"Victory means exit strategy and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
-George W. Bush (1999; then Texas Gov. talking about Clinton's war in Bosnia)
"Discordianism isn't about preaching chaos at the expense of order. It is the realization that one cannot exist without the other."
-Reverend Doctor Hexar le Saipe (First Church of the Sparkly Ball)
"When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my father did, not screaming in terror like his passengers."
-Discordian Saying from the A.D.
Pat Robertson and the President have both given me pause lately. Unlike a lot of people, trained as they are to have ADD by our media, I actually remember certain things people have said years ago and match them against what they say now. Pat Robertson's latest flip flop was easily enough to witness since it was accomplished in a matter of days and widely reported. President Bush's are more hard to track because everyone seemed to have gotten taken in by his revisions of almost everything he has said. But even that effect of being taken in seems to have been wearing thin as of late as people get tired of Iraq and the endless trailer load of excuses that even Fox News can't work together into some half-believable pack of lies.
But we are not here concerned with all of that flip flopping. We are here concerned with some more pernicious flip flopping. Even greater than the American Settler State (and its present day inhabitants) changing its history from one of conquest and righteous dispossession and slaughter to a lighter more happy version which has the millions of Native Americans simply dying off from disease (with the attendant and over worked lie that Native Americans were simply not resistant to the diseases European conquerors brought with them.) It is a flip flop greater than even the Christian WWII flip flop of historical revisionism which says that Christians and their institutions were appalled with Hitler and his exterminations (this light version has Hitler as an atheist or demonic madman inspired by an irrational hatred; Hitler would have found this idea bullshit since he himself was a follower of Martin Luther's ideas) which is strange considering that Christian support of fascism never wavered until it was clear that the allies would win the war. Much of Western Europe suddenly supports this idea, since it clears them of any historical malfeasance, despite the fact that European conquests and pogroms were the norm upon which Hitler based his own ideas. No, there is an even greater flip flop to be wary of in these present times.
It is the flip flop of the very discovery that there is flip flopping going on. In a vast memory hole conspiracy (of Attention Deficit Disorder) designed to get us all to forget the evidence of our sense and believe what we are told or to believe in what is presented to us by "proper" authorities or by "experts" who will deny that anyone they like or support has shit that smells like shit and tell us that the shitty smells we are experiencing are merely a product of our own perceptual distortion. Usually we buy this line of reasoning lock stock and barrel (among some of the other pretty shiny toys that go with it). Thus we are told that Bush's real reason for invading and devastating Iraq was to secure democracy all along even though, if one reads statements (that due to media induced ADD seem ancient) from months back, we can clearly see that Bush's expressed reason was that Saddam Hussein was building "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So instead of Mass Destruction we get mass distraction: A game that has been perfected over the centuries by authorities who seek even more control than their ill gotten gains have produced for them already. (Does anyone remember the old line "Believe in me and you shall not perish"? Nowadays it seems to be modified into "Believe what I say and think as I do, and you shall not all be attacked by fnords." You all know what the latest version of the fnords are: the threat of terrorists.)
Besides foreign policies of the Bush government, there is the other pernicious flip flopping that occurs (while its adherents flip flop it and deny that they are doing so) which blames the makers of things like donuts and fast food for the rampant epidemic of obesity that certain health care professionals are complaining about. Excuse me but why would the fast food makers be responsible for the effects of anyone's choice to eat their food? No one who thinks for themselves (otherwise known as "being in their damned right mind") would assume that fast food or donuts are healthy to eat. But yet today we have rising numbers of people who have flip flopped the blame from themselves (for eating the crap and liking it) to the makers of the crap. What utter idiocy! Excuse me for my lack of sympathy but people who habitually engage in behaviors that they know are harmful to them have no recourse to blame anyone else but their own bobdamned selves for any ill effects. But in this day and age of the almighty flip flop, even suggesting such a thing will get me labeled as an insensitive jerk who just doesn't understand how much corporate powers have brainwashed the people into mindlessly consuming their crap.
WTF? You can rant and whine about the corporations and the leaders but you choose to consume their products and elect them. You can complain about acid rain and asthma but you still drive your damned cars. You can spit and cuss about trees being cut down and about water being irradiated, but you still use electricity and you still use paper. Spare the crap and stop the flip flopping. Otherwise, own up to it at least and realize that some of the reasons for the world we have today is because of some choices we have made. Just because everyone around you may have memory hole disease doesn't mean you need allow yourself to get infected, especially since the immunization and cure is so easily attained by making the choice to start using your mind. If you find wisdom in not pointing the finger too hastily, then please remember that. Because no amount of flip flopping will change a goddamned thing, even if you prefer to use the more politically correct term of "reframing." Yeah. Right. And while you are out there spending your time flip flopping, your leaders will be practicing their craft better than you could and as you collapse into a puddle of congealed misanthropy and dysphoria, THEY will know just what to sell you to patch you back up and make you a model consumer again. Is this what you want?
Never mind. We know what you want.
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
August 29th, 2005
[Hurricane Katrina P.S. I hope you all out there in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are okay. Especially Verthaine.]
<Under the influence of that state where nicotine reduction is causing much agitation.>