As he nears the outskirts of Tucson Victor pulls off the highway and
finds a flat spot, reasonably clear of brush and hidden from passersby.  There
he makes his camp for the night.  It's nearly dark so he eats a cold supper,
not wanting to attract attention with the light of a fire; he likes cheese and
crackers occasionally.  Then he crawls in his sleeping bag for the night.
   In the halflight before sunrise he builds a small, smokeless fire and makes
coffee.  As he drinks it he eats some dried fruit and nuts for breakfast
and plans his day.  He quickly packs then starts pedaling on as the sun
shoots rays through a couple of straggling clouds over the Rincon
Mountains.
   About seven miles later he arrives at the first stop.  The Catholic
soup kitchen where he can get coffee if he arrives before 8:00A. He can
also preserve his resources by getting a bag lunch; a couple of baloney
sandwiches and an apple, but it's free.  While there he can talk to some
tramps and see what the mood of the people is today.  He loses touch
after a couple of weeks at home but massmind is cyclic with only a few,
no more than four, major phases.  It's not hard to catch up.  If he's lucky
he'll see John Demosecon here.  If not he'll look for him at the
downtown library a little more than a mile from the kitchen.
   But at the moment he surveys a scene of repressed desparation.  Most of
victims, standing about or in line for sandwiches, are talking in attempt to
exhibit a bravado they hope will protect them from attack and help them to
maintain the illusion they are not so bad off.  An illusion they hold out
of respect for a system which designed it to assuage the fears and guilt of
the middle class.  It is incredably ironic that their loyalty to God and
nation will withstand ragged clothing, little or no shelter and insufficiant
food.  But it does!  A credit to mass conditioning?  At least one cynical
observer commented to Victor a few months before that, "Unless they run out
of cheap beer there will never be a revolution."  Victor thinks more highly of
people than that.  He thinks that alchoholism among the homeless is an effect
not a cause.  It may even be unofficially encouraged to support
rationalizations for inaction on the part of a society whose rulers benefit
from joblessness.
   The radio had informed Victor several days ago that over 500,000 jobs had
been cut in manufacturing, electronics and computers in the first 11 months
of 1998.  150,000 jobs per month, mostly lower paying jobs in the service
industry, had been added.  Supermarkets had started cutting older higher paid
workers and hiring entry level at a lower rate, thus "entering corporate
culture".  With the economic crisis in Asia there are "fewer exports and
Americans are advised to consume more" to save the economy.  With wages
and salaries continuing their thirty year decline (in buying power) and more
people out of work in spite, of the government stooges' lies, where will the
money to consume more come from.  Will there be yet another layer of plastic
cards added to an already collapsing house?  Will the system gain further
support by the submission of the middle class to a weight of further debt and
the concommitant guilt?  Victor thought about these things.

   Can the ruling elite be ignorant to the obvious end of all this?  Can their
minion CEOs and politicians?  Do they see it as merely a way to make money for
themselves, individually, without taking into account the cumulative effect?
Monkey see, monkey do?  Just reacting in the present, blissfully ignorant of
the destination at the end of the road on which they've placed us?
   In the last hundred and fifty years they have successfully lured us away from
a subsistance economy that had served the human race for thousands of years.
Now we can less and less afford the baubles and beads they baited us with.  Our
continued survival is at risk.  Note that I said our survival, not their's.  You
think that's paranoid?  What have the wealthy done with every bit of technology
that's been made in the last hundered and fifty years?  They have made
themselves richer.  They don't care about us.  Given their track record for the
use of new technology with total disregard for the remainder of humanity, in the
singleminded pursuit of wealth, what will they do in the future?  You don't have
to be a psychic or a prophet to answer that question. And, of course, it can't
be answered specifically but we can safely predict the direction it will take
and that the direction will not change much from what it has always been.  Look
at the decline in living standard they have used technology to bring about in
the last thirty years.  Where does that end up?  What will they do with us if it
comes to pass that there is no need, in their scheme, for the majority of the
population? What are they doing with the homeless today?  The ones they no
longer need now? What will be their "final solution" for us?  And I'm not just
talking about working class and lower middle class.  They will only be the
start.  It could work it's way up to the politicians and CEOs who think they
have been so clever in feathering their nests.  The police and military who
carry out the policy against their own people are the biggest fools of all.
Though it may never come to that, I think most Americans balless enough to
meekly starve to please the masters.  And that solution could be gradual enough
that the 5% would escape detection until it was too late.
   How could it come to pass that they no longer need us to maintain their
lives of luxury?  How will they likely use clones and second or third
generation robots?  Robots much smarter and more versatile than today's essays
in the craft?  Clones might be manufactured with just enough intelligence to
do thier task and not enough to complain about anything.  I know, I know, how
does that differ from today's middle class?  They won't even have the potential
to make trouble for the masters.  They'll be like robots with human bodies.
This will be a great improvement over the behaviorally conditioned stupidity so
popular today.  Today's people merely nuetralize one another through competition
among themselves.  The elite also presently benefit from some psuedo inbred
stupidity that is really just consistent training of several generations;
made easier in the case of those who adhere to systems of morality engineered
by the Roman Empire and their heirs for use in controlling the mob.  Again I
ask, if all or some of this comes to pass, or anything remotely like it, what
will they do with us when they no longer need us or the economy as it exists
today?
   We should be able to see these possibilities, perhaps probabilities but most
of us are afraid to say or even think anything negative.  We might lose our
jobs.  We will probably do nothing, not even acknowledge the problem because
we have no balls!  We ignore most problems that exist today because we don't
have the will or courage to face them.  Even the labor movement accepts the
system as a whole.
   What of the labor movement?  Thoroughly discredited and eviscerated as it
is today it is our real hope for salvation.  Maybe not in it's present
incorporation but the unification of people to resist the oppression of the
system is our only slim hope.  What happened to it?  The slide started in the
early 70's with busting and disreputing of the unions.  The elite have been
maintaining conditions for twenty or thirty years such that traditional labor
unions have been nuetralized.  Labor has not adjusted to downsizing in any
effective way.  They have always hit it head on trying to block it then
compromised jobs away a little at a time.  They are using tactics within the
system when they need a strategy and tactics against it.  Is there a strategy
that can be devised to curb and ultimately reverse the loss of good jobs?
Many workers, like one ex-worker, Paul, who Victor will probably see within the
next few day's, have attitudes that are just as good, from the ruler's point
of view, as the submissiveness of the middle class.
   Though they are superficially stronger personalities than their middle
class counterparts, workers, especially non-union workers, are easily
misdirected.  The middle class pretends to be more thoughtful and rational
but is ultimately just as deluded.  The conflict between the classes is the
distraction that is most beneficial to the elite.  A strategy that could
effectively counter the power of wealth would need to unify the middle and
working classes.  Anti union sentiment, common among middle class and working
class people like Paul, is possibly the biggest impediment to successfully
opposing the oppressive and exploitative forces at work in our society and
culture.  This particular product of massmind control, which pits people
against themselves, as with racial bigotry, is particularly onerous to me.
Can it be dealt with by raising consciousness or must they be counter deluded
"for their own good"?  Hopefully, if the latter, it is possible to do good in
that way.  I don't trust lies no matter how well intentioned.  Well, there is
a lot to do before we come to that dillemma.
   Meanwhile "Capitalist Free Market Economy" (CFME) is a strategy of
oppression and exploitation.  That's how it must be seen to effectively
counter it.  Since the thirties the labor movement has accepted a place in
the establishment.  Since at least 1970 that place has been on the defensive.
That's where it will stay as long as it accepts the CFME environment and
rules.  The tactics of the 5%ers, the wealthy ruling elite, will keep us here.
They invented the game.  They make the rules.  My job is to percieve the
problem and relate it.  Others, maybe all the 95% together, must devise a
successful strategy against CFME.  Personally I think it would be worthwhile
to destroy it even if nothing replaces it.  I know that's not likely to fly.
Maybe I can invent wings next year.

   Obviously, Victor doesn't yet really believe it is hopeless.  He knows he
has no credability but believes deep down that the truth will prevail.  He
hasn't acknowledged, no matter what he says, that appearances are everything.
That the bulk of humanity really is only interested in superficiality and
that once you have descended to homelessness it is too late to deal with
the forces that pushed you there; that he can't hope to unite people
against being picked off singly.  And united action is the only hope there
is of ever stopping the "big displacement".
   At least he knows there is no chance of outside help.  If we don't do it
ourselves it won't get done.  But maybe I spoke too soon.  Maybe Victor can
succeed.  But not with the truth.  The unembroidered truth is always much
too bland.  But if Vic can manufacture a sensational enough lie maybe there
is some remote probability of success.  It will have to be a very good lie
or it won't be believed.  He's never been a good liar but the truth is never
good enough and the lies of politicians and advertisers hardly ever fail.
Maybe I can find a way to give him some help?

   John will have to be courted.  The last time they met Victor ridiculed
John for wanting to hack government computers to get at the "X" files.
"X" files was Victor's scornful mockery of John's paranoia.  Vic also
mentioned that, having worked for military contractors on classified
computers, he knew sensitive information simply wasn't kept on machines
that had internet connections.  There is no question of firewalls and other
mickey mouse security; we're talking physical isolation, no possibility!
It will be hard to convince John that Victor now not only believes such
files exist but thinks he knows how to get to them.  But that's what he'll
have to do to make his scheme work.  The chances of hooking up with
someone else with connections like John's is remote.  It will take a lot
of luck no matter how hard he works to make it all come together.
   John is connected to Arryan Nation and other right wing, religious,
survivalist gun nuts and neo-Nazis.  Victor dislikes the whole genre of roll
playing fanatics but if he can convince John of his sincerity then a program
which allows access to files showing secret government plans for an
"underclass cleansing", John's words, should be easy to sell to the whole
pathetic pack of fools. The program won't be hard for Victor to fake; he
has always liked PC programming.  Pretending to have had a change of heart
will be the hard part.  If he puts it over, though, he'll have a starting
place for the real gambit.  Not much but it is something.

   The baloney sandwiches are something for lunch and, since John D's not
in sight, Victor rides North on 3rd starting towards campus.  He had just
negotiated the crossing of busy 22nd St. and started through Santa Rita Park,
when he saw John sitting on the grass eating his bag lunch.  Vic pulled over
and got off his bike walking it towards the older man who looked up with a
bemused interest.
   John is an anthropologist, a PhD., who said the wrong things in class one
day and was ultimately disappeared.  Victor knew him slightly while both were
practising their professions.  The streets had totally changed John.  He was
a bright, witty liberal and a student of humanity as an anthropologist should
be.  But street people can be utterly ruthless with non-believers.  Oliver
Cromwell never ordered crueler witch hunts.  Heretics are shown no mercy.
John could have started by saying what he feared he must say to save his life.
Maybe he just succumbed to the larger societies expectations for people like
us.  How he came to believe the rot is anybody's guess.  But now he's not only
a believer but a proseletyser.  Victor had never considered trying to rescue
John.  Vic has never been skillful enough to do that sort of thing.
   Religious fanatics, and most believers are doubly so, are difficult to
manage.  Victor theorizes that most of these nuts start with a glimpse of the
truth: that something unwholesome is going on but they can't quite grasp it or
see who is doing it so they jump to some wild conclusion as a means of fixing
the blame and thereby finding a solution to the problem.  Society at large
follows the same pattern of fixing the blame instead of the problem and sees
it's problems every bit as poorly as the conspiracy theorists.  Nobody wants
to admit to fundamental cultural problems for which we are all responsible.
   In this sense the average lunatic is no more delusional than the rest of us.
He or she just exaggerates a little more.  Like us, they tend to unwittingly
support the status quo.  They simply follow a non-standard diversion.  In any
case blaming one group or another, even the ruling elite of ultra wealthy who
own everything, will not solve the problem of exploitation.  By cooperating
with society we participate in the situation and therefore all share in the
responsibility.  Only by waking up to this reality is their any hope that the
unity required to make real changes can come to be.  We must each retrain
ourselves before we can be effective. When enough of us succeed in raising our
consciousness to the level of reality we will win!  But try to tell this to a
bigot, a religeous zealot or a UFO nut. Ha! They are so into their pet ideas
and finding faults that they won't even hear you.
   Anti-Semitism often seems to start with a desire to fix blame for economic
exploitation with a too small patch.  These bigots are, in that sense, more in
tune to reality than a majority who deny their enthrallment to a ruling elite.
But the white supremacists blaming of some boogey man is frighteningly similar
to, and proceeds from, the general desire to find the "ones at fault". It
develops into "the conspiracy of Jews" to dominate the economy.  Jealousy of the
supposed riches of the scapegoat group is also a factor.  The anti-semites
distort and exaggerate but are just like the rest of us in their denial of our
own responsibility for the reality we choose to live. The thought processes of
John and his fellows develop from the same conditioned responses the majority
exhibit.  Finding who is at fault denies that the economy of our culture has
fundemental problems for which we must all share the responsibility.
   Victor's thought is an attempt to recognize and articulate fundamental
problems in the economy and culture of humanity.  He perceives no conspiracy
and blames everyone, even himself.  If he fails to communicate his thought
clearly and understandably then he is as much to blame for the continuing
ills of exploitation as is the ruling elite or the passive, nutless majority.
   Though rarely in one on one situations, groups based on bigotry and hatred,
and even those less onerous conspiracy believers, can display some courage or
at least do something.  However, they are no less to blame than the rest of us
because they allow themselves to be no less deluded and misdirected.  By
dividing and disunifiing the population, they do the human species a disservice.
Their dysfunctionality is no worse than that of the enslaved majority.  A freely
and thoughtfully entered union of lucid, strong and autonomous people is what
Victor hopes to help bring about.  Vic sees that as the way to positive and
meaningful change.
   He'll be lucky if he can win John's confidence sufficiently to sell the Y2k
idea and doesn't expect to be able to enlighten him in this interview.  One
thing in Vic's favor is John had tried to treat him as a novice.  Victor had
reacted to the patronization in a negative way, which is why he so heavily and
unkindly scorned the notion of hacking the "X" files.  Maybe he can come on with
an apologetic air.  The difficulty with that approach will be in maintaining
control of his plan.
   "Hi John, how's it goin'?"
   John replies warily and coldly, "I'm fine, how are you?"
   His clothes are a little more ragged and he is a little dirtier than the
last time Victor saw him.  He needs a shave.  The streets are wearing him
down gradually like they do everyone.  Victor knows how it goes; first your
money then your clothes.  The trite old saying sounds more like the literal
truth than a metaphore.  Then you stop shaving every day.  Many start living
for alcohol.  Already at the bottom of society, you don't think you can spiral
down any further but depression can be like a black hole with homelessness the
event horizon.  Once across it seems like there is no escape and no way to
measure how far it is you are going to descend.  But John is like Victor in
that, if he drinks at all it's not much.  He is still not too far gone and
still works at trying to undo a bad situation.  Victor knows he's on the wrong
track.
   John researches and writes about a supposed connection between the ancient
Hebrews and the Aztecs.  His dissertation, which Victor read part of, is about
the Aztec culture.  What he hopes to make of this Victor is not sure.  He
suspects that John's extremist connections, met on the street, are coercing him
to create anti semitic literature of some sort.  This is all conjecture on
Victor's part and he knows it.  But he also recognizes the "types" with whom
John hangs out.  Victor can't imagine what else they would want from John who
obviously fears them and does their bidding.
   Victor lowers his eyes and smiles wanly; then he looks up and says, "I'm
sorry for the way I talked to you last time.  In my mind I was still partly
in the other world.  You know, you think you know everything and believe what
your told.  You were being honest with me and I ridiculed you.  That was stupid
of me but I hadn't been around long enough to understand how it is.  A lot of
things that seem unthinkable to a middle class person take on considerable
credability from this perspective."  As he was speaking John had softened his
features.  Victor stops, not wanting to blow it by saying too much, and gives
John a chance to respond.
   "Apology accepted, but what do want from me?  I don't know you well but I
don't think you would be so nice without a reason."
   "A common threat is my reason and I think we need to be allied to deal with
it.  John, I was surfing the net and stumbled onto something that has made me
very anxious.  It's monstrous really and threatens most Americans.  While
browsing a government web site, open to the public, I accidentally (it could
renew my faith in God) pressed a sequence of keys that took me to a directory
with secret material.  I saw some things that really scared me and I need help
dealing with it."
   "Ok Victor, here's what you should do.."
   "John!  You haven't even let me tell you what I've seen or what I expect to
do about it.  If you won't even take me seriously long enough to hear me out I
might as well find someone else."
   "What have you seen, the X-files?"  The bitter sarcasm in John's tone wasn't
exactly unexpected.  His opinion of himself in relation to others is higher than
average.  A fact that doesn't escape Victor.
   "John, I was wrong.  There is a government plan to cleanse the population
of excess production and managerial and technical employees.  You once said
something to me about 'underclass cleansing' and I scoffed at that too.  What
can I say?  You were right, I was wrong.  Now that I've stumbled on to the truth
I want you to help me do something about it."
   "Help you, I'm already doing something about it but I'll let you help me if
you want to.  I'd like to have a look at those files you mentioned, so I can see
if they are of any use to us.  Then, if they provide useful information, I'll
talk to my friends about something for you to do.  Let's go to the library and
you can show me."
   Victor knows he has to stall John and hopes it can be done without losing him.
His interest is weak because it's not his news and that implies not under his
control.  Vic knows he has to strenghten John's interest and make him feel OK
about not being in control.  Is that possible?  Victor hopes so because he
doesn't know any other connections to parmilitary groups and he needs the use
of such power to make anything work.
   So, trying to appear confident and firm, he says, "John, this is bigger than
you think!  They are planning to use the Y2k hoax to explain the cut off of
electricity, fuel, water, communications, food and medical facilities.  The
people will be frozen, dehydrated or starved to death and think the government
is working to save them as they die.  At least that's the plan.  They want to
depopulate the world and take care of themselves with robots and eventually
clones without being burdened by us.  I know it sounds preposterous but I think
I can prove it.  And a counter plan will need much more support than just your
friends can supply.  I'm contacting you now in the hope you can bring a military
force to an alliance I'm forging." Then, gatherering all the force and firmness
he could in cold blood, "Can you help us?"
   As Victor spoke John's skeptical expression softened to somewhat incredulous
and then guarded acceptance.  But he is still not one hundred per cent convinced
and Vic realizes, quickly, why.
   He wants to know, "First, who are us?  Then, what do you mean by "think'
you can prove.  Though it doesn't sound so preposterous to me."
   "First, you may never need to know anyone but your own group and me; the
same goes for them!  That may change later when your solidarity is assured
and if a need arises.  As to the proof, until I can find a way back in to that
site you'll just have to take my word for it.  I couldn't duplicate the
keystrokes I hit on accidentally but I'm working on a program I'm sure will
get me in within a month.  In the mean time do I have enough credibility with
you for you to start making contingency mobilization plans and briefing your
friends so they'll be ready when and if they are needed?  As soon as I can
show you proof I will but it will take a lot of coordination to pull off a
real coup.  You need to get started on your part."
   Until the end of Victor's pitch, John had been looking at his feet.  Then he
stared into Vic's eyes and said, "OK, I'll pass on what you've said.  You better
be able to back it up!"
   Victor smiled grimly until John dropped his eyes, then he turned and walked
away.  He suspected John's "connections" were bullshit but if not, he's
fooling around with crazies who take things very literally and seriously.  And
they play with real guns!  "Oh well", he thought, "Maybe I've bet the farm, I
hope I can get lucky!"
   I couldn't keep out of it.  As he pushed his bike to the street I started a
lecture.  "Victor, what do you think your doing!  You haven't even tried working
within the system...".
   He cut me off short.  "Give me a break, the system rejected me first,
remember.  But if an opportunity arises I'll play it straight just to show
you how hopeless it is.  We've been through that shit dozens of times.  When
are you going to learn!"

  I think Victor's maladjusted.  At least now I better understand his
compassion for the deer.  If he takes the attitude with everyone that he
takes with me he'd better get away and hide!  But unfortunatly he's spent
more time working at his computer than learning to live independently.  Now,
while he's in town, he needs to scrounge up money for supplies.  He'll
probably try again to get some kind of job in his field.  He'll certainly
check his e-mail and look in on his websites.  Of course, as you've seen, he
stirs and tests anything that seems to have a chance to work.