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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 19:03:19 CDT
From:         Juniper Sage <CHEATING@SBCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Open Letter to DAF (was: Re: NATIONALLY TELEVISED ADDRESS,)
Comments: cc: fnord-l@ubvm.BITNET

Hello, Daniel;

I apologize for the intrusion on your mightily impressive levelling
of anyone who would respond, seriously or, as per Renato at UIC (have
pity, Daniel), without any real intention to do much more than
bulk copy your messages for those who might have missed them the
first time, to the construction of what are rather positivistic but
quite critical theories of the dysfunctional influx which we, you and
I and the great majority -- pardon, the Great Majority (all ideological
statements, I remember, should be capitalized) -- are experiencing in
Amermenia, as well as your repeated playground taunts of the denizens
over on FNORD-L (who are being cc'ed, just to make certain you see
this), but I wonder if I might bother you to break from the rodomontadic
soapbox opera to respond to a few questions that have given me pause.

1. Given that (your premise) the rich have made every effort to bribe
individuals to seek riches, wealth, unlimited buying power, since the
end of the 1960s when it became apparent that a sizable chunk of the
generation could be undermining the Capitalist Dream, are we now fully,
partially, or not at all out of that period?  Are we even nearing the
end?  It would seem that, given the deliberate (again, your premise)
deforestation of the job market by the Powers That Be (I'm unclear,
I'm afraid, on where exactly the leverage is coming from to reduce
these jobs), it would be necessary to posit alternative methods, which
must yet be given the offical (read: legal) approval-seal (which, if
not elimating as a means, at least illegitamizing it, with a remarkable
moral fervor [more on this question later], the production of non-FDA
approved drugs), of money-making: is this perhaps a suggested
explanation for the national push for state lotteries which have a
positive moral component (serving the schools in most states, though
that's often invoked as another example, weakly accepted, of moral
bankruptcy) to assist in their almost completely in a production-means
sense self-contained (minus those snacks and reading material that are
purchased at the same time in 7-11s across the country) turning over
of tremendous sums of money, as well as the increased appearance of
non-reservation gambling institutions across the country, impacting
admittedly on Nevada and New Jersey economies but almost invariably
with the acceptance if not push of the casinos/mobs?  I'm reminded,
if you'll excuse the appearance of a small matter of autobiographical
material, of a comic strip I read over a decade ago, penciled by
Dan O'Neill of Odd Bodkins fame (SF Chronicle, late 60s), of "Cub
Calloway and the Holy Mugger": a wealthy mugger who gave away sums
of money to disrupt the Puritan Work Ethic of the citizenry so that
his remaining millions would have even greater use-value, in and of
themselves (please forgive if I don't try to convey any of the humor
of the original, but rather than make a mess of it, I would rather
just try to pass on the "gist").  Does not the very "surlong" aspect
of the deficit precisely overdetermine the sense of Value (moral, use,
et al.) of anything but credit itself, which is, in a very basic,
misapplied, sense, what the deficit is?  Is this not then perhaps a
"Real" Amermenian Renaissance (your premise, last October), or does
the attitude of the polysemia of "late Capitalism" preclude anything
but the effacing of jobs at a tremendous rate as there is scarcely
any "need" for them (Laufer's economics stretched over a very short
interval where "deterioration" of "surplus" [jobs] may match or exceed
"demand" of "surplus" [creation of non-reusable products])?

2. Given that the office (your premise) is the central unit of society
and that capitalism presently thrives on "keeping busy", what then is
the advantage to promoting, in the Republican's case, Family Values as
an ideological tool, with clear implications for the possibility of
exchange-Value, when it would seem that that would "buck" the tide
considerably?  Are the Republicans making a fatal (politically, as far
as this election goes) mistake, or are they operating under the
assumption that the Family, as exchange-currency, is an effective way
of promoting an otherwise (your premise, I think) defunct and obsolete
Ethic which may be not merely unattainable but possibly undesirable in
today's economic market?  Does the Moral Twist strive to provide
nothing but authentication (while, I would argue from your premises,
doing just the opposite), or is there a "deeper" factor involving a
"lifeboat" measure, in the event of a collapse of national infra-
structures where they exist?  [Although you don't particularly dwell
on Moral Issues, I often detect the same impetus that provoked Lynn
Nelson to suggest a course on the Moral History of the United States
since 1945 in some of your postings, and that was a topic that still
interests me, 16 months later.]

If you would rather respond directly than in public, that is fine; you
know where to reach me.  I post these in part because that invites
discussion of what may be non-issues, and in part, as you know,
because I abhor "private" communication.

JS
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