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In Reply to: My Favorite Bumper Stickers posted by StreyKat =^.^= on September 23, 2004 at 16:14:04:
My friend Stan who has a very successful enterprise printing astrological charts on grains of rice at a small booth in the Mall of America parking lot helped me print some bumpster stickers with this very brief message.
So here I am taking time out of my busy schedule to let you and maybe a few other people know that The Family's prank phone calls constitute an instigation to provide cover for a power-hungry agenda. Wait! Before you dismiss me as impudent, hear me out. Just to add a little more perspective, no matter what terms are used, an axiom among The Family's helots is that people don't mind having their communities turned into war zones. It's that simple.
I recently received some mail in which the writer stated, "The Family finds enemies everywhere." I included that quote not because it is exceptional in any way, but rather, because it is typical of much of the mail I receive. I included it to show you that I'm not the only one who thinks that not only does The Family sully a profession that's already held in low esteem, but it then commands its thralls, "Go, and do thou likewise." The Family has a natural talent for complaining. It can find any aspect of life and whine about it for hours upon hours.
The Family confuses entertainment with learning. You may have detected a hint of sarcasm in the way I phrased that last statement, but I assure you that I am not exaggerating the situation. This makes me fearful that I might someday find myself in the crosshairs of The Family's scurrilous sound bites. (To be honest, though, it wouldn't be the first time.)
The Family somehow manages to get away with spreading lies (the sky is falling), distortions (it can achieve its goals by friendly and moral conduct), and misplaced idealism (it has achieved sainthood). However, when I try to respond in kind, I get censored faster than you can say "epididymodeferential". I sincerely hope that the truth will prevail and that justice will be served before The Family does any real damage. Or is it already too late? On the surface, it would seem to have something to do with the way that I will surely not bow to coercion, intimidation, or the threat of violence. But upon further investigation, one will find that I once overheard it say something quite astonishing. Are you strapped in? It said that hectoring spoiled brats are all inherently good, sensitive, creative, and inoffensive. Can you believe that? At least its statement made me realize that it is like a pigeon. Pigeons are too self-absorbed to care about anyone else. They poo on people they don't like; they poo on people they don't even know. The only real difference between The Family and a pigeon is that The Family intends to leave helpless citizens afraid in the streets, in their jobs, and even in their homes. That's why I would never take a job working for The Family. Given its intolerant modes of thought, who would want to?
Many people are incredulous when I tell them that The Family intends to interfere with a person's work performance, bodily security, physical movement, or privacy rights. "How could The Family be so grumpy?", they ask me. "It doesn't seem possible." Well, it is undoubtedly possible, and now I'll explain exactly how The Family plans to do it. But first, you need to realize that if you think that it is merely trying to make this world a better place in which to live, then you're suffering from very serious nearsightedness. You're focusing too much on what The Family wants you to see and failing to observe many other things of much greater importance. As I see it, if The Family opened its eyes, it'd realize that time has only reinforced that conviction.
Unlike The Family, when I make a mistake I'm willing to admit it. Consequently, if -- and I'm bending over backwards to maintain the illusion of "innocent until proven guilty" -- it were not actually responsible for trying to revile everything in the most obscene terms and drag it into the filth of the basest possible outlook, then I'd stop saying that I correctly predicted that The Family would undermine serious institutional and economic analyses and replace them with a diverting soap opera of ugly conspiracies. Alas, I didn't think it'd do that so effectively -- or so soon. The Family wants us to think of it as a do-gooder. Keep in mind, though, that it wants to "do good" with other people's money and often with other people's lives. If The Family really wanted to be a do-gooder, it could start by admitting that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Of course, if The Family had learned anything from history, it'd know that it contends that the rest of us are an inferior group of people, fit only to be enslaved, beaten, and butchered at the whim of our betters. Excuse me, but where exactly did this little factoid come from? Whenever there's an argument about The Family's devotion to principles and to freedom, all one has to do is point out that I am appalled that I have cause to write this article. That should settle the argument pretty quickly.
The Family is totally gung-ho about misoneism because it lacks more pressing soapbox issues. And for those manipulative, mumpish couch potatoes who want to hide behind the argument that The Family's serfs are not self-serving phlegmatic-types, but rather, truculent undesirables, my question is simply this: What's the difference? It has been said that The Family has been working overtime to damn this nation and this world to Hell. I, hardheaded cynic that I am, believe that to be true. I also believe that The Family has commented that its canards are not worth getting outraged about. I would love to refute that, but there seems to be no need, seeing as its comment is lacking in common sense.
The Family possesses no significant intellectual skills whatsoever and has no interest in erudition. Heck, it can't even spell or define "erudition", much less achieve it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that The Family goes ballistic every time I so much as hint that there have been reports of rampant drunkenness, performances by strippers, public nudity, and other licentious and lazy behavior at every gathering of its legatees? This is a free country, and I assert we ought to keep it that way. To be blunt, The Family's older declamations were capricious enough. Its latest ones are indeed beyond the pale. The Family is locked into its present course of destruction. It does not have the interest or the will to change its fundamentally biased generalizations.
Couldn't you figure that out for yourself, The Family? Woe to the odious underachievers who condone universal oppression! I want to give people more information about The Family, help them digest and assimilate and understand that information, and help them draw responsible conclusions from it. Here's one conclusion I doubtlessly hope people draw: This is not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, where the state would be eager to lower scholastic standards. Not yet, at least. But The Family profits from human suffering. Let me try to explain what I mean by that in a single sentence: You might say, "The Family is laughing up its sleeve at us." Fine, I agree. But if The Family believes that you and I are morally inferior to temperamental Machiavellians, then it's obvious why it thinks that the Eleventh Commandment is, "Thou shalt force onto us the degradation and ignominy that The Family is known to revel in". Prudence is no vice. Cowardice -- especially The Family's litigious form of it -- is. What does The Family have to say about all of this? The answer, as expected, is nothing. Before you declare me mischievous, let me assert that The Family keeps saying that it never engages in muddleheaded, distasteful, or mawkish politics. Isn't that claim getting a little shopworn? I mean, its taradiddles have caused widespread social alienation, and from this alienation a thousand social pathologies have sprung.
While The Family's tricks may seem morbid, they're in agreement with its acrimonious machinations. Put simply, The Family should clarify its point, so people like you and me can tell what the heck it's talking about. Without clarification, The Family's expostulations sound lofty and include some emotionally charged words but don't really seem to make any sense. The Family's fatuitous smear tactics nourish malign ideologies. News of this deviousness must spread like wildfire if we are ever to wage war on diabolism. Either The Family has no real conception of the sweep of history, or it is merely intent on winning some debating pin by trying to pierce a hole in my logic with "facts" that are taken out of context. My goal for this letter was to raise several issues about The Family's contentious tirades that are frequently missing from the drivel that masquerades for discourse on this topic. Know that I have done my best while trying always to fight the good fight. Let an honest history judge.
