Last summer I have read a book called 'bolo bolo' and totally amazed. It is most realistic and doable anarchist proposal I have ever seen. I wish I could write more info about it but I am on my lunch break now, trying to post this piece with my phone on this bloody Monday. So, here comes a little part I like to share with you, which dragged me into more deep shit. xxx.
The A-Deal: Disappointed at Consumer Society
What makes up the A-Deal? Steaks, good stereos, surfing, Chivas Regal, Tai—Chi, Acapulco, Nouvelle Cuisine, coke, skiing, exclusive discos, Alfa Romeos. Is this the Machine’s best offer?
But what about those mornings while commuting? That sudden rush of angst, disgust, despair? We try not to face that strange void, but in unoccupied moments between job and consuming, while we are waiting, we realize that time just isn’t ours. The Machine is duly afraid of those moments. So are we. So we’re always kept under tension, kept busy, kept looking forward toward something. Hope itself keeps us in line. In the morning we think of the evening, during the week we dream of the week-end, we sustain everyday life by planning the next vacation from it. In this way we’re immunized agasinst reality, numbed against the loss of our energies.
The A-Deal hasn’t become foul (or better: distinctly fouler) because the quantity or variety of consumer goods is lacking. Mass production has levelled out their quality, and the fascination of their “newness” has definitely disap- peared. Meat has become somehow tasteless, vegetables have grown watery, milk has been transformed into just processed white liquid. TV is deadly dull, driving is no longer pleasurable, neighborhoods are either loud and crowded and unsafe or deserted and unsafe. At the same time, the really good things, like nature, traditions, social relations, cultural identities, intact urban environ- ments, are destroyed. In spite of this huge flood of goods, the quality of life plummets. Our life has been standardized, rationalized, anonymized. They track down and steal from us every unoccupied second, every unused square foot. They offer us — some of us — quick vacations in exotic places thousands of miles away, but in our everyday lives our maneuvering room gets smaller and smaller.
Also for A-workers, work still remains work: loss of energies, stress, nervous tension, ulcers, heart attacks, deadlines, hysterical competition, alcoholism, hierarchical control and abuse. No consumer goods can fill up the holes made by work. Passivity, isolation, inertia, emptiness: these are not cured by new electronics in the apartment, frenzied travel, meditation/relaxation workshops, creativity courses, zipless fucks, pyramid power or drugs. The A-Deal is poison; its revenge comes in depression, cancer, allergies, addiction, mental troubles and suicide. Under the perfect make-up, behind the facade of the “affluent society,” there’s only new forms of human misery.
A lot of thus “privileged” A-workers flee to the countryside, take refuge in sects, try to cheat the Machine with magic, hypnosis, heroin, oriental religions or other illusions of secret power. Desparately they try to get some structure, meaning, and sense back into their lives. But sooner or later the Machine catches its refugees and transforms exactly their forms of rebellion into a new impetus of its own development. “Sense” soon means business sense. ment. “Sense” soon means business sense.
Of course, the A-Deal doesn’t only mean misery. The A-workers have indeed got some undeniable privileges. As a group they’ve got access to all the goods, all the information, all the plans and creative possibilities of the Machine. The A-workers have the chance to use this wealth for themselves, and even against the goals of the Machine, but if they act only as A-workers, their rebellion is always partial and defensive. The Machine learns quickly. Sectorial resistance always means defeat.
