Outrage! News!

Some of you might know that I've been emailing Mitch Clem the creator of Nothing Nice To Say the world's first online punk comic. I've been trying to get his permission to publish his comics in the zine. I wouldn't feel right morally or legally to do so without his permission.

Well I tried a second time to get his permission, this time I got a reply:

So long as I get credit/links for everything that is mine and you don't alter anything I did, then go crazy!

So yeah. I'm stoked and Mitch Clem is cooler than I previously thought. I've talked to him before and he's a super nice guy, this just brings up his level in my book. So that's cool.

New Article/DIY Aesthetic

DIY Aesthetic
By Morgan

Ever wanted some clothes that are just your style but don’t want to spend some ridiculous sum of money? The answer to your problem is DIY. DIY stands for Do It Yourself, it has been a big part of counter culture since the days of the hippies. Confused on where to start? Well, that’s pretty easy to solve.

There are many projects you can embark upon to being your DIY lifestyle. First and foremost is the customized jacket. All you’ll need is a jacket (duh), and whatever you want to put on it.

When you have your denim jacket, leather jacket, or hoodie that you’re undoubtedly anxious to customize, you can get something of your choice to put on it. Patches are what I’m talking about. Patches are good for advertising your interests, mainly bands. Patches can be purchased from very wide amount of places such as music stores or online sites such as www.crustpunks.com or www.studsandspikes.com the great thing about patches are they’re absurdly cheap. It’s up to you, but you might want to look in to buying a back patch, it’s just as cheap, but it covers the most of the back of your jacket.

First thing’s first, once you find the patches you want to put onto your jacket of choice you’re going to put them on. Back patches can be easily put on by means of safety pins, but if you want something a little more substantial then you can sew it on using sewing thread or (as the crust punks do) by using dental floss. Dental floss is cheap to buy and it has a very high strength. Finish it off with your other patches of choice on the arms or fronts or sides. In my opinion a patch across the front pocket on a pull over hoodie looks really good.

So I got my patches on now what do I do?
Once your patches are on you have a wide variety of choices, you can put studs on your back, around the patch(s) and you can put spikes in the shoulders, both of which can be purchased for low cost from the above sites (crustpunks.com and studsandspikes.com). Another thing you can do is sew on different fabrics of your choice, popular fabrics are leopard and zebra print, and plaid. As well, fabric paints come in all colors imaginable, and you can always stencil on words and designs using spray paints.

Now I’m not telling you to go out and purchase a 60 dollar denim jacket, or a 200 dollar leather one, that would defeat the purpose of this article. A good way to find some good leathers and other jackets is by thrifting. Check out the local thrift stores in your area. Also, when looking for fabrics or other materials try out discount stores in your areas alongside thrift stores.
If you find a shirt that has the right material then purchase it, it doesn’t matter if it’s the most god awful shirt on the planet, if it’s the right material, it’s the right material. Working like this can save you a whole lot of money.

There are a lot of people who seem to have DIY go right over their heads. Asking “but where will I get my studded belts without Hot Topic?”

Hot Topic did something amazing. They commercialized the counter culture. Hot Topic killed DIY. What happened to C-Squat? What happened to self funded record labels? What happened to home made and Xeroxed zines? DIY is something that we should all get in to, thrifting saves money, it teaches you, gives you skills, and lets you get out into your own.

Stores:
www.crustpunks.com
www.studsandspikes.com
www.ikickshins.net
www.interpunk.com

New Article/"Million Dollar" Farms

“Million Dollar” Farmers
By Morgan

You may have heard recently that the House Agriculture Committee voted to ban federal subsidies for farmers making over $1 Million a year. Does this sound like the average income of a farmer to you? Those people whose job it is to put food on our plates? That’s probably because it isn’t. In fact, the average income of an American farmer is approximately 30-40 thousand dollars a year, keep in mind that your average manager of a retail store makes approximately $41, 434 a year (according to payscale.com). You might be wondering with the $1 million comes from, well there are two different incomes that you can look at, there is the Gross Income and then there’s the Net Income.

The Gross Income is your entire income, throughout the year, that adds up your entire income before deductions such as taxes, before any other deductions. The Net Income, on the other hand, is how much money you make AFTER taxes and other deductions. Is it very hard to see which income they seem to be going off of? I would say not.

It seems that ever since Vice President Al Gore, leftist politicians have wanted to stop agriculture in America. I mean, we’re amongst the most successful countries in the world, why should we need to eat? To provide jobs and food for our children?
There are many groups of people, politicians (the Bush administration amongst them) that say that Farm Subsidies need a bit of an overhaul. While this is true because millionaires, foreigners, people who don’t even have enough land or production to qualify as a commercial agricultural enterprise are amongst those getting a piece of the federal dollar pie; the subsidies don’t need to stop, they need to be fixed.

"It will do very little to make our agriculture policies more equitable, will not address the real challenges we face at the WTO, and it will not do anything to help our farmers produce for the market rather than for the government paycheck," said Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis.

I urge you all to write to your senators and your representatives to try and get something else. Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind wrote a replacement for this. In his replacement he writes that rather than removing subsidies from farmers which will do the American and international economies no good, he proposes that the government implement subsidized saving bank accounts that farmers can utilize when crop prices are low or the yield is poor.

Mike Johanns, the Agriculture Secretary has been a large critic of the comity attempting to change farm policy. Southern crops such as cotton and rice are so expensive to produce farmers cannot do it without federal help.

New Article/Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men
By Morgan

The best-laid plans of mice and men
Go often wrong
To A Mouse- Robert Burns

The right to vote has always been one that has been deeply respected, and fought for. From the battlefields of Lexington and Concord, to Fort Sumter, to the convention at Seneca Falls, the right to vote has been a staple issue. However, in the past few years I’ve been noticing a disconcerting apathy in the people of America. The neglect (and often the unwillingness to vote) is a very large issue, and people need to once again be shown the importance of their vote.

We in America are granted a far too often overlooked right. We have the rare ability to actually have a direct say in what our government does for us. As Malcolm X once said, being here in America does not make you an American. To be an American is to share of the great and the fail of our country.

Voting holds importance not only in the present, but in the past and in the future. People such as Sojourner Truth and Lucretia Mott fought for the rights of all to be equal in their ability to vote. Why should we forfeit it now?

Is it not true that we all are equally affected by the outcome of the vote? Why forfeit your ability to make change for the better? Voting is one of the most important rights we have; it keeps our country from becoming what we’ve so passionately fought against. Even when the people have spoken and you stand on the threshold of defeat, you voted. You made your voice heard, and you made use of one of the greatest gifts that your country can give you. Remember the fight for the 19th amendment.

Vote. Be Heard.



Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.
Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

New Article/Fear and Neo-Orientalism In Cyberpunk

Fear And Neo-Orientalism in Cyberpunk
By Chris

Casting aside, for the moment, such works as Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell, I think we should address the new Orientalism that is so apparent in cyberpunk*, both in film (Blade Runner having seemingly set the archetype) and literature (Neuromancer guilty of the same). It seems that, for authors of speculative science fiction, South-East Asia is a haven of exoticism that can be produced at any point to provide a contrast with our contemporary age.

However, I question why? Is it demonstrative of a fear of the growing economic power and political intent of South-East Asian nations? Or is it merely new Orientalism, fetishising the East as some remote and exotic land much as the aristocracy did in centuries past?

Unless Japan takes over half the world or large amounts of people escape from China before some new genocidal plot from the government begins, the amount of Asian immigrants we see in cyberpunk works is inexplicable. In Europe, countries such as Germany and the Ukraine (if it is not annexed by Russia) would doubtless corner the market in cybernetic and genetic advances. Likewise, fearful North American corporations would produce their own enhancements in reaction to East-Asian competition (Japan, as with Mobile phones, fax machines and computers, would doubtlessly be one of the first countries to encounter mass-demand for emergent technologies). Therefore, to me at least, it seems inconceivable that this Orientalism controls so much of the cyberpunk visual. Yes, it looks good, but it seems unrealistic, and cyberpunk is a decidedly realistic genre.

As a comparison, we might look at Ghost in the Shell as a comparative product of fear. Instead of South-East Asian being a dominant world power, S.A.C.* depicts the 'American Empire' as a major threat to the fledgling post-war state. Running alongside this are fears of Communist China (expressed in an episode in which a Communist Chinese assassin attempts to kill a rich Japanese stock broker) and Russia (the Northern Territories of the GitS universe presumably relate to disputed territory that sparked the Russo-Japanese war of the early 20th Century).

Therefore we can see a fear, not just individually for a dystopian future, but fear and continuing conflict between East and West, Communism and Capitalism. This reading of cyberpunk is not one I find particularly rewarding, but the visuals infer the struggle which seems increasingly likely to become a reality.


*S.A.C- Stand Alone Complex
*Cyberpunk- a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is derived from cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983. It features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

New Article / Red Sky at Night

Red Sky At Night
By Chris


Money is like muck, not good except it be spread

- Francis Bacon, Essays, 15, ‘Of seditions and Troubles’

A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world ~ no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.

- Woodrow Wilson, 28th US President


Something is wrong with the world economy, and it is because, not for the first and probably not the last time, we have been betrayed by our politicians. Capitalism, which has been consistently praised as a system of total economic freedom, has resulted in vast monopolies run by small, unelected groups of men (and I say men because that is the truth, this system promotes and encourages few, and those few tend to be male). Money, we are all aware, is power, and that power sits in the hands of these oligarchs, who can control and manipulate governments, not for some bizarre occult purposes or because they are space lizards, but merely for the fact that they want to preserve their awesome wealth. In 2006, the UN released a report stating that the richest 2% of the world's population control over half of the household wealth of the world. In contrast, the poorest 50% own less than 1%.

Obviously something is wrong here, when the manipulators of capital who have not lifted a finger in their lives control the world. Their policies are egocentric, anti-human and greedy, and have contributed to this economic crisis that dominates our news. What have the governments done about it, our elected representatives? They have, on multiple occasions, thrown money at the elite bankers, who have used the influx to buy out smaller banks, give themselves pay raises and generally continue the policies that have led to this crash. However, what do we care if our chocolate bars cost a little more? The majority of people are too ill-informed to realize that this system itself is the reason for the meltdown, and certainly they do not care for those who are hit worst: third world workers, those responsible for bearing the brunt of our economic cruelty throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.

What is the alternative, though? Communism? Derision floats around that system like flies around shit, or perhaps more topically, bankers around money. However, the sharing of wealth, and the granting of the means of production to the workers seems a positive boon in this dark economic age. Why should African farmers toil to produce cocoa and then be sent increasingly small pay packages by the corporate fat cats that buy their crop? Negative climates demand positive action, and the unionizing of these workers could prevent exploitation, or at least lessen it. At home, the sharing of wealth seems a greater idea, too. Health care that all can afford, state-sponsored, and a chance for children of all backgrounds to attain the highest education. Surely such a thing is possible, and perhaps it would have been within the U.S.S.R. had it not been for the corrupt policies of the U.S.A. and its allies drawing states away with the temptation of money, using greed as a weapon against a system which seeks to destroy the self-same principle.

Communism and Socialism demands an international approach, though, and it is this where the U.S.S.R. faltered. In an unfriendly world, the Socialist Republics were besieged, forced to spend ridiculous amounts on defense and policing, leading to paranoia within the government, who famously brutalized the populace. However, Cuba has avoided this mostly, and Vietnam too. Indeed, most of the states used as examples of Communism's failure seem to be corrupt anti-Socialist states that collapse inward due to outside, usually American pressure. Perhaps a world in which the U.S.A. leads a Socialist renewal, or at least adopts some more left-leaning policies we might all get along better?

First Issue Published!

Here is a picture of the 2 copies of the first publication of Outrage! These are the last 2 copies that I've saved. I made 10 copies in all, and I distributed them to surprising satisfaction. Issue 2 is in the works, I'll be printing 50 copies. I'm pleased with how my test went over, it had good reactions from all but one person (who refused to read it).

Cheers!
-The Outrage! Team