Just Think About It: That’s What O.C. Journal’s Creators Want

If Karl Marx were alive today, might he drive a lime-green dune buggy?

A puzzling question, indeed. One that Marcus Green, Sean Holland and Marcelo Pimentel--creators of the alternative political magazine Mandatory Human--might debate for hours, given the chance. A recent late-night discussion among the three deep thinkers covered everything from Marxist thought to the evils of capitalism to the art of peanut butter and jelly.

Dune-buggy dreams came somewhere in between.

Where many in their generation are content with the hey-dude-what’s-happening conversation, Green and Holland, both 24, and Pimentel, 23, prefer to speak their minds and expose their souls. With Mandatory Human, their fledgling coffeehouse journal, they put into print their fears about a me-first society that idolizes beepers and Beemers--and a generation that seems to have lost its way.

Question is, can they get anyone to read it?

The Fullerton-based magazine, only three issues old, features commentaries on a range of socioeconomic and political issues, written in a voice that is anything but conservative Orange County.

Sample headlines:

“Nike: Third World Neo-Slavery.”

“Haiti: The Plain Truth.”

“Prop. 187: The 1994 Political Witch Hunt.”

The November issue included an update from the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico (“Communique from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee”). Mandatory Human fished it off the Internet.

Green, who recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a political science degree, says the articles are based on information from a variety of sources, including the mainstream media, National Public Radio, government documents and Congressional Quarterly.

Green keeps binders, some inches thick, filled with old lecture notes. He’s gone on-line with the White House, at least its public information service. Recently, he studied the 1995 federal budget, a copy of which he requested from the school library.

It’s a lot of work, especially considering that Green, who will enter graduate school at the University of Toronto this fall, puts in 40 hours a week at his grandfather’s print shop. Holland is a full-time student at Cal State Fullerton. So is Pimentel, who also works 35 hours a week renting carts at a Chino golf course.

Because Mandatory Human is free and its advertising (two ads so far) has yet to compensate for the $120-per-edition production costs, the magazine has put something of a financial strain on the trio.

And there’s this: A recent survey by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute revealed that only 31.9% of college freshmen nationwide consider “keeping up with political affairs” an important goal in life. A mere 16% say they frequently discuss politics. Both figures are the lowest in the survey’s 29-year history.

Wouldn’t a fanzine be easier?

Yes, the trio says, but that would be missing the point. The idea is to get others in their age group to consider a different perspective. Especially in Orange County, where Republican roots run deep.

Sure, Mandatory Human might play better in Santa Cruz or San Francisco, Green says, “but then there would be no reason to do it.”

“If nothing was ever questioned, nothing would ever change. Nothing would ever improve,” Green says. “I think we’re facing, at least among my peers, students who are supposedly coming to age and discovering the world. The reality is most of them live in a myopic little world where they don’t see beyond their own lives.

“You can say the same thing for Orange County. A lot of people never even leave, and there are so many other facets to society and the world. Not everyone in the world works for a defense contractor or an engineering firm. Not everyone drives a Mercedes or BMW. But that’s what these people see. The ideology just perpetuates itself.”

The magazine got its start last spring when Green, a soft-spoken, analytical sort, and Pimentel, a poet and artist, met in a philosophy of Marxism class. Their professor, Bruce Wright, told them to stop complaining about the way things were and start trying to do something about it. They hooked up with Holland, who, depressed by the poverty he witnessed during surf trips in Mexico, was starting to shed his live-to-surf, born-to-rock exterior in hopes of doing something meaningful.

Mandatory Human was born, but not especially well received. Its commentaries--on everything from the imbalance of wealth to the exploitation of Third World laborers--didn’t exactly inspire debate and discussion, as its authors had hoped. Instead, Green says, most students simply ignored or dismissed it.

Pimentel, a native of Brazil, says he once tried handing a copy to a fellow student, who refused, saying, “I don’t read Communist literature.”

“I was shocked, but it made me more depressed than anything,” Pimentel says. “Just because someone has an opposing view doesn’t mean you have to demonize it.”

For the record, the Mandatory Human players say they are students of several political philosophies and shouldn’t be pigeonholed. “If someone wants to label me,” Pimentel says, “they need to sit down and talk with me.”

Not a problem with this bunch. What was to be a quick interview turned into a five-hour expedition into their collective consciousness--a thinking man’s jam. Surrounded by their favorite reads--”From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest,” “Politics of Rich and Poor”--Green, Pimentel and Holland let loose, analyzing Marx, criticizing neoconservatism, debating everything from the escapist message of “Forrest Gump” to the downfall of modern society.

“We are a generation that feeds off consumer fetishism,” Pimentel said at one point. “Beepers. Nice cars. Billions of dollars a year on makeup. We live in a completely narcissistic culture.”

“Capitalism builds narcissism,” Green insisted. “ ‘Pull yourself up by you your bootstraps.’ ‘Be No. 1 . . . ‘ “

Pimentel: “We live in a society of idols--beepers and bottled water, those are our idols now. People have an idea that buying a beeper will give them self-esteem. It becomes a power over them.”

(At this, Holland confessed that he used to dream about buying a certain lime-green dune buggy. His introduction to Marxist philosophy changed his mind. “That dune buggy was symbolic of how my life could have gone,” Holland said. “My life could have been one big ball of ignorance. I was thinking, ‘Man, do nothing with my life, or do something.’ ”)

By midnight, the buzz had worn off. Big Ideas were replaced by collective sighs and muffled yawns. Somebody mused about the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Sometimes,” Pimentel said quietly, “you become so cynical, you have so many issues to deal with, you just say (forget) it. That’s what’s happening with this generation.”

His cohorts nodded their heads. Sometimes, they say, they wonder if they’d be better off giving up the fight and falling in with the masses.

Green could go back to concentrating on his CD collection. Holland could return to his electric guitar. And Pimentel? “I’ll just watch talk shows all day,” he says wryly, “and everything will be just fantastic.”

But they can’t stop now, they say. Trying to make a difference, no matter how slight, no matter how futile, is too much a part of them now.

“We’re not planning on changing the world,” Green says. “We’re just trying to open a few minds, introduce a few people to a new perspective.”