PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS IN GUERRILLA WARFARE
From the Preface:
... U.S. corporations have fallen into enemy hands.
… are financed by forced labor.
... are managed to support a global elite
of arms manufacturers, despots, and other successful
sociopaths and predators ... who subvert
the national and planetary interest ...
in the name of capitalism and free enterprise.
...Steps must be taken to sabotage and bring an end to
the Corporate Captivity.
From Part One: Armed Propaganda:
Random acts of violence ... virtually institutionalized
by the current regime. Assassination, therefore,
NOT an effective tool ... Population brutalized,
made passive by agents of repression.
... Bands of armed thugs roam streets at night
and maintain de facto curfew.
... Armies of unemployed youth - kept on drugs -
derive sole income from attacks on civilians.
... rape, torture, humiliation ...
victims isolated ... guilt and rage.
Only solution is: People taking control ...
using their talents and skills ...
in the community, in the work-place, in their lives.
Barbara Joan Schaffer.
 Town beach, Puerto Escondido, January - 06 |
 Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Downtown. |
From Part Four: Office Operations:
* SET THE STAGEStand there and be interviewed on a downtown street
by people holding cameras (you don't need film).
You are the celebrity, the expert, the one saying:
All over the country secretaries are shredding
letters, flushing dictation down the loo.
Will San Francisco be the next to go?
* BE A TEMP
Learn the layout: back doors, unguarded copiers,
key-words, log-on routines. Steal inter-office
stationery, blank invoices, names that work.
* DISRUPT THE ROUTINE
Schedule surprise meetings. Mix the memos so people don't meet.
Mysterious messages can be sent by electronic mail.
Samizdat poetry can be put in a copier drawer.
A snake, a swarm of bees is released on the fifteenth floor;
or is it the twelfth?
Invite the hungry to a cheap meal in the employees cafeteria.
We cannot expect the complete cooperation of workers
subjected to sophisticated brainwashing techniques.
... made to believe their interests are the same
as the corporations and forget their fears of being
... laid off, laid away, automated out, left behind.
Incredibly, they learn not to identify
toxic wastes and pollutants in their neighborhoods
with the work done in their offices.
... Nor do they wonder how banks can afford ...
luxurious new buildings, while they cannot
buy a house.
* IDENTIFY POTENTIAL LEADERS
On the paper towels, someone has written:
You are working for the enemy, lay down your arms
Spill coffee on the blue prints.
Pour glue in the printer.
Pull out the plugs.
Roll up the rugs.
Cut the cables.
Barbara Joan Schaffer.
Crocodile, La Ventanilla, Tonameca, Oaxaca
REALITY IS NO EXCUSE
The office is where you sit
and go bad
in a blaze of fluorescence casting
no shadows on soiled dreams;
where hope’s gone to lunch and left
you to answer in-coming calls.
The fan on the printer grinds out:
death to libido
death to Eros
death to creation
death to life.
Arthur meditates; Mary does drugs.
I fondle my breasts at the copier
and sneeze into my hand when they bring me
their sad memos to type.
The air whips through
the windowless canyons,
gets caught in currents.
funnels down to the street
in a blind tornado.
I shall pour sand down the toilets,
delete their files,
delight the security guards.
I shall let the wind
empty itself in every cubicle,
corridor, elevator shaft.
Go home! Go home! It 's all over - I cry
to the panicked or bemused
crowds gathering outside
Here is your life.
Here is your life.
Barbara Joan Schaffer.
Army Ants, San Gabriel, Oaxaca
ENGLISH LESSON
History gave Shakespeare’s tongue
to me, the grand-daughter of refugees
who never learned the language of
the country they lived in.
In Sunday school I was given a history.
To me, a child comfortable in the U.S.
came memories of exile:
we were slaves in the land of Egypt,
driven from England, France and Spain;
killed in Russia, Poland and Germany.
History made me a gringa, an imperialist,
And I was taught in public school.
the accidental exploiter of my neighbor's sweat.
that we were chosen to bring freedom
to every nation in the world.
Now here are Cambodians, Vietnamese and Salvadorans
learning English in San Francisco.
Barbara Joan Schaffer.
 San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca October 2005 |
 Santiago Yaitepec, September 2005 |
THE EXILE
The best home is the one you lost.
the country you never grew old in.
A blue sweater that warmed on a mountain night
more than any foreign sun.
In exile, every life is someone else's,
every dream not your own.
The women are thin and strange.
One day the soldiers will let down their guard.
You will pass the border, return, and find
you’re a bird fallen from the nest.
Barbara Joan Schaffer.
Bull
fighter,
Tecate, January 2006