Hack Attack

An Analysis of the Contemporary State of the Insurgent, Tracts 1 Through 3

How a painfully earnest, intellectually crippled hive mind learned to be funny, and other stories.

Tract 1: Learning to Laugh
On a hot, muggy day in late September, the Hive Mind convened for Re-Assembly. Eight concerned young men and women had just returned home to Eugene, brimming with fond summer memories: stilted conversations with migrant workers, blissful nights up in the pines with the flying squirrels, timeless weeks spent following Ani Difranco from town to town. All would be swallowed, assimilated, and distributed as the Hive Mind coalesced and Ego was forgotten.

The Hive Mind, which calls itself the Collective, serves as editor and publisher of the Insurgent. It aims to provide a "forum for those working towards a society free from oppression based on class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, and free from the threat of ecological collapse." In other words, those working towards a magical fairy-land where human nature is null and void.

The Collective is a painfully earnest creature, clearly well-versed in its radical roots and the ways of prefigurative politics, and for a great many years it seemed completely sure of itself.

Yet on that sweltering September day, the Collective found itself at a crossroads. It had been doing everything right-reprinting its term papers for the world, reporting on injustices from Ecuador to El Paso (and even Eugene!), and educating the campus with a furrowed brow and plenty of FACTS.

Yet no one gave a shit. It was always the same 14 people showing up for the Phil Knight protests and the John Zerzan lectures. Clearly, the corporate conservatives had the campus brainwashed. How to free those minds? The Collective turned its eye to the competition. What did the conservatives at the Commentator have that it didn't? The answer: beer and humor.

"Beer?" bellowed the Collective. "I cannot endorse beer, that foul opiate of the workers! Microbrews are priced for the bourgeoisie and everything else is mass-produced by polluting capitalist swine. Migrant workers are exploited to grow hops, I'm sure of it."

So the Collective had to give humor a try. With a shaky pseudopod it reached for the dictionary.

"humor n. 1. A comic quality causing amusement."

It had to look up "comic," which led it to "comedy," which led it back to "humor." Grumbling about "that damned patriarchal Webster," it threw the dictionary across the room. After a feverish night spent poring over Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book," however, the Collective began to understand, and the year's first Insurgent was a brave foray into good-natured, down-to-earth humanness, if not actual humor. Articles were no longer accompanied by footnotes, nor did they have titles such as "Garden Burger and the Socioeconomic Apathy of the Bourgeoisie: A Marxist View." The tone was friendly and self-effacing; the Collective even called itself "The Folks" on the masthead.

Since then, the Insurgent has taken some bold baby steps into the world of levity. The cover of the most recent issue (1) features a genuinely funny photo of the Emerald, the Commentator, and the ASUO Constitution Court having a wild carnal rumpus beneath an approving picture of Ronald Reagan. Did I say photo? I meant cartoon. This cartoon may demonstrate only the most basic grasp of bathroom humor. However, the accompanying article, "THE UGLY CHILD OF RAMPANT POLITICAL INCEST AT THE U OF O," (2) about the course of events that derailed the ASUO's Special OSPIRG Election, is an ironic farce on the level of James Thurber. As I read its delightfully outrageous indictment of the Commentator's gradual coup of the Emerald, it was hard to suppress a chortle.

As the issue progresses, the humor grows more daring. The decision not to include page numbers, when coupled with the disjointed page jumps, will have you howling till you puke. Yet the soft-core bestiality featured on page 8 is just this side of obscenity (see Spew, page 22), and the poorly doctored photo depicting Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier breathing free in downtown Eugene (3) is grotesquely insensitive to the plight of these poor men.

Despite these missteps, I am optimistic about the Insurgent's burgeoning sense of humor. It was not so long ago that the Commentator itself was dry and earnest. While surely the Insurgent can never be as funny as us, it can at least surpass the Oregon Voice, and possibly even match the EMU Craft Center Bulletin.

Tract 2: Hold the applause--they're still stupid
At the risk of sounding duller than last year's Marxist interpretation of the Hyundai controversy, let us tear apart just one Insurgent article. The target: a review of two Nathaniel Hawthorne works, called "Hawthorne's 'Earth Holocaust' and 'The Blithedale Romance.'" (4) These novels deal with the plight of utopianism when faced with the darkness of human nature. Unfortunately, the reviewer, Bryan Che Roberts, recoils from this truth:

"So what's the point? Can there be peace on Earth? Mental midgets who maintain that only that which history proves has already occurred can ever occur in the future would have to say Enn-oh. That isn't Hawthorne's beef. The theme of these stories, I believe, is this: you cannot change the condition of human existence by fiddling with the parameters, you've got to go for the thing itself, the Heart."

Sounds good, "Che," but what of the adage that "history repeats itself?" Hell, you yourself alluded to that truth in comparing the intellectual, activist renaissance of the mid-19th century (of which Hawthorne was a part) to the 1960's, only "without the drugs." (5)

History will surely repeat itself if you bull-headedly ignore the warnings of a man who watched as utopianism failed 150 years ago. Perhaps you should take the advice of another embittered former dreamer, a man who watched the idealism of the 1960's mutate into shoe commercials. Says George Carlin: "fuck hope!" (6)

Yes, it's kind of an empty way of looking at the world. This is one reason we drink. But it is also liberating; the sooner you see the light and realize that utopia is impossible, the sooner life becomes easier. That weight on your shoulders--the guilty burden that makes all you suckers at the Insurgent so damned earnest--will float away immediately. Not that you should give up your altruism, for injustice will never die. But when you realize that you can't save everyone and create a perfect world, you may even have time to develop a real sense of humor. Once again, I'm optimistic. I look forward to the day when I walk past Suite One and hear laughter. I promise I will buy you all a beer--Che and the rest of the "contributors," and even that mysterious hive creature in charge. (7)

Tract 3: They's blind, baby, blind
The Insurgent is so blinded by its ideology, it often fails to notice the basic decency of its enemies. Let me offer an excerpt from Sam Walton's autobiography, "Made in America: My Story," and I'll show you what I mean...

"What's really worried me over the years is not our stock price, but that someday our managers might fail to motivate and take care of our associates." (9)

There you have it. Sam Walton wasn't a money-grubbing turd concerned only with the price of his stock. He was a man who truly and deeply worried about the plight of his associates. Just listen to the voices of those he has helped in their times of need, such as H. Ross Perot, who called him "a fine, decent, kind, generous man." Or Donald R. Keough, CEO of Coca-Cola: "His life is a song about this great country."

So c'mon, Insurgent, open your eyes. CEOs are people, too. The next time you find yourself ready to throw things at old Phil Knight, stop and think. He is a decent person with a secure and reliable trust fund, just like yourselves.

Dan Atkinson, a sophomore majoring in journalism, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator 1. The Insurgent, Volume 10, Issue #6, February 1999, cover. / 2. Ibid., p. 1 / 3. Ibid., p. 5 4. Ibid., p. 21 / 5. Of course, had you done your homework you would have found that that past era saw the first explosion in marijuana's popularity among European, if not American, intellectuals. Not to mention opium, absinthe, and cocaine. Ray, Oakley S. Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior. Saint Louis: C.V. Mosby, 1972. / 6. Carlin, George. Back in Town, 1996. / 7. This may be in writing, but I don't see my signature anywhere near it. Tell you what: if I hear laughter, I will buy you all a beer if and only if every vegetarian/vegan on your staff eats a meat sundae.(8) / 8. Hormone-filled ice cream with raw ground beef topping. / 9. Walton, Sam; with Huey, John. Sam Walton: Made in America. New York: Doubleday, 1992.