This interview was published, in Slovak, by Markíza Magazine on 2 July 2009.

The English text here is a loose back-translation of the Slovak text of the published article, which is available at mojacasopis.sk.

This is a translation of a translation of my own interview responses, and a bunch of things inevitably get lost in such a process. In a couple of cases, I’ve footnoted things that I feel I ought to clarify, but, with that, the text:

Verbal Aspect Bothers Me!

Text: Ľuba Kukučková – Photo: Oles Cheresko

Mike Gogulski has a Polish surname, was born an American and today is a citizen of no state. He has worked in the USA and in Belgium. Lately, he’s dropped anchor in Slovakia and has been living in Bratislava for five years.

At the old Slovak National Theater in Bratislava. Photo: Oles Cheresko, Markíza

To the east, he’s been as far as Košice, Guatemala to the south and Vancouver, Canada to the northwest. He doesn’t feel like a globetrotter, and he’s very pleased to be in Bratislava!

Mike’s paternal grandparents emigrated to America at the start of the 1900s. His mother’s ancestors came from Germany. Most of today’s Gogulskis live in the area of Poznań, Poland, but Mike doesn’t know them personally. Like many European emigrants at the beginning of the twentieth century, his ancestors, too, wanted to break their bonds with their motherland and become Americans. They had difficult lives, too, and there remained no time to preserve the Polish language and culture for their children. But now their great-grandchild has come back to Europe after all. He speaks four languages and, thanks to his spontaneous approach to people, has made many friends in Slovakia. In this way, he might be called a true world citizen. Mike Gogulski, however, has no citizenship. He renounced his American citizenship, and for the moment is only considering becoming a Slovak citizen…

School, LSD and Beer

Michael was born on 8 August 1972 in Phoenix, Arizona. His father got a job as an electro-mechanical engineer in Orlando, Florida, and there Mike lived with his family until he was 25 years old. Afterward, he roamed a number of states following jobs, from Minnesota to Connecticut and from California to Wisconsin. Eight years ago, his father died of cancer. His mother, Joan, lives in Florida. Mike’s younger sister, Karen, who works as a nurse, is raising two adorable boys – Cole and Chase – in Orlando with her husband, Billy. Mike sees his nephews only in photos, though. “In 1990 I started studying information technology at a university in Orlando, but then my interest shifted to LSD and beer,” he openly confesses. He quit his studies after the first semester. But he’s found his footing in life quite successfully. He has a ten-year information systems career behind him as a systems administrator, network engineer and IT infrastructure manager. He moved around a large area of the western parts of the US after work.

In 2004, in the wake of many work as well as personal expectations and failures, Mike left America. His girlfriend at the time wanted to teach English in a European country, someplace in the eastern bloc. She sent out inquiries and got a response from right here in Slovakia. They both moved to Bratislava and, though their paths parted later, Mike became fond of Bratislava. Since 2006 he’s begun devoting himself more to language, rather than to computers as in the past. He has become a translator, proofreader and editor.

Slovaks are Quieter

“Bratislava has its good and less-good sides,” the American native muses. “I never lived right in the city in the past, in the US. I thought that I’d hate the city, but that’s not so. I find living here pleasant. I like that Bratislava is small enough to offer a peaceful life while being big enough to have everything you’d expect from a city.” He has friends, lovers, ex-lovers as well as enemies here… He has been to Žilina, Košice, Prešov, Banská Bystrica and Zvolen. He has heard that Slovakia is a beautiful land and looks forward to discovering it over time. Does he sometimes compare Slovaks to Americans? To Mike, good and bad people are found everywhere. As a matter of principle, however, he judges people as individual beings, not as members of some group based on place of birth or the geographical divisions of the world. Mike believes that Slovaks, in general, are quieter than Americans. He’s had some awkward moments, though, with the hazards of Slovak. He’d been in Slovakia barely three months when he approached a group of girls at work with whom he often went to smoke outside the building. He asked: “Would you like to smoke?” And they took this a bit differently… They stopped laughing after a bit and explained the sexual undertone* of the question.

At one time he defended his trouble with the language by saying, “my Slovak is good enough for taxi drivers and waiters,” but since then he’s improved dramatically. He reads well in Slovak, in his humble appraisal, writes like a respectable schoolboy but has trouble, though, understanding responses in conversation. He works as a translator, and so he hasn’t mastered slang; he says his Slovak is more lawyerly. Really understanding a language demands growing up in the country. “I didn’t want to live in some sort of isolated bubble with other Americans and English-speaking people,” Mike says. “I would have felt cut off from reality. Many Slovaks say that Slovak is one of the most difficult languages in the world, but I don’t think so. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it’s easy. I took two years of Latin in school, so Slovak declension didn’t surprise me. Still, I’m not good at recalling when and how I should use the various cases. And the hardest thing for me – and perhaps for many westerners who come to Slavic lands – is verbal aspect. I want a magic key that would make it clear for me when to use the perfective aspect, but no such key exists!”

Mike is “Polyamorous”

Besides working with Slovak, Mike also translates official documents from Czech into English. He has simplified his lifestyle, and so he’s also living off smaller earnings. If he travels to the Czech Republic, he gets by in Slovak, and says the local people there observe him with interest. He once spoke Spanish very well, but has forgotten a lot. He believes, however, that if he traveled for a month to Spain or Mexico he would speak fluently by the third week. Though he behaves like a world citizen, he hasn’t traveled that much more of it. “In the US I moved from city to city every two years. I have been as far east as Košice, as far south as Guatemala, and as far north and west as Vancouver, Canada. I have been satisfied living here in Bratislava, and I don’t have any urge to move someplace else soon.” Mike got married in the US at 23, but the marriage lasted for only six years. From the marriage he has a nine-year-old daughter, Kyra, who lives with her mother in Georgia. Nobody from his family has visited him in Bratislava yet, though maybe they will come when his nephews grow up. Is he sad to be alone? “No. These days I am polyamorous (author’s note: in love with more than one person) and I’m not interested in an everlasting relationship of the marriage type.”**

Why did Mike renounce his American citizenship? “In its political, governmental essence, the USA appears to be a criminal organization. I don’t want to be connected with it in any way. I’m not against supporting society, but I am against taxes, which the state criminally demands of me from birth, and I don’t want to support others’ privileges. For me, ridding myself of citizenship was a way to bring my legal and social status into harmony with my beliefs. Perhaps later I will apply for Slovak citizenship, but that will be only for practical reasons, so that I can travel. I don’t want to have any sort of connection with the criminal organization known as the state. And, perhaps, I will not be a citizen of any country until the end of my life.”

* The Slovak verb fajčiť means, literally, “to consume by smoking”, as by smoking a cigarette. In slang it also means “to perform fellatio”.

** My actual words: “These days I am openly polyamorous, and not interested in a state marriage of any kind.”

First, last week an anonymous donor sent US$250. Thank you *very* much!

Second, I’d like to ask the rest of my readers for some support.

Why?

• Maybe you just like what I’m doing here, and want to encourage more of it.
• Maybe you find my podcasting voice so sexy that it makes you feel dirty not paying for the privilege of hearing it.
• Maybe you’re sympathetic to the fact that earnings in my translation business are down by more than 70% since December with the recession, and that I’m really having trouble making ends meet.
• Maybe you’re thrilled by the fact that I’ve been devoting my now copious free time to being the technical coordinator, chief implementer and blog administrator for the Free Agents Network, and that I’m in the process of taking on similar duties for the Motorhome Diaries as well.
• Or maybe giving just makes you feel good.

Anything you can send would be most welcome. If you click “Support nostate.com” above, you’ll find a variety of methods by which to make a contribution.

Thanks for your patience with my blegging!

Peace,

Mike

I’ve installed a WordPress plugin called Transposh, and enabled it for Slovak and Spanish. Transposh segments the page text, pulls machine translations from Google translate and other sources, integrates them into the display of the page and stores them in the database. It then allows users to edit the translated segments of the text in order to improve upon the (almost always faulty) machine translation.

Crowdsourcing translation is a very cool idea, and has a definite “anarcho” appeal to it. Transposh is not a mature program yet, but its developer is active and responsive to bug reports and feature requests, so I’m hopeful that it will be ready for prime time soon.

When it is, I hope to roll it out on the Center for a Stateless Society‘s website, where recently I announced a volunteer effort to translate the Center’s publications into as many languages as possible.

Meanwhile, if you’re a Slovak or Spanish speaker, feel free to mess around with Transposh here and let me know what you find.

I also submitted an application there for issuance of a replacement sticker for my residence permit, which I’ll have to pick up there in a couple of weeks.

Slovakia stateless person's 1954 Convention Travel Document, cover

So, I’m now an officially-documented stateless person. I’m also once again officially a human being, at least as far as concerns those annoying institutions like banks, government offices and so on, which treat people like they don’t exist if they don’t have currently-valid state identity papers.

Surprising to me, my new Proof of Humanity actually does have information and the Slovak national regalia on the front cover.

Some interesting text, verbatim from the English version, from page 33:

The holder of travel document under the Convention of 28 September 1954 is an alien with legal status of a person without state citizenship, who was granted a permission for permanent residence in the territory of the Slovak Republic. He/she is under protection of the Slovak Republic. All whom it may concern are hereby requested to afford the holder of this travel document all necessary aid and protection according to international law.

And the data page

Oooooh, protection!

Some typical translation errors there with regard to the use of articles. Neat conflict, too, between what this document says and what my visa says. I’m actually here on a temporary residence permit, not permanent.

In any case, coming back from bureaucroland I couldn’t get Iron Maiden’s old track “Back in The Village” out of my head.

Welcome back to The Village, Number Six.

(Updated: linked to full-resolution images)

Iron Maiden, “Back in the Village”, Powerslave, 1984.

Turn the spotlights on the people,
Switch the dial and eat the worm.
Take your chances, kill the engine,
Drop your bombs and let it burn.

White flags shot to ribbons,
The truce is black and burned,
Shellshock in the kitchen,
Tables overturned.

CHORUS
Back in the village again,
In the village.
I’m back in the village again.

Throwing dice now, rolling loaded,
I see sixes all the way.
In a black hole, and I’m spinning
As my wings get shot away.

BRIDGE
Questions are a burden,
And answers are a prison for oneself,
Shellshock in the kitchen,
Tables start to burn.

CHORUS

No breaks on the inside,
Paper cats and burning barns,
There’s a fox among the chickens,
And a killer in the hounds.

BRIDGE

CHORUS

But still we walk into the valley,
And others try to kill the inner flame,
We’re burning brighter than before,
I don’t have a number, I’M A NAME!

CHORUS x2

Back in the village,
And I’m back in the village,
And I’m back in the village, again

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There was much waiting around the office to do, as the staffers there were quite unfamiliar with the process and regulations for folks like me.

I was required to also submit a certified translation into Slovak of my Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States and €33.50 in official duty stamps.

My photograph and fingerprints were taken, and I provided a digitized signature. Looks like my document will have the hated RFID chip with biometric data embedded in it.

In return for all this I received the document below, confirming acceptance and approval of the application. I will return in 2-3 weeks to pick up my passport-that-isn’t-a-passport and to submit another application (and €4.50 in duty stamps), this time for re-issuance of my residence permit sticker. I’ll have to return once more a couple of weeks after that to pick up the sticker.

Potvrdenie o prijatí žiadosti o vydanie cestovného dokladu cudzinca (Dohovor z 28. septembra 1954)

Číslo žiadosti:                  EC-ECBA1-090216-001
Číslo záznamu (Č.p.:):    UHCP-727/RHCP-BA-OCP-Z-2009
Dátum podania:              16.2.2009
Pracovisko podania:      EC2 Bratislava
Adresa pracoviska:        HROBÁKOVÁ 1237/44 BRATISLAVA

Meno:                                             Michael Jude
Priezvisko:                                     Gogulski
Tituly:
Dátum a miesto narodenia:    8.8.1972, Phoenix
Štátna príslušnosť:                  Osoba bez štátnej príslušnosti

Žiadosť o vydanie cestovného dokladu cudzinca (Dohovor z 28. septembra 1954) bola SCHVÁLENÁ

Poučenie:
Žiadateľ bol poučený, že doklad si môže vyzdvihnúť výhradne na tom útvare, na ktorom požiadal o jeho vydanie.

Žiadosť prijal (meno a priezvisko):        Pečiatka a podpis prijímajúceho orgánu:
XXX XXX                                                           [illegible signature, stamp]

Confirmation of acceptance of application for issuance of foreigner’s travel document (Convention of 28 September 1954)

Application number:        EC-ECBA1-090216-001
Record number:                UHCP-727/RHCP-BA-OCP-Z-2009
Submission date:              16.2.2009
Submission workplace:    EC2 Bratislava
Workplace address:           HROBÁKOVÁ 1237/44 BRATISLAVA

Name:                                     Michael Jude
Surname:                               Gogulski
Titles:
Date and place of birth:    8.8.1972, Phoenix
Citizenship:                       Stateless person

The application for issuance of a foreigner’s travel document (Convention of 28 September 1954) was APPROVED

Guidance:
The applicant was advised that the document can be picked up exclusively at that office to which he applied for its issuance.

Application accepted by (name & surname):    Accepting authority’s stamp & signature:
XXX XXX                                                                  [illegible signature, stamp]

The short answer, of course, is an emphatic “no”, unless you’re going to adopt the patently insane position that we’re all criminals for doing so, as Francois Tremblay does in saying “We are all war criminals” — a position which I will contest to my last breath.

In exploring the question, FSK links to my first “Educating for anarchism” post, and elaborates on a theme that I’ve heard before — and rejected.

This post was originally going to be a reply comment to FSK’s post, but since it grew so long and was so long ago, I thought it deserved a post of its own, here:

FSK writes:

I noticed this post by Mike Gogulski, where he refused a job for the State. The fallacy in his reasoning is that *ANY* on-the-books work supports the State via taxes. Suppose I have two choices. I can do $10k of work directly for the State, or $10k of work in a wage slave job. Suppose my income taxation rate is 50%. In the $10k wage slave job, I contribute $5k directly to the State. Similarly, if I accept the $10k job working directly for the State, I pay $5k directly back to the State in taxes. (In some countries, income on State jobs is tax-exempt. I’m ignoring that possibility here.) If I don’t accept the $10k State job, someone else will take it, still getting paid $10k but perhaps doing marginally worse work. However, by refusing the direct State job, I am forced to accept a marginally lower salary. Overall, the net damage to the State by my refusal to work directly for the State is negligible.

“I refuse to work directly for the State” is an attitude that only works when vastly more than 50% of the population has been convinced “The State is evil!” By that time, the State has already lost anyway. Once a vast majority of people have been convinced “The State is evil!”, then it’s already all over for the State. In the meantime, if you refuse to work directly for the State, then someone almost as qualified will gladly take your place.

Hello, FSK! I’m finally circling back on this post, which has been open in a browser tab since, er… last year I’m just gonna reply to the bits that mentioned me.

The fallacy in his [i.e.: my] reasoning is that *ANY* on-the-books work supports the State via taxes.

This is true. However, you overlook something here, though you do kindof address it later — though I have a quibble with that as well.

If I earn $10k making sex toys (something which, as far as I know, no state anywhere actually produces, nor desires), and surrender $5k of my earnings to the state, the state receives a net benefit of $5k, minus collection and enforcement costs, which may be held to be negligible.

If I earn $10k making ICBMs for the state and surrender the same $5k in income tax, the state receives a net benefit of $5k cash PLUS whatever benefit the state assigns to the missiles.

By choosing to make sex toys which do not benefit the state in any way (other than by the taxes imposed upon them) rather than missiles which benefit the state directly, I at least keep my hands off of a transaction which would create greater evil.

I put it to you that by refusing to do the state’s work I am creating a benefit for freedom. Certainly, in the inverse case, you would not praise me for finding a quasi-agorist method of doing work to help provide the state with ICBMs. The object of the work matters as well as the economics.

That was quibble #1. Quibble #2 is this:

[I]f you refuse to work directly for the State, then someone almost as qualified will gladly take your place.

Arguably true, given today’s circumstances. However, in my particular case, there are only a very small number of professional translators who both speak English as their native language and who have a high level of competency in translating the Slovak language. Let’s imagine, for the sake of argument, that I have a real niche market, and that there are only ten other people in the world, including me, who can deliver the same Slovak-to-English translation job at the same level of quality as I can. My refusal takes me out of the pool of available labor, and thus the state has only 90% of the potential labor force available to it. At any given time, this tends to make getting the state’s work in translating Slovak to English more difficult, as there are fewer resources which can be applied to the task. It might also have the side effect of driving up prices among those other nine translators who are willing to work for the state. At some point, when prices are driven up high enough, the customer stops buying.

However, there is yet another benefit. When I tell one of my agency clients that I do not do any work for directly governments, that I do not do any work on non-governmental company/charity projects that are funded by governments, that I do not do any work for organizations that derive more than X% of their revenues from taxes, that I do not do any work for organizations which engage in certain objectionable statist activities, I am making a contribution toward anarchist education. I have alerted one or more people at that translation agency that there is a moral objection which might be raised against taking certain kinds of work.

In many cases, that message may well fall on deaf ears today. Maybe only 1 in 100 translation agency employees might have their own beliefs modified by coming into contact with mine in this way. But it will be remembered, and perhaps in the future those same people might think over the issue again, or tell a story to a colleague or a friend: “Hey, there’s this Mike guy who says ‘All taxes are theft!’ and ‘I read FSK!’ and won’t take certain kinds of jobs from us, isn’t that funny?” And it can spread from there.

And now, quibble #3:

There is a moral argument for refusing to take jobs and income from the state. All of the state’s money and property is stolen. When we freely accept known stolen property in trade, if we do not become accessories to theft ourselves we at least become facilitators of that theft, in that if we refused to accept unearned wealth in trade and convinced those around us to do the same, then the criminals stealing it would no longer have an incentive to do so, as they could never spend it. I, personally, do not want to be paid out of money stolen from other people through taxation. Recognizing that eliminating this entirely under the statist system may be impossible, I still hold it as my own duty to minimize the occurrence thereof and to encourage others to do the same.

A drop, perhaps, in an ocean of statist shit. But it’s my drop, damnit, and I’d like you to see all sides and all possibilities.

Dixie Flatline of the No Treason blog adds additional commentary, to which FSK replies in An Example of Pointless State Resistance. Your mileage, as always, may vary.

Translations of this sentence wanted. Please leave them in the comments.

Also, I’m looking for an elaborate, native Thai insult to the King, along with faithful, fluent English translation(s).

Besides having a rather lousy September in terms of billings, this comes today from the editor of a magazine I do translation and proofreading for, published by the company that is my biggest source of income:

Many clients have cancelled their advertising. Basically, the magazine lives [off revenues] from Slovak companies, with a few from abroad, as you have surely noticed. And there was a high percentage of banks and insurance companies….

Oh boy…

There was also a news story today about J&T Group — a major investment bank in the Czech Republic and Slovakia — cutting sale prices for new luxury apartments in a huge new project it is building on the Danube riverfront by something like 40%.

Rough waters ahead.