Victor had arrived at the campsite earlier.  Often, when in Tucson, he
camps on the Southside near the river.  There are a dozen or so tramps in
the neighborhood.  To stay nearby affords a little more common security
and Vic enjoys company from time to time as well.  The hooches the permanent
residents build are often nearly as luxurious as the flimsy frame dwellings
in the surrounding barrio.  No plumbing may be superior to the chronically
plugged and septic systems in the local rentals.  Though even old fashioned
two wire electric beats a rainy dark night.  The susceptability to fire is
about equal because the tramps know they must be more careful.
   But it is clear and warm, a couple of hours before sunset, as Victor sets
up his camp and thinks about John Le'Treues e-mail.  Vic isn't sure where
John is coming from.  He has a tremendous need to impress others with his
knowledge and intellectual power which, to give credit where due, is no small
thing.  The need or the intellect.  The desire for recognition, though, is an
impediment to John's progress and it worries Victor that it may also be an
incentive for John to play some sort of game to embarrass Vic somehow and build
the other's self esteem thereby.  Cruel but not uncommon.  In fact it's quite
mean!  And, as time would tell, Victor was making a commonnn mistake.  He was
underestimating John's potential for duplicity!
   Part of John's delusion is that he believes he knows Victor better than
Victor knows himself.  It is unimaginable to John that a person of his
superior education and status, could be anything but in all things, above a
mere bachelor of science.



   Victor get's his notebook from his backpack and composes an answer to John
T's e-mail:
   John,
	 Thanks for the encouragement.  I'll visit your classroom soon.  Your
   advice and sample budget is well intentioned, I'm sure, but not entirely
   realistic.  I appreciate it's value as I do all your opinions.  It may
   surprise you to realize that living with little or no income develops
   uncommon thrift skill.  At least it's taught me I can't afford to drink
   alcohol or visit Mexican whorehouses in Nogales.  At the moment, I don't
   think a long term relationship with a woman is a good idea for me.  Whores
   are casual enough but too high cost.  And if I must pretend to
   respectability, such liasons will never do.
	 Strangely enough, if I had been able to find a roommate when I tried in
   1994 I might have lived and alternate reality the past few years.  But who
   knows; maybe some things are meant to be?  I have some ideas of my own
   about housing that I intend to explore but I have, as yet, eliminated no
   options.  The principle on which I've come to rely in making choices lately
   has been: survival with dignity; followed by the maintenance of lucidity,
   strength and autonomy, equally weighted, upon which dignity is dependent.

	 I do have some questions about what exactly you mean when you say
   one must have a positive attitude to teach.  Positive attitude, now
   there's a mouthful.  But, really, we all know what it means.  I've lost
   nearly everything since 1994.  My choices, from day to day, will determine
   whether I continue to survive.  I can't commit to an exclusive path unless
   I feel assured that it will work and preserve my dignity.  Since a sense
   of dignity cannot be taken from me I will defend it before all else.  I'd
   rather be dead than humiliated.  That's not suicidal, it's merely an
   accurate appraisal of my present capability.  I'll do the thing that seems
   to have the highest probability of success in the first place and order
   other endeavors according to their chances.  Put another way: I've lost
   everything but my sense of dignity and will not give it up for life itself.
   "Death Before Dishonor!" as the marines say.  My questions are:
	 Must the attitude only be exibited for the benefit of students or
   will I be required to maintain it before my superiors and fellow faculty?
	 If the latter, (I take it the former is definitely required) is it
   limited to formal occasions or does it extend to casual conversation?
	 Am I only limited by what I must say or not say or must I also
   censor my thought and emotions?
	 If I am not a true believer will I be found out and dismissed?  Will
   the discovery be a straightforward and aboveboard process or will I be
   the victim of intrigues to uncover my subversive opinions?
	 But let's assume I'm able to give the appearance of having gotten my
   mind right.  I publicly and privately (except in secure situations) say
   all the right words and make all the right gestures; say nothing wrong at
   least.  Will the faculty and administration intuit my hidden refusal to
   believe and recast me in the title roll of "Cool Hand Luke", with
   themselves as warden?  Will they push me into some corner from which I
   must react or surrender my dignity?  Is everyman's dignity what the
   system really wants?  Paranoid?  Not!!  Just not usually talked about.
	 Hitler and Pinochet drew the lines clearly.  Ultimately their ends
   were the same as the ends of all conservatives everywhere: to preserve
   the wealth of their nations for the use of their elitist cliques.  In
   some ways these monsters, and their followers, hold the moral high ground
   above those who control us by having circumscribed our lives.  With openly
   demonstrative fascism the oppressor is more honest than ours.  A declared
   totalitarian can be resisted and the people know they better keep their
   mouths shut and act in secrecy.  With American fascism posing as "free
   market capitalism" (an oxymoron) and democracy, possible responses are
   limited.  Does that mean public opinion forbids responsibility?
	 All jokes aside, the ruling elite own public opinion just as they own
   everything else.  They own the corporations.  The corporations own all the
   politicians of whatever flavor; or will as soon as some new product
   manages to get elected.  The politicians spoonfeed the media.  (Only
   their "pet" media are allowed access.  These write what they are told and
   are rewarded within their profession.  Publishers support this system$$$)
   Media people seldom look at real life.  In any case, the politicians
   control the media.  We are controlled or trained, informed if you prefer
   euphemism, by the media and the educational process.  All in all, more
   insidious than Nazi Germany.
	 There is less chance I'll be maimed or killed by direct government
   action.  But I find our system more onerous than other, more infamous
   tyrannies of the twentieth century.  An individual here has less chance
   of gaining support to resist this oppression than had people in more
   openly harsh regimes.  However, we aren't morally inferior to the Germans
   under the Nazis because we don't have the balls to fight our system or die
   trying.  The Germans had no courage to fight their's either.  We are
   morally inferior because we pretend to ourselves that everything is OK and
   that we still have balls!

   Now don't take this wrong.  I'll do everything I can to make your reentry
plan for me work.  Obviously I'll need to make huge alterations; to the
extent it will probably end up being more my own than yours.  Please don't
be upset.
   I hope it all works out.  I admire and respect your intellectual ability
and knowledge of math and physics.  One of the most attractive aspects of the
plan is the possibility you suggested that we might collaborate on some low
cost experiments.  I'm looking forward to an official confirmation of your
belief I will be teaching at PCW in the Spring of '99.
   l thank you with genuine gratitude for your attempt to help me.

							    Sincerely
								Victor


    Many People are story tellers.  They mix in truth or merely exaggerate
and "improve" the truth to give their stories more power to impress others.
Perhaps they wish to convince themselves they are more than the unadorned
facts would indicate.  Paul is one of these.  He lies in order to feel superior
to his victim.  The difference between Paul and some manager or politician is
the latter have second reason for lying.  They want to get more work out of the
thralls for less money and perhaps they also want us to be stupid enough to die
on command when the time is right to thin the population.
   This sometimes harmless, sometimes not, practice has one always harmful
result.  It leaves most of us totally ignorant of reality whether we listen,
lie or both.  We can't tell truth from fiction.  If a person sometimes lies,
nothing they ever say can be trusted.  Their speech, their language becomes
meaningless.  With virtually no common language we can't realistically discuss
or solve problems.  We can't improve our condition.
   When lies fail to convince, conservatives, those who argue against change,
often try to pick their opponents apart.  Poor people who are fooled by
conservative lies often become violently emotional in the defense of their
incredible beliefs and in their attempts to convince others.  But sometimes,
fanciing themselves to be rational beings like their pretentious masters,
they mimick the piecemiel style of debate in unconscious mockery.  Without the
power to enforce submission they end up looking ridiculous.  As would their
models if they didn't control our survival.  They are, after all, too stupidly
selfish, greedy and pretentiously arrogant to be taken seriously.  But they
must be taken seriously because they are too powerful to ignore.
   The people that Victor likes, possess, among other qualities, a
predelection to judge ideas on their own merit.  He doesn't like those who
judge on the basis of their subscription some system of morality.  Ethical
systems are often at cross purposes with or irrelevant to survival, which is
the only commandment.  Morality is usually designed to enthrall in the support
of an economic system of exploitation.  Thralls are tedious and Victor
dislikes them.
   Paul is a thrall as well as a liar.  Two strikes. His particular flavor
of stupidity is characterized by right wing racial bigotry and KKK style
"Christianity".  He is a petty tyrant (wannabe tyrant) who's thought, words
and life are a weak emulation, a mockery if possible, of ilk like Oliver
Cromwell and Cotton Mather.  Paul would be a sadist acting out through
witch hunting, if he had enough strength and power.  But he is only an
inarticulate fool mouthing the hate propaganda he has unconsciously
internalized.  Victor's book on Paul is as closed as Paul's mind.
   But the sneak thieving is the worst part of it.  And it is never done unless
the person "deserves" it.  Rationalizations are seldom required to maintain a
sense of proportion.  They simply throw out the ratio and do whatever they care
to do, without thinking too strenuously about moral or ethical implications.
They make everything all right in their minds.  In any case, Paul felt justified
in stealing from Victor.  Maybe at first he thought he was doing a useful service
by teaching Victor not to leave things laying about.  Of course the homeless
often have no choice since they have no place to lock up their belongings.  And
only those who are new in the neighborhood benefit from the "service".  At
first Victor thought he would cultivate a friendship with Paul and thereby gain
some relief.  He had just discovered the clothes box he had stashed had been
rifled and a good pair of jeans were missing.  The rest was strewn about.
   Victor was about to walk to Paul's camp to ask about the jeans but hadn't gone
fifty yards when he ran into him on the trail.  Before Vic could open his mouth
Paul volunteered, "They's been some wetbacks around here.  You missing anything?"
   Paul's ArkenTexas twang is taken by many as a sign of ignorance and low
intelligence.  Victor is not that stupid or bigoted.  Paul is shrewd and
knowlegeable, though limited by christian nationalism in the views he may adhere
to, if not the behaviors he will exhibit as long as no one is present to catch
him.  He is also quite capable of creating support for himself by manipulating
the opinions of his neighbors even if that means stepping outside the bounds of
his professed beliefs and principles.  He is  aware that a mob has no
conscience but Victor is not sure that Paul admits his moral lapses even to
himself.  Rationalization is potent delusion.  Victor knows the pants are gone
forever.  He also knows Paul is a little worried about how Victor may react.
That of course is the reason for the lie about the wetbacks.  Hell, it's the
third time he's used that one.  But that's what alcohol does to memory.  Victor
decided to press him bit and try to use the discomfort produced to make Paul
vulnerable to some of Vic's perspective.  "Are those wetbacks here again?  I'm
missing a good pair of jeans and the rest is thrown about.  You always seem to
know what I lose before I do.  How is that?"  Victor had made no attempt to hide
the incredualty and contempt in his voice.
   The little man was visibly shaken but stuck to his story.  "I'm always walking
around and I see things.  These was different wetbacks than the last time."  The
twang had become more like a whine.
   Victor wasn't feeling much compassion but decided to try to make a point
instead of continuing to scare the man for no reason.  There was no way he'd
ever see those pants again anyway and if Paul wasn't feeling deterred from future
stealing by now he never would be.  He said, "people shouldn't do that to one
another.  We just divide ourselves by competing like that and we should be
standing together against assholes that have us all down.  It's foolish to rip
each other off like that."  As he spoke, Victor was aware that he wasn't making
the impression he wanted.  For one thing, not being a racist or a bigot, Victor
falied to predict Pauls's reaction to being lumped with the Mexicans.  He
should, at least, have known better than to call everyone fools.  Up until he
said that Paul had been listening contritely.  But Victor continued,  "Everone
just buys into a big lie or is too chickenshit to stand up against it.  This
country is evil!"
   "Now wait a minute, I fought for this country and it ain't evil!"
   "You fought for it and it treats you like this!  Let's you be homeless!"
   "I'm homeless 'cause I want to be free.  It ain't  the Countries fault!"
   Victor wandered about the contradiction in that but knew he'd already
gotten Paul's emotions involved.  They are coupled to ideas of nationalism and
christian doctrine.  Besides the remark about choice and freedom was more a show
of bravado than anything else and it would be pointless to challenge it.
   "Well maybe you've been free too long and haven't noticed [through your
alcoholic haze, Vic thought] that the corporations have been busy making their
CEOs rich and the rest of us poor by downsizing and cutting peoples benefits and
hours.  That the standard of living has been steadily dropping since 1970.  That
two people have to work to make 80 percent of the buying power that one had
thirty years ago.  In the mean time the government lies to us about the economy
in order to cover for their corporate masters; and we lie to each other in order
to improve our personal positions slightly but actually make all of us worse off
by seemingly condoning the evil of the masters by our petty emulation of it.
It all results in perpetuating the slavery of the majority by the minority."
   Paul didn't have to think long about that.  In fact he'd stopped listening
to what was being said some time earlier.  He was thinking only of his trite
response through most of Vic's last speech.  "If you don't like it here why don't
you go somewhere else."

   Interrupting, Victor moaned, "Oohh..fuck you idiot"!, turned and walked away
shaking his head before Paul had finished saying the trite conditioneed response.
He went back to his camp and sat wondering how he might have handled that better.
Perhaps he should have confronted Paul's lie and knocked him on his ass.  The
problem is that Paul is just acting normally and, though no doubt Victor could
get away with an assault out here in the jungle it is not an option for most
people.  When dealing with a boss, who lies to them for the company's gain and
who is himself (or herself) only a reperesentative of an anonymous system, it
would do no good to punch him or her.  Anyway, the system molds the behavior
of the individuals in it.  We created it but now it seems to have a life of
it's own.  Anyway, it's abstract and can't feel our attacks unless we all get
together and kick it in the head.  But that dream buys nothing.
   He tries to salvage at least a lesson from the wreck of that conversation as
he thinks, "well. that didn't work.  Now he thinks I'm some kind of commie
antichrist who deserves whatever grief can be given.  When I try to tell the
truth, it is because I'm on their side and want to help.  They should see
that!"
   "Think again Victor!  You are constantly raving about people being cowards
and fools.  If anyone so much as politely listens to your criticisms of society
you feel encouraged and expose your fanaticism, which compels them to adopt a
defensive posture.  How do you expect to make friends with anyone when you
always manage to make your arguments appear to be a personal attack?"
   Victor considered that a second before answering.  "It's ironic that I'm
perceived that way, though I know you're right about that.  The irony is that
I care about people and I want them to have a better life; not just the
illusion of well being.  They should be able to see that the stress inherent in
our post modern lifestyles negates the potential happiness of living.  But most
seem to prefer delusion to the reality of misery; denial of unhappiness to
clear understanding of the nature of our culture and their subordinate role as
servants therein.  I am offended by the arrogance and pretentiousness of anyone
who would use me to increase their own wealth and to judge and evaluate my worth
as a human being, as they exploit me.  It adds insult to injury.  But most
people refuse to see their own unhappiness.  They allow themselves to be
hustled through their entire lives.
   "What I don't understand is how anyone can tolerate this state of affairs.
Or if they believe it to be otherwise, how do they delude themselves so?  In
this, admittedly, I judge them.  But I don't pass judgement on thier value or
their right to live.  I merely identify the reality they deny and wonder at their
obvious foolishness.  Yet it is true that if I wish to gain their friendship and
trust and to help to illuminate their darkness I must cease to allienate them.
How to accomplish that without patronising or condescending, thus becoming like
the rulers, who, by the way, are perhaps even more foolish than the majority
due to their belief that they are morally, intellectually and spiritually
superior to the rest of us; that is a problem I have to solve.  With your
continued assistance, wise one, maybe I'll work out some clever speaches that
will allow me to speak the truth without offending.
   "But the important thing's to honestly an accurately perceive the world we
live in.  I think most people are deluded.  I hope I'm less deluded than I used
to be.  And the lies most people tell one another are the most harmful and
disunifiing thing they do.  It also supports the rulers by making deception the
norm.  By the way, I'm beginning to have doubts about selling the idea of a
y2k conspiracy to any but a few who like myself, have been forced to the
fringe.  And, I don't want to add lies to the already overburdened populace.
Most people are too taken in by the illusion of prosperity and a well intentioned
elite to accept such a radical idea.  I need to find something that is more
palatable to the general public.  And it must be true or I will be no better than
the deceivers who run this planet.  I don't see how to speak the truth without
either offending and alienating listeners or being labled paranoid.  That brings
me back to finding a way to undo the training that produces the labels and
supports the status quo in an apparently automatic manner.  I've been told the
effort would be pointless due to the hopelessness of success.  Maybe.  But that's
no reason not to try."
   Hmmm, maybe Vic is on to something after all.  But he sure has made a lot of
mistakes in his interactions with people up until now.  I bet he makes a lot
more before he works out his plan for self improvement.  But then we all make
mistakes and maybe the biggest one is to give up on our desire for better lives,
to think we have realized the best of our potential when we are actually
surrendering.  I think I'll try to play along with him for a while and maybe
he and I can at least shed some light on the problem through joining our
efforts.