Making it Up as We Went Along . . . Reflections on the Rise, Run and Release of an Independent Zine - The InnerView with Peter Moore

Let’s go back to before Issue #1 of Alternatives? Where did the seed idea originate for giving birth to the magazine?

In 1995, I heard about the work of a sociologist named Paul Ray. He wrote a book about “Cultural Creatives”, the fastest growing cultural phenomenon in the world, involving millions of people. Ray characterized these people as concerned with a wide array of related values, including ecological sustainability, holistic health, organic and local foods production/consumption, sustainable energy, political and economic justice, self-actualization, enlightened parenting, truth-based intimacy, spiritual transformation, and the list goes on. A fascinating corollary was that these cultural creatives didn’t realize they were part of a movement, because it wasn’t being reported by the institutional media, governments, or anyone else. Most felt fairly isolated from “mainstream” culture, and even from each other in their own communities, because they thought they were essentially alone. I was fascinated, because he was describing me, and many of the people I knew and worked with.

Out of this came the idea to create a local independent media source that would serve as a forum for this emerging culture in my own local/regional scene. The idea was to create a magazine, widely available and free of charge, in which cultural creatives could hook up as writers, readers and advertisers. And not just publish well-known thinkers, teachers and authors, but tap the deep well of experience and wisdom that exists within the readership of the magazine itself. As we state in each issue, “Alternatives works (and plays) with the ideals and activism of the emerging culture. We are a forum to express and/or locate the holistic ideas, practitioners, products and events that support a life well-lived.”

What has been the criteria over the past 15 years for selecting articles to publish in the magazine?

From the very first issue, a founding assumption is that there is no such thing as “objective reporting”. It’s a myth of journalism. We’ve encouraged writers to forget about newspaper speak, and to write instead from their passion and their direct experience about their subject, while telling the truth, not exaggerating claims. As an editor, that is what I have looked for in submissions from writers. Over the past decade and a half, Alternatives has received thousands of article submissions, many from people in our area. And I have chosen to publish articles that express that intersection of passion, direct experience and fact.

What have been the major themes that have emerged from the articles you have published?

That’s a good question. I didn’t know what was going to happen when Richard and I started this thing. We have definitely treated the theme of individual freedom from institutional requirements or outcomes. I think specifically about the War on Drugs which is really a war on people, we’ve paid a lot of attention to that. And, in 2003, there was the invasion of Iraq. From the outset, it was obvious to any independent observer that the march to war was based on hubris, hyperbole and hysteria manufactured by government officials and delivered by TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. You expect politicians and corporations and the military to lie like that because of their obvious agendas, but the media? Watching journalists pump out propaganda in mainstream media outlets is the worst because it is such a breach of journalistic ethics. We took on that theme as well.

Other themes have included being an empowered consumer in choosing whatever it is that you invest money/energy into, whether foods, healthcare, energy, entertainment or the economy. And family. And spiritual inquiry. Lots of topics. It’s really been about freedom to think and to act in one’s own best interests, not be subject to larger institutional powers.

I understand that Alternatives Magazine website was put on a high security clearance for all US government computers worldwide. How did you earn that honor?

Oh yes, that honor. No doubt a government stealth mission, so stealth that I didn’t even know it was happening until a friend of mine, a US government census worker, contacted me, asking if I was still a free man, and what kind of trouble was I into anyway? I said, what are you talking about? He told me that, during a break at work he decided to visit Alternatives online for some intelligent reading, but was denied access because the site had been classified as a terrorist weapons violator by Homeland Security, or some such thing. That’s crazy I said, send me a screenshot. And he did.

How did we earn that classification? Probably because we have been outspoken in our criticism of the lies and propaganda associated with the war in Iraq and American empire over-reach. This was the Bush era after all. George and his cronies took us deeper into fascism than the US government has ever gone.

What has been the most difficult challenge in running this magazine? What was the biggest surprise?

My most difficult challenge has been having three jobs that I am passionate about. Alternatives has certainly been that for me. Other full-time jobs include being Business Director of Breitenbush Hot Springs, and being a daddy of daughters. These have all been challenges, but it definitely has given me a life of meaning—and I enjoy challenges.

The biggest surprise was that I could actually do this for 15 years. I had no idea it would go on such a great run. I learnt a lot along the way. I had to work with my own fears and unknowings. I found the greatest joy in staying conscious about and dealing effectively with those things of which I am most afraid and about which I have the most insecurities.

I found by putting my attention on those things and people that I love, I could do what was required. I tell my daughters the most revolutionary act is to be joyful in this world while paying attention to the suffering of this world.

Following that thread, how do you see Alternatives as a resource for personal transformation?

I’ll start by speaking for myself. Any time you put yourself out there in public, especially about something you particularly care about, there are special risks and rewards. Some people will love you and some will hate you. Any time you take risks and gain rewards, you are creating and transforming yourself as you go along. So I have been creating myself, my character, as I go along here because every new choice has presented a challenge about who I am and where I stand. Being public about one’s politics, passions and processes, you get a lot of feedback, not all of it good. Some of it can be really, really bad. But ultimately, personal transformation is just that, a personal thing, and should not depend upon co-dependent conditions set up by anyone or anything else. And as regards the relationship between the magazine and its writers and readers, I’d judge that to have transformative potential as well. The magazine has really been a forum for ideas and social experiments—in activism, in self-expression, in so many ways for so many people.

If you had to do it over again, can you think of anything you might do differently?

It’s always good to be adequately funded. It’s painful to be undercapitalized in a capitalistic society when you have a startup business and things cost money. And everything has its price in the publishing business, including computers and software and publishing costs and distribution costs and food to buy while doing these things and trying to survive. So I might want to be better capitalized next time. But that is a business equation, and in fact, I have to confess it has also been the greatest fun and challenge to be undercapitalized and still make it. Alternatives is a long term survivor as an independent magazine in the US, with 15 years of publishing. It’s been a ball. We have had to really think on our feet and stay up all night sometimes, and maintain all the relationships, and work hard hard hard to keep it going. I could give myself advice to do it different next time, but really, I wouldn’t trade the experience of having done it the way we did it. In fact, we couldn’t have done it any other way.

I mentioned capitalization, but there is no money for anything like independent media really because there’s basically no profit in it. Unless someone like George Soros thinks what you’re doing is great and drops a bundle on you—but then there are strings attached, which presents a different kind of problem. We never had that different kind of problem, because we have made our money the old-fashioned way. We worked for it and kept our independence. And that’s just fine.

The greatest benefit and the best outcomes come out of knowing what your principles are, acting in accordance with them, and letting outcomes flow out of those principles without trying to manage the results too much. Also, finding good intelligent friends you can really trust to work with so what is created is not just an individual effort but a collective mind thing, smarter and more capable than any individual. I have had the good fortune of connecting up with some extraordinary people in this project, and the processes and the products have been amazing. But really, we’re all just ordinary people, or brilliant, take your pick, so I guess that means that virtually everybody is extraordinary if they choose to be. We all have that human attribute of human consciousness potential. And exercising potential is really where it is at. From that perspective I would probably do it again the same way (laughs!).

How has this 15-year experience changed you?

I am older and more tired. I think just living 15 years changes you. That’s been a quarter of my life so far. I’ve also been changed by the skills that I’ve had to hone in the course of doing this work. I’ve read an enormity of other peoples’ writing, and edited a lot of that to turn good concepts into good literature. I’ve learned more deeply than before to trust my own judgment in business decisions, especially my first take on things unless new information comes along that changes the equation. And as long as I have a well-developed sense of humor as well as a well-developed sense of outrage, I’ll stay sane in a world that wants to make you truly insane as a prerequisite to fitting into the norm.

At a deeper level how has it changed you at the soul level?

I would’ve gotten there, thanks. I have been moved to laughter and tears, that’s always good for the soul. I have been moved intensely by articles and letters we have received from people around the world who tune into this thing online—people in prisons asking for subscriptions or the possibility of being published. I’ve been moved by writers who met other writers for the magazine who then become a married couple. I’ve been deepened by watching young people just starting out, including my own daughters, become writers and artists in this scene. It has been an amazing journey and at the soul level there is so much to learn from this life. Human consciousness is amazingly flexible, it can be put to service in an infinite number of ways. This magazine has been a forum for so many writers and so many issues and ideas, much of it soulwork. I am a much more well read person and I have read into people’s souls who just opened themselves up in writing. As a result, I feel more highly educated and more soul-confident.

What are your hopes for the future of the magazine?

That is an interesting question. To tell you the truth, Richard and I are going to be ending the printed version of the magazine with this issue. It’s been a good long 15 year run. However, one never knows. Alternatives has created an enormous amount of good will, the public supports it, people are reading the online version of the magazine in the US and in some 70 countries around the world. I still receive submissions and requests to publish from people regionally, as well as across the States and Canada, and even Europe, Israel and sometimes India.

But I know for Richard and me, it’s time to let the print magazine go and move into other areas and adventures of our lives. But given that continuing interest I described above, a group of us have decided to continue publishing the zine online under the name Alternativeszine.com. It should be interesting.

Sounds like an invitation to your readership to stay tuned and look into the link. You also mentioned that one of the reasons you’re letting go of the magazine is to explore new ventures. Can you share what that might be?

Well, there is Breitenbush Hot Springs, a worker-owned co-op that I helped co-found in the ‘70s, and that continues to be an extraordinary adventure. I’ll continue working with that project awhile longer. And I would love to travel again and do some more writing.

And who knows where the next steps go. After graduating college with a degree in anthropology in 1973, I figured if I am willing to spend four years studying cultures academically, I better spend four years out of the country living in different cultures and directly experiencing them. I did that. I spent several years hitchhiking around Europe and Eastern Europe and parts of Asia from 1973 to 1977. I did one heck of a lot of traveling, often without a specific destination in mind, just letting the world explore me as I was exploring the world. That led me to all kinds of places and adventures. I spent a year and a half with Gypsies from Argentina, living and traveling with them from Spain to India and back. I spent months in a Tibetan monastery in the Himalaya Mountains, and another half year living on the beaches and in the jungles of Goa. In Europe, I spent a couple years songwriting and singing in coffee houses and folk clubs and nightclubs, from Brussels to Sitges—all these things happened by just meeting people without a particular destination in mind. I wouldn’t mind doing some more of that somehow. You cannot really plan that kind of a life. You have to trust the flow, and you meet the greatest people and have the greatest adventures, and sometimes you take the greatest risks that way as well. But as long as you survive, it makes you stronger and more educated. There may be more of that in my future.

And finally, there is that great disappearing act that we all must do someday. I hope to do that with grace, and not a lot of drama/trauma.

That reminds me of Edward Abbey’s poem, Benedicto, and I dedicate it to your soul journey. Thank you for 15 years of Alternatives Magazine.

May your trails be
crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous,
leading to the most amazing view.
May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
May your rivers flow without end,
meandering through pastoral valleys
tinkling with bells,
past temples and castles and poets’ towers
into a dark primeval forest
where tigers belch and monkeys howl,
through miasmal and mysterious swamps
and down into a desert of red rock,
blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone,
and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm
where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
where deer walk across the white sand beaches,
where storms come and go
as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams
waits for you—beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.