"Discordians? You mean the people who wear Santa hats all year long?"
-The White Mouse
Many of you perceive me to be a little misanthropic. Some of you may actually go so far as to say that I am wholly misanthropic, especially given my responses to info about the latest great fnord called the Avian Flu. (You know, when I said "Hell, there are too many damned people on the planet as it is.") But this is simply not true. I am not misanthropic in the least. That's not my game. What I hate, over everything else that deserves scorn and destruction, is stupidity. Whether this stupidity rears its ugly head in my own actions and thoughts or whether I witness stupidity in other people. I allow for lapses and mistakes. We all make them and fall prey to them. Hell, sometimes I think those are there just to keep us on our toes. What I reserve the darkest part of my hatred for are those people who chose stupidity as a lifestyle. Those people may get my compassion, but in a Buddhist sense (which might actually seem cruel to many of you, raised as you are in a largely Christian society where compassion is seen as some white-light fluffy frou frou all-is-love sort of thing). In the tradition in which I learned to finally grow up and be a mature human Buddhist, compassion without wisdom is seen as idiocy. And ignorance is to either be transformed into a vehicle of intelligence or it is to be destroyed.
I don't hate stupidity because I imagine myself to be smarter and thus the whole thing is really just a posture of snobbery. No. I hate stupidity because it is a threat to my continued existence. It is a threat to all that makes this life worth living. And when I see people who refuse freedom and choose stupidity, it makes me want to throw ashtrays (the marble or glass sort) into crowds of commuters walking to and from the train station. The ignorance is astounding. Lately, I was shocked again by stupidity when I saw how surprised Americans were that there were huge populations of poor people living in the USA. (The New Orleans debacle was a slap to the face of American pretensions about being the richest and most well adjusted people on earth.) Americans were shocked to learn that there were millions and millions of poor people who worked hard and had no mental or substance problems and yet were still poor. This boggled the few working brain cells that the average American (not unlike the average human being elsewhere who would be just as ignorant) could muster up. The stupidity over this is actually murderous...and yet as soon as most people can forget about the human suffering all around them, they do so.
This stupid denial is another strand that goes into my core of hatred. My black heart of hatred that motivates me to seek out ways to smash ignorance and stupidity. (I grew up on the wrong side of the economic tracks in America, so I do have a chip on my shoulder that comes from what the old leftists would call "class-consciousness.") I want to take the heads of the inflated egos of this society and cut them off and drink the blood from out of their skulls. (You can tell me that's horrible, but its actually an old Vajrayana expression.)
The poor in this country are the millions of embodiments of Eris who have been snubbed from the great festivals and parties of this society. And it is time we start crashing the gates with our Golden Apples. Why not? Why would you think that the people who bake the food and serve it have no right to enjoy more than a crumb or two?
But that's not how you see it, is it? You see the poor as a bunch of stupid hicks or dumb hill billies, or black thug menaces to your suburban milk-feeding lifestyle. You make fun of them and call them trash. You imagine that you are so much smarter or better simply because you don't know what it's like to have to wait in line for a job that gives you a meager pittance. You don't know what it's like to have to wait in a county hospital for hours for simple antibiotics only to be treated like filth for being money-less by rich college kids who are there to get birth control pills so their parents won't know about their fucking around. You don't know what it's like to either have no car, or to have a car but not be able to afford the gas. You don't know what it's like to have to wear thick sweaters in the winter while sleeping as a child because your family can't afford the heating bills. You think that all the homeless and the working poor are just that way because they don't try hard enough because you never talk to or spend time with any of them. Why should you even care?
Well, actually you don't have to care. Just remember though, when all of you are marching to the beat of your pro-corporate fascist leaders, whether Conservative or Liberal, because you have felt that the revolution would never come because Americans are too stupidly bought off....remember that there are millions of people living in the shadows. Those you have forgotten and ignored and denied and snubbed will eventually be the ones who will take power and perhaps you will remember them as you are lined up against the wall and shot. Perhaps this "revolution" will eventually bring more of the same as most tend to do. Perhaps those who are powerless will become the same sort of ignorant human beings once they get comfortable and wealthy and become the new elite, especially after the middle class take over and begin teaching the formerly poor how to go about doing things. Perhaps. But at least they will have a taste of the life many of you have enjoyed while they were denied it. Perhaps. It's a slim chance at best. And revolutions don't do much except shake up the dust for a while.
I look around and I see Christians spending more and more of their billions of dollars on making fabulous church buildings and religious schools. I see them spending billions of dollars on fighting to destroy science or in arguing over which version of the Bible is correct. I see wealthy Neo-Pagans spend more on shiny pieces of fluffy jewelry than they do on caring for the others of this planet that they supposedly respect as "sacred." I see Muslims who waste their money on supporting people who like to blow up shit. (It's pretty sad that these two religions which both have injunctions in their scriptures to help those in need actually have failed to do so for hundreds of years now. Talk about con-jobs.) I see an entire industry of social workers and caregivers who exacerbate the problems because they would be out of jobs if they actually solved the problems. I see people comfortable enough to have internet access complain and bitch and moan about their stupid trivial issues like being broke because they can't afford to buy the latest hot book release at Borders. Or complaining about not having the money to get this or that new toy. Or about no longer having the money to support a filthy smoking habit. Broke? Do you really KNOW what "broke" is?
I really can't say that I know what the overall set of solutions are. But I'll tell you one thing. We know who the snubbers are. This is fair notice upon those of you who choose to remain slaves in your ignorance. Some of you are getting your SLACK at the expense of others' right to their own SLACK. (You know? The people who you force to work hard and long without even a hope of a sliver of SLACK....not even a weekly liter of Jack Daniel's for fucksake! This is intolerable.) This is something which we will not put up with any more. Please report to your local Discordian Office to receive your target signs. Stand still and make our jobs a little easier. Just relax for now and it will all soon go away.
Why must we do this? Why do I allow myself to have a black heart of hatred that wants to burn every ounce of ignorance to ash? Do you even know what "poor" is? It is time for the free market to be liberated.
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
[Under the influence of you-know-who and Human Anatomy/Physiology studies. Human body systems usually work surprisingly well together. It's a shame actual human beings don't usually learn from this example.]
(The White Mouse is still hanging around whispering/shouting into my ears.)
October 12th, 2005
Rant 144
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