MY PUNK PLANET COLUMN!!! Hey, yo, DEFINITELY read this one! read this one it's a good overview of the "fuck work" philosophy - I think it's my best column yet...

FUCK WORK - THE WHOLE STORY

Okay okay - my whole deal is that "fuck work" is the slogan that started this company, so as a result, with a little nudge from my girlfriend at the time, I decided three years ago to pay tribute by dedicating my company to giving away "fuck work" stickers.

I've made good on my promise to the best of my ability - I've sent out about one and a half million of the stickers and they're I'm certain gracing better bicycles and workplaces around the country. So dude, what's up with being so behind schedule (i wanted to get five million out in five years, and it's already been three)? Well, I sort of spent all my profits on freebies and it nearly destroyed my world.

Anyway, I am sharing this with you now because I've decided fuck it - this site is going to represent me, a little window into my mind if you would, and I'm not going to sit here and brag about a project that I despair about completing. Every day I'm more in debt, and the idea of printing up a bunch of free stickers for people who sent in $1 for the trouble... it just makes me nervous. I mean, if all goes according to plan, these folks get a bunch of other stuff in the envelope, including postcards and a catalog, and if all goes well they send the postcards to their friends, put the stickers up at school or work, and order something. But the whole thing is that I am so broke that I am going to be cutting it hell of close - if this company even exists in two months, I will thank my lucky stars.

The goal of Unamerican Activities is the creation of a business model that will permit the dissemination of FIVE MILLION STICKERS THAT SAY "FUCK WORK".

That's it. That's what our organization wants to do. We want to cause Americans to reevaluate their relationship with employment. We want to remind people that means of sustenance that don't involve crappy jobs are POSSIBLE, both within and without the system. We feel that getting this two-word, impossible-to-sell-out message distributed is a way to democratically shape American culture, and we hereby dedicate our efforts towards this goal. And, of course, we need your help.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH "WORK"?

We understand that the term "work" is an ambiguous one. The "work" referred to in our assault is the mindless tedium and lack of empowerment that most jobs at most companies entail. We are HUGE fans of companies that truly allow their employees to become team-oriented, entrepreneurial individuals within their contexts. We are even HUGER fans of the small businesses out there who toil trying to BUILD value within this society, and who need their employees to control their own destinies; and we are the HUGEST fans of individuals who have figured out ways of feeding themselves without fiddling much with the machinery of capitalism.

Anyone else, we regard as the oppressed majority of the American working class. And we believe that this oppression MUST NOT BE TOLERATED ANY LONGER.

If you actually ENJOY your job, if you take pride in it and feel that your input is valuable and valued, and feel that it exploits nobody, well, fantastic for you. You may choose to express solidarity with the majority of people whose lives are meaningless struggles with the timeclock, with bills, with daycare and healthcare and the boss being a jerk. But your position is outside the scope of our campaign - except insofar as we hope that ALL Americans will eventually feel as content with their labor as you!

We encourage you to tell others about how you've dodged the chains that capitalism has extended around most people, and we also feel that you have a moral responsibility to figure out how to bring your privilege (for it IS a privilege) to other deserving individuals. Whether this is accomplished by your starting your OWN damn business, by speaking to your company's management to encourage them to extend this freedom to others, or by volunteering to help those in need, we want YOU to play a greater part in the unfolding of this historical shift in the way we regard our productive activity.

Oppression, in the form of wage-slavery, is SIMPLY INEFFICIENT. If you are an employer, THINK of the community that you can potentially create within the context of your company! Think about the benefits of encouraging employees to view their work as DIRECTED PLAY - not through false statements of "empowerment", but through REAL REWARDS for CREATIVE ACTION! Everything from morale to management costs, from staff turnover to trustworthiness, improves once real moves are made to indicate your empathy with your subordinates.

Your willingness to voluntarily give away your power within your organization will determine how fast it will adapt to the insane pace of change of tomorrow's market. And frankly, if you fail to empower those workers, we will shed no tears upon your company's demise.

Forget what you think you "know" about anarchism.

Anarchism is NOT about creating violent revolution when peaceful means are available. We simply believe that society exists in order to ENHANCE individual opportunity, rather than constrain it. Anarchists are not simple anti-statists - we oppose ALL forms of oppression, whether it be economic, cultural, or spiritual. We believe in the power of a truly free people to determine their own means of government, but we feel that our society has far too much coercion and hierarchy for us to be satisfied with the status quo. As such, the surest way of rebooting America is to re-empower its citizens to meet the challenges of our networked world.

As anarchists, we value FREEDOM over anything else. We believe that we can individually and then collectively figure out ways OUT of the ratrace known as capitalism, without embarking on something so tedious and clichÚ as violent revolution. We are embarking on this campaign in order to create a forum whereby bosses and politicians are made aware that the American People demand JUSTICE. We are not about destroying the workplace, or the nation, but about reshaping it nearer to the heart's desire.

Unamerican Activities believes that it is the HISTORICAL MANDATE of free-thinkers and radicals to RUIN the business models of such coercive and hierarchical corporate entities as rule our society today.

We believe that the forces of FREE ENTERPRISE and CAPITALISM are inextricably opposed. "Free enterprise" is a philosophy that holds that you or I or any combination of people can gather up some resources and start a new business. Believing in FREEDOM includes believing in this inalienable right. We support the power of enterprise to empower people's lives, and we think that encouraging this process is the wave of the future. "Capitalism", however, is a system that holds that CAPITAL, not people, should dictate the way society uses its means of production. With this system, we find glaring inequities, and therefore we will struggle against it.

Every business has its origins as a small group of innovators who sense a market opportunity and learn to "work it". As success hits, however, innovation goes out the window in the animal pursuit of mere PROFIT. Unamerican Activities believes that too much money is like too much food - though empowering at first, ultimately, it slows you down. We believe that a business is only as valuable as its IDEAS.

Competition has a way of making it difficult to profit from mediocre ideas, because innovators don't compete - nobody else is doing what they're doing! Why would ANYONE try working in an industry bereft of new ideas?

Unfortunately, that's where the COERCION comes in. In an idea-free, competitive market, the only way of turning a profit is by ELIMINATING the competition, through nefarious means that regard only the bottom line - as opposed to the welfare of the workers or society's best interests. Ultimately, as the business becomes more entrenched in "battle" mode, HIERARCHY becomes the only way to organize the business - thereby creating thousands of crappy jobs at the foot of the pyramid to support the bloated salaries of those few criminals who have made it to the top.

We must fight back. This can be done through sabotage or counter-organization, yes, but it can ALSO be done through the pursuit of NEW IDEAS. We feel that, given the right diversity of approaches to these ideas, new ideas will EVENTUALLY COMPETE THE CAPITALISTS INTO THE GROUND. We are hoping to reach people who potentially could HAVE these ideas, and encourage them NOT to allow the jobs that they wind up taking (and, eventually, creating) interfere with this revolutionary necessity.

We believe that stickers are an ideal medium for the dissemination of revolutionary awareness. Stickers are low-tech, democratic (individuals can choose where to put 'em), cost-effective and highly visible. We think by distributing FIVE MILLION of these things, we can create a STAGE from which interesting, thought-provoking information can be advertised and disseminated.

Why five million? Because it's a REAL BIG NUMBER. Duh.

Unamerican Activities will fund our campaign through merchandising other slogans and beliefs that we want people to be free to express. We'll continue our business of selling cool political-but-fun t-shirts, stickers, pins, and coffeemugs in order to fund this campaign. But we want you all to know that the REASON we're in business is to get these words out there in a way that does NOT depend on corporate (or any other kind of) sponsorship, using the PEOPLE as our media. We believe in the destruction of shitty jobs, and we know that history is on our side.

We are not afraid of technology. In fact, a central component of our strategy resides on the internet at http://www.unamerican.com, where you can find our catalog, further propaganda and (most important) hookups with our community. The Internet gives us an opportunity to share our experiences with work and our techniques for avoiding it, and maybe we can gain the momentum we'll need to make the four- (or three-) day workweek the NORM in our society.

History is happening faster every day, and we want to encourage you to play a role in it. Whether you oppose us or agree with us, we urge you to SPEAK YOUR MIND. Our goal with this campaign, and with our organization, is to ENCOURAGE DIALOGUE, and to channel the energies from that dialogue into MEANINGFUL ACTION.

A new generation of future workers, bosses, capitalists and activists is reading this manifesto at this very moment. We hope to forge relationships with these young people, in the hope that the future will be better for all workers. Unamerican Activities may have little chance of affecting the "system" as it currently exists, but we hope that this new generation learns to RESIST traditions of coercion and hierarchy, and to thereby STOP CREATING CRAPPY JOBS.

At any rate, we'd like to invite you to photocopy and distribute this sheet, if you like. Also, you can send us $1 for a catalog and a "fuck work" sticker, or $3 for ten stickers, or $10 for 100 stickers. I'll also toss in, some more philosophy, discount coupons, and whatever else I have handy. Also, your contributions to this cause are welcome as well.