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The Alembic #2 [ZINE]
________________________________________________________________________
The ALEMBIC
second edition / Summer 1989
a magazine dedicated to superseding pre-fabricated ideologies
WARNING! Contains controversial material.
Parental discretion should be exorcised.
CONTENTS:
Automobiles: Public Enemy Number One (Rick Harrison)
The Libertarian as Conservative (Bob Black)
Everyone Talks about the Weather... (from 'Bentwood')
On Business (David Castleman)
Solar Cooker May Help Third World (Laura Wilkinson)
Nietzsche and the Dervishes (Hakim Bey)
XORcrypt: Low Budget Data Security (Rick Harrison)
Retorts (from the audience)
________________________________________________________________________
NOTICES AND EXPLANATIONS
Copyright 1989 by Tangerine Network. Permission is hereby granted for
non-profit distribution or reproduction of this ascii file, provided it
remains intact and unaltered. (Compression allowed, if necessary.)
_The_Alembic_ is simultaneously distributed on paper and as a computer
textfile which you can download from the more enlightened electronic
bulletin boards. The paper version can be had by sending two dollars to
the editor at the address given below. The electronic version is
presently available from these and other enlightened boards:
Factsheet Five BBS 518-479-3879 {300/1200 baud}
(The file is stored here in the 'electronic zines' section.)
The System <tm> 407-859-2243 {300/1200/2400 baud} FidoNet node 363/69
(The file is stored here compressed in .ZIP format. Available for
automatic file request from other FidoNet boards.)
_The_Alembic_ is made possible entirely by donations of articles,
publicity, money and distributive technology. Written and financial
contributions should be directed to Rick Harrison, Box 547014,
Orlando FL 32854 USA.
________________________________________________________________________
AUTOMOBILES: PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE
by Rick Harrison
Automobiles are probably the worst thing that has happened to human-
ity in this century. Car crashes kill more Americans in one year than
AIDS kills in five years; cars have killed many times more people than
atomic bombs have killed. The hysteria, protests, fund-raising and re-
search directed against AIDS and nuclear weapons might be better spent
on trying to wipe out cars.
The 45,000 Americans killed by cars every year seem to quietly
vanish into thin air. It is remarkable that there is so little outcry
about so much bloodshed. Perhaps this is because cars are considered an
unquestionable fact of life. Indeed, they are often referred to as a
"right" and a "necessity."
Cars are only "necessary" to those who profit from them. People
lived well enough without cars before World War 1, and in some parts of
the world they still do. So why are Americans, almost without exception,
unable to imagine life without cars?
Car dealers run several full-page ads in every edition of the daily
newspaper. During local, non-prime-time hours of TV programming, about
half of the commercials shown are advertisements for car dealers, in-
surance protection rackets, and lawyers who capitalize on car carnage.
No broadcaster or print journalist can question our society's fetish
for automobiles; the editors would never allow it for fear of losing
their sponsors. In TV shows, cars are pictured as the best vehicles for
love-making, high speed chases, pleasure cruising, basic transportation,
and of course for running over anybody who irritates you.
A large part of the economy is based on assembling, maintaining and
replacing automobiles. So cars _are_ necessary, but only necessary to
sustain this style of capitalism, which, like a bureaucracy, seems to
have no purpose other than perpetuating its own existence. From the
profiteer's point of view, cars that have accidents are more worthwhile
than totally safe vehicles would be. Car accidents mean big money for
towing services, junkyards, repair shops, hospitals, doctors, lawyers,
insurance companies, municipalities that collect money from fines and
tickets, funeral homes, cemeteries and the ambulance-chasing news media.
In the face of all this brainwashing and profiteering, it's no
surprise that automobiles have come to be seen as indispensable.
As for the claim that people have a "right" to drive cars, this is
absurd. Since we all need to breathe, who has a right to spew any amount
of toxins into our atmosphere? And who has a right to launch two-ton
unguided missiles that careen crazily through the streets of our cities?
Considering the fact that almost all Americans use drugs ranging from
caffein to cocaine, virtually nobody has the mental alertness or unim-
paired reflexes necessary to drive safely at speeds above 10 miles per
hour. (I'm sure you think _you_ are the exception.)
Children, pets, and even adults aren't safe outside their homes
because there are so many assholes driving four-wheeled death machines
through the city. (If you live near an intersection or a sharp turn,
you aren't even safe _inside_ your home!) And, let's face it, _everyone_
becomes an asshole the minute they put their hands on a steering wheel.
I've ridden in cars driven by my apparently-rational friends and have
seen the process of driving transmute them into aggressive, over-con-
fident maniacs. But perhaps this is the only emotional adjustment that
can enable people to face the extreme risks of driving. Imagine zooming
down a highway at 60 miles an hour with about 18 inches between
yourself and vehicles going equally fast in the opposite direction. A
foot and half between you and sudden death. If you, or one of the
oncoming drivers, should jerk the steering wheel to the left just a
little bit, you'll be squashed like a bug in a head-on collision. I can
live without that kind of vulnerability and "excitement."
If motorists didn't make life unsafe for the rest of us, I wouldn't
complain so bitterly. Streets designed for and filled with motor
vehicles are unsafe for bicycles, horse-drawn carriages, skateboards,
and other forms of transportation. Cars squeeze out the competition
through intimidation and sheer force. Their monopoly on personal trans-
portation has thus been maintained through coercion, and it is an
affront to all freedom-loving individuals.
I have heard people complain about cigarette smoke or air pollution,
and then these complainers drive away in cars! What hypocrites!
Motorists should be locked in garages with their engines running. I've
met a few people who rarely venture out of their homes because car fumes
make them sick. To these people, the deadly vapors pouring out of your
exhaust pipe are not something to be shrugged off and forgotten!
Motorists use various rationalizations to excuse themselves for
turning the earth into a gas chamber -- excuses like "My car doesn't
pollute as much as a military jet" or "my modern car doesn't pollute
as much as older cars do." When I corner these motorist rats with the
truth, by asking if they would like to put their mouths on their
exhaust pipes and take a deep breath, they respond by pathetically
whining "I _have_ to drive a car. I can't get along without it."
It seems motorists have come to believe they "need" their cars as
fervently as I believe that I don't need one. For several years I've
managed to buy groceries, hold down a job, and engage in travel for the
sheer pleasure of it without ever impoverishing myself by owning a car.
Folks act like it would kill them if they had to walk, ride a bicycle
or take a bus. In reality, driving cars is more likely to kill them.
Cardio-vascular disease caused by lack of exercise is a major cause
of death. And no doubt driving-induced stress contributes to the death
toll. Personally, I am willing to go out of my way to support life and
resist the machinery of death.
Cars are supposed to be "convenient." Careful thought reveals that
they are amazingly inconvenient. Look at a traffic jam, for example,
or examine the facial expression of someone standing on the roadside
next to their car which has unexpectedly died. As for economic con-
venience, let's say our hypothetical friend Joe Shmo is a short-order
cook, earning $4.75 an hour and taking home about $4 an hour. Joe's car
is already paid for. If he spends $10 a week on fuel and oil, $400 per
year on insurance and licenses, and $500 a year on repairs, driving his
car costs $1420 a year. He has to work almost 7 hours per week to sup-
port his car! What's so convenient about that?!?! If he'd sell the car,
he could work one day less each week, and he'd be happier and healthier
as a result, partly for the reasons given above, but mainly because
work stinks. Generally, people who make more money spend more on their
cars, so if you sit down and calculate all the expenses involved, you
might also find that 1/5 of your paycheck goes toward supporting your
automobile. Is it worth it?
To drive a car is to be taxed, registered, licensed and watched.
The entertainment media and high school peer pressure systems, which
are subsidiaries of the corporate establishment, force young people to
lust after car ownership because it benefits the police state to have
everyone's name, address and photograph on file. Leave your driver's
license at home and try to cash a check; you'll see what I mean. The
driver's license, like a necktie or work uniform, is a universally-
recognized symbol of submission to the system.
To drive a car is also to be at the mercy of mechanics, many of
whom have questionable ethics. High technology is being used to make it
more difficult for people to repair their own vehicles, so that car
manufacturers and chains of repair shops can monopolize the profits made
from fixing automobiles which are designed to self-destruct at frequent
intervals. Micro-computers are now part of most ignition systems, and
unless you're a computer repairman it's unlikely that you'll have the
necessary tools to diagnose and fix any electronic problems that might
arise. This means that having a car these days makes you dependent on
others for transportation -- and that is almost as dangerous as being
dependent on others for food. (Got your five-year stockpile of food
ready to last through the coming holocaust?)
All these arguments against car ownership would be obvious if
people were capable of thinking about the matter objectively. Thanks
to religion, TV, lust, drugs, advertising and work, most people have
been reduced to distracted conformists, so -- fortunately for the
capitalists -- there is no danger that an outbreak of rational thinking
will occur anytime soon. As long as the majority of people are un-
concerned about behaving ethically or creating a better world, cars will
remain popular.
{Footnote: After drafting this essay about two years ago, I was
mugged while bicycling home from work one night, and resorted to obtain-
ing a motor scooter for slightly safer transportation. It sounds and
smells like a lawn-mower, but suddenly, when I started riding the
scooter, the motorists around me no longer honked, threw things at me,
pretended they couldn't see me, or tried to run me off the road, as
they had frequently done when I was a bicyclist.}
----------------------------------------------------------------------
THE AUTOMOBILE: AN INSTRUMENT FOR SELF-PUNISHMENT
from _L'Encyclopedie_Des_Nuisances_
...It is well known that expressway construction and the motoriza-
tion of the labor force was one of the components of the mobilization
of the German proletariat under National Socialism. Both the Volkswagon
and the Panzerwagon could circulate on the expressways, with the
military excursion constituting the other original blemish that dom-
inates the modern journey. Everything submits to the same demand for
speed and efficiency, and to the same reality of slowness and waste. One
can be certain to lose time, at best, and at worst, life itself. During
the elaborate maneuvers of going on vacation, which for the great major-
ity of motorists is the only opportunity for a real trip, everything is
organized in military fashion. On "D" Day, the general staff organizes
radio guidance for the legions of vacationers. From the weather report
to light aircraft reconnaissance flights, from reminders about necessary
discipline to extrication itineraries in case the offense gets bogged
down, everything has been foreseen for traversing hostile lands, from
rescue squads to the installation of special tribunals.
Then the balance sheet is drawn up. Naturally, the losses are in
proportion to the undertaking: during one year in a reasonably bellicose
country like France, fatalities amount to the equivalent of a large in-
fantry division, and the number of injured to several army corps. Such
a criminal slaughter is perfectly accepted by the population as a
natural disaster about which, by definition, nothing can be done. This
incredible fatalism well demonstrates, once again, the general loss of
common sense in our era.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
newspaper clipping, dated 1988/6/12:
The automobile was once an efficient way to get around but now
causes such traffic woes and health hazards that people must learn to
use other transportation methods, according to a study released Satur-
day. "Excessive reliance on cars can actually stifle rather than advance
societies," said the study by Worldwatch, a private think-tank. The
study estimated the number of passenger cars in use worldwide grew from
53 million in 1950 to 386 million in 1986. As a result, motorists in
hundreds of cities creep forward at speeds slower than a bicycle's, the
study said, adding that more than 200,000 people died in 1985 in traffic
accidents worldwide. In the United States, 30,000 people die each year
of diseases resulting from the use of gasoline and diesel fuel. "It is
time to build a bridge from an auto-centered society into an alternative
transportation future... in which cars, buses, rail systems, bicycles
and walking all complement each other," the study said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"A study shows that commuters who drive the Los Angeles freeways are
exposed to four times the amount of cancer-causing chemicals normally
found in the air outdoors."
- ABC Radio News 1989/05/06
________________________________________________________________________
THE LIBERTARIAN AS CONSERVATIVE
by Bob Black
(essay based on a speech delivered to the Eris Society in 1984)
I agreed to come here today to speak on some such subject as "The
Libertarian as Conservative." To me this is so obvious that I am hard
put to find something to say to people who still think libertarianism
has something to do with liberty. A libertarian is just a Republican
who takes drugs. I'd have preferred a more controversial topic like
"The Myth of the Penile Orgasm." But since my attendance here is sub-
sidized by the esteemed distributor of a veritable reference library
on mayhem and dirty tricks, I can't just take the conch and go rogue.
I will indeed mutilate the sacred cow which is libertarianism, as
ordered, but I'll administer a few hard lefts to the right in my own
way. And I don't mean the easy way. I could just point to the laissez-
faire Trilateralism of the Libertarian Party, then leave and go look for
a party. It doesn't take long to say that if you fight fire with fire,
you'll get burned.
If that were all I came up with, somebody would up and say that the
LP has lapsed from the libertarian faith, just as Christians have in-
sisted that their behavior over the last 1900 years or so shouldn't be
held against Christianity. There are Libertarians who try to retrieve
libertarianism from the Libertarian Party just as there are Christians
who try to reclaim Christianity from Christendom and communists (I've
tried to myself) who try to save Communism from the Communist parties
and states. They (and I) meant well but we lost. Libertarianism _is_
party-archist fringe-rightism just as socialism is what Eastern European
dissidents call "real socialism," i.e., the real-life state-socialism
of queues, quotas, corruption and coercion. But I choose not to
knock down this libertarian strawman-qua-man who's blowing over anyway.
A wing of the Reaganist Right has obviously appropriated, with suspect
selectivity, such libertarian themes as deregulation and voluntarism.
Ideologues indignate that Reagan has travestied their principles. Tough
shit! I notice that it's _their_ principles, not mine, that he found
suitable to travesty. This kind of quarrel doesn't interest me. My
reasons for regarding libertarianism as conservative run deeper than
that.
My target is what Libertarians have in common -- with each other,
and with their ostensible enemies. Libertarians serve the state all the
better because they declaim against it. At bottom, they want what it
wants. But you can't want what the state wants without wanting the
state, for what the state wants is the conditions in which it flourish-
es. My (unfriendly) approach to modern society is to regard it as an
integrated totality. Silly doctrinaire theories which regard the state
as a parasitic excrescence on society cannot explain its centuries-long
persistence, its ongoing encroachment upon what was previously market
terrain, or its acceptance by the overwhelming majority of people
including its demonstrable victims.
A far more plausible theory is that the state and (at least) _this_
form of society have a symbiotic (however sordid) interdependence, that
the state and such institutions as the market and the nuclear family
are, in several ways, modes of hierarchy and control. Their articulation
is not always harmonious but they share a common interest in consigning
their conflicts to elite or expert resolution. To demonize state
authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated
subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control
the world economy is fetishism at its worst. And yet (to quote the most
vociferous of radical Libertarians, Professor Murray Rothbard) there is
nothing un-libertarian about "organization, hierarchy, wage-work, grant-
ing of funds by libertarian millionaires, and a libertarian party."
Indeed. That is why libertarianism is just conservatism with a
rationalist/positivist veneer.
Libertarians render a service to the state which only they can
provide. For all their complaints about its illicit extensions they
concede, in their lucid moments, that the state rules far more by con-
sent than by coercion -- which is to say, on present-state "libertarian"
terms the state doesn't rule at all, it merely carries out the tacit or
explicit terms of its contracts. If it seems contradictory to say that
coercion is consensual, the contradiction is in the world, not in the
expression, and can't adequately be rendered except by dialectical
discourse. One-dimensional syllogistics can't do justice to a world
largely lacking in the virtue. If your language lacks poetry and para-
dox, it's unequal to the task of accounting for actuality. Otherwise
anything radically new is literally unspeakable. The scholastic "A = A"
logic created by the Catholic Church which the Libertarians inherited,
unquestioned, from the Randites is just as constrictively conservative
as the Newspeak of Orwell's _1984_.
The state commands, for the most part, only because it commands
popular support. It is (and should be) an embarrassment to Libertarians
that the state rules with mass support -- including, for all practical
purposes, theirs.
Libertarians reinforce acquiescent attitudes by diverting discon-
tents who are generalized (or tending that way) and focusing them on
particular features and functions of the state which they are the first
to insist are expendable! Thus they turn potential revolutionaries into
repairmen. Constructive criticism is really the subtlest sort of praise.
If the Libertarians succeed in relieving the state of its exiguous
activities, they just might be its salvation. No longer will reverence
for authority be eroded by the prevalent official ineptitude. The more
the state does, the more it does badly. Surely one reason for the
common man's aversion to Communism is his reluctance to see the entire
economy run like the Post Office. The state tries to turn its soldiers
and policemen into objects of veneration and respect, but uniforms lose
a lot of their mystique when you see them on park rangers and garbage-
men.
The ideals and institutions of authority tend to cluster together,
both subjectively and objectively. You may recall Edward Gibbon's
remark about the eternal alliance of Throne and Altar. Disaffection
from received dogmas has a tendency to spread. If there is any future
for freedom, it depends on this. Unless and until alienation recognizes
itself, all the guns the Libertarians cherish will be useless against
the state.
You might object that what I've said may apply to the minarchist
majority of Libertarians, but not to the self-styled anarchists among
them. To my mind a right-wing anarchist is just a minarchist who'd
abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else.
But this incestuous family squabble is no affair of mine. Both camps
call for partial or complete privitization of state functions but
neither questions the functions themselves. They don't denounce what
the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the
people most victimized by the state display the least interest in liber-
tarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over
their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you
don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or
restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you dis-
tinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration. An
ideology which outdoes all others (with the possible exception of
Marxism) in its exaltation of the work ethic can only be a brake on
anti-authoritarian orientations, even if it does make the trains run
on time.
My second argument, related to the first, is that the libertarian
phobia as to the state reflects and reproduces a profound misunderstand-
ing of the operative forces which make for social control in the modern
world. _If_ -- and this is a big "if," especially where bourgeois Liber-
tarians are concerned -- what you want is to maximize individual
autonomy, then it is quite clear that the state is the least of the
phenomena which stand in your way.
Imagine that you are a Martian anthropologist specializing in Terran
studies and equipped with the finest telescopes and video equipment. You
have not yet deciphered any Terran language and so you can only record
what earthlings do, not their shared misconceptions as to what they're
doing and why. However, you can gauge roughly when they're doing what
they want and when they're doing something else. Your first important
discovery is that earthlings devote nearly all their time to unwelcome
activities. The only important exception is a dwindling set of hunter-
gatherer groups unperturbed by governments, churches and schools who
devote some four hours a day to subsistence activities which so closely
resemble the leisure activities of the privileged classes in industrial
capitalist countries that you are uncertain whether to describe what
they do as work or play. But the state and the market are eradicating
these holdouts and you very properly concentrate on the almost all-
inclusive world-system which, for all its evident internal antagonisms
as epitomized in war, is much the same everywhere. The Terran young,
you further observe, are almost wholly subject to the impositions of the
family and the school, sometimes seconded by the church and occasion-
ally the state. The adults often assemble in families too, but the
place where they pass the most time and submit to the closest control
is at work. Thus, without even entering into the question of the world
economy's ultimate dictation of everybody's productive activity, it's
apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by
the ordinary adult is _not_ the state but rather the business that
employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more "or-else" orders
in a week than the police do in a decade.
If one looks at the world without prejudice but with an eye to
maximizing freedom, the major coercive institution is not the state,
it's _work_. Libertarians who with a straight face call for the
abolition of the state nonetheless look on anti-work attitudes with
horror. The idea of abolishing work is, of course, an affront to common
sense. But then so is the idea of abolishing the state. If a referendum
were held among Libertarians which posed as options the abolition of
work with retention of the state, or abolition of the state with reten-
tion of work, does anyone doubt the outcome?
Libertarians are into linear reasoning and quantitative analysis.
If they applied these methods to test their own reasoning they'd be in
for a shock. That's the point of my Martian thought experiment. This is
not to say that the state isn't just as unsavory as the Libertarians say
it is. But it does suggest that the state is important, not so much for
the direct duress it inflicts on convicts and conscripts, for instance,
as for its indirect back-up of employers who regiment employees, shop-
keepers who arrest shoplifters, and parents who paternalize children.
In these classrooms, the lesson of submission is learned. Of course,
there are always a few freaks like anarcho-capitalists or Catholic
anarchists, but they're just exceptions to the rule of rule.
Unlike side issues such as unemployment, unions, and minimum-wage
laws, the subject of work itself is almost entirely absent from liber-
tarian literature. Most of what little there is consists of Randite
rantings against parasites, barely distinguishable from the invective
inflicted on dissidents by the Soviet press, and Sunday-school platitud-
inizing that there is no free lunch -- this from fat cats who have
usually ingested a lot of them. In 1980, a rare exception appeared in a
book review published in the _Libertarian_Review_ by Professor John
Hospers, the Libertarian Party elder state's-man who flunked out of the
Electoral College in 1972. Here was a spirited defense of work by a
college professor who didn't have to do any. To demonstrate that his
arguments were thoroughly conservative, it is enough to show that they
agreed in all essentials with Marxism-Leninism.
Hospers thought he could justify wage-labor, factory discipline and
hierarchic management by noting that they're imposed in Leninist
regimes as well as under capitalism. Would he accept the same argument
for the necessity of repressive sex and drug laws? Like other Libertar-
ians, Hospers is uneasy -- hence his gratuitous red-baiting -- because
libertarianism and Leninism are as different as Coke and Pepsi when it
comes to consecrating class society and the source of its power, work.
Only upon the firm foundation of factory fascism and office oligarchy
do Libertarians and Leninists dare to debate the trivial issues dividing
them. Toss in the mainstream conservatives who feel just the same and we
end up with a veritable trilateralism of pro-work ideology seasoned to
taste.
Hospers, who never has to, sees nothing demeaning in taking orders
from bosses, for "how else could a large scale factory be organized?" In
other words, "wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is
tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself." Hospers again? No,
Frederick Engels! Marx agreed: "Go and run one of the Barcelona factor-
ies without direction, that is to say, without authority!" (Which is
just what the Catalan workers did in 1936, while their anarcho-
syndicalist leaders temporized and cut deals with the government.)
"Someone," says Hospers, "has to make decisions and" -- here's the
kicker -- "someone _else_ has to implement them." _Why?_ His precursor
Lenin likewise endorsed "individual dictatorial powers" to assure
"absolute and strict _unity_of_will_. But how can strict unity of will
be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one."
What's needed to make industrialism work is "iron discipline while at
work, with _unquestioning_obedience_ to the will of a single person, the
soviet leader, while at work." _Arbeit_macht_frei_!
Some people giving orders and others obeying them: this is the
essence of servitude. Of course, as Hospers smugly observes, "one can
at least change jobs," but you can't avoid having a job -- just as under
statism one can at least change nationalities but you can't avoid
subjection to one nation-state or another. But freedom means more than
the right to change masters.
Hospers and other Libertarians are wrong to assume, with Man-
chester industrialist Engels, that technology imposes its division of
labor "independent of social organization." Rather, the factory _is_
an instrument of social control, the most effective ever devised to
enforce the class chasm between the few who "make decisions" and the
many who "implement them." Industrial technology is much more the
product than the source of workplace totalitarianism. Thus the revolt
against work -- reflected in absenteeism, sabotage, turnover,
embezzlement, wildcat strikes, and goldbricking -- has far more
liberatory promise than the machinations of "libertarian" politicos
and propagandists.
Most work serves the predatory purposes of commerce and coercion
and can be abolished outright. The rest can be automated away and/or
transformed -- by the experts, the workers who do it -- into creative,
playlike pastimes whose variety and conviviality will make extrinsic
inducements like the capitalist carrot and the Communist stick equally
obsolete. In the hopefully 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!
Even if you think everything I've said about work, such as the
possibility of its abolition, is visionary nonsense, the anti-liberty
implications of its prevalence would still hold good. The time of your
life is the one commodity you can sell but never buy back. Murray
Rothbard thinks egalitarianism is a revolt against nature, but his day
is 24 hours long, just like everybody else's. If you spend most of your
waking life taking orders or kissing ass, if you get habituated to
hierarchy, you will become passive-aggressive, sado-masochistic,
servile and stupefied, and you will carry that load into every aspect
of the balance of your life. Incapable of living a life of liberty,
you'll settle for one of its ideological representations, like liber-
tarianism. You can't treat values like workers, hiring and firing them
at will and assigning each a place in an imposed division of labor. The
taste for freedom and pleasure can't be compartmentalized.
Libertarians complain that the state is parasitic, an excrescence
on society. They think it's like a tumor you could cut out, leaving the
patient just as he was, only healthier. They've been mystified by their
own metaphors. Like the market, the state is an activity, not an entity.
The only way to abolish the state is to change the way of life it forms
a part of. That way of life, if you call that living, revolves around
work and takes in bureaucracy, moralism, schooling, money, and more.
Libertarians are conservatives because they avowedly want to maintain
most of this mess and so unwittingly perpetuate the rest of the racket.
But they're bad conservatives because they've forgotten the reality of
institutional and ideological interconnection which was the original
insight of the historical conservatives. Entirely out of touch with the
real currents of contemporary resistance, they denounce _practical_
opposition to the system as "nihilism," "Luddism," and other big words
they don't understand. A glance at the world confirms that their
utopian capitalism just _can't_compete_ with the state. With enemies
like Libertarians, the state doesn't need friends.
________________________________________________________________________
Everyone Talks About the Weather...
Reprinted from the Lammas 1988 edition of Bentwood,
4807 50th Avenue, Seattle WA 98118.
Unless you've been living in a cave somewhere on the astral plane,
you should be aware of the "Drought of 1988." The images of it are
everywhere: parched fields with only a stubble of growth; the cracked,
dried earth of empty river and stream beds; the news reports of
sweltering temperatures and no rainfall. And while many people just
seem to take it all in stride, or view it as just another piece of bad
news on TV (and after all, the news is always bad), as pagans we?re
keenly aware of what's happening, what it means for ourselves, the
plant and animal life we share this planet with, and for the Earth
Mother herself.
Those who live in the South and Midwest have a most profound
experience of how our climate is changing. It is most evident in the
corn, that plant so sacred to Native American cultures. The usually
broad, lush leaves are instead mottled and curled. And where the corn
usually stretches towards the sunlight, it is now stunted and
shriveling, almost recoiling from the burning rays. Even those of us
who live in areas not so hard hit this year by the drought can see the
effects: in the Pacific Northwest, intermountain regions, and Alaska,
forest fires rage this year, blackening thousands of acres.
We pagans are growing sensitive to the deeper meanings of this
drought. We can sense something more profound, more significant in this
disaster; it is almost palpable. To some, fear is one element; we are
like a child who is constantly afraid that they will be abandoned by
their mother. And there is fear of not knowing what is going to happen;
we see this etched on the faces of farmers and others who live on the
land. Even though we may feel that we're insulated right now, we have a
sense that these climactic changes are going to affect us all.
And they will. Whether we live in an urban setting, out in the
woods, or in a rural farming area, these climactic changes are going to
affect us. The bounty of the supermarket may not be so bountiful in the
future. Recently there have been news reports of growing concerns over
intermittent shortages of certain food products as early as next year.
In the West, water is becoming more and more scarce in some areas, and
contingency plans for rationing are being drawn up in some urban areas.
And there is growing evidence that the hot and dry summers of the past
two years are not just random or freakish occurrences, but rather the
beginning of a global warming trend. What we?re seeing in 1988 could
possibly be the harbinger of greater climactic extremes to come.
While the physical effects of these meteorological changes are
quite evident, the psychological and psychic responses seem much more
varied. Some born-again and fundamentalist Christians see the drought
as part of the wrath of a patriarchal god who will put the Earth through
great tribulations and suffering as a prelude to the establishment of
the kingdom of heaven. Others with a "New Age" orientation see what is
happening as "the Earth Changes," an inevitable period where the Earth
cleanses or purges herself of the awful things humans have done.
While these two responses may seem different, they are in fact
almost identical. Both presuppose that the tribulation/Earth changes
are inevitable and unavoidable, (prophecy plays a major r?le in many
Christian and New Age philosophies), indicate that only a chosen few
will survive the great destruction, and that after all the mayhem is
over, those who remain will live a life of peace, love, and harmony,
usually due to the influence of some external source (the return of
God, universal consciousness, or contact with beings from other planets
or planes of existence). The idyllic ending is as inevitable as the
destruction to come.
Many pagans are taking a somewhat different tack towards what is
happening to the world. The reason for drought, famine, and environ-
mental deterioration is not because of some mysterious, supernatural
force but has a rather simpler cause: human actions. Five thousand years
of a power-over, domination-oriented philosophy have laid the foundation
for what we see manifesting in the changing climate, the scarred Earth,
the poisoned ocean. The results of the last 150 years of irresponsible
industrial society is the cause of what we're seeing today. As pagans
we understand the intent and the "mechanics" of the law of manifold
return: what we put out into the world comes back to us magnified. This
is true for what we do whether individually or collectively. It may take
a long time to return, and perhaps it may manifest in a form that might
not be immediately evident, but return it does. And we're seeing it now.
A hundred years of extensive burning of fossil fuels, massive
deforestation, the establishment of a resource- and energy-intensive
lifestyle for a small minority of the Earth's inhabitants, are the
direct cause of the baked fields and dry streams. We don't need a
vengeful god to send us tribulations. We do just fine on our own.
Yet we are discovering that isn't the end of the story. We
are coming to learn that one of the differences between a pagan
viewpoint towards this drought and its consequences, and the
fundamentalist/New Age approach, is that the latter essentially takes
us out of the equation. In the tribulation/Earth Changes scenarios,
the environmental destruction we are witnessing is inevitable,
{Editor's note: maybe this is why so many businessmen and politicians
promote Christianity.} and has been foretold in prophecy. (After all,
what is more useless than a prophecy that doesn't come true?) What we
do or have done is irrelevant. And thus we don't really have to take
responsibility for what we're doing to the Earth, and can continue our
destructive ways without a second thought. Of course, the tribulation
or Earth Changes will interrupt it all at some point, but (fortunately)
that is sometime out in the nebulous future. Pagans, on the other hand,
see the climactic changes as a direct result of human activity, both
material and psychic. Therefore we can have a direct influence on what
happens to the environment, and ultimately, to us.
With this knowledge we're making changes. Some are subtle, some are
more evident. In our meditations we are visualizing a clean atmosphere,
lush rain forests, and a land free of industrial scars for the Earth.
We are visualizing lifegiving rain falling in abundance on the fields
and filling the rivers and lakes. And we meditate on human change,
seeing our attitudes change to those of love and harmony with those we
share the Earth with, living in balance with nature and enjoying the
rewards that such a life can give to all.
Understanding that the internal work alone is not enough, the
meditative, psychic, and ritual work we do is serving as the energy
for changes in our material lives. Some of us are beginning to evaluate
the effect that we personally have on the Earth, our contribution to
pollution. For some it may mean curtailing the use of our cars. For
others it may mean making efforts to recycle what we would normally
throw out. Another response for some is to become directly acquainted
with the Earth, air, and weather by digging in the ground, planting
something green, and caring for it. And for still others it may mean
learning more about the political and sociological aspects of food,
energy, and resource distribution and becoming involved to change
them. There is a great variety of things pagans are doing to materially
turn the tide of human irresponsibility. What is important is that
we're doing it, and our understanding that we, in fact, can make a
difference.
The Drought of '88 may be just the beginning of changes for all of
us. Many will feel helpless about these changes, but pagans will see
themselves as active partners in it.
________________________________________________________________________
On Business
by David Castleman
Our human psyche is like a horse with many masters, and ranked
among them is Government, and Media, and Business. One master sees that
the blinders never fail in their task of administering blindness. One
master investigates the reins constantly, to guard against an
encroachment by the individual will. One master tests the harness
constantly, that the servile brute may not forget its allotted and
proper burden. Other and subtler masters note the aspects of the terrain
and the feed and the healthy future of the breed: they stand aloof.
The facility for business is a reasonably constructed and physical
extension of the primal hunting instinct of the carnivore, and is
itself as clearly a tool of physical contest as is a spear, a trained
dog, a nuclear explosive, or a padded bosom. It is a tool whose use
extends the power of the animal beyond the borders of naked animality.
Its function is of acquisition and of destruction. It kills, that the
animal may eat, and the animal is to eat, that it may kill.
All who share the privilege and the responsibility of life, live
upon this wheel of natural whim. As the mind is the function of the
brain, so this special tool hidden among folds in the fisted brain, has
as its function that aspect of the mind which equips the physical body.
The carnivore without it is doomed to be a brief and sorry meat for its
fellows.
What traits of personality are required for business? One must be
intelligent and single-minded, and troubled by no untamed conscience.
Monomania is crucial. Imagination is dangerous and useless. An abundance
of energy is vital. Scruples are decorative, not functional.
The activity of a real and vigorous imagination poisons the will,
by suggesting too many alternatives, and kills single-mindedness.
Single-mindedness depends on the channeled presence of the personal
portion of communal will, and if the channel enlarges, the will can get
no grip, and flounders.
What are the social skills required to participate effectively in
this chattering session of business? A person must be able to mimic
the reactions of one's peers, must be malleable as a chameleon, so that
none will be aware if one chance to have qualms of conscience or
stirrings of humanity, and so that none will be aware if one chance to
have a moment of individual awareness. To wake surrounded by the
inhabitants of a dream, would be dangerous as to swim with sharks.
One must lie easily, remembering always the essential falsehoods of
one's profession, and believing the lies as they are invented on the
tongue. If you do not believe your own lies as you speak them, nobody
else will believe them, and you will have withdrawn sufficiently from
the game that you may not believe the lies of your peers.
Truth will never be as popular as lies, because it seems harder,
and bleaker. Almost invariably, we prefer the phonies among our
contemporaries, rather than folks of truth or genius. In superficiality
is happiness, when we fear the truth, and feel belittled by genius.
Little people love displays of littleness, because littleness allows
them to feel real, and nobody loves to feel substantial as a bubble.
One who perceives the surface clearly enough, will understand the
depths beneath the surface comfortably, though inarticulably, and may be
uninterested in those depths. To be a successful seller, one must
ignore anything beyond the surface of reality. One must believe in the
surface with unfeigned sincerity.
Sincerity is prized, while honesty is abhorred, and sincerity must
have the appearance of sincerity or it counts as nothing. Every
intelligent and civilized society values the appearance of sincerity
more than it values sincerity itself. The appearance of reality is more
important than is actual reality. Appearance is the only thing that
superficials dare to trust, the only thing that may be discussed
easily.
The appearance is real and exists on the superficial plane of
reality, and is the nearest thing of substance that is available to
normal folks. The appearance of things is the clearest indicator of
truth and reality and substance, that normalcy is permitted, and this
is healthy. To ignore the appearance and the superficial, is unhealthy.
This plane of the superficial is the domain of those three masters
we spoke of. Business, and Government, and Media, each has a fine and
imposing abode on this level, and each has many servants and formidable
affairs.
To be excellent at business, one must enjoy it utterly, and one must
consider it a fine game to be played well. To be a champion at business,
beyond mere excellence, it must be religion. Somebody who is so good at
being bad must pay an awful price for the privilege. Why do so many
people pay such a devastating price, forsaking conscience, family, and
self?
Every religion requires martyrs, and martyrs work for nothing. Their
bosses reap the glory.
We strive to succeed in business because acquisition is the human
pursuit, and we would match our fellows. What pleasure would be found in
life apart, striving for baubles our various authority figures have
preached against, striven to suppress, and mocked? The fruits of
acquisition seem tangible. They can be held in hand like Faberge eggs.
They can be walked upon, like beaches in an earthly paradise. Their
acquisition permits us to forget the coming and the gnawing precipice,
the yawning reward, the sleep without rest.
Our fear dissolves when we confront the acceptedly real and the
acceptedly desirable, and if later it proves a mirage, that is
irrelevant.
Pursuing what our fellows pursue, we forget our smallness,
insignificance and loneliness. What comfort had Galileo though he was
right? What comfort had Gauguin? What comfort had Christ? The human
needs went unanswered, and each must have been a focal point of cosmic
doubt, an arena of the psyche. The loneliness must have been fraught
with horror, and fear.
In the night our terrific human loneliness crawls across the
ceiling and stares down at us, and though we cannot see it, we feel
that it is there. It mocks us as we watch it through our closed or open
eyes, or through our fingers which splay like trembling fans upon our
faces. We hear it scuttling and we hear it whimpering and whispering
like the beating of a heart. We are reminded of the basis on which all
illusion shimmers awhile, and it is unmindful of us, and unkind. We want
the great basis to confide with us, and its tongue is unmoved.
Honorable suffering is humanity's only possible gift to Deity, and
it is not enough.
It is our normal desire to escape the offering of that gift, and we
attempt this when we choose to remain always on the surface of desire,
the surface of reality and life. Therefore a reasonable society embraces
the march of business and of war. War is only business with its sleeves
rolled up.
All of the world's business has one goal, and efforts made in
business have been attempts pulsing toward that goal. To define the goal
precisely would require the use of many words, and two aspects would be
implicit in any definition, and would be explicit in any honest
definition. Despite any decorative digressions, the goal of business
and of war includes the enslavement of the human race and the
destruction of the planet.
The best people among the devotees to commerce, these myrmidons to
Mammon, prefer to pretend that their personal goals are somehow short
of this grand goal, but in their hearts and brains they know that
nobody is fooled. Each can tell easily what the others do, and each
permits a mantle of confusion to settle over all.
Lying doesn't bother them. They are good at it. The unluckiest among
them pale with disgust every morning when they confront the bathroom
mirror. The luckiest among them are scarcely ashamed at all. The
proudest among them are frightened because they know they have betrayed
themselves, and somewhere the almost inaudible voice of conscience
still murmurs.
While it's true that those who are too susceptible to society's
punctilio may be disgusted by business, it's also true that we are
easily disgusted by things we are not in sympathy with. For many folks,
and usually for the poorest of us, business is just the science of
cheating people, a mindless obscenity; and yet to a business buff, the
act of being in business justifies one's existence to oneself and to
one's Deity. Sometimes businessfolks wonder that they are unable to
appreciate the uncommon, and yet is that truly so odd, since they revel
so in the common?
Does a robber-baron truly believe that a lifetime dedicated to the
crippling and assassination of whole families by the thousands is
balanced by building a concert-hall as he is about to die? Do such
acts of dishonor go unrecorded into the dawn of prehistory and the
dusk of post-history?
"As mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyze the
manner of its composition, so sublimer intelligences may read in the
feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice
and virtue, of every responsible creature on it." Amen.
And yet their desperate hope and prayer is for a Ptolemaic and
all-inclusive silence, silent as a perfectly managed conscience, even
on Sunday.
________________________________________________________________________
Solar Cooker May Help Third World
by Laura Wilkinson
(Associated Press 1989/01/15)
A simple box of cardboard, foil and glass is being promoted as a
means to free Third World women from the time-consuming search for
firewood and get them out of the unhealthy smoke.
The solar cookers, designed by two Arizona women, are being
introduced in the Third World by Pillsbury Co. "We feel the potential
of solar cookers is so great that it could truly alleviate some of the
global problems," said William Sperber, a senior research microbiologist
at the food conglomerate.
The cooker is an insulated box within a box topped with a glass pane
and a reflector that directs sunlight. It can be made out of cardboard
or wood, and aluminum foil. Food is cooked in dark, covered metal,
glass or ceramic pots.
The temperature peaks at 250 to 275 degrees F., meaning food takes
longer to cook than in electric ovens. Users save time by no longer
having to collect firewood and by not having to stir the food because
of the low heat.
Simplicity may be an obstacle to widespread adoption, supporters
say. "It doesn't look as high tech as other things that have been
tried," said Chris Flavin, vice president of research at Worldwatch
Institute, a private non-profit research group that focuses on global
resource issues. "There's an actual bias in development agencies
against anything that's small and decentralized," said Flavin. "They
like to support big projects because they're easy to manage."
Barbara Kerr of Taylor, Arizona, a nurse, and Sherry Cole of Tempe,
a former free-lance writer and neighbor of Kerr's, created the design
in the mid-1970s. Since then, Cole said, they've sold about 3,000 kits
and cookers ranging from $40 to $275.
________________________________________________________________________
Nietzshce and the Dervishes
by Hakim Bey
_Rendan_, "the clever ones." The sufis use a technical term _rend_
(adj. _rendi_, pl. _rendan_) to designate one "clever enough to drink
wine in secret without getting caught": the dervish-version of
"Permissible Dissimulation" (_taqiyya_, whereby Shiities are permitted
to lie about their true affiliation to avoid persecution as well as
advance the purposes of their propaganda).
On the plane of the "Path", the _rend_ conceals his spiritual state
in order to contain it, work on it alchemically, enhance it. This
"cleverness" explains much of the secrecy of the Orders, altho it
remains true that many dervishes do literally break the rules of Islam,
offend tradition and flout the customs of their society -- all of
which gives them reason for _real_ secrecy.
Ignoring the case of the "criminal" who uses sufism as a mask -- or
rather not sufism per se but _dervish_-ism, almost a synonym in Persia
for laid-back manners and by extension a social laxness, a style of
genial, poor but elegant amorality -- the above definition can still be
considered in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. That is: some
sufis do break the Law while still allowing that the Law exists and
will continue to exist; and they do so from spiritual motives, as an
exercise of will (_himmah_).
Nietzsche says somewhere that the free spirit will not agitate for
the rules to be dropped or even reformed, since it is only by breaking
the rules that he realizes his will to power. One must prove (to
oneself if no one else) an ability to overcome the rules of the herd,
to make one's own law and yet not fall prey to the rancor and resent-
ment of inferior souls which define law and custom in ANY society. One
needs, in effect, an individual equivalent of war in order to achieve
the becoming of the free spirit -- one needs an inert stupidity against
which to measure one's own movement and intelligence.
Anarchists sometimes posit an ideal society without law. The few
anarchistic experiments which succeeded briefly (the Makhnovists,
Catalan) failed to survive the conditions of war which permitted their
existence in the first place -- so we have no way of knowing empirically
if such an experiment could outlive the onset of peace.
Some anarchists however, like our late friend the Italian
Stirnerite "Brand," took part in all sorts of uprisings and revolutions,
even communist and socialist ones, because they found in the moment of
insurrection itself the kind of freedom they sought. Thus while
utopianism has so far always failed, the individualist or existentialist
anarchists have succeeded inasmuch as they have attained (however
briefly) the realization of their will to power in war.
Nietzsche's animadversions against "anarchists" are always aimed
at the egalitarian-communist narodnik martyr-types, whose idealism he
saw as yet one more survival of post-Xtian moralism -- altho he
sometimes praises them for at least having the courage to revolt
against majoritarian authority. He never mentions Stirner, but I
believe he would have classified the Individualist rebel with the
higher type of "criminals," who represented for him (as for Dostoyevsky)
humans far superior to the herd, even if tragically flawed by their
obsessiveness and perhaps hidden motivations of revenge.
The Nietzschean overman, if he existed, would have to share to some
degree in this "criminality" even if he had overcome all obsessions and
compulsions, if only because his law could never agree with the law of
the masses, of state and society. His need for "war" (whether literal
or metaphorical) might even persuade him to take part in revolt,
whether it assumed the form of insurrection or only of a proud
bohemianism.
For him a "society without law" might have value only so long as it
could measure its own freedom against the subjection of others,
against their jealousy and hatred. The lawless and short-lived "pirate
utopias" of Madagascar and the Caribbean, D'Annunzio's Republic of
Fiume, the Ukraine or Barcelona -- these would attract him because
they promised the turmoil of becoming and even "failure" rather than
the bucolic somnolence of a "perfected" (and hence dead) anarchist
society.
In the absence of such opportunities, this free spirit would
disdain wasting time on agitation for reform, on protest, on visionary
dreaming, on all kinds of "revolutionary martyrdom" -- in short, on
most contemporary anarchist activity. To be _rendi_, to drink wine in
secret and not get caught, to accept the rules in order to break them
and thus attain the spiritual lift or energy-rush of danger and
adventure, the private epiphany of overcoming all interior police while
tricking all outward authority -- this might be a goal worthy of such a
spirit, and this might be his definition of crime.
(Incidentally I think this reading helps explain Nietzsche's
insistance on the MASK, on the secretive nature of the proto-overman,
which disturbs even intelligent but somewhat liberal commentators like
Kaufman. Artists, for all that Nietzsche loves them, are criticized for
_telling_secrets_. Perhaps he failed to consider that -- paraphrasing
A. Ginsberg -- this is _our_ way of becoming "great"; and also that --
paraphrasing Yeats -- even the truest society becomes yet another mask.)
As for the anarchist movement today: would we like just once to
stand on ground where laws are abolished and the last priest is strung
up with the guts of the last bureaucrat? Yeah sure. But we're not
holding our breath. There are certain causes (to quote the Neech again)
that one fails to quite abandon, if only because of the sheer insipidity
of all their enemies. Oscar Wilde might have said that one cannot be a
gentleman without being something of an anarchist -- a necessary
paradox, like Nietzsche's "radical aristocratism."
This is not just a matter of spiritual dandyism, but also of
existential commitment to an underlying spontaneity, to a philosophical
"tao." For all its waste of energy, in its very formlessness anarchism
alone of all the ISMs approaches that one _type_ of form which alone
can interest us today, that strange attractor, the shape of _chaos_ --
which (one last quote) one must have within oneself, if one is to give
birth to a dancing star.
________________________________________________________________________
XORcrypt: 'basically' a low-budget text encryption routine
by Rick Harrison
Many persons have information in their personal computers that they
would like to keep to themselves. Radical magazines have their mailing
lists, tax evaders have their financial records, and people engaged in
adultery, drugs, pornography, or other activities have sensitive records
and correspondence. The wisdom of keeping vital or incriminating data
safe from the eyes of cops, spouses, parents, or business competitors
cannot be over-estimated. Computers make it fairly easy to accomplish
this goal. Just use an encryption program to encode those sensitive
documents and they become relatively inaccessible to the unauthorized.
Personal computers also make it possible for ordinary people to
have secure telecommunications. Just type up your correspondence,
encrypt it, and send it on its way via telephone modem or packet radio.
There are federal regulations restricting the transmission of coded
messages, but sneaky people simply compress the encoded file, label it
as a machine-language program meant to be run on an unspecified type of
computer, and transmit with impunity.
Below is a listing for XORcrypt, a program designed to provide data
security for users of personal computers. There are slicker, faster
programs around that do this sort of thing, but if you haven't got
access to any such programs, here's one you can type in and run.
The first step in using XORcrypt is to take the menu option that
writes a 'key' file to disk. A key file is really just a textfile
containing random integers separated by commas. Here's an example of
a key file:
9, 36, 55, 119, 63, 21, 76, 89, 111
1, 81, 8, 126, 74, 37, 64, 101
29, 118, 35, 128, 53, 88, 13, 20, 54 ...et cetera.
Next take the 'encrypt' option. You can select any file of the text
variety and encode it. (You'll have to experiment a bit and see what
kinds of files you can open on your system. This version, running on a
Macintosh, will open text files but not binary data files.) The program
XORs each byte of text against one of the integers from the key file.
(XOR, pronounced 'exclusive or', is a binary bitwise operation.) The
resulting output is your encrypted file. After you've tested the program
and you're positive that it's working to your satisfaction, you can
erase the plaintext file, leaving only the incomprehensible coded file
on disk. Decryption is accomplished by repeating the process; the coded
bytes are XORed against the key, producing the original file again.
If the numbers in the key file are sufficiently random and the key
file is longer than the text being encoded, XORcrypt is similar to a
"one-time pad" cipher. In a best-case scenario, all possible bytes in
the encrypted file occur with nearly-equal frequency and the cipher is
theoretically unbreakable. (Of course the key file needs to be
physically secured and/or encrypted by some other encryption scheme.)
Since the key is a textfile of numbers, it could be disguised as a
list of statistics or something. Key files can also be entered by hand
using a text editor program, in case you want a custom-made key file,
say for example one that contains a perfectly even mix of all integers
from 1 to 255.
BASIC, as a programming language, has the advantage of being
available on almost all personal computers. It has the disadvantage of
running with amazing slowness. The version shown here was written on a
Macintosh using MicroSoft BASIC, and processes about 3000 characters per
minute. (If anyone gets inspired to translate this into C or Pascal,
send me the source code and I'll print it.) To port the program to other
computers, start by deleting lines 10, 14, 110, 122, 142, and 161.
Then add the following lines:
110 INPUT "Filename";FIN$
122 INPUT "Filename";KEYN$
If your computer's version of BASIC doesn't have an XOR function,
you'll have to define it using DEF FN or a subroutine. Functions like
WHILE-WEND, DEFINT, LOCATE and INPUT$(1, #1) are not available in all
versions of BASIC, so some improvising may be required. Since the key
file is stored in a memory array, you may encounter a different size
limit on your computer; adjust lines 16 and 320 accordingly.
5 REM XORcrypt - public domain 1989 - a Tangerine Network production
10 WINDOW 1,"",(8,28)-(505,332),2:TEXTFONT 0:TEXTSIZE 24
12 CLS:PRINT CHR$(13):PRINT TAB(11) " XOR Crypt"
14 MENU 2,0,0,"":MENU 3,0,0,"":TEXTSIZE 12
16 OPTION BASE 1:DEFINT A-D:DEFINT K:DIM K(30002), A(5000):WIDTH 65
18 PRINT:PRINT:GOSUB 3000
20 CLS:PRINT
21 PRINT TAB(10) "E=encrypt D=decrypt G=generate 'key' file Q=quit"
25 X$=INKEY$:IF LEN(X$)<1 THEN GOTO 25
30 IF X$="Q" OR X$="q" THEN CLS:BEEP:SYSTEM
31 IF X$="e" THEN X$="E"
32 IF X$="d" THEN X$="D"
35 IF X$="E" OR X$="D" THEN GOTO 100
36 IF X$="G" OR X$="g" THEN GOTO 300
40 GOTO 25
100 WAY$=X$:CLS:PRINT
105 IF WAY$="E" THEN CLS:PRINT TAB(12) "Select a file to encrypt...."
106 IF WAY$="D" THEN CLS:PRINT TAB(12) "Select a file to decrypt...."
110 IF WAY$="E" THEN FIN$=FILES$(1, "") ELSE FIN$=FILES$(1, "XORC")
113 IF LEN(FIN$)<2 THEN PRINT "*ABORT*":GOSUB 3000:GOTO 20
120 CLS:PRINT
121 PRINT TAB(12) "Select a 'key' file...."
122 KEYN$=FILES$(1,"TEXT")
129 C=0
130 OPEN KEYN$ FOR INPUT AS #1:PRINT "Reading 'key' file."
131 WHILE NOT EOF(1)
132 INPUT #1, KN:C=C+1:K(C)=KN
133 WEND
135 K(C+1)=-1:CLOSE #1:CLS
140 IF WAY$="E" THEN PRINT:INPUT "File name for encrypted data";OUTN$
141 IF WAY$="D" THEN PRINT:INPUT "File name for decrypted data";OUTN$
142 CALL OBSCURECURSOR
145 OPEN FIN$ FOR INPUT AS #1
146 OPEN OUTN$ FOR OUTPUT AS #2
147 CLS:PRINT "The files have been opened. Please wait."
148 M=1
149 LOCATE 10,1:PRINT "Bytes processed so far:"
150 WHILE NOT EOF(1)
151 A$=INPUT$(1, #1):REM get one byte of text
152 A=ASC(A$+CHR$(0))
153 B=A XOR K(M)
154 M=M+1:IF K(M)=-1 THEN M=1
155 PRINT #2, CHR$(B);
156 D=D+1:IF D/100=INT(D/100) THEN LOCATE 10, 25:PRINT D
159 WEND
160 CLOSE #1:CLOSE #2
161 IF WAY$="E" THEN NAME OUTN$ AS OUTN$, "XORC"
200 PRINT:PRINT "select: <R>un again or <Q>uit"
201 CH$=INKEY$:IF LEN(CH$)<1 THEN GOTO 201
202 IF CH$="R" OR CH$="r" THEN RUN
203 IF CH$="Q" OR CH$="q" THEN BEEP:CLS:SYSTEM
300 CLS
301 PRINT:PRINT "Generate 'key' file...":PRINT
302 INPUT "Filename for output";N$
303 OPEN N$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1
304 PRINT:PRINT "To increase the randomness of the output,"
305 PRINT "press keys on the keyboard at random intervals."
306 PRINT "Press the 'Q' key to conclude the operation."
307 RANDOMIZE TIMER
308 LOCATE 12,1:PRINT "Number of random integers:"
309 LOCATE 12, 30:PRINT "1"
310 X=INT(RND*255):IF X<1 OR X>254 THEN GOTO 310
320 C=C+1:IF C>30000 THEN PRINT "Finished.":GOTO 390
330 IF C/15=INT(C/15) THEN PRINT #1, X:GOTO 360
340 PRINT #1, X ",";
350 IF TIMER/7=INT(TIMER/7) THEN GOSUB 2000:GOTO 370
360 H$=INKEY$:IF LEN(H$)<1 THEN GOTO 310
370 RANDOMIZE TIMER:LOCATE 12,30:PRINT C
380 IF H$="Q" OR H$="q" THEN GOTO 390 ELSE GOTO 310
390 PRINT #1, CHR$(13):CLOSE #1
391 PRINT "Mission accomplished."
392 GOSUB 3000:GOTO 20
2000 FOR Z=1 TO X:NEXT:RETURN
3000 FOR Z=1 TO 2500:NEXT:RETURN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------- RETORTS --------------------------------
---------- audience contributions to the distillation process ----------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Rick,
I agreed with the particulars of virtually everything in _The_
_Alembic_ (except for the anti-intellectual, anti-educational crap on
page 20), yet on a more abstract plane I am dissatisfied with the
mentality dominant in the magazine. The message seems to be: "I am too
smart to participate in any social institution. I can pretend that I
live in a vacuum, self-determined, immune from the brainwashing that
holds all the suckers in the world in bondage except my fellow elitist
buddies and me." People who think like this think they are smart, yet
this view is as socially determined as any other. It is not a rare
view; in fact, it is characteristic of many subcultures consisting of
alienated individualist middle class white males. This elitist phil-
osophy is itself part of the status quo: such individuals never change
anything, since they show no interest in educating anyone outside of
their own race and social class, particularly those who have been
deprived of the very educational opportunities they take for granted.
We can look forward to future "merciless attacks" on everything
"that the average ignoramus takes for granted." You say you are "open
to non-dogmatic material from anywhere on the political spectrum." You
say that you hold no kind of "ism" and that you tend not to respect
those who do.
I find this attitude both dishonest and morally irresponsible.
Having no philosophy is impossible. You most certainly do have a
philosophy, and a very typical, philistine one at that. You think that
you are not a dupe, but you are, a dupe of nihilism.
...Since you are open to the entire political spectrum, are you
open to publishing articles promoting racism and fascism? Do you think
that such views are deprived of a public forum (eg. on the talk shows)?
Is the establishment inimical to such views?
If you are really offended by liberal hypocrisy, if you are worried
about totalitarianism and oppression as are some of your writers, if
you really want to defend the human mind and the quality of life from
degradation, then you will have to take sides. You can't promote
fascism and anti-fascism at the same time. Nor intellectualism and
anti-intellectualism. You ought to think about what philosophies and
isms make possible an allegiance to critical and rational thinking and
which philosophies will destroy it. And what social groups one should
ally oneself with in pursuing such aims. Many smartasses who brag about
their independent superior minds have hopped on board the fascist
philosophy of Ayn Rand. Do you want to go that way? Maybe the ignorant
masses you so despise have some objective interests in common with
yours.
Now here are my detailed comments on the magazine.
"Feminism as Fascism." Bob Black's analysis is almost 100% correct.
Yet his title is too imprecise, as feminism or women's liberation
encompasses a whole spectrum of political ideologies and stances. He
should have used 'radical feminism' (in quotes) in the title. The
particular brand of radical feminism discussed is in fact the creation
of an elite group of middle-class intellectual women (and men) and does
not represent the material interests of the vast majority of women who
really do suffer oppression. Black should have more clearly defined the
distinctions in the women's movement and especially the middle class
nature of feminist ideology.
The middle class in general lives in a vacuum and is incapable of
acknowledging conflicting class interests. Hence middle class white
women (and I do mean white) who themselves have ambitions of advancing
in the corporate world are not likely to emphasize social class in
their discussions of power: it is more convenient to speak of
'patriarchy', of women vs. men in the abstract. Hence bourgeois white
females eager to gain the opportunity to exploit workers (and who love
to complain about discrimination suffered by white women but never by
black people) are not likely to be honest about just who has and has not
power. And in the universities, the feminist metaphysicians promote the
same antirational, antiscientific, and antihumanist attitudes as do the
ruling elite in general. One prominent feminist philosopher of science
referred to the _Principia_Mathematica_ as "Newton's rape manual." (I
am getting sick of white women's rape fantasies.) I have publicly
denounced such thinking, arguing that it will lead us to fascism. Hence
I love Black's statement "'When God was a Woman' it was already
necessary to abolish her." Unfortunately, Black has been keeping
company with anarchist riffraff, so his bad experiences serve him right.
He still has not relieved himself of his anarchist heritage: "to be a
Trotskyist or a Jesuit is, in itself, to be a believer, that is to say
a chump." Anyone who so bad-mouths anyone holding a systematic
philosophy is himself a fool.
"Flush the family" had me in stitches. I largely agree with Smythe's
debunking. Yet there is still a lack of realism. Some people will
continue to have children (I vainly hope those who really fit that
vocation rather than acting out of blind habit), and those children will
have to be brought up somehow -- letting them run wild is just as
reactionary as authoritarianism. A practical alternative to the nuclear
family will necessitate mass organization to realize support for the
welfare of children (nuclear family or no) who are being crushed to
death under Reagan-Bush-ism.
"The Power of Negative Thinking" is quite correct: ability is not
enough in the modern corporate bureaucratic form of organization --
attitude is, because "attitude" is now a necessary totalitarian form
of social control. You can't be trusted until you have been spayed.
You must be white, join the appropriate tennis and raquetball clubs,
and join the good old boys or you will never rise beyond the stray
middle management position. The argument unfortunately deteriorates
toward the end of the article with a stupid diatribe against all
organization. More infantile anarchism.
"The coming food crisis in America" -- great article!
"Methods as message, or, religion as rabies." As a militant atheist,
I love this article. I would love to translate this article into
Esperanto and publish it in the magazine I founded, _Ateismo_.
"Language and liberty" is an important topic -- unfortunately this
extract lacks detail. I would like to see the author's ideas fleshed
out. I don't know much about the situation in Bonanno's country, but
there is much to be considered here in the U.S. Differences in language
are also tied up with differences in access to information (the most
crucial problem). The language differences between social groups have
existed for thousands of years. How is the situation different now?
How are the languages of the different social groups faring these days?
In the U.S. the great divide is the language of the professional classes
vs. the language of the ghetto. Are either or both of these language
varieties and their mutual comprehensibility deteriorating?
In conclusion, the magazine has some good material, but its
limitations exemplify the childish and intellectually vacuous heritage
of anarchism: the political philosophy of the self-indulgent, decadent,
escapist refuse of the middle class.
Sincerely,
Ralph Dumain
reply from Rick Harrison:
'Systematic philosophies' are philosophies of the System.
I would suggest that if you agreed with the vast majority of the
particulars in _Alembic_ #1, you have already made half the journey to
independent thought and the argument really concerns _attitude_
rather than facts. Instead of wondering about the "difficulties of
those who are afraid of being swallowed up in theoretical systems,"
you might investigate the difficulties of those who are afraid to let
go of such systems. Ideological systems, identified by words ending
with the suffix "-ism," generally serve as substitutes for religion,
and the arguments used in defense of the various 'isms are often no more
logical than those utilized by proponents of, say, Creationism.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dear Alchemists,
I was surprised by your sympathetic treatment of the Loglan move-
ment evidenced in the article "Announcing Lojban." Loglan has been an
embarrassment to the artificial language movement because of its ad-
herents' factionalism and their tendency to make major alterations in
the grammar just when a few people thought they had learned it.
Loglan/Lojban is pretty lame compared to other artificial languages,
and I have to wonder why anyone would study it. It is ugly-looking and
ugly-sounding, structurally irrelevant to the everyday needs of human
communication, and riddled with inconsistencies. Those who write letters
to the editor of the language's newsletters repeatedly point out these
imperfections, and are repeatedly assured that obvious drawbacks should
be viewed instead as advantages. Loglan's most rabid promoters come off
sounding like computer programmers who excuse the defects in their work
with elaborate rationalizations of how "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"
Lojban, now the best-publicized faction of the logical language move-
ment, has several hundred rules of grammar. Its promoters try to excuse
this by saying the rules of English are even more numerous and haven't
been totally elucidated or enumerated. What they overlook, however, is
that Esperanto only has 16 official grammatical rules, and in practice
you only need to know about 30 rules to be able to construct Esperanto
sentences fairly fluently. There are some natural languages, like Malay,
which have a similarly small number of grammatical regulations. This
makes Loglan relatively non-competitive among language students who
would like to get "up and running" as quickly as possible in a new
language.
Loglan claims to be culturally neutral, but it is, in fact, derived
from the culture of nerds -- most of its advocates are sci-fi nuts,
computer-philes and other pale white creatures likely to be found wear-
ing eyeglasses and having college degrees. To actually create a cultur-
ally neutral language, I would suggest having a computer create words
from randomly-chosen phonemes. Then _everyone_ would be on an even
footing as far as recognizability of the lexicon is concerned. Loglan
and Lojban, however, have shredded the six "most popular" languages to
create hideous, Chicken-McNugget-style words. This is an acquiescence
to colonialism and imperialism; after all, how did those six languages
become so widespread? Mainly through the military subjugation of native
peoples and the extermination of hundreds of their natural languages.
Loglan is doomed to remain obscure because the movement provides no
compelling reason for people to inconvenience themselves by attempting
to learn such an irritating language. Some say Loglan provides a means
of testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, a linguistic theory stating that
the syntax and lexicon of a language constrain the thoughts of the
people who speak it. Yet, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been thoroughly
debunked in the linguistic community, and can be easily shown to be
false simply by thinking about it. What is a 'thought'? It is a
combination of experience, information, images and meanings. The average
thought carries more data and covers more lexical territory than any
reasonably brief sentence could contain. Using language forces us to
distill and excerpt our thoughts down to a communicable form. It's like
trying to draw a picture using a typewriter instead of a pen; cute
pictures can be made out of asterisks and other typewriter characters,
but this will never come close to art, just as language will never come
close to conveying thought. Thought is much more powerful and freer-
ranging than language could ever hope to be; every poet knows this. But
the Loglanic Whorfists deny it.
Other proposed uses for Loglan include international communication
and the facilitation of human-to-computer communication. Since inter-
national communication is being taken care of just fine by languages
like English and French, it should be painfully obvious that people will
not trouble themselves to learn an unreal language like Loglan any more
than they did Esperanto. And strangely, or maybe not so strangely,
Loglanists have never acknowledged the ethical questions raised by
trying to constrain human language to make it accommodate the needs of
our retarded children, i.e. computers.
By practically making a religion out of predicate logic, Loglanists
have demonstrated a hatred of spontaneous human nature. This hatred is
quite apparent in the way they snarl about "irrationalities" and
"ambiguities" in natural languages. So they, like religionists, attempt
to apologize for being human by adhering to rigid behavioral guidelines
which will ultimately make them something less than human.
Sincerely,
Mark Tierisch
Public Ptomaine Software Co.
reply from Rick Harrison:
What "sympathetic treatment"?? I reprinted part of their pamphlet
and allowed them to expose themselves.
________________________________________________________________________
Whew! We made it through another issue without a single mention of
"alternative music" or other trendy fads which more cynical editors
use to capitalize on the sheep-like tendencies of their audiences.
Coming up in future editions of _The_Alembic_: Is music a drug? ~ The
ideology of "Star Trek - The Next Generation." ~ Henry David Thoreau's
most radical essay. ~ Is reality an authoritarian concept? ~ and more!
________________________________________________________________________
Thus endeth the second Alembic.
END OF FILE
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