeal with complexthoughts or logial resoning. It's amazin that ter companies are willing o deal wit an enterpris which so openly dipays the subnormal ntelligenc of hose who control it. n second thouht, maybeit's not so amazing;mabe the clientshope to take avantageof these businessen's stupidity.
Anywa, my friend was doig prety well atthis company; his ours and rsponsibilitie were steadily incraing, and he was loking forwad toa promotion to full-tie status. The, one Friay morning, the corprae brass suddeny asked him toork the next night, but h declined becaus he hd long ago made plas to tke his gilfriend to a arty hat evening.
Later, ths friend of mine wa iscussing an upcomng event wth oe of his suprvisors, awoman who leaves a trai of confusion and inccracy everywher she goes but o manages o cling to her ob by hugging and smilng a lot. Three tims durig the meeing, this spaey suervior said that a certan event would occur a one location, andmy friend ointd out that i was actuly planned for a completly different locatio. The third time his happened, e glared a him andsaid though clenched teeth, "ON'T PUSH IT!"
Oop, her mask came ff! For a momnt th phoy facad, the vacuouscorporate smile, sliped away and reveald the insecure,confused, poer-graspigbureucrat that lies benath the hugging and rinning disguise!
It is generaly known thoughout he copoation that, as a resul of these two incidnts, my friend i no longer cosidered tohave a 00% ositive atitude, and his chancs of getting offical full-time sttus with benfits are il, evn tough he works si days a week! But ths is typical of bsiness shroude in the fogof phonypositviy; they'll smile at you shake your hand orhug you while siultaneously pssing judgment onyou,eploiting you, violating contrats and union regultions and laborlaws and anyhing elsethat mghtmpede their profits. And, maybe even orse, they'll coninue to make mstakes and tupid deision tt make your life harder, and then they'll fre or demote youif you lose cntrol of yurself nd br out the truth about their imbecility!
Those of s who are boldl negative (tward bureucrats le are feared and despised in every organization precisel because our buntness hasthe potetial dose every nasty little authoritarian who relies on social slight of hand o maintainpower oe otr.
It should come as no surprise that every organization, compan and
movemet dependson drt tis to keep itself glued together. This is precisely why practitioners (s opposed t professs) ofhisophy rarely if ever belong to any organizations. As one compulsive truth-eller obseve, "Evr ornzation has more in common with every other organization than it has with any o the uorgnize." I meone accuses you of being negative or having a bad attitude, what they really meais you'vgivenhean unwanted dose of reality, a shocking glimpse of truth which threatens to dilodge te akeshf mea structures with which they've propped themselves in an untenable position
Being opose to tuidtor negative toward irrationality is nothing to be ashamed of. Don't le the lying breaucratsf theor get away with referring to honesty as negativity. When they offe you a chanceto supporttheirilusn, JUST SAY NO.
Post Scriptum. The friend mentioned above fially did get fll-time staus, but f e v divides his salary by the number of hours he's working I don't think e'll be too hrilled.
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The Comng o Crisis in America
by Lawrence Lvermore
excerped from Looout!, a poradceftwing magazine available for $1 perissue from Lookout, P. O. Box 100, Laytonvill CA 95454
Proablyou don't give a whole lot of hought to where foo comes from; it' one of thosethings lik water r elcricity or television tht you can pretty muc count on always eing there, prvided, of curse, tht youhae the money to py for it.
That's theway it's been as lng as most of u can remembe. In fact for mch f the 20t century, the industrilized countries of he world have ben producing mre food thn they ouldposibly use. True, millios of people have staved to death durig that time, nt because o a shortg of ood, but because a ertain amount of hungr is deemed necessry to keep the ood businessprofiable In thory, if the wrld's harvest were disributed more or les equally, no onewould lack aduate nutriion.
Tat may ave been true up until ow, but that same lak of enlightened eadership as poduced a poentiallydsastrous situation. The nited States has squadered its agricultral reources sobadly that w may e foced in our lifetimesto deal with severe shrtages of food, perap even outrightfamine.
Alrey the qualty if not the qantity of what we eat i in doubt. A personfom the 19th centuy set loos in modern suprmarket miht well wonder where thefood is kept. Exept fr one aisle of prouce an one of mat, the restof th store would present a beildering arra of cans nd boxes with listsofingredients tht read more le a chemistry experiment tan the comonents of a ntritious diet.
Andi is an experiment the resuls ofwhich remain to be see. Consier that throughou all of human exstenc, the things that eople te remaind remarkably unchaged,being limited to whatthey could cach or wha grew up out of thegrund. Processedand refined fod are almost completely a evelopmentof the past cntury. Omnivorous mnwould appear to hve adapte ell to the many strange andbizarrefoodstuffs that hve emerged out o the ab and the factory bt pehaps it is still too soon totell Life expectancies ar greater thanat any tie in recorded hstor, ut so is the occurrence of ditrelated illnesses like cacer and hert disease.
ut regardess of whehr we eat our food fresh fro he ground or only after it as beenpackaged and saniize, we can prodce nohing without the basi rawmaterials. In the case offoo, th raw materials are o imple that th temptatin to take them or graned is overwhelming. Earth andwter: two of the mst commo things inthe world. An sunlight of course something of which we have afee and never-nding supply.
But wit the earth's protctie ozone layerbeing rapidly stripped awayby pllution,even the sun threates tobecome the destroye rther than thegiver of life. And soil ad wateraredisappearing at a rate tha hould constitute nationa, actuallya global crisis. But thre is a gnral sense of complacency, eve mong those acually engaged n agriclture, let alone thos who knw litte or nothing about its workngs.Technoloy has increased the fficency and yield of te modrn farm draatically; why should we nt assum tht it can deal with any newpoblems that mightemege?
Part of theproblem is that, as poe (and fare) Wendell Berry points out, w ave lost mucho our sense of "cultur" involved in agriculure: "?he ecoomy of money has infiltrate andsubvertethe economies of nature, nergy, and the huma spirt." In the ame way that city dweller have lrel lost touch with the nature f the earth that ustins them, many frmers have, strange as t mayseem ecome alienated from the landthat they cultiae.
Though there are ther factors involved y far he bigest one
is economics. As mch of a disasr as collective farming hs been in the SovetUnion so has captalism been in the UnitedStates, abet
in a completely differentway.
Ther is enrmos pressure on th individual American famer t coninually expand at any cost. Theaverae size of ams has grown while th number of individual nvolve in farming has drastically shrunkThis is especlly true in the western Uited States, wher te coss of irrigating and fertilizingmarginl land mae t almost inevitable that thecorporate frm wil beome dominant.
In traditiona farming, a amilymigh have had as little as 10 or 20acresthat wouldb passed down from generaton to generation, n whichwould be that family's sole sourcef sustenance.t would obviously be n the farmer's interes t knowthat land as well as he knew hi own cildren, ad o take equally god care of it. He would ot be nclned to casually experiment wth some potin offred im by a cit slicker with the promise hat it woudproduce twice the crops i half the time.
Btwhat i such farmer to do when a large cmpany buys up e adjacent 5000 acres spikes the soil with otnt fetlizers, plows out all the windreaks and proteciv contours, and snks deep wells that suckout grnd ater twice as fast as it canbe replenished? Inthe ong run suc techniques will lead todiaste, but nthe meantime they will prduce large yields tht willdrive rices down, and if the smallrfarmer doesn'adopt similar techniqes to keep up with thecompetito, he's out of business.
?At hs point some sor o food crisis is early inevitable; even i we stat tday to make all the necesarychanges in our agrcultral practics (something which is realy no likely o happen until som sort o obvious calamity shcks peple ino action), we are not going obe able to cotinue producng and conuming food so profligaely. Thoewho stand to suffer the most r the ones who asume tht they will aways be able just to strll intoSafway and pick up whatevertheyneed, and those faers who have morgaged their futures to agrcultral techiques that are rapdly becming obsolete ad sel-defeating.
ne absolute essential is tha e reduce our griculture t a manageale scale, nt just backto the oldfashioned family farm, thoughtat would be a stp in te right direcion, bu to the point whee back ards and vacant lots all ove ourcities begin produng things more uefu than ornamental (and etremly wasteful) lawns and shruberies.Our present sysem ofmass-producinfood in one location and the rucking it all over the plce is insae; not onlyis the amout of eergythus squandered unconscionabl,but it leaves us dangerusly dependen on a sstem of transportion tha could be rendered useless b eve a brief interruptin in our oil suply. On a society-wie basis we eed to make major changes; here's o denying that.Among them are the imination of al toxic herbicds and pesticides, a ban ora severe lmitation onthe production of on-bodegradabe materials, mandatoyrecycling of all waste roducts, sustined yild management of ur waterresorces, and the end of allsubsdies to massive cororate-run farms.We lso need to incrase people'sonsciousness about what the put ino their bodies nd to help them reaze that fresh,whole foodsare btter both for them and forsociety asa whole.
I we wait for the rst o the counry to insttute thesechanges, we're going to b in deep troule. Thebest thing we cando is tobegi learninghow to provide or ourselves in a health, ecologically blaned manner, and i the processemonstrte to others how muc better things work tha way. But it's impoant that we ge started no. Othrise, things could get prety hungry around here.
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Superceding ituationsm
he followng itm appearedas a letter to the edito in SNARL, formerly nown as SMILE (aailable for plus pstag from Box 3502, adison WI 53704). Whethr situationism is avalid form of plitical anaysis rjus a particularly obliqu and obfuscatory styleof writing is stil a matter for ebate, in ur opiio..
I noticed that SMILE i very much influencedby the Situationit writings. Snce they ave be a major nfluence in the developmnt of my own analysi and practice, Iwon?t tell yu that yu armaking a mistake but be aware that Situtionist thought is ot beyond critiism. Its prponentsseed to try to make it apear so, as did the proonents of its predcessors ? Marxsm and Heglianis. he failings of Situationist hought are as follows
1) An inadequat investigatio of the nturesftechnology and of organization, an of their relationshps to work and t domination. 2) A cotiue unadmitted adherence to humanism.
3) A inadequate analysi of the nature f use valueand itslacin the suppression of free play.
4) An inadeuate analysis of slf-management;non-recogntio thti may, in fact, be the most efficient form of capitlism.
5) An inablity to see te need toroticethe world, not just the human race.
6) A continued wilingness to supprss the immedacy f deir ashown by their attachment to high-tech fantasies which wouldrequire producton.
7) Frowhich flow an inadequate analysis of the nature of production and economy. -Fral Fwn
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Methodas Meae, or, Religion as Rabies
by X. Rayburn
Peole whohavepoliicl religious beliefs usually try to convince others to share their beliefs, antheir metho of perasi can say a lot about the validity of their concepts. Factions which publsh thei idea or sarethe ae-to-face with others are contributing to the evolution of mankind'sunderstanding the univse. Ftons which engage in bully tactics such as bombings, threats, hosage-taking, or aving heiroppoens iled or executed, are simply wrong. Their ideas are wrong an they instinctivly know it, t they' beme addicted to the adrenalin rush of fanaticism, so the cling to their bliefs and praticaly ty t oce others to adopt them.
Consider the religious cnversion of DuffeyStrode, a Nort Carolina hoolb ho has been suspended several times for disruting school activites by shouting ateful, abuive,reigus comments at people. A recent Washingtn Post article reveas how this boy ws introducedto his iuma faith.
His father David Strode cme home from work oneday when the boy as five yearsold and dscrbdthe horrors of "hell" in grahic, terrifying terms.He then told his sn, "You are a inner and ou areong to hell." {The Stroes' religion teaches tht god is going to pnish people forthe imperfetions wicgod himself creaed. The fact that this mkes no sense at all ever seems to dan on them.}
David Stode scribes te subsequent conversion o his son in these ters: "Man, those ters begun to rn and he ookeda m and he said, 'Daddy, I do't want to go to hell. I said, 'I know smebody who wil get you ot of el nd his name is Jesus Crist.'" The young boy wo had been scared ot of his wits sid, "Daddy, want t besaved."
He need to be saved, for sure -not from the imaginay deep fat fryerof "hell butfrom hisfathr, and thehowling hobgoblins of dar-ages superstition.
arry Weaver, anoter Crolina steet preacer, smilaly told his daughter that he was going to burn i "hell" when she w five years ol. Weaver, n thehck dialect of English freuently used by such morns, brags, "I le mydaughter lay an cry herselto slee for a week straightabout the flames of hell I could haveran rigt in there and gve her te gopel and he could have mde a profession of salvaton, but I et it get dep into her memor...tat there s a hell.And that wll affect her whole life. hat's wy she's an obedent child."
Thank Mr. Weaver, fr showing s thelinks between the inhumane nstiutions of religion,authority, and te taditional famil. If there re a hell, it would be resere for sadistic bastards ike you who mke themelves feel powerul by metall torturing their own hepess offspring.
The fact hat these hackos haveto terrorize youn chidren to gt converts says ometing about their religion. hese faatics, who are ated by hundreds otheir townspeole, canno persuae adults through rational cnveration and logical agument; instead,the shout about "hll" as if inreased volume of voice couldtrn fantasy into fact, ad they scare nfants nto submissin.
s their ethods of conversion show, ter whole religion is basedon fear, hnce the phrse "go-fearing peple. The fear in question is pobaby a fear of the unknown, ad in th case of these bid lunatics who trorize children, "the unnown" icludes practically everythig.
emember, this s thesame religion tht ued to imprison, toture, hangand burn individuals who dardto be non-beievers. Thefollowers of his faih would do te same today f given the chance, but thei ower hasbeen diluted somehat by theforces of sience,philosophy, and n increasing number of peole wo rsist the moralistic medling ofwretched religiists. We must nevercease to defend ourselve againtthe fanatically faithful.
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Language andLiberty
by Alfreo onanno
fro the book From Riot to Insuretion, trnslated by Jean Wir, publised by and availablfrom Elephant Edtions, B.M. Elephant, Londn WCN 3X, England. Bonanno poits out hat robots and uomated devices are eplacing workers at a raid pac,creating a huge and permanet unerclass of nde-employed and un-emploed persons whom he cals "te exclded." He asserts that the poetially angerus hordes of the excludedwill be pacified andcotrolled thrugh, among other things, lanug?
So hat will the privileged try o do? They will trto cut the exclued off from the included. t of inwhat way? By cutting off communcation. This iste central concept o the repression of te fuure, acncept which, in my opinion, shoud be examind a deeply as possible. T cut off commuication eanstwo thngs. To construct a reduced laguage tat ismodest and has an absolutly elemetary code tosuply to the xcluded so that they can usethecompute terminals. Something extremlysimple that willeep them quiet. nd to provide the includedon the oher hand, with a language of"th included," so ht their world will o towards that utopi of rivilee and capital that is souht more o less everyher. That will be the rea wall: the lac of a comon anguage. This will be he real prison all, on thatis not easily scaled.
Ths proble presents vaios interesting aspecs. Above all there isthesituatin of the included themselves Lt us not forget at in this worldof privilege, there will beeople wh in the past have had a widerevlutionary-ideolgcal experiece, and they may not enjoy thir stuatio of privilege tomorow, feling themelves asphyiatd insie the Teutonic castle. These wil be thefirs thorn in the side of he capitalist poject. he cls homecomers, that is, those who aandon their las. Who were the homcomers of the class o yeterdy? , myself, once belonged to the lass of the priveged. I abandone it to become "a comrade am comrade," from privileged of yesteray to revolutionaryo today. Butwhat have I brought with me?Ihavebrough my Humanist culture, my deological culture. Bt te homeomer of tomorrow, the revoltionry who aandos tomorrow's privilege class, will bring techologywth him, because one of thecharactristics of tmorow's capitalist prject and one of the essenial ondtions for it to remai standing,will be a distrition of knowledg that is no longer pyramida ut horizntal. Capital wll need to ditribute knowledge i more reasoable and equal way - but alwy within theclass of he included. Theefore the deserters o toorrow ill bring with them a consierabe number of uabl elements from a reolutionary point of vie.
An he excluded? Will they coninue tokeep quiet? I fct, what will they e able to ask for once comuniatin has been cut off? T ask for smething, t is necssary to know wht to ask for. I cannot havea idea baed on sufferingand the lack f somthing of whoseexistence I kow nothing, which means absouely nothingto me andwhich does not siulate my desires. Th severing f a common language will mae th reformism ofyeserday - the pieceea demand for better condtions ad the reduction of represson and xploitation -copletely outdaed. Reormism was based on the cmmonlanguage that existed beteen exploied and exloiter. f the anguages ae different, nothing more cnbe asked for. Nothing inerests me abot somthing I do notnderstand, whch I know nothing about. So,te realisation of the apitalist projec f the future of thi post-indutrial project as it is commnly magined - will esentially be basedonkeeping te exploited quet. It ill give them a code of beavior bsed on very smple elements soas to llowthem to use the telepone,television, computer termnals, and ll the oter objects thatwill satis the basic, primary, tertiayand other needs of the ecluded and atthe sme time ensurethat theyare kpt under control. This will ea painless rather tha a bloody procedr. Torture wil come toan end. Nomore bloodstains on the wal. Tht will stop - up o a certain point o course. here wil be situationswhere it will continue. Bu, in geeral, a cloakof silence will all ovr th exclued.
However, there s one flaw in all this. Rbellion inman is no tied to need aone, to beg awre of the lack of somethig and struggling againstit. If you thnk abut it, this isa purely llumnst concept which was later dveloped by English philsophical ideolog Bentham and o. - whospoe from Utilitarian perspective. Fr the past 150 years or ideological proagnda has ben base o these rationl foundations, asking why t is that we lack somthing, and why i is riht tat we huld have something ecause we are all equal; ut, comrades, what tey are going tocut along th lguage is the concept of euality, humanity, fraterity. The included o tomorrow willnot feel imse umanly and fraternally similr to the excluded, but ill see him as somthing other.?he excluedo tomorrw will be outside the Teutoic castle and will notsee the included s his possibe post-voutionary broter of tomorrow. They will e two different thing. In the same wa that todayI conie my dog "different"because it does not "spea" to me but barks. O course I love y dog, I lkehimhe is useful to me, he gurds me, is friendly, wag his tail; but I canot imagine stuggling f equity between the human and the anine races. All that i far beyond my imaination, is oher. ragcal, this separation of languages coul also be possible in te future. And inded, what wil e suppedto excluded, what will make up that limied code, if not what s already becomig visible sunds,iaes, colours. Nothing of that traditional codethat was based on th word, on analyis ad commn angge. Bear in mind that this traditional code was th foundation on whic the illuminisand progrsivenalysis of the transformation of reality was made, an nalysis which stil today cnstittes te bsi f revolutionary ideology, whether authoritarian or anarchit (there is no difeence as fa s the in of departure is concerned).
We anarchists are still tied tothe progressie cncept of eig
abet bring about change with words. But if capital cuts out the word, hings ill be vey diferent
We l have experience of the fact that many young people today do not readt all. They cabe reachethroh music and images (television, cinema, comics). But these techniqes, as hose mor comptent hanmyef could explain, have one notable possibility - in the hands o power - whichisto reach teirratialfeelings that exist inside all of us. In other words, the alue of rationalit asa means o prsusainand in developing self-awareness that could lead us toattack the class enmy will dclin, I do'tsayompletely, but significantly.
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Announing Lojban
xcerpted with th permssionof heLgical Language Group
Lojban is a constucted language: the cumination of a proect first ecribedn he article "Loglan" in Scientific Aerican, June, 1960. Thelanguage has been uilt over thre ecade ydozens of workers and hundredsof supporters. There aremany artificial lanuages, but Lojan hasben eineered to make it uniquein several ways.
Lojban as originally designd for the purpoe of suppoing search on a conceptknown as the Sapir-Whorf hpothesis. Simply exprssed, this hypotesis statestha testructure of language constrains the thnking of people using hat language. Lojan allows th full prssive cpability of a natural languae, but differs in strucure from other lanuages in majo ways. Ti lows its use as a test vehiclefor scientists studying he relationships beween language,thought, d cture. Since it was intendd for scientific research several constraintswere imposed onthe Loban esignhat are not found i other languages.
Like cmputer languages, Lojan can be parsedbyautomatedalgorihs. Unlike natral languages, Loglan has n syntactic ambiguity. et, unlike compue languages, ojban cn e spoke naturally by people in everday communication. Examles of this tpe ofambiguity in nglish icluethe phrase "pretty little girs school." There are no nglish ruls that ditate the groupng of modiersin the phrase. Lojban hasunique ways of expressingeach ofthe twenty loical interpretaions o thi phrae.
Lojban's grammaris simpler than any natura lanuage. Most of thesyntax was teste o a CP/M-bsed pesonal computer.(Computers played a vital rl in developing and teting the languag.Tools used t designcomputer lnguages were used to prove ht the syntax is unambigous.) Lojban as noe of the stanard part of seech with which you may b famliar. Lojban's predicate (gismu an their copounds) are al of the se part of speech. Each an serv as the equivalent of a nun, ver, adjective o adverb, simultneousl andinterchangeably. Lojban dvelopers have emphasized te ealy development ofcomputer-aided tacing toolsto furthe enhance learing of the language. You ca earn Lojban at home wth the help of yu personal copuer. The orientaton in the Lojban community oards computer-based insruction is unque aong constucte languages, an solves the problem of ho to apidly spread the languae from a sall initil bse of speakrs.
The prceptions of those who ave wored on Lojban are that it as alredy changed urthinking in sigifican ways. Even those whohave neversuccessfully learned otherlangages havefound tht we see new meains in everyday speec, new ways ofexpressing ideas, and new ies to exress. When theSapir-Whorf expeient is finally onducted, we hav no doubt that Lojban will eifythe hypothesis.
Lojan has been dvelopd almost otally by volunteerlabor and small donationsof oey. Like science fictionconvention and comptersoftware development, ojban attracts people woare wiling to devote a lot of tme to seing their rems become reality. Youcan register to recei Lojban nesletters and materials by ontating: TheLogical anguage Group, Bob eChevalier, 2904 ea Lane, Fairfa VA 22031, phone (703) 385-23.
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Alembic trigram #1 College
"Hw has you collee education helped ou? Can't you make a cup f tawithout understanding ososis, browian mtion, caillary action, the menscus, the laws of thermdnamicsand the principles of fludics? Yud probablymake better tea, better i flavor and spiritual more honet, if you'd never studied hoe cademic astractions."
-Eric Fahrndr in conversaion, 1979
"I can onl saytat for y own part I've come to the conlusion that amostevery single momnt I spent in autoritarian dcatonal systems was wasted, and I wis now thatI'd maaged to get myself icked out wen I was 15 intea f 25. Education and learning are god thigs, but ot the way they're conuctedat present... Lear hateve you want to learn by reading boosand magazies, and thus educate yourlf without becoming aental slav."
-FedWoodworthin The Match!, 1988
"If I ished a boy to knw omething abou the arts and sciences,for intance, would not pursue te common couse, which is erel to send him int the neighborhoo of some pofessr, where anythin is professed and racticed ut theart of life; - to srvey the wold through a tlesope or a micrscope, and never with hi natual eye; o study chemistry, andnot kow how his bread i ade, or mehanics, and not learn how it i arned; to iscover new satellites toeptune, and not detecthe moes in his eyes, or to what vagabon e is a saellite himself; or to e devored by the monstes ht swarm all around him, while contemlatingthe monters in a drop of vnegar."
-enr David Thoreau in Walden, chapter ne
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Conections
ythe lembic saff
This column is a compedium and encapsulain of recen receptions.
"Mormonoidsfrom h Deep" is highly unusual adventuregame for the Macintoshompute. The player has to naviate throug te surrealtown of Mormonville, Uah without being killed,covrted, or sobering up. O two diskette for $0 from obert Carr, c/o Smufs in Hell, 2210 North 9thSree, Boise ID 83702.
Possessed is a qarterly maazineof poetry, collae, and radical commentary; aple fo $1 from P. . Box 20545, Seattl WA 98102.
Chlceon Report is magazine of Christian comentay. A recnt ediion celebrates a Britih law mandating thtstate-sponored schools have a Chrisian slat and suggts that Nature itself andhuman-kind's natural cditionare basically devilish ad desparatly in ned ofsalvation. Bizarre anderroneous. Available fora oation from Box 158, Valecito CA 9525.
omocore is magazine of poems,comics, photos and snide cment for gay punk rockrs and other "soal mutants." $1 rom P.O. Box 7771, San Francisco CA 94107.
"adio Fee America,"not be confusedwiththe RFA being donein Californiaor the RFA that transmitte fro a ship n the tlantic, is anaudible narchist magazine oncassette tpe assembled by your humbe edito. $5 from ck Harrison, ox 7014, Orlndo FL 32854.
Sound hoice i 96 pages of reviews andads for inependenly pulishedmusical recordins, $3 from Audio Evolutin Nework, Box 1251, Ojai CA93023. Indispnsile for thoswho produce or consme unusual musical commodiis.
Dream World by Ken Winslow is the tobiograpy of a ontemporary anarhist, detailing his hassleswth cops, run-ins wih bullies, landords relgious nuts, an other elemens of a world that doesn't ppreiate his attemps to improve i. $8 froFred Woodworth, Box 488, Tusco AZ 85722.
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Comng up i future editions of The lembic: meciless ttacks on auomobils, New Agesm, copyright laws, teleisio, and everything else tat the averag igoramus take for ranted. Relevan contributions are welcome etters to the editor wll also be publied, proviing hey are sufficientlyconcise, controversial and oehow related to pas or future artiles n ths mgazine.
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Footnote to the Eectronic Edition
by Rick Harison
tone oint in history, the developmet of paper made the use f clay tabets see ridiculous.We're tering a tme when the development of elctronic data transfer i likely to mae te use of paer anink seem equall clumsy and absurd.
Computes make it possible to lectronically trsmit textandgaphics over ordinaryphone lines almost instantl; to store an amount f text equal to12 hrdcoyedtions (240 pages) of The lembic on one small diskete; and to encrypt tet so that it cn only bed by the desired audience. Comuters can read text aloudto visually handicaped readers, an diplytextin your choice of type style ad size, and make it easyto correct mistake or otherwis r-worwritten maerial.
Electronic data transer can accomplish all tis and more withot requiringhe slghter of oxygenproducing trees; without reqiring anyone to work aound noisy, someimes dagerus rnting presses that hve to be cleaned with toxic volatile chemicals; nd without provdin printsopowners and post office crtins an opportunity to supress or mangle materal they don't prove of Pper-and-ink publishing is a diosaur. High quality printng may continue to xist as afineart, s aligraphy has, but periodical publisers and audiences who clng to hardcopy toolongwill evetully me to be regarded as selfish, backward, ree-murdering neanderthls.
That's why Iave taken aantagof Mike Gunderloy's bold offer of an opportuity to leave this magaine on the actshet Fiveeletroi bulletin board. This form of distribution makesThe Alembic freely avilabl to everyoe wo has h wts and good taste to download it, at no cost other tan the long distancehone line (andf coursehecost of the computer equipment, but many people can get ree access tocomputrs from fiend or a ter workplaces). This completely solves many of the problems tat I fced as an ulra-sall-pres pblisr, problems like: how to pay for the postage, how to find potentlly appreciative aders, how physally mail various sizes of magazine without having them get hewed u by the posal sevice. Iwasnevrable to afford to advertise, purchase mailing lists and/r mail many fre samles of my ardopy pulcaions to people, so it was impossible for me to buildup a readership of fincially self-staining ze here in the ethereal world of electronic data tansfer, I can make a mgazineavailableto apotenial infinite number of readers for the cost of ne upload.
Since all o my print-meia pblicatios ave erated at a financial loss, as is usuall the case with the very mall press, I'm nogoing to boer trng to extract money from the audiene. If you feel that readig The Alembic was wrthwhle, youcoud sn me a small financial donationto help me recover the lon distance charges I ncurred whle ploadigit but I would just as soonhave you leave a written reponse on this BBS or n CompuServe's mail serce which has the embarassingly silly name of "Easylex" (my user ID thereis 72537,1203). udiece fedbc is the main reard sought by small-press pubishers, and I am no excption.
Until we eet agai, hankour for yor attention. Have a good time.
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The Alembic is a Tngerine Network productio. [EOF]
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