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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One characteristic problem of the web is the tendency for article to go out of date - so here we have aimed write this introduction for those who may read this considerably later.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

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).

Front Cover

(only PDF 185 Kb Acrobat)

Forward

(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.

Everything Is True And Nothing Is Permitted

(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)

Defeat The Medical Judicial System

(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.

Some Ideas

(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....

The Medical-Industrial System

(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).

The Realm Of Quality

(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.

The Adventure Of Militant Man

(cartoon in PDF ONLY) 160 Kb Acrobat

The Revolutionary Unconscious

(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.

Back Cover

(PDF only)180 Kb Acrobat

ASAN 5

The Empire Of Obscurity

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.

Strategies Of Despair

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.

The Spectator Of Democracy

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."

The Crisis System

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.

What We Call Morality

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.

Our Activity

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 Critique Of The SI

The Most Requested Article Ever

Definitions And Resources

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ASAN 4

The World Order: Rule By Chaos

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.

Background

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.

Return To Land Of The Lost

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.

God Of Weakness

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.

What We Fight For

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.

Make Work, Not Whore

Play given at the beginning of the Gulf War End Notes

Peace Is A Drug For Slaves

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.

Pacifism

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.

Before The Law

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.

The Free Market Of Lies

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.

The Information Age

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.

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ASAN 3

Some Fragmented Values Of A Fragmented World

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.

What is To Be Done?

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.

Casey's Brain

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.

Geopolitics of Collapse

(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.

Hate Radio/ Classic Rock

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.

The Theory of Spectacular Sex

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.

BoHo LAND - Classified Humiliation

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.

The Language Question

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.

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ASAN 2

Overview

The zine began somewhat hap-hazardly as a marxist and Situationist influence zine

Hatred And Violence

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.

Against Sleep and Nightmare - The State Of the project.

"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."

Glossary Of Terms

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).

The Prospects For Revolution

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.

The Spectacle's Critique of The Spectacle

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.

Drug/Anti-drug

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.

The Project of Supersession

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.

The Reconstitution of The Left

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 Crisis Of Capital

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.

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