OVO 20 JUVEN(a/i)LIA

112 pages, 8.5 x 11, $10.00

The best of OVO 1987 – 2011. Walter Alter, Dmitry Babenko, Hakim Bey, Trevor Blake, Johnny Brainwash, Chris C. Cilla, Cunnichant Night Owl, Mike Diana, Yael Ruth Dragwyla, James Ellis, Karen Elliot, Feral Faun, Klint Finley, Richard Ford, Chris Gross, Mike Gunderloy, Ginger Hutton, Ian MacEwan, Ernest Mann, Melissa, Thom Metzger, Jennifer Murrian, PM, Gerry Reith, James V. Scianna, Stuart Swezey, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, V. Vale.

[Free] [Purchase]

Review by Ferdinand Bardamu: “To someone of the Internet Era, where narcissistic self-expression is just a couple of mouse clicks away, the effort and dedication involved in compiling an entire magazine, from writing and gathering the material to binding the physical copies and mailing them out, is difficult to relate to. Still, this is a great little collection of oddities, ranging from poetry to short stories to investigative journalism on offbeat subjects.”

Trevor Blake: Introduction
Mike Diana: Read OVO
Hakim Bey: Salon Apocalypse
Hakim Bey: Evil Eye
Hakim Bey: Intellectual S/M is the Fascism of the Eighties
Hakim Bey: Ringing Denunciation of Surrealism
Johnny Brainwash: Holding Games for Ransom
Gerry Reith: Letter from the Graveyard Shift
Cunnichant Night Owl: Lunalogue
Thom Metzger: The Hypmogoogoopizin’ Man
Thom Metzger: Wad Rules
Richard Ford: Bellowing Forth and Brandishing
James Ellis: Mayhem
Mike Gunderloy: The Meta-Network
James V. Scianna: A Pit Stop Along the Inward Journey
Chris Cilla: Sperm Trek
Anonymous: 23 Sperm Stories 23
Mike Diana: Attack of the Giant Killer Sperm
Feral Faun: Thoughts on Experimentation
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: Lidznap
Chris Gross: Three Letters
James Ellis: Control
Klint Finley: The New Currency War
PM: Liberating Wednesday
Ernest Mann: Warbucks Intra-Family Communique
Ernest Mann: Becoming More Free
Karen Elliot: Operation Negation
Walter Alter: Little Wally’s Reader (Lights = Camera = Action / Densest? / The List of Recalibrations)
Chris Cilla: Apple / Pineapple
Review: My Struggle by Mark Mothersbaugh
Review: The Skin Horse by Nabil Shaban
Review: The Myth of Natural Rights by L. A. Rollins
Interview: Melissa
Interview: Stuart Swezey
Interview: Ginger Hutton
Interview: Yael Ruth Dragwyla
Interview: Jennifer Murrian
Interview: V. Vale
Trevor Blake: Tape Fragmentation
Trevor Blake: Magnetic Poetry
Trevor Blake: Saturn Return
Trevor Blake: New Superstition from a Dream
Trevor Blake: Mutants First
Trevor Blake: Science is Anti-Authoritarian
Trevor Blake: Tipping Points
Trevor Blake: Cursed Object
Trevor Blake: Trajectory Through Anarchism
James Ellis: Suffering
Trevor Blake: The Bonus Army
Trevor Blake: Multiple Name Identities
Trevor Blake: Co-Remoting with the Thunderous
Trevor Blake: Ecclesiastes 9:10
About the Contributors

… or assemble your own anthology from what I think of as the best few dozen articles or from all 19,000+ articles.

Trevor Blake: The Return of John-A-Dreams (after Grant Morrison).  Digital image.  September 2011.

More Invisibles at OVO.

Portland Memorials by Trevor Blake
144 pages, 8.5 x 11, $15.00
Thousands of memorials in downtown Portland, Oregon USA.
[Free Sample] [Print] [Kindle] [Front Cover 2550 x 3300 PNG]

Between 2009 and 2011 I walked the length and breadth of downtown Portland. When I found a memorial, I transcribed what it said and where it was. This book includes all the memorials in downtown Portland. I have entered this book into the public domain for the same reason Joseph Shemanski gave Portland the Shemanski Fountain: “to express in small measure gratitude for what the city has done for me.”

Video:
Trevor Blake: Bearing Service Co.
Trevor Blake: The Liberty Ships.

Press:
Trevor Blake at the Curiosity Club 7 February 2012.
Cornelius Rex: Twitter (26 December 2011).
Lost Oregon: Twitter (26 December 2011).
Oregon News Network: Twitter (26 December 2011).
Lisa Loving: Portland Memorials Lists City Histories Depicted in Park Benches, Fountains, and More (The Skanner, Volume XXXIII No. 60.  19 December 2011).
Klint Finley: Twitter (19 December 2011).
Ivan Stang: Portland Memorials (ScrubGenius, 19 December 2011).

Clearly there is such an underground economy of information.  Just as there is an underground economy of financial transactions, hidden from “official” [4] scrutiny by active or passive design, [5] there is an underground economy of information which is similarly largely unknown to anyone other than its participants.  Some [6] have called this “the Network,” but that term is too confining for the reality. [7]  The underground information economy is more precisely conceptualized as a network of networks, or a meta-network, with a complex an unvisualizable, though not undiscussable, connectivity.

To show that the underground information economy is structured as a meta-network it suffices to consider the contacts of a typical fanzine editor.  Take, for example, Dave Meltzer, editor of The Wrestling Observer. [8]  He can probably contact almost anyone in the network centered around the appreciation and examination of professional wrestling very quickly, either through his own mailing list or through those of other zines which he sees.  But he is nearly [9] helpless to get in touch with [10] someone whose prime interest is the music of the Beatles, or someone fascinated by the goddess Demeter.  The (lack of) relationship is reciprocal: the editors of Good Day Sunshine or Pallas Society News would find it extremely difficult to locate a source of pro wrestling information with their own resources.  Yet the music collectors and the pagans have their own well-developed networks, just as the wrestling fans do.

However, there are ways for these disparate networks to communicate, [11] for there are links which span the various networks and give them an overall channel of communication, if they want it. [12]  These links are the zines and people who participate actively in more than one of the component networks of the meta-network, such as my own Factsheet Five. [13]  These inter-network links are similar to the gateways of the international computerized telecommunications network, but I prefer a visualization more related to the physical universe.  If we think of each network as a ball of cotton, with fuzzy edges of connections falling away from the core, then the linking zines are bits of string which tie the various cotton balls together. [14]

That is all very nice, but what’s the point? [15]  Well, the meta-network is a more fragile thing than any of its component networks, for it is a much more fragile thing than they are.  While each component network has many links between individual zines and people, the meta-network is created by just a few network-spanners. [16]  To eliminate the punk music network [17] would require eliminating nearly all of its component pieces, for almost any of the zines could carry on the business of connecting people and exchanging information all by itself.  But to eliminate the meta-network would only require destroying a handful [18] of key zines which act as conduits of cross-fertilizing information. [19]

Thus, we [20] can see [21] that while all zines [22] are created [23] equal, [24] some are more equal than others. [25]  This idea has consequences. [26]

- -

[1] Is it possible that our use of “in” to indicate objects and actions which are fashionable itself refers to the process of inviting them “into” our minds?  Once something becomes “in” to us, it is a part of us, no longer alienated from us by the barrier between thoughts and actions.
[2] There are of course many classic works focusing on the use and misuse of information as well, from Korzybski’s Science and Sanity to Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
[3] A word which indicates the lack of volition involved in spreading the cliche variety of meme.
[4] A word with very little information content. Incidentally, the practice of indicating loaded words with quotation marks in speaking by waving a pair of fingers in the air apparently dates back to Korzybski’s lectures.
[5] That is, by hiding or by just not making a lot of fuss.
[6] For example, the Rev. Batrix.
[7] So, for that matter, is any term. Identifying a word as “too confining” is a common ploy to enable the author to dismiss someone else’s work in favor of his own.
[8] One of the beauties of thought experiments – gedankenexperiments to you pendants – is that it is unnecessary to obtain the consent of the experimental subject.
[9] Note this word. We’ll come back to it.
[10] A metaphor for those who prefer a more tactile approach to information.
[11] Admittedly in a slow and imperfect fashion.
[12] We’re back. Did you notice?
[13] If I was properly humble, in the academic mode which this structure seems to indicate, I would have relegated that title to a footnote. But I refuse to let my imagination be bound as much by the form as it “should” be. Indeed, these footnotes are getting progressively more out of hand – another tactile information metaphor.
[14] To complicate the picture beyond our capacity to derive any pedagogic lesson from it, the phenomenon may well be hierarchical and scale-independent. That is, what appears at first to be a meta-network may in turn prove to be a component network of a meta-meta-network, just as Dean Swift’s great fleas were merely resting on the backs of still greater fleas.
[15] As in pencil point; the “point” is the place from which information magically flows – and we know information is in fact magical, for it is nothing more than the old power of naming.
[16] That is, the component networks have more connectivity and are correspondingly more robust. The previous phrase, replete with pompous words, belongs in the main text but has somehow fallen down the page into this footnote. This bodes ill for finishing this paper.
[17] Some neophobes would argue that this is a laudable goal, but in this case it is only an example for purpose of illustration.
[18] Oh no! More tactile metaphors! Why is there this hidden fascination in the language with information as something we can touch and therefore manipulate (from the Latin manus, hand)? Could it be a plot by the creators of language to retain control?
[19] Now there’s an interesting idea: what does information sex look like?
[20] This is, of course, the auctorial we, by which the author – it’s no coincidence that this word is so close to “authoritarian” – attempts to co-opt the reader into agreeing with a conclusion without having time to consider it.
[21] A return to the visual information metaphor initiated by the word “focusing” way back in footnote number 2.
[22] And just why do you accept the idea that all information in the underground is contained in “zines?” Isn’t the spread of dangerous and outrageous ideas by word of mouth at least as important?
[23] Note that we are all convinced information is not a conserved quantity; it is easily created and therefore, reciprocally, destroyed. But that’s the subject for another essay.
[24] A mathematical term dragged into the discourse in order to bolster a weak argument with the authority of the “Queen of Sciences.”
[25] Here the author borrows a metaphor from Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, in order to impress his knowledgeable readers with his erudition. The less knowledgeable readers, perhaps, will think he coined it himself and be impressed with his wordcraft.
[26] As do all ideas, but it’s become obvious that we will not get to the consequences in the main text. Instead, it’s time to finish this essay were it was obviously heading all along, in the footnotes. The possible conclusions bifurcate neatly, depending on the political prejudices of the author. On the one hand, it would be easy to call for the increased support of the critical links which hold the various networks together into the meta-network, as a means of buttressing our civil rights. On the other, it would also be easy to call for more redundancy in the meta-network, which could be achieved by supporting new attempts to build inter-network links. On the third tentacle, perhaps the unexamined assumption that the meta-network is A Good Thing could be called into question – would it really be so bad if a thousand component networks bloomed in isolation? But the entry of the question mark shows that the information content of this essay has come to an end, and so we leave the reader here, probably with a vague sense of being cheated, to devise his own means of escape from this footnote and on to the next piece of text.

OVO 7 Information (October 1989)

Primary research for OVO 19 PORTLAND has been completed. This is a book-length record of every memorial in downtown Portland Oregon. As of this week, after three years, I will have walked every street and made note of every address and location. I will have a manuscript in hand by October 2011.

The material for OVO 20 has been compiled. This will be a human-readable anthology of thirty years of my writing and art, as differentiated from the rat’s nest of ovo127.com. OVO 20 will be published simultaneously with OVO 19 PORTLAND.

And now, let’s begin… The Easter Challenge!

from OVO 16 AntiChrist (January 2006)

OVO: When did you first realize there was something wrong about the way you were eating?

Melissa: Last Fall. I was dating somebody and I started doing it a lot. I’ve noticed I tend to do it more when I’m in a relationship. I used to drink a beer every day because it would help me throw up. I came home from work and drank a beer really quick. I was in the bathroom doing my business behind the closed door and the person walked in on me. They suggested to me that l have a problem. I had thought so before but when somebody else confronted me with it I had to confront myself with it. That’s when I realized there was something really wrong with what was doing.

OVO: How long had you been doing it?

Melissa: It’s an on-again off-again thing with me, depending on how you define it. I define my eating disorder not by how long I’ve thrown up or how long ago I starved myself. I think I’ve always had an unhealthy relationship with food. It’s taken on different forms over the years. I can remember when l was young I was deprived of certain foods that my friends could eat because my mother was really into health foods. I would go over to my friends’ house or trade lunches at school, and horde junk food because I was fascinated by it and it was something that was forbidden to me. That’s the first example of it. Over the years it’s been bulimia, it’s been anorexia, there have been points where I’ve been a compulsive exerciser, but the most recurring and the problem I have now is bulimia.

OVO: What is that?

Melissa: It’s called binge-and-purge syndrome. When l start eating I don’t feel like I can stop, then I feel guilty, so to make me feel better about eating all that food I’ll make myself throw up. Or I’ll not eat for a couple days or I’ll exercise for a long time. Some people use laxative but I’ve never done that.

OVO: Was throwing up something you figured out on your own?

Melissa: Yes, it was really easy for me. I’ve always had a nervous stomach. I figured out I could do it and use it as a way of maintaining my weight.

OVO: What is the source of your concern about your eating? Why isn’t it a natural process?

Melissa: I hate to sound like “I have this horrible childhood” but I think that’s where a lot of it came from. We had a rule in our house my sister and l joke about now called the Clean Plate Club (my sister, by the way, is anorexic). We weren’t allowed to leave the kitchen table until we’d finished everything that we had been given to eat. From there I started associating food with reward and punishment instead of just what I needed, like sleeping. It became something else.

OVO: Do you think your mother has some kind of eating disorder?

Melissa: No. I think my mother getting into her health food kick was just something to occupy her because there were things going on in my family that were very stressful for her. It was a means of her being able to cope by being interested in something.

OVO: You go to a group where you talk about this with other women.

Melissa: Yes. Last spring I started group therapy and individual counseling for my eating disorder.

OVO: What are the other womens’ experiences like?

Melissa: Their experiences are very similar to mine. It‘s very interesting because a lot of the ways I react to other things, not just food, are very similar to the other women in the group as well. It’s like obsessive-compulsive behavior across the board, not just with eating. It’s a pattern that develops the way you deal with everything.

OVO: Do you or they see any kind of connection between your eating disorder and media portrayal of women?

Melissa: Yes, and that was what really invoked a lot of emotion in me because I’m very involved in feminism and the portrayal of women in our society. I think it has an enormous amount to do with that. I think that’s why it became such an obsessive thing for me as I got into my teenage years. I’m 21 now. I saw a commercial on TV the other day for a clinic for eating disorders where they called it “the national college womens’ plague.” It’s one of the biggest things that happens to women when they enter college. When l moved to Knoxville is when my eating disorder became the worst. I that has to do with being on my own and food being a focus, something that is a constant, that l could always depend on.

OVO: What is it that you’re the trying to achieve by going to group therapy and counseling?

Melissa: One thing I learned in group therapy is that we’re not there to find a cure. We’re there to give each other support and understand why we do it because that‘s more important. I’d like to think eventually I won’t have to do it. There are times now where I’ll go days or weeks or even months… there was a period not too long ago where I went a couple months without doing it and that felt good, like I had power over myself.

OVO: If it’s something that you’ve done for a long time and that a lot of women have done and do what’s bad about it?

Melissa: It’s dangerous to your health. I have medical problems now because of it. I have a stomach ulcer. You can damage your esophagus. I’ve been lucky enough not to. I’ve never had a cavity in my life and now I have seven because my stomach acid has corroded the enamel off my teeth in the back. It can cause heart problems The two effects it’s had in me have been my teeth, and I get heartburn a lot and I have upper intestinal problems now from stomach acid.

OVO: Why is this occurring in women more than men?

Melissa: I think there’s a stronger image for women to live up to. There is an image that men have to live up to but there’s more emphasis and pressure for women to look a certain way to be accepted our society. It’s contradictory because we offer women a double standard by showing her all these great things she’s supposed to eat and make in her lifestyle and then she’s still supposed to look that way, and it’s impossible.

OVO: Why is it offered if it’s obviously a double standard and impossible?

Melissa: I can’t answer that. I could say just another way for men to have control over women but I think that’s maybe not answering the question, maybe that’s just anger. I think its because women want to have a certain lifestyle that they’ve been given the opportunity to have now and yet they’re still supposed to look a certain way from the old world thinking, pre-feminist thought, and what men find appealing today in our society is thin women.

OVO: Is this a modem problem?

Melissa: The Romans and the Greeks had vomitoriums where they actually would purge on purpose, but I think that was a way of having a decadent lifestyle and there wasn’t any kind image put before them as a reason to do that. If you discount that that it is a modern problem.

OVO: A friend of mine said that anyone who has an eating disorder should have their television taken away.

Melissa: That’s a good point because that’s where the double standard comes from. Commercials. That’s where the image is the strongest, that’s where we see the women that we’re supposed to look like.

OVO: It‘s telling that if you look at an ideal for women (and I think having one is a bad idea in the first place) prior to television that ideal is very different. It‘s changed throughout history but I think there’s a strong connection between modem eating disorders and television. All the years of film before television didn’t inspire eating disorders but film is also a visual medium. The difference is commercials.

Melissa: The food industry has created a demand for the diet industry. It’s a vicious cycle. I notice when I watch MTV sometimes (I watch it when I’m getting ready to go to work to have some background none), that when I want to look a certain way the worst I know people who’ve told me that when they’re dieting that they watch MTV because it gives them inspiration to look like the women who probably have eating disorders themselves.

OVO: What would you want someone reading this who has an eating disorder to know?

Melissa: To know that they should want to get help because it’s not something you should want to do and that you can get help. And it’s dangerous. It doesn’t seem like it’s dangerous and it’s a really easy answer but I’m sure that I’ll be really regretting a lot of what I’m doing ten years from now. I’m sure I’ll have a lot worse problems. I don‘t have a problem discussing it with friends and that‘s where I get a lot of my support but maybe that’s because a lot of my friends have eating disorders. It’s a secret and we go into our rooms to talk about it. Everybody understands that what is said behind that door is not said anywhere else. That’s what defines an eating disorder, it’s something that happens behind closed doors.

OVO: Who defines the ideal image of a woman and the ideal image of a man?

Melissa: I think the media.

OVO: Who controls the media?

Melissa: Are we talking conspiracy theory here? I think a lot of media is self-perpetuating. I don’t know who controls the media, I think that’s a whole other issue, but I think that by media offering something to the public and by the public response to that, it recreates the demand for it, like the economic law of supply and demand. It’s something that perpetuates itself.

OVO: What can we do about it?

Melissa: It should start with the individual. I try not to be influenced by images of women to look a certain way. I don’t buy the magazines. That‘s a way to start. It’s a choice the individual tries to make. By doing this interview I hope I’m reaching out to someone else. I think it’s important for us to let other people know that it‘s wrong. Know that it’s wrong ourselves then try to let everybody else know why it’s wrong and maybe beyond that do something about it together.

OVO: Like what?

Melissa: Like a support network.

OVO: What about after a support network, or in addition to it?

Melissa: That‘s when you’re ready to step into things on a big scale. I’ve written letters to fashion magazines telling them that their magazine portray images that are unhealthy for women and I think maybe a group could do that. I noticed the other day that there’s a thing on MTV where you can submit a video and tell them what you don’t like about anything. People have the option to complain about something that is on MTV that they don’t like. I thought it would be a fun thing for me and some friends to do, to make one and submit it to MTV and see if there’s a response at all.

OVO: MTV has realized that it can present any criticism of itself without changing. A friend of mine did an Art Break for them. Their contract said you have to have the MTV logo in the Art Break, and even if your Art Break is one minute of you ripping the logo up or seeing it on a TV screen and shooting it or in any way criticizing it, you still have to show the MTV logo. That‘s showing how media perpetuates itself. The problem and the solution are coming from the same source and you can’t hold onto either one of them and pull them away from yourself.

Melissa: Like Coke commercials that don’t have anything to do with the product but show the image of the product.

OVO: That’s why it’s important to boycott that kind of media completely, without exception, and simultaneously to create an alternative that people would hopefully find interesting and stimulating and life-affirming. A lot of what we’ve been talking about is good commodities versus bad commodities but eventually we’re going to have to come up with something that isn’t a commodity at all and return to something like “art” and figure out some way to make art that isn’t a commodity. It’s going to be difficult. That effort started many decades ago and it still hasn’t been achieved.

Melissa: Another example of the double standard is that the commercial I saw for the eating disorder clinic came on MTV. It portrays women as this certain ideal, then offers a solution, then help for the solution later. Usually if you notice on TV diet commercials follow food commercials.

OVO: How does education figure into it?

Melissa: That’s what’s really scary. When you learn about health and nutrition in school, usually the little pamphlets and flyers you’re given are from the National Dairy Board, who say it’s good for you to drink milk. My mother was a teacher and she said it’s because its so hard for the schools to get funding from the State that they will accept funding from corporations. I don’t take it too seriously when McDonald’s gives me a nutrition guide.

OVO: What do you think is going to happen in the future regarding eating disorders?

Melissa: I hate to say it but I think it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any getter. Maybe it will get so bad and so rampant that it will explode and will be like everything else in this world that’s wrong. It’ll just keep happening until something really horrible happens.

OVO: Or something really wonderful.

Melissa: And then we’ll stop and go gee, sorry. When Gloria Steinem came to the University of Tennessee she said more women have died as a result of bulemia than it’s ever been reported of people dying of AIDS. AIDS gets more recognition and I agree its a problem that needs recognition but… Even with me, I know how wrong it is for me to have an eating disorder and I still do it. Even as wrong as I know it is and even as much as I don’t want to be a victim of it, of the media and everything else, I can’t help it. When l go out and l see other people who look good or go shopping and l want to a certain kind of clothes but they won’t look good on me unless l look a certain way… It’s hard for me when people I care about have also have been fed this image that people should look like that as well, like my family. I recently took a family vacation and my aunt is really thin, and her whole family is thin, and it made me feel like I should be thin.

OVO: Have you talked with your mother about this?

Melissa: Yes. My mother was a lot more informed on the subject than l thought she would be. I was thankful for that. She was very supportive. It was a surprise for me to get that support. She agreed that a lot of what she went through on the health food kick maybe contributed.

OVO: How much TV do you watch?

Melissa: When I watch television and pay attention l am very critical. I sit there and watch it and get angry and critique everything. I’m glad I’m to this point now where if it’s on and it’s really bothering me and it’s disgusting I’ll turn it off immediately and I won’t just change the channel. I don’t like to watch a whole lot of television because I think it’s bad in ways besides just image. Sometimes I watch it before I go to work, sometimes I have it on to have in the background when I’m in the shower if nobody’s home. I like to have noise.

OVO: Do you watch TV while you eat?

Melissa: Yes, and it’s scary to notice how many other people do that.

OVO: Television destroys community and that’s another reason to boycott it if you’re trying to to establish a community of support for anything, for any sort of political project or personal improvement art or thought. You can’t just have the TV on all the time.

Melissa: That’s one reason I’m really glad I got a job. Some days I’d wake up and there was only so much in a day that I could do before I’d done it all and I’d find myself watching television. Especially since we have cable. We’re moving soon and I don’t want to get cable when we do. We have a VCR and that’s different. Selective viewing is different. There are a lot films that are worth seeing and are good movies I enjoy watching. That’s what is nice about cable, watching HBO. The other day one of my favorite movies came on and that was nice to watch.

OVO: What movie was that?

Melissa: Pretty in Pink. My housemate bought a TV Guide so that I wouldn’t have to turn on the TV when I was bored and I wanted to see if anything was good on because than if nothing was good on I’d find myself watching anyway. Now I look for things I might want to watch and watch those things only.

OVO: What is it that makes you bored?

Melissa: When l didn’t have a job and everyone else in the house would be at work, I felt that for that period of the day should be… I would clean the house every day, I’d get up and clean, and I was getting tired of cleaning. You can only clean so much until everything is spotless. Then I would wait for everyone else to come home. I was turning into a housewife! I’d make dinner and clean the house and write letters, I did everything I needed to do and there wasn’t anything else I could do, I was looking for a job but you know how that is. Now I’ve got my job and that’s nice but a bad thing is that sometimes when l get off from work I’m so exhausted l can’t think, so l want something to think for me, so I watch a box that tells me how to think. That’s really dangerous. Lately I’ve stopped letting that control me and I’ve only been watching selective television again. I watch Star Trek on Saturdays and I like the show Alien Nation because it deals with racism. When I first moved to Knoxville I didn’t have a TV for the first few months but I still had the eating disorder. I think it’s beyond television. Television influences so many areas of our lives that you can influenced by television without watching it.

from OVO 11 CONTROL (September 1991)

[Postscript March 2011: Melissa is just fine now and has been for a long time.]

In an 1883 paper called “Ideas for a Science of Good Government,” Peter Cooper wrote (emphasis mine):

After Franklin had explained this [the use of paper money] to the British Government as the real cause of prosperity, they immediately passed laws, forbidding the payment of taxes in that money. This produced such great inconvenience and misery to the people, that it was the principal cause of the Revolution. A far greater reason for a general uprising, than the Tea and Stamp Act, was the taking away of the paper money. [3]

Although Cooper was in favor of government issued currency, he saw the British outlawing of the Bills of Credit as a problem. He opposed the use of these local currencies, but saw them arising out of a failure of the government: “Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, raised his voice against the curse of the local banks, which were allowed to come into being by the neglect of the Government in the performance of its duty.” [3]

Today, a host of independent currencies are available: from small and local to big and global, and they are all issued to solve perceived problems with government issued currency. But it appears that the government is none too pleased with this competition.

Indie currency

Activists on both the far left and far right of the political spectrum work to create government independent currency solutions, but it seems that the left tend to prefer local currencies. “Community currency is a tool that can help revitalize local economies by encouraging wealth to stay within a community rather than flowing out,” Susan Meeker-Lowry wrote for Z Magazine. “In many communities around the country people are taking control by creating their own currency. This is completely legal and, as organizers are finding, often very empowering.” [4]

The Local Exchange Trading System (LETS), developed in British Columbia in the 80s, is one widely used system. LETS does away with the need for a printed money, acting instead as an interest free credit system. Michael Linton, a computer programmer, created LETS to solve a simple problem: community members “had valuable skills they could offer each other yet had no money. He also saw the limitations of a one-on-one barter system. If a plumber wanted the services of an electrician, but the electrician didn’t need plumbing help, the transaction couldn’t take place.” [4]

LETS solves the problem by issuing credit within the system. In the above example, the plumber would owe a debt to the LETS system, and electrician would be issued credit from the system. The electrician would be able to redeem the credit from another LETS member who is either in debt or wanted credit, and the plumber would be required to make his services available to other LETS members. [4] Many variations of Linton’s original system have been created, and several “how to” kits and manuals are available for purchase, or to download for free from the internet. [5]

Shifting the focus away from the US for a moment: during the Argentine financial crisis, the national currency of Argentina became practically worthless. [6] To help meet their needs and keep the economy working, many people turned to barter or to local currencies such as the “credito.”  [7] The credito was based, amongst other things, on LETS materials translated into Spanish. Transactions were originally recorded in a notebook, as in LETS, but eventually paper certificates were needed. By 2000, circulation of this currency had reached the equivalent of about $5 million a year. [8]

Argentina illustrates the usefulness of independent currencies when central banks fail. Local currencies, which tend not to cross state lines, seem not to get much attention from the government. I don’t know of any cases of local currencies being shut down by the government.

Towards a more perfect capitalism

Right wing proponents of alternative currencies, however, tend to favor more global forms of exchange. Advocates of “free banking” propose the dissolution of central banks like the Federal Reserve in favor of private banks issuing competing currencies. [9]

The founder of the internet payment solution PayPal, Peter Thiel, envisioned PayPal as a way to create a more free exchange of currency globally. Thiel hoped people in foreign countries with restrictive money export laws could use PayPal to hold their currency in dollars or other more stable foreign currencies, such as the US dollar [10]. But the proprietors of precious metal backed digital currencies like e-Gold and the Liberty Dollar are more even more ambitious.

Thinkers ranging from Ron Paul [11] to Alan Greenspan [12] advocate a return to the gold standard. But some entrepreneurs act directly by issuing digital currency backed by gold, silver, or other precious metals.

Dr. Douglas Jackson founded e-gold, the first internet currency backed 100% by precious metals, in 1996. Jackson cites gold’s stability as a currency and the internet’s natural openness as the reasons for creating an internet based gold currency. He believes e-gold is currency perfected: stable and market driven. In an interview in Wired in 2002 he called e-gold “probably the greatest benefit to humanity that’s ever been thought of.” [13]

The Liberty Dollar, backed mostly by silver but also by other precious metals, is sold by National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code (NORFED). Founder, and former mint master of the Royal Hawaiian Mint Company, Bernard von NotHaus conceived of the currency to compete head-on with the Federal Reserve:

For years America was saddled with a slow, poor postal service. Finally, Federal Express brought competition to this heavily subsidized government agency that no one though could change. And it responded and improved noticeably. NORFED emulates this model by bringing a superior product to America’s monetary system, its currency. [14]

NORFED offers coins, certificates that look like something like dollar bills, and an internet backed currency. Coins and certificates are available through “Regional Currency Offices,” and NORFED actively encourages Liberty Dollar enthusiasts to open their own RCOs and recruit others. [15]

Financial Jihad

Outside the western left / right political spectrum is the another global cultural force: Islam. While the founders of Pay Pal, e-gold, and NORFED believe themselves to be perfecting capitalism with their digital services, the Islamic founders of e-dinar, who formed a partnership with e-gold and at one point hosted 50% of e-gold’s reserve at their vaults in Dubai, believe they are destroying it. [13]

The founders of e-dinar are members of the Murabitun movement, a peculiur form of Sufism. Murabitun followers believe that paper money is haram, unlawful, according to Islamic faith. The founder of the Murabitun movement, Sheikh Abdalqadir, says: “A true study of the Qur’an and the Sunna shows us that capitalism will not be abolished on the battlefield but in the marketplace where it is practiced.” [13]

“Fatwa Concerning the Islamic Prohibition of Using Paper-Money as a Medium of Exchange,” a Murabitun text by Umar Vadillo, states: “After examining all the aspects of paper money, in the Light of the Qur’an and the Sunna, we declare that the use of paper money in any form of exchange is usury and therefore haram” because paper money (and, by extension, credit and debit cards) is “nothing but a pure symbol with no reality attached except the imposition of law.” [13]

Vidillo says: “You want to be radical? You don’t need to blow up the bank, just burn your bank account. For that you need an alternative. What is the alternative? E-dinar.” [13]

The current status of e-dinar is a bit mysterious. e-gold used be partners with e-dinar [13], but according to e-dinar’s web site e-dinar officially split with e-gold in 2004 after being acquired by an unnamed “Large International Corporation” in 2003. [16]

The state responds

It would seem, though, that the larger reach of global alternatives lead to larger interventions by the government. Of all the major players in independent currency game, e-gold has probably had the worst legal trouble. “In December 2005, the Secret Service and FBI raided the company’s headquarters and seized roughly $800,000 in assets,” according to the Washington Post. [17] This lead e-gold to beef up their security measures, even creating new software designed to detect e-gold customers committing crimes. [18] The new security measures didn’t stop a federal indictment from being leveled against the company in April of 2007. The company was served with four indictments, including operating an illegal money transfer operation and money laundering. [17]

Then, on Wednesday May 9th, 2007 the United States government seized the holdings of 58 e-gold accounts, forcing 48 bars of gold to be redeemed for approximately $77 million dollars. As of this writing, all the funds are still in in the US government’s control pending the outcome of lawsuit filed against e-gold’s parent company. [19] However, e-gold and its subsidiary Omnipay maintain business.

In 2006 The United States Mint issued a press release stating that circulating Liberty Dollars is a federal crime. The press release implies that Liberty Dollars are deceptively similar to US currency, and that NORFED intends them to be used as legal tender. [20] As of this writing, I am unaware of any case against any persons in the United States for using the Liberty Dollar.

NORFED responded with a civil lawsuit. On March 20, 2007 von NotHaus filed against the US Mint, asking “the court to declare that the use of the Liberty Dollar is not a ‘federal crime,’ as claimed by the U.S. Mint. And the organization further asked the court to enter a permanent injunction against the U.S. Mint requiring it to remove any reference that the use of Liberty Dollars is a federal crime from its website.” [21 As of this writing, the case remains unsettled. But on November 14th, 2007 the situation took another turn: the FBI raided Liberty Dollar on charges of circulating illegal currency, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The affidavit also described Liberty Dollar as a "multi-level marketing scheme."  [22]

Von NotHaus has described the raid as “a direct assault against the US Constitution and your right to own and use gold and silver in any way you chose” and dismissed the mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering charges as fantasy. [23]

Pay Pal, eventually burdened with legal problems, banned the use of PayPal for gambling, pornography, and several other uses in 2004. [24]

Conclusion

It is important to note that e-gold and NORFED may well be guilty of the crimes it has been charged with.  It remains to be seen how they will come out in court. NORFED and e-gold have many competitors, so the international, gold back internet currency business continues. However, the struggles of these companies, and the fact that they are being held liable for what their customers use their services for, is illustrative of the control the US government exerts over currency. If the Federal Reserve were held accountable every time legal tender were used in criminal transactions, surely the Fed would have been shut down by now. Why are companies like e-gold held to a different standard? Why are they asked to act as de facto law enforcement?

And all of this raises the question: why is there such a demand for alternative currencies? Shouldn’t the state be spending its time trying to correct the problems the Fed (or shutting it down), instead of trying to shut down those who are trying to solve problems the government is not?

References:
1. ushistory.org “Currency Act,”  http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/currencyact.htm Retrieved 10/30/07.
2. u-s-history.com “Currency Act,”  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1212.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
3. Cooper, Peter. “Ideas for a Science of Good Government,”  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1212.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
4. Meeker-Lowry, Susan. “The Potential of Local Currency,”  Z Magazine, July 1995. http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/july95lowry.htm Retrieved 10/30/07.
5. Wikipedia. “Local Exchange Trading System,”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Exchange_Trading_System Retrieved 10/30/07.
6. Ballvé, Marcello. “Silent Revolution,”  Orion Magazine, July 2006. http://thetake.org/media/The%20Silent%20Revolution.pdf Retrieved 10/30/07.
7. Katel, Peter. “Argentina: the Post Money Economy,”  Time, February 2002. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,199474,00.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
8. DeMeulenaere, Stephen. “Reinventing the Market: Alternative Currencies and Community Development in Argentina,”  International Journal of Community Currency Research, 2000. http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/ijccr/pdfs/IJCCR%20Vol%204%20(2000)%203%20DeMeulenaere.pdf Retrieved 10/30/07.
9. Greaves, Bettina Bien. “Market Money and Free Banking,”  The Freeman, October 1999. http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4946 Retrieved 10/30/07.
10. Bodow, Steve. “The Money Shot,”  Wired, September 2001. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.09/paypal_pr.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
11. Ludwig von Mises Institute. “The Case for Gold.”  http://www.mises.org/store/Case-for-Gold-The-P386C0.aspx?AFID=1 Retrieved 10/30/07.
12. Greenspan, Alan. “Gold and Economic Freedom.”  The Objectivist, 1966. http://www.321gold.com/fed/greenspan/1966.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
13. Dibbell, Julien. Wired, January 2002. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.01/egold.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
14. Orzano, Michele. Coin World Magazine, October 1998. http://www.libertydollar.org/news-stories/pdfs/1164902714.pdf Retrieved 10/30/07.
15. Liberty Dollar web site. “Regional Currency Office.”  http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/rco/index.htm Retrieved 10/30/07.
16. e-dinar web site. “History.”  http://www.e-dinar.com/html/3_4.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
17. Krebs, Brian. washingtonpost.com, “U.S.: Online Payment Network Abetted Fraud, Child Pornography,”  May 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/01/AR2007050101291.html Retrieved 10/30/07.
18. Zetter, Kim. Wired News, “E-Gold Gets Tough on Crime,”  December 2006. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/12/72278 Retrieved 10/30/07.
19. “US Government Forces E-gold Redemptions – Seizes Gold,”  Money Net News, May 2007. http://www.moneynetnews.com/articles/54/1/US-Government-Forces-E-gold-Redemp Retrieved 10/30/07.
20.US Mint web site. “Liberty Dollars Not Legal Tender, United States Mint Warns Consumers.”  http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=press_release&id=710 Retrieved 10/30/07.
21. Liberty Dollar web site. “Legal Updates.”  http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/legal/updates.htm Retrieved 10/30/07.
22. Taylor, Jeff. Reason Magazine web site,”Your Liberty Dollar Raid Update.”  November 2007. http://www.reason.com/blog/show/123553.html Retrieved 7/24/07.
23. Liberty Dollar web site. “FBI Raid on the Liberty Dollar.”  November 2007. http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/legal/raid.htm Retrieved 7/24/07.
24. Balko, Radley. Reason Magazine,”Who Killed Pay Pal?”  August 2005. http://www.reason.com/news/show/33114.html Retrieved 10/30/07.

from OVO 18 MONEY (April 2008).  Revised for technoccult (November 2008).  Reprinted in Digital Gold Currency Magazine (January 2009).

You trade your time for money and trade money for things. This is in some ways overly complicated and there are people who spend their time making those things that they want, cutting out all the middle men. The do-it-yourself movement is an example of this, as is subsistence level farming. Considering how wasteful consumer capitalism actually is, it is entirely possible to survive in a urban environment without engaging in wage labour. You can spend your time getting food by dumpstering. Food, of course, is far from the only thing thrown away while it is still usable.

Out of the discards of a wasteful culture you can pull the raw materials with which to construct objects of desire and engage in enjoyable activities. The simpler your needs are in terms of objects the more time you can spend on experiences, on living. Buckminster Fuller was an inventor who spent his time designing things to more efficiently meet the needs of people in order to free them up to live. He called this branch of technology livingry to put it in distinction to the other motor of innovation, weaponry.

Marx developed the Labour-time theory of value where the value of an object was determined by the amount of labour time that was put into its production. Of course this theory was partially a work of propaganda or myth-making to build up the claim of the workers to the rewards of the early capitalist economy but it still one of the better theories on what actually makes a commodity valuable. Perhaps another way of looking at this is that value is produced by the energy put into the object over time, Value as Kilowatt Hours. With the increasing mechanization of industrial production it is foreseeble that items will be stamped out that had so minimal an input by humans that they would be valueless in terms of labour. However, these objects will still take work in a physical sense to produce them. Whether this shift to inhuman production will be a liberatory experience for mankind or the creation of a destitute no-longer-working class is an open question as yet. In part the answer has been to push people into service and administrative roles but even these have begun to be mechanized with information technology such as recommendation systems and complicated telephony arrangements.

from OVO 18 MONEY (April 2008)

Edward Wilson is a freelance writer living in Vancouver, Canada; Portland, Oregon and Cyberspace. If not found writing in one of Vancouver’s coffee shops, Edward is likely drinking in one of Portland’s Bars. Edward, known online as Fenris23, specializes in rediscovering magical techniques in the fields of psychology and sociology. He is Co-Author of The Art of Memetics with Wes Unruh and his next project will be space/ time/ punctuation, an exploration of the experience of space and time.
http://fenris23.wordpress.com
fenris23@gmail.com

“we were broke. The town cold.
With four dollars a day
streets were wet. Jobs hard spending that last four dollars
few options for food would
have wiped us out.” Money

it no longer signifies. there’s a silence,
the loss of coin to paper,
the paper to credit

“rich white people
like me, they fund
my art” and sold

to the color of more
with each transaction
cash burning;
a memory of wealth:
bank enough money
to be saved. Ourselves…

money lies, you smear
money across the counter
It’s manifest destiny, the first
dollar bill framed dribbles
above the register does
make money
make value
make meaning

“you fold the bills
right you can see
the towers fall”

she’s got the video
online we’ve spent
all the loose change

the more you have
the less it means
and exchange rates,
memories, shadows,
a handful of dust
and great white guilt

from OVO 18 MONEY (April 2008)

wesunruh.info