They've Given Us Enough rope, It's time to hang with it.
One characteristic problem of the web is the tendency for article to go
out of date - so here we have aimed write this introduction for those who may read this considerably
later. Our success has been spotty, yet here we are.
Against Sleep And Nightmare magazine has been in-and-out of print for quite
a few years now. We originally put the text on the Web to making its text more
widely available and this has been successful - this site was getting 4,000
hits per week in early 2003, though in 2010, I have no idea. This site contains a few other "ultra-left" texts
as well but I have kept them especially current. Virtually everyone has access
to web presently. There is no reason to maintain things for people who
can likely maintain the text themselves if they wish but there's also no reason
to remove things I find modestly interesting.
There were issues involved in placing texts in electronic form rather
than printed form. But the web has developed, it has naturally become virtually dominant,
while maintaining all its dubious quality. We see the main danger as
confusion rather than simple conditioning a la television. The web is at the same time
ironically something of the last hold-out to capital's totalitarian voice.
The lack of time capital's world inflicts on us requires me to limit further comment.
A very out-of-text
makes some comment on this and the latest issue
ASAN has evolved considerably since it was first published. We suggest reading
the most recent issue first. For that reason, we list the back-issue's
last to first.
Against Sleep And Nightmare
Another issue of ASAN after approximately seven years.
Introduction
The Modern Person
Misc Notes
Crisis_note.html
Dreams, Supercession... Communism
Back Issues
Contact Information
- No current snail mail address
- Contact
Detailed Contents:
Against Sleep And Nightmare 8
After seven years... a new issue. Preprints will be available for the 2010 Anarchist Bookfair. I'll do more detailed formatting, make the links work, add more references and correct some typos, add PDF version ... soon. Listing above. Soon to be published by Little Black Cart
Against Sleep And Nightmare 7
This issue is one long article with a few short
notes afterwards. In the main article, we return to the crisis of capital,
showing the horrors of the last few years all growing out of this. (the article
is now fully footnoted, a lot of important extra links are here).
I have version of the whole magazine as a compressed PDF file. It takes a while
to load and is here. You would mainly use this
to print-out a full copy of the magazine. PDF is the "adobe acrobat" format.
Got to adobe if you don't have an "acrobat
reader" to read these file. The PDF format does have the one advantage that
you can print these files and they will appear exactly like the printed version
of the publication.
Against Sleep And Nightmare 6
This issuee appeared quite a while after earlier issues... The html version
of ASAN 6 is available as well as the PDF. HTML is a much smaller file that
downloads faster. The PDF files contain all the graphics and fonts that appear
in the original printed ASAN 6. (Earlier
ASANs).
(only PDF 185 Kb Acrobat)
(pdf version 35 Kb Acrobat) Despite some big words,
the ASAN is meant to be a simple-as-possible view of how our side fares in the
class war. We are not writing for any specialized group. We are not treating
everyone equally out of guilt. Escaping elitist language is a way of harnessing
the power of full human intelligence. And there simply is no elite today worthy
of the name and any real change today will happen without such an elite. ASAN's
esthetics is a strategy.
(PDF version 1134 Kb Acrobat) Today�s publicity
machine is gorged on its own falsehoods. Like a drunken gambler, each successful
distortion and spectacular event only spurs it to greater absurdity. ...The
bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building and the American Embassies in Africa
shared tremendous structural similarities.... (Long, Introductory Essay, as
usual)
(leaflet in PDF only 49 Kb Acrobat) Today, a vast police apparatus is being
put in place for the purpose of controlling, drugging and repressing the poor
and disenfranchised. From weapons searches for High School students to �anti-stalking
laws� to anti-drunk driving laws to �stopping dead-beat dads� to �Involuntary
Outpatient Commitment� (the forced drugging of those diagnosed as insane), all
the different extensions of the judicial system aim at those who are socially
least desirable. But it is becoming more and more obvious today that the �good
reasons� offered by these �do-gooders� are just good excuses for an ever-widening
ring of control and repression.
(tactics against provocation, PDF version 8 Kb Acrobat)...We
all know the FBI and the entire American police state are targeting the Eugene
Anarchist scene. Still, we cannot prevent police provocation by a campaign to
figure out exactly who is an infiltrator. Such efforts are themselves destructive.
We can, however, refuse to act-out or respond to provocations and provocative
tactics.We should deal with personal problems with integrity....
(PDF version 161 Kb Acrobat) The power of many
of existing official lies comes as medicalization becomes a big part of all
capitalist ideology (i.e.anything bad becomes �an addiction�, etc).
(PDF version 1293 Kb Acrobat) An important point
of the development of this society is that it has transformed people, people�s
experience of themselves, and the way that they relate to themselves. This constant
self-transformation produces a shifting ground. Everything in the past is now
interpreted in light of the present. Just as Star Trek�s space aliens today
always speak English, the modern imagination projects the world as it is now
onto all possible previous existences. We have to do better.
(cartoon in PDF ONLY) 160 Kb Acrobat
(PDF version 156 Kb Acrobat) From chemical pollution
to evangelism of psycho-somatic disease to relentless propaganda, capitalism
has reinforced the importance of the mind-body element in human activity. This
article provides some metaphors for this total human activity. The progress
of capital is always opening up methods that can either help capital or open
a wider front of struggle. We will take ideas from Neuro-linguistic programming
(NLP), hypnosis and theories of the unconscious and give an outline of how these
might be put in a subversive framework.
(PDF only)180 Kb Acrobat
ASAN 5
In this decade of "the end of the cold war," every known problem of
the world has been solved. Yet unknown and unexplained problems constantly
appear to wreck havoc on our existence. The peace dividend appears
and vanishes without explanation. Wage inflation vanishes in America yet
the federal reserve tells us we must suffer now for the ghost of future
inflation. Israel and the PLO make peace to fight war against the Palestinian
poor. The FMLN "revolutionaries" of El Salvador agree to become the police
of El Salvador yet death-squads continue. An immense massacre happens without
warning in Rwanda.
goodbye to a friend
In Memorium, Charlene Paulvecchio - text is and will be available only in printed
form.
After failed real estate developer John Luigi Ferre murdered ten office
workers and two lawyers in downtown San Francisco, inept San Francisco
Mayor Frank Jordan was quoted as blurting out "maybe he just cracked."
Jordan's off-hand comment drew a stream of protests from relatives
of the victim. They demanded a definitive line be drawn between "savage
killers" and the many ordinary people we instinctively sense are close
enough to the edge to "crack" under pressure. "He didn't just crack,
he went on a deliberate murderous rampage..." Complained one moralistic
editorial.
But Jordan's comment rings true to these times. The competition,
pace and ruthlessness of this society have increased to a point where many
people are pushed to and off "the edge" in many ways.
America really is entering a period of greater democracy.
Bill Clinton's election campaign has never stopped. Polls are still being
taken about his latest struggles. From the New Hampshire primary to the
health care reform campaign, TV has tried to draw us into his endless fights
with other mighty bureaucrats - from George Bush to Robert Dole to Saddam
Hussein. Even more, we are expected to cheer Clinton in fights against
us. "How well do you think that Clinton succeeded in communicating
the need for sacrifice to the American people."
Like lemmings, the obedient workers of today are expected to
crush themselves on the myths of crisis, budget deficits, inflation, global
competitiveness or high technology. Mysterious explanations of
our falling wages appear and disappear like villains on day-time soaps.
Stern bank presidents give unquestionable reasons why we must give one
more pound of flesh for financial stability. CNN suddenly tells us the
remote-control computerized world-market is the final arbitrator of our
wage and work conditions. The 1994 US recovery was worse than the 1993
recession. The unemployment rate may have dropped a big 1% but unemployment
benefits and youth summer jobs got cut more. The hours of those who had
jobs have gone up to torture levels.
The citizens of industrial democracies have acquired a great and dubious
ability to adapt to difficult conditions. Wilhelm Reich studied the submission
of the average German to NAZI ideology. He wrote how rigidly held postures
and attitudes helped the average citizen embrace irrational ideology. He
defined these rigid postures that prevented people from feeling pleasure
as Character armor. Reich's analysis of fascism can be applied to every
nation today. The citizens of modern society need their character armor
to adapt to the mechanical rhythm of daily life. It prevents them from
feeling the pain of losing their communities and their spontaneous animal
existence.
A small number of trouble-makers disrupted Earth Day at Ohlone College
in Fremont. Fremont is also an good site for subversion since left and
right ideology have not yet conditioned everyone into expecting protests
to always be the same.
The Most Requested Article Ever
Back To Contents
ASAN 4
The order of things hides in plain sight. By themselves, all the old
news stories of war victories, drug murders, October Surprises, new computer
viruses, vast nations collapsing, massive starvation, and celebrity balls
tell us nothing about the world.
You are a part of a savage but invisible conflict that began before
you were born. Any apparently neutral act today will be a gambit within
the total strategic situation. The side that has the upper hand has worked
tirelessly to prevent any awareness of the conflict appearing.
The unavoidable crisis must begin where officially nothing will ever
happen. TV and downtown are designed for the suburbs. They are designed
to be the only things we look at, the only things that we admit exist.
We can only interpret the puzzling events of this society if we realize
that the dull apathy of daily life does not come from boredom. We must
realize how people are crushed beyond any ability to express the misery
we feel. Our oppression is carved into our bodies in real ways. But escaping
this condition requires us to escape the disease of morality.
When we describe our aims, we can't assume that you are neutral. Despite
the tremendous ignorance and deception that permeates our society, there
is a vast conflict going on today. To quickly summarize our positions,
we begin with the assumption that the reader has at least an intuitive
understanding of the battle that is raging secretly and openly throughout
the world.
Play given at the beginning of the Gulf War End
Notes
Skies everywhere will soon darken and stay darker for some time. The
earth's average temperature will go down at least half a degree from a
smoky pall that is spreading across the globe from the oil fires in Kuwait.
The moralistic complaint that "the people let the war happen" is wrong
and simply demoralizes people. It buys the myths sold by the media and
ignores the real ways wars happen.
War is a continuation of social peace by more extreme means. Social
peace is based on most people's acceptance of the "mundane" daily routine
of the modern world. Dull work, television and the police create a world
that is already militarized.
The Triumph of Clarence Thomas and the slandering of Anita Hill was
the triumph of democracy. By democracy here we mean the system that rules
America today - the system where the majority get a chance to rephrase
the orders issued by the system. Every position the TV mentioned in the
Thomas confirmation debates served a faction of the rulers.
For fifty years, the CCCP (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) based
its rule on promising work, basic equality and a predictable existence
in exchange for a dull existence slaving for the state. The last ten years
of upheaval in the Eastern Bloc have been a desperate effort by the bureaucracy
to break their social contract with the working class and get a free hand
to attack them.
We can only interpret the puzzling events of this society if we realize
that the dull apathy of daily life does not come from boredom. We must
realize how people are crushed beyond any ability to express the misery
we feel. Our oppression is carved into our bodies in real ways. But escaping
this condition requires us to escape the disease of morality.
Back To Contents
ASAN 3
What's changed recently? Not a whole heck-of-a-lot. All news, even
that of the great changes in Eastern Europe, takes its dazzling power from
our own passivity. The real big news here: people still work; sexuality
is still alienated; the world market is still here; Americans still watch
TV; Women, blacks and many minorities suffer daily attacks; most people
in the world live bare ahead of starvation; nearly everyone is treated
with contempt. We could go on but none of this is really newsworthy;
it isn't really new and most anyone could fill in more of these non-events
than they would like to.
A mulatto is asked why he considers himself black rather than white.
"Because," he says, "when the white man walks down the street, he's like
a stick, moving his arms up and down. When a black man walks down the street,
he puts out his arms and says `HEY.'" We aim for that "Hey" that says
we're alive, we're dangerous and we're coming down your street.
William Casey's brain sits laughing in Hell as Huey Newton speeds to
join him. Rather than being individually assassinated by the FBI, Huey
was a victim of the mass assassination practiced on blacks and all poor
people in this country. Casey, former head of the CIA and cowboy of the
Iran/contra escapade, would be proud to be the victim of his own instant-cancer
concoction. He was proud to be the perfection of Reaganism's death for
death's sake. He would certainly be glad to see a rival like Newton caught
in capital's chemical warfare against the working class.
(This does show our lack of understandering of understanding of the
balance of global politics. On the other hand, our call to not take the
pronouncements of the media at face value was indeed called for. See Peace
Is A Drug For Slaves)
The recent adventure of Iraq only highlight the crumbling of capitalist
civilization. Virtually every nation in the world deplores the invasion
of Kuwait, they stand united by a single principle: money. This adventure
in far away lands is deeply rooted in the deepening U.S. economic crisis;
this will become more obvious as the crisis progresses.
The idea of pirate radio has a natural pull on dissidents of the west.
The desire to address a mass audience immediately is understandable. When
one looks at each argument, each visible piece of the system, it seems
to work, to exist at all, only because it rests on some different part.
It seems far easier to destroy the complete structure than to unravel it
piece by piece. Like Rupert Pupkin of the film, The King Of Comedy,
challenging capitalism's monopoly on the means of creating fame
might appear as a way to change all life.
.......................................
The essence of great art is lucidity. When asked if the art of his
time would be considered at the level of previous high art, Andy Warhol
said simply "no." High culture cultivates lucidity about the over-all condition
of living but today it is lucidly aware of a mediocre world. The vacuous
lucidity of today's culture understands life but does nothing. It shows
us the poverty of this life so as to do nothing.
Capitalism's Face Market sways towards collapse. We grow sick of consuming
ever-present images of pleasure. We are left with a more desperate longing.
The
more we long for that perfect person, who can make us feel like a kid again,
the more our own misery, at not being able to laugh or play, comes up to
smother us. Nothing is more horrifying than people feeling obligated to
take "relationships" seriously, instead of finding the delightful uncertainty
and grace of playing at love.
Beyond the background radiation of shallowness and homophobia, the
clearest thing in the Robert Maplethorpe affair is the barefaced lie of
"censorship." While rabidly hateful, Jesse Helms' bill represents
no more censorship than any other authority's choice between art
works. Restrictions on the National Endowment for the Art's (NEA) funding
of certain shows is only as much censorship as the Endowment's own experts
use when they decide what is real art. While narrowing the public's choices
of art works to those acceptable to the senile former talk-show host is
clearly miserable, it is part of the same narrowing view that produced
Any Warhol and Madonna.
We can tell the truth only by telling the truth, not by putting ourselves
in a position where we tell the fewest lies. Our basic goal is creating
a way of living where the mediation and coercion of this society are absent.
If we talk about things more abstractly than this, it is because of the
falsification that surrounds this project.
Back To Contents
ASAN 2
Overview
The zine began somewhat hap-hazardly as a marxist and Situationist
influence zine
set the stage by describing the intollerability of the world market's
attack on the poorest of the disposssed.
"For years, capital has claimed victory. The world over, life
is covered with its coating of simulated happiness and advertised prosperity.
This image of a pacified world is on the verge of cracking. Like lava welling
up from the earth's mantle, today's explosions are the only clues to the
world's real condition. Today, riots in Miami, Venezuela, Algeria and many
other areas dispute capital's absolute triumph. This newly visible force
has swept ghettos of both the "advanced" and "developing" nations. Within
countries calling themselves both capitalist and "socialist," the areas
of greatest capitalist misery are boiling over."
Note: It is always hard to pick the point where world-wide proletarian
resistance has increased. But as long as resistance is happening, it is
worth noticing.
"There are two obvious ways our efforts can be misinterpreted.
One view might see us as simply issuing orders. We would then be either
"obeyed" without thought or rejected out of hand. A second view might see
us as part of "today's market place of ideas". We could then be mixed and
matched along with any other trendy idea, from "Deconstruction" to Christianity.
We know enough at least not to need any more academic discussions or talk
radio arguments."
Ways language can point to a way out of our condition
We want to see the point where revolts come together to form
revolutions. This involves an element of play, which inherently critiques
today's joyless society. Language is an excellent model of the immediate
coming together of thought that will be involved in the communist revolution.
A future society would use a language that is not a simple diagram of what
is but an important part of living. Part of that project should begin now
(this is not saying that communication will become easy in a revolutionary
situation - on many levels, just that opposite is likely).
Today no one cares about revolution. This does not say that the possibility
of a fundamental change in society has been forgotten. But since it has
appeared to people mainly as an image, revolution is now rejected with
the changes in the system of images. Like a clever immune system response,
the revolution that the media proclaimed in the sixties was a strong force
for preventing the actually revolutionary forces from coming together.
It swallowed them. "Yuppies" could only be called a revolutionary force
once the entire farce of "Hippie Revolution" had been inflated by the media.
What is our interest in this humor? For at least thirty years, modern
culture has mass-marketed the criticism of daily life as a consolation
prize for its boredom. The most effective of these "critiques" sell themselves
as presenting some vague threat to "the system" but still defend the real
system.
At anti-drug rallies you can see a white bank presidents giving community
service awards to himself for stopping drugs and a black TV star talking
like a valley girl to project kids in Oakland. The furtive boos you hear
show the falseness of these anti-drug schemes but do not yet show where
this mess comes from.
America is in something of a transition period, a period where the
material poverty of the ghetto has not yet hit a majority of workers but
where any future riches are realistically out of our reaches. We wish to
discuss the possibilities and traps faced by those who are thus thrust
outside normal existence. This applies to those who suddenly see the futility
of maintaining today's illusions without tomorrow's rewards as well as
those affected by the end of "normal life" itself.
One especially dangerous illusion in the left is to think that the
enemy of my enemy is always my friend. While the smallest level of dissent
is shocking to official commentators of America, those who call themselves
radical can still equally accept this society on an unconscious level.
It is a matter of being an opposition by definition, an opposition that
still speaks the language of the system.
The basis of the present system, where all products are put outside
the control of their immediate producers, can be described equally as wage
labour, commodity production or the market economy. On a world scale, each
kind of alienation supports and reproduces the other.
Note:
ASAN #1 will not be reproduced here. This "issue" was just a two sheets I produced
in college and is not equivalent to any of the further issues. It is simply
my lack of forsight that wound up with the first relavent issue at #2.
Back To Contents