0
OPINION
Page 4 Monday, October 6, 1986 The Michigan Daily
:a
City
has
anti-
authoritarian
'zine
1
By Leslie Eringaard
and Henry Park
This is the last of a three part series.
D: What is the philosophy behind
your paper? Why do you publish Popular
Reality?
N: I think of it as the 'zine of feuds
and in-fighting. We gossip a lot about
each other. It's sort of the National
Enquirer of the Left.
I never wanted it strictly to be a
political paper.
I wouldn't dare name the philosophy.
We want give and take. We're for loners.
We're anti-authoritarian.
We once put the words "social
nihilist" on the masthead and a lot of
Duke D'Reato sez
...taking nothing for granted in P
politics and have an anti-organization
bias.
People feel good about Popular
Reality because it gives them something
to blame their problems on. A kinship
of thousands of strange people having
the same problems makes people realize
they can't blame everything on
themselves. They discover in Popular
Reality that there's people crazier than
themselves and there's reasons for it.
Society encourages people to blame
things on themselves, but there are
people to blame.
Two percent of the people own 60
percent of everything. Under the Reagan
administration, 10 percent of the middle
class dropped below the poverty level.
D: What about the work ethic?
I guess I'm a primitivist when it
comes to the work ethic and technology.
Before industrialization, hunter-gatherers
were well-off and they didn't have to work
so hard.
Anthropologists have found that
before the world market, life was not so
backwards, not so rife with disease and
war as we think. People were not
generally unhealthy or dying young.
We can't live in society with peace,
justice and equality with all the
technology we have. I don't know if we
can go back.
I have a strong suspicion that we've"
already poisoned the environment beyond
what will make life possible. We've
.o - 1Tif W0 N h ?
7 1
opular Reality
destroyed the Ozone layer. The polar
icecaps may melt and flood the coastal
cities in the next 50 years and not the
next 500 years as scientists predict.
I don't know if already it's too late,
if maybe we're seeing the last gasp of the
planet.
Maybe the only thing left to do is
to genetically engineer the next species
and evolve or we could start
interplanetary travel and fuck up other
systems as well.
D: Yes, but our life expectancies keep
increasing. Of course, money is directed
towards curing illnesses under
capitalism, but still technology
improves.
C: Very likely, things aren't as
hopeless as I think. If it's funded right
who knows what humans are capable of.
One of the most ominous trends is
federal funding of science. Special
interests are behind most research. There
is no free-thinking or scientific inquiry.
Many people think refined sugar is
as dangerous a drug as heroine. It's an
anti-nutrient. It depletes the nutrients
your body needs to create energy. Yet,
we never hear that because all the research
on sugar is done by the sugar industry.
The sugar industry is one of the world's
biggest industries.
D: What do you think of the phrase
"anarchy is organization without
hierarchy?"
C: There's always been a hierarchy.
You know I've been in groups that
operate by "consensus," and all that
means isthat you argue till youagree
with the leaders. You stay up till 3 a.m.
and then you give up. That's how you
get consensus.
D: What do you think about religion?
One thing I know is that I hate
organized religion. It took me a long
time to believe in myself instead of other
people. It took me a long time to learn
not to worry about what other people
think.
My mother raised me to be guilty as
hell. She always emphasized that I
wasn't doing enough for other people.
Guilt was the basis of the liberal politics
I was raised with. It took me a long time
to reject the guilt that motivated me so
much.
Christianity relies on authority.
People don't learn to think for
themselves. They only trust the
minister. It's a mind-controlling
relationship. A fundamentalist church I
belonged to told people whether they
could get married or not.
D: You say you're anti-organization.
Where do you draw the line? Clearly you
are talking to the Daily about Popular
Reality and you organize Popular Reality.
Is it a class thing? Would you say the
Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)
has organizational capital?
C: I want to see Popular Reality
increase. I'm 36 and I'd like to have an
influential paper and make a living at it.
Right now I don't have any wage-slaves,
but when it gets big I'll have to pay
people. That may cause some of the
people who work with me to say I've
sold out and maybe they'll be right.
I'm not concerned about the RCP.
They're not a threat anymore. Back in
1979 and 1980, a lot of people were
joining. [On the other hand], churches
establish [organizational] capital.
Tax-exempt status for churches is
the biggest joke. A lot of churches just
deal in real estate.
The main supporters of Popular
YOU YOUNG FOOLS HAVE NOWS AAPASIN-,
A4SRE4PY SERVEP MY IF Ou ALUU'YOUR a
o u'r Now
van wAw FO
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AA5
s
...Popular Reality lampoonvPP 0o
a favorite target
Reality are underground ant
individualistic. I'm really against groups
that try to influence things or take theip
over.
to do with
I have nothing against a person whb
is a healthy bragger. We need a world of
masters and no slaves. Everyone should
have the right to be treated as demi-Gods.
Too often leftists say "sacrifice for
the revolution," but I think everybody
should be rich; everybody 'should be
respected. Everybody should have certain
comforts of middle-class life. Popular
Reality is a craft. Everyone should have
a craft.
4
tOXic wastes
...from Ann Arbor's Neither/Nor press
people wrote in to say that they were
social nihilists too. Yeah, sure.
I'm disillusioned with electoral
Social Work graduate student Leslie
Eringaard and Opinion page associate
editor Henry Park interviewed David
Nestle, who is the publisher of Popular
Reality.
s
I'm not a consumer. I don't know
what I would do with $50,000 a year.
I'll get a word-processor, but I don't need
a lot of things. Someone gave me my
television; I eat at the Food Coalition and
I got my stereo at the Salvation Army Yin
the garbage. That's how I get my things.
Under monopoly capitalism, people
have to work so that they can buy more
do-dads. There's no leisure time unless
people are spending money at it.
,i_,
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Wasserman
Vol. XCVII, No. 23
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board
All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
F~c ENETA~ ~KPERS OF O SGL M
Safer Poisons
The House of Representatives
overwhelmingly passed a bill on
September 19th which requires
tougher protection of people and
the environment from pesticides
and provides uniform pesticide
levels, eliminating state control.
Environmentalists, who initially
supported the legislation, fear that
the fedral government's levels will
not be as strict as the states'.
The bill was designed to
require more protection for the
workers and the environment from
pesticides. The legislation requires
that the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) re-test more than
600 chemicals used in 50,000
pesticides; it sets a stringent nine
year timetable for re-testing all
pesticides that were registered
before 1972. Pesticide
manufacturers are required to pay
$50,000 to $150,000 for each
pesticide being re-tested.
The legislation wouldhave
the biggest and most badly-needed
impact on agricultural pesticides
because these constitute the largest
volume of pesticides. These
chemicals have far-reaching
dangers: they contaminate
community water supplies; farm
workers have little legal or physical
protection against them, and most
...o- Acritrr.. . a r hnrl.. n s tha
were tested for approval by
Industrial Biotest Laboratories
(IBL) in tests ruled invalid by the
courts in 1972. All 12 tests by IBL
on the pesticide Captan were
invalidated, but nine million
pounds of Captan are still sprayed
on U.S. crops each year.
After the farmers purchase
the pesticides, the state has no way
to regulate their use unless it
actually watches the farmer spray
the crops. Most pesticides are not
safe enough to be trusted to such a
casual control method. Parathion
is a highly toxic chemical easily
absorbed through the skin. Ninety-
three workers were poisoned by
parathion six weeks after it was
sprayed in one field. Pesticides
commonly drift up to a mile away
from where they are sprayed and
poison workers. Therefore, even
if farmers could be trusted to
religiously follow pesticide use
guidelines, removing highly toxic
pesticides from the market is the
only way to ensure safety.
Although it seems Congress
caved into food industry interests
by infringing on states' rights, this
recent legislation is a huge step
toward safer foods and farms. The
new EPA tests will undoubtedly
remove many dangerous toxins
from use and their removal should
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LETTERS:
Support freedom in Latin America
4
To the Daily:
Latins in Support of
Democracy. is a new
nonprofit group dedicated to
supporting the legitimate
aspirations of the people of
Latin America to a freely
elected democracy. Our
must ultimately have
freedom for everyone (this
includes freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, freedom
of assembly, freedom of the
right to petition the Govern-
ment for a redress of griev-
ances, freedom of worship,
peace and justice.
Our membership is open to
anyone who so desires.
However, members will be
required to do at least two
hours of community service
work per month. For
instance, labor could be
the Ronald McDonald Hoie
Meetings will be held ev~y
other Friday in room 3900rn
the Michigan Union at7p .
We are having a maws
meeting October10. For more
information, call 764-9611.
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