Some friends and I were sitting around after dinner, coming to the grim realization that, after a good hour-and-a-half of shooting the shit, most of the shit had been blasted to pieces and it was getting late. It happened to be that season in college when for whatever reason Marx takes all social science classes by storm, and someone mumbled a brief lament about having to wade through the Manuscripts of 1800-and-whatsit…you know, the one which makes legal briefs look like light fiction.
For whatever reason, this offhand comment prompted the formation of a whole new shit-shooting firing squad and sparked a discussion with profound ramifications for gym class, the core curriculum, and those still hoping for global revolution.
Every year, most students stagger away from Marx feeling as though he’s less readable (perhaps for different reasons) than a transcript of any presidential address delivered in, oh, I dunno, say, the last eight years. I still consider Marx the most challenging author I’ve read since arriving at Chicago; the guy’s brilliant, yes, but good lord could he have used a better editor. Yet reflecting back on that little discussion at the tail end of dinner, it seems obvious to me that a mastery of Marx is not beyond anybody; all that’s needed is a little combining of sosc class with gym class.
The best way to work towards understanding Marx is – ready? – through running. Running completely embodies the Marxist ideal by allowing people to reclaim their labor as their own. Through running a person is no longer alienated from his or her labor; on the contrary, individual and labor are united, one and the same: a person in essence becomes his or her labor. Running regularly allows one to come to a fuller understanding of Marx simply through living out his ideal. If you feel a little out of touch with your species being, strap on some jogging duds, take a few turns around the quads, and maybe you’ll bump into it along the way, turning into your own little self-contained revolution as you do.
Granted, this probably isn’t quite the solution Marx had in mind. Odds are the notion of cardiovascular exercise was more theoretical back then than any talk about dialectical materialism. Really, though, it makes perfect sense. Ask anyone who runs why they do it, and they’ll respond with some nonsensical babble about how cathartic it is, how running clears and relaxes the mind, etc. Where exactly does this fabled “runner’s high” come from though? Released endorphins? Restored chemical balance? Both explanations reek like a bull’s outhouse. No, the real reason you feel good as a result of running is because you’re as unalienated from your labor as you can get, a result probably not applicable to all physical activity. Consider a sport such as crew, which more closely resembles feudalism than anything else: you’ve got your feudal overlord cockswain lounging around in the back of the boat, barking orders at and living high off the exploited labor of a bunch of poor lowly rowing serfs. And most team sports, such as football or baseball, embody a capitalist mode of production in which labor is divided and specialization in specific tasks essential.
One of the most robust criticisms of Marx is that, despite his predictions, society has yet to be shaken by a popular revolution against the capitalist system, and a global class revolt doesn’t seem to be in the works any time soon, either. Why? Clearly because of the jogging and fitness craze which first germinated back in the 1970s and is in full bloom today. Although they may comprise a small percent of the population, I’d have to say the reason we’re all still waiting for fulfillment of that utopian promise is due to runners and joggers. No matter how dreary the day job is, they are still by and large happily united with their labor at least a few times each week. As a result, things never quite reach the boiling point necessary for a real gloves-off revolution. We could try to usher in a communist era by getting rid of running and runners completely, but that seems impractical and, well, a bit hostile. Perhaps, had he lived in a different age, Marx would have been a physical trainer or a P.E. major, and the social upheaval he envisioned would have come not from one massive thrust, but millions of individuals discovering this: run, and become your own revolution.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A Letter from Abroad (originally published May 2006)
By now, everyone’s heard about the historic personal letter recently sent from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to President Bush. Well, we here at the Factor have the next big development in this story; just yesterday, one of our correspondents intercepted another letter sent from the Iranian head of state, and in a worldwide exclusive, we present it here translated and uncut...
5/11/06
To His Most Esteemed Excellency, George Dubya:
You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? I got the Most Esteemed Excellency bit from Fox News, so I assume that’s okay. How’ve you been, my regime-toppling friend? I know, you probably rolled your eyes as soon as you saw a return address in Tehran for the second time in a week. But frankly, I’m a little distressed that you still haven’t replied to my first letter; if we’re serious about doing this pen pal thing, I can’t be the one doing all the work. So I was sitting around playing with one of these neat new enrichment centrifuges (haha kidding! I’m just using it as an office desk toy) and thought I’d send along another note, let you know what’s new back here in my incredibly oil rich country whose government I’m sure you’d like to shake up more than the CIA Iran, maybe call you out on a few more double-standard policies, remind you again that democracy has failed to solve the world’s problems, etc.
Actually, I’m not sure how much I feel like releasing another salvo of anti-American rhetoric just now; with that last letter and all these provocative announcements I have to keep making about our...err...really cool science experiment (I think we’re going to name it “The Tehran Project!” Isn’t that a nifty title?) I’m starting to get a little sick of my own voice. We’re probably all tired of hearing how sure I am that your government’s fueling anti-American hatred across the globe, that Iraq’s a bit of a mess even if I’m glad that old batshit Saddam’s out of town, and that maybe I made some vague comments about Israel not having the right to exist. Really, it’s your turn; all you did after my last letter was trot out that Condolences Rice woman and have her mutter a dismissal. You didn’t address anything I said! Didn’t you get even a little riled up? Didn’t you reflect for a moment on my point that all the money you’re spending going to war with the world and pissing everyone off could be better spent combating poverty and disease? Not that I’m a bleeding heart liberal or anything like that (far from it; you know me!). But come on! I was hoping you’d conjure your most squinty-eyed, smarmy-grinned presidential face and at least issue a rebuttal on T.V.! I’m assuming you’re replying late because you’re putting some real quality time into writing a full response that will keep me occupied between secret underground tests of...
Oops! Almost let the heavily irradiated cat out of the bag there! Where was I? Oh yes...I can’t blame you for taking time to get back to me, it does sound like you’ve been under a bit of heat. What did I read just the other day? Only 31% of your people think you’re handling your job as president well? Only 29% approve of your policy in Iraq, and only 27% like your foreign policy in general (read: don’t bomb me!)? Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly one to criticize. I’m sure my public approval ratings haven’t been great...though of course I’d never know since all our polls are rigged anyway! Seriously though Mr. Decider, just shrug it off. Whatever your American Idol-addled public may think, and despite what may have come across as a biting critique in my last letter, I personally think you’re doing okay. I really dug your style with the illegal wire-tapping (though I can’t help saying you’re way behind the curve on that one; it’s the only way we do things back here) and I’m glad to see you agree with my statement that a religious basis for government is the only basis for government. I like what you’re doing in making over that Supreme Court of yours, for example, and I’m sure if you keep at it you can get intelligent design recognized in the rule books eventually.
Still, I have to admit all this rhetoric about the U.S. coming after our quiet little Republic has me a bit nervous. I mean, don’t just decide to bomb us on a political whim, to try and rally public support and consolidate your grip on power like you did last time, yeah? I think it’s pretty clear you’ve got enough problems at home. What about that funny man, that Colbert character? Why not send some special forces chasing after him for all those jibes at your fancy dinner? I tell you, if anyone at one of my fancy dinners got up and started talking like that, he’d have a hard time flapping his tongue after the kind of rusty blade justice I’d dish out. Haha, just kidding!...sort of.
But seriously...promise me you won’t bomb us, all right? It wouldn’t be good for either of us. Didn’t your Mr. Rumsfeld just say something about how the “wrong” intelligence used to justify going to war with Iraq should make you more prudent in the future? You won’t get away with the same trick twice, believe me; intelligence doesn’t become “wrong” by falsifying and doctoring itself indefinitely, does it?
Oh! Got to go! Looks like some yellow cake urani...I mean, yellow velvet cake just arrived! Mmm...tell you what, promise not to bomb us and I’ll send you a slice!
Your Pal,
M. A.
5/11/06
To His Most Esteemed Excellency, George Dubya:
You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? I got the Most Esteemed Excellency bit from Fox News, so I assume that’s okay. How’ve you been, my regime-toppling friend? I know, you probably rolled your eyes as soon as you saw a return address in Tehran for the second time in a week. But frankly, I’m a little distressed that you still haven’t replied to my first letter; if we’re serious about doing this pen pal thing, I can’t be the one doing all the work. So I was sitting around playing with one of these neat new enrichment centrifuges (haha kidding! I’m just using it as an office desk toy) and thought I’d send along another note, let you know what’s new back here in my incredibly oil rich country whose government I’m sure you’d like to shake up more than the CIA Iran, maybe call you out on a few more double-standard policies, remind you again that democracy has failed to solve the world’s problems, etc.
Actually, I’m not sure how much I feel like releasing another salvo of anti-American rhetoric just now; with that last letter and all these provocative announcements I have to keep making about our...err...really cool science experiment (I think we’re going to name it “The Tehran Project!” Isn’t that a nifty title?) I’m starting to get a little sick of my own voice. We’re probably all tired of hearing how sure I am that your government’s fueling anti-American hatred across the globe, that Iraq’s a bit of a mess even if I’m glad that old batshit Saddam’s out of town, and that maybe I made some vague comments about Israel not having the right to exist. Really, it’s your turn; all you did after my last letter was trot out that Condolences Rice woman and have her mutter a dismissal. You didn’t address anything I said! Didn’t you get even a little riled up? Didn’t you reflect for a moment on my point that all the money you’re spending going to war with the world and pissing everyone off could be better spent combating poverty and disease? Not that I’m a bleeding heart liberal or anything like that (far from it; you know me!). But come on! I was hoping you’d conjure your most squinty-eyed, smarmy-grinned presidential face and at least issue a rebuttal on T.V.! I’m assuming you’re replying late because you’re putting some real quality time into writing a full response that will keep me occupied between secret underground tests of...
Oops! Almost let the heavily irradiated cat out of the bag there! Where was I? Oh yes...I can’t blame you for taking time to get back to me, it does sound like you’ve been under a bit of heat. What did I read just the other day? Only 31% of your people think you’re handling your job as president well? Only 29% approve of your policy in Iraq, and only 27% like your foreign policy in general (read: don’t bomb me!)? Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly one to criticize. I’m sure my public approval ratings haven’t been great...though of course I’d never know since all our polls are rigged anyway! Seriously though Mr. Decider, just shrug it off. Whatever your American Idol-addled public may think, and despite what may have come across as a biting critique in my last letter, I personally think you’re doing okay. I really dug your style with the illegal wire-tapping (though I can’t help saying you’re way behind the curve on that one; it’s the only way we do things back here) and I’m glad to see you agree with my statement that a religious basis for government is the only basis for government. I like what you’re doing in making over that Supreme Court of yours, for example, and I’m sure if you keep at it you can get intelligent design recognized in the rule books eventually.
Still, I have to admit all this rhetoric about the U.S. coming after our quiet little Republic has me a bit nervous. I mean, don’t just decide to bomb us on a political whim, to try and rally public support and consolidate your grip on power like you did last time, yeah? I think it’s pretty clear you’ve got enough problems at home. What about that funny man, that Colbert character? Why not send some special forces chasing after him for all those jibes at your fancy dinner? I tell you, if anyone at one of my fancy dinners got up and started talking like that, he’d have a hard time flapping his tongue after the kind of rusty blade justice I’d dish out. Haha, just kidding!...sort of.
But seriously...promise me you won’t bomb us, all right? It wouldn’t be good for either of us. Didn’t your Mr. Rumsfeld just say something about how the “wrong” intelligence used to justify going to war with Iraq should make you more prudent in the future? You won’t get away with the same trick twice, believe me; intelligence doesn’t become “wrong” by falsifying and doctoring itself indefinitely, does it?
Oh! Got to go! Looks like some yellow cake urani...I mean, yellow velvet cake just arrived! Mmm...tell you what, promise not to bomb us and I’ll send you a slice!
Your Pal,
M. A.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Sinister Addiction (originally published February 2006)
From our primeval ancestors’ first ruminative munching on cacao leaves to the latest cocktails of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, people have for millennia been subject to an ever-expanding set of psychological and chemical addictions. In fact, the range of addictions on campus is almost as diverse as the student body itself. There are the usual suspects of caffeine, Adderall, and Dance Dance “My-Goodness-You-Look-Ridiculous” Revolution (a sad truth that makes fiction look like a suburban nine-to-fiver who drives a minivan to pick the kids up from soccer practice every afternoon).
Yet one source of addiction seems to be shared by the overwhelming majority of the student body. We indulge it automatically every 5-10 minutes. Regardless of whether there’s anything else we really ought to be doing, feeding this addiction comes first. In fact, I’ve done it about six times since starting this column.
I am, of course, talking about addiction to email.
It first occurred to me that I was heavily addicted to checking my email during my second year of college, when I mysteriously collapsed in the library and had to be given an adrenaline shot as I started foaming at the mouth. Although the collapse itself was actually triggered when I accidentally ate some peanuts (and not, as might understandably be supposed, for lack of having checked my email within half-an-hour) as I tried to piece together the episode afterwards, I realized that I had indeed clicked back to webmail every time I finished a sentence in my paper.
Casual observation reveals that such email obsession pervades campuses and workplaces across the country. My friends used to complain constantly about getting pounding headaches when an internet kiosk is not in sight, and it’s common knowledge that writing a college paper simply isn’t possible without a handy internet window at the ready.
Nor is the scope of this mass-addiction confined to mere email checking. Email just happens to be the most common manifestation of a far more insidious infatuation with cyberspace in general. Stroll around any floor of the library, casually glance at what people are doing on their computers, and you will find that not more than one in twenty will actually be accomplishing anything. The rest will be playing online poker, watching clips from the previous night’s Daily Show, or reading about utterly useless crap, like ducks with 17-inch penises (for the shamelessly curious: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1023_corkscrewduck.html)
And it’s not just us students who live life wandering from screen to screen in a junkie trance. This need to incessantly suckle at the great Cyber Teat afflicts all of society. Some gadget featuring a new method of connecting to i-land gets released daily: cell phones that do email and check stock quotes, wi-fi implants for your eyes that enable you to pull down a browser window every time you blink. People are obsessed with being connected and plugged in 24-7.
As I pondered this mass migration to the farthest shores of the internet, I began to wonder at its source, and came to an immediately obvious conclusion. This flocking to cyberspace is not a rush towards something so much as it is an escape from something: a flight from reality.
Let’s face it: ever since Adam said to Eve, “Damn, that’s a tasty apple!” and subsequently got ejected from Chateau God to scratch at the dusty ground, things have gone downhill. Reality is harsh: the real world is where catastrophe and war cuddle up to create havoc-wreaking bastard children. Confronted with a world like this, it’s hardly surprising that the moment an alternate reality presents itself in the form of the internet, everyone’s going to crowd in. Cyberspace is vast, soothing, and offers an almost cosmic global connection unavailable anywhere else. Think how amazingly nice it is to pause while grinding out a report or running some numbers, check your email, and see a shiny new little personal-message icon. It’s like getting a present!…even if it does just turn out to be from spamson@hotmail.com and they’re trying to sell you Viagra alternatives (Spamson, if you’re reading this, for the last time I don’t want any of your damn MiraRect).
Philosophers and religious leaders from Plato to the Buddha have for millennia contemplated the illusory nature of the material world we inhabit, positing that we live behind an impenetrable veil barring us from true reality. I’m too busy bouncing between this and Olympic coverage at ESPN.com to think about it very hard, but there seems to be a strange irony in the fact that we are now, as a society, creating an illusion to supplant an illusion, adding a new layer to the curtain. To reference one of those “in” philosophers from Sosc, the world of the internet provides a beautiful, ordered, Apollonian illusion to mask the horrors of Dionysian reality. Can it be the reality we know has grown so horrible that we’re gradually substituting the world of cyberspace for it? For in some ways, cyberspace has become at least as real as the material world. Stories keep popping up about people in online mega-games who pay thousands of very real dollars for characters or in-game real estate. Frequently, the facelessness of AIM or email leads people to express themselves more honestly or openly.
Even our leaders are not immune to this flight from reality. Scientists studying climate change at NASA have accused the Bush administration of suppressing their results and forced them to keep quiet about unpleasant or distressing findings that might rock the boat. And questions continue to arise regarding the possible doctoring of pre-war intelligence to help manipulate public support for a war effort. From our nation’s leaders to students slaving away in the Reg’s all-night study space, reality does not get confronted and fixed when it sucks. Rather, we turn, flee, and take refuge in a constructed, soothing realm that substitutes illusion for truth.
Which is fine by me. As long as I’ve got my email, I’ll eat up any Benevolent Big Brotherly Lie that comes my way.
Yet one source of addiction seems to be shared by the overwhelming majority of the student body. We indulge it automatically every 5-10 minutes. Regardless of whether there’s anything else we really ought to be doing, feeding this addiction comes first. In fact, I’ve done it about six times since starting this column.
I am, of course, talking about addiction to email.
It first occurred to me that I was heavily addicted to checking my email during my second year of college, when I mysteriously collapsed in the library and had to be given an adrenaline shot as I started foaming at the mouth. Although the collapse itself was actually triggered when I accidentally ate some peanuts (and not, as might understandably be supposed, for lack of having checked my email within half-an-hour) as I tried to piece together the episode afterwards, I realized that I had indeed clicked back to webmail every time I finished a sentence in my paper.
Casual observation reveals that such email obsession pervades campuses and workplaces across the country. My friends used to complain constantly about getting pounding headaches when an internet kiosk is not in sight, and it’s common knowledge that writing a college paper simply isn’t possible without a handy internet window at the ready.
Nor is the scope of this mass-addiction confined to mere email checking. Email just happens to be the most common manifestation of a far more insidious infatuation with cyberspace in general. Stroll around any floor of the library, casually glance at what people are doing on their computers, and you will find that not more than one in twenty will actually be accomplishing anything. The rest will be playing online poker, watching clips from the previous night’s Daily Show, or reading about utterly useless crap, like ducks with 17-inch penises (for the shamelessly curious: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1023_corkscrewduck.html)
And it’s not just us students who live life wandering from screen to screen in a junkie trance. This need to incessantly suckle at the great Cyber Teat afflicts all of society. Some gadget featuring a new method of connecting to i-land gets released daily: cell phones that do email and check stock quotes, wi-fi implants for your eyes that enable you to pull down a browser window every time you blink. People are obsessed with being connected and plugged in 24-7.
As I pondered this mass migration to the farthest shores of the internet, I began to wonder at its source, and came to an immediately obvious conclusion. This flocking to cyberspace is not a rush towards something so much as it is an escape from something: a flight from reality.
Let’s face it: ever since Adam said to Eve, “Damn, that’s a tasty apple!” and subsequently got ejected from Chateau God to scratch at the dusty ground, things have gone downhill. Reality is harsh: the real world is where catastrophe and war cuddle up to create havoc-wreaking bastard children. Confronted with a world like this, it’s hardly surprising that the moment an alternate reality presents itself in the form of the internet, everyone’s going to crowd in. Cyberspace is vast, soothing, and offers an almost cosmic global connection unavailable anywhere else. Think how amazingly nice it is to pause while grinding out a report or running some numbers, check your email, and see a shiny new little personal-message icon. It’s like getting a present!…even if it does just turn out to be from spamson@hotmail.com and they’re trying to sell you Viagra alternatives (Spamson, if you’re reading this, for the last time I don’t want any of your damn MiraRect).
Philosophers and religious leaders from Plato to the Buddha have for millennia contemplated the illusory nature of the material world we inhabit, positing that we live behind an impenetrable veil barring us from true reality. I’m too busy bouncing between this and Olympic coverage at ESPN.com to think about it very hard, but there seems to be a strange irony in the fact that we are now, as a society, creating an illusion to supplant an illusion, adding a new layer to the curtain. To reference one of those “in” philosophers from Sosc, the world of the internet provides a beautiful, ordered, Apollonian illusion to mask the horrors of Dionysian reality. Can it be the reality we know has grown so horrible that we’re gradually substituting the world of cyberspace for it? For in some ways, cyberspace has become at least as real as the material world. Stories keep popping up about people in online mega-games who pay thousands of very real dollars for characters or in-game real estate. Frequently, the facelessness of AIM or email leads people to express themselves more honestly or openly.
Even our leaders are not immune to this flight from reality. Scientists studying climate change at NASA have accused the Bush administration of suppressing their results and forced them to keep quiet about unpleasant or distressing findings that might rock the boat. And questions continue to arise regarding the possible doctoring of pre-war intelligence to help manipulate public support for a war effort. From our nation’s leaders to students slaving away in the Reg’s all-night study space, reality does not get confronted and fixed when it sucks. Rather, we turn, flee, and take refuge in a constructed, soothing realm that substitutes illusion for truth.
Which is fine by me. As long as I’ve got my email, I’ll eat up any Benevolent Big Brotherly Lie that comes my way.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
O'Smiley on the Real War (originally published January 2006)
Despite the peaceful spirit of love and joy allegedly pervading the recent holiday season, the final weeks of 2005 shall be forever marked in the history books by the scourge of war, a period of celebration punctuated by chaos and anguish. As anyone skimming the cable news channels or the pages of the odd newspaper must inevitably have detected, this was by all accounts the most violent Christmas season on record. Never has the month of December seen such turmoil.
According to some radical lefty-loosy media outlets, something was apparently still going on in Iraq as well, but let’s be serious: whatever’s going down in the Middle East is mere child’s play compared to the storm assailing us here in the good ol’ USA. Sure, the “war on terror” is important. But the stage with the real drama this past month was centered right here in North America, and the story was the War on Christmas.
Many of you understandably question the wisdom of going to war with Christmas, especially when our country is already beset on so many other fronts by a host of shadowy and pernicious enemies intent on destroying the homeland. I’m here to tell you I understand that war is hard work. Killing things just ain’t easy. But I’m also here to tell you that this war with Christmas is a war vital to national security. I realize the pain caused by watching your favorite season become mired in strife and warfare. Yet these difficult times require national sacrifice. We must stay the course in the War on Christmas if we are ever to achieve global stability and peace.
Quite simply, the time for an assault on Christmas – and a subsequent move towards establishing democracy in this holiday too long held in the cold grip of a vicious commie tyrant – is now. Christmas shelters the most freedom-stifling elements of communist totalitarian dictatorship and promotes undemocratic values. Therefore, in the interest of security here at home, Christmas regime change is absolutely essential. What could be more contrary to the spirit of American democracy than a holiday during which a fat man stuffs himself into a red suit, arbitrarily decides who’s “naughty” or “nice,” then distributes rewards and favors according to his own tyrannical whims? What, indeed, do “naughtiness” or “niceness” entail? It is for the people, not some overfed despot who probably dyes his clothes with baby polar bear blood, to determine what criteria comprise such abstract ideas, and it is for the people to exercise their natural right to free speech and to construct, from a plurality of voices, a legitimate meaning for these terms. Christmas needs a new, democratically derived constitution of naughty-niceness approved by and serving the people. The War on Christmas offers a rare and powerful opportunity for America to spread the light of freedom to yet another corner of the globe and usher in a new democratic era. Yet this can only occur if we are willing to assume the hard work of regime change and stay the course.
I know many have suffered, and yes, many young Americans have paid dearly in this noble struggle. Even now thousands of our troops remain stationed in the inhospitable Arctic Circle, suffering guerilla elf attacks, suicide sleighers, and one of the harshest environments on the globe in the effort to democratize Christmas. The fight has even been taken all the way to the heart of Christmas, the North Pole – or as I prefer to call it, the Axis of Global Revolution. The enemy, I am happy to say, has paid dearly thanks to the sacrifice of our troops: the blood of thousands of the Red Giant’s elf zealots now stains the great fields of arctic ice.
Some vocal critics of the War on Christmas denounce it as a shameless attempt to appropriate the vast wealth of arctic oil sitting beneath Santa’s blubbery backside and thus satiate the greedy appetites of American mega-corporations. I assure you that no such base economic motives exist for our going to war with Christmas. Indeed, the Northern Tyrant’s own close ties to the less savory elements of the fossil fuel industry provide yet another cause for outrage and a global outcry demanding justice. It is well documented that he has long worked alongside the coal giants in meting out his punishments, providing them a steady black market for coal lump fuel. Needless to say, such lumps of coal could, theoretically, be used in the construction of “stocking stuffer” weapons of mass finger-wagging – very dirty bombs indeed.
Even though Christmas comes but once a year, we will continue to wage this war for as long as necessary. To give in now would be to leave the future in despotic darkness. To set a timetable for withdrawal from the arctic would only allow our enemies the information they need to begin plotting further acts of holiday atrocity. Though the end may be far off, rest assured that we are working tirelessly to support our troops and keep morale high. Last month we distributed, as holiday gifts, packs of specially made playing cards featuring the faces of all eight reindeer generals, allowing troops to relax while memorizing the cruel countenances of Rudolph the Red Nosed, Herr Blitz(krieg)en, and their cohorts.
The path to freedom is long, but we must stay the course. Christmas will be democratized. And the hard work won’t stop there, folks; other holidays threaten liberty even now. Easter, for example. Now there’s a holiday in desperate need of regime change, what with that damn anarchic bunny running around hiding everyone’s eggs…
According to some radical lefty-loosy media outlets, something was apparently still going on in Iraq as well, but let’s be serious: whatever’s going down in the Middle East is mere child’s play compared to the storm assailing us here in the good ol’ USA. Sure, the “war on terror” is important. But the stage with the real drama this past month was centered right here in North America, and the story was the War on Christmas.
Many of you understandably question the wisdom of going to war with Christmas, especially when our country is already beset on so many other fronts by a host of shadowy and pernicious enemies intent on destroying the homeland. I’m here to tell you I understand that war is hard work. Killing things just ain’t easy. But I’m also here to tell you that this war with Christmas is a war vital to national security. I realize the pain caused by watching your favorite season become mired in strife and warfare. Yet these difficult times require national sacrifice. We must stay the course in the War on Christmas if we are ever to achieve global stability and peace.
Quite simply, the time for an assault on Christmas – and a subsequent move towards establishing democracy in this holiday too long held in the cold grip of a vicious commie tyrant – is now. Christmas shelters the most freedom-stifling elements of communist totalitarian dictatorship and promotes undemocratic values. Therefore, in the interest of security here at home, Christmas regime change is absolutely essential. What could be more contrary to the spirit of American democracy than a holiday during which a fat man stuffs himself into a red suit, arbitrarily decides who’s “naughty” or “nice,” then distributes rewards and favors according to his own tyrannical whims? What, indeed, do “naughtiness” or “niceness” entail? It is for the people, not some overfed despot who probably dyes his clothes with baby polar bear blood, to determine what criteria comprise such abstract ideas, and it is for the people to exercise their natural right to free speech and to construct, from a plurality of voices, a legitimate meaning for these terms. Christmas needs a new, democratically derived constitution of naughty-niceness approved by and serving the people. The War on Christmas offers a rare and powerful opportunity for America to spread the light of freedom to yet another corner of the globe and usher in a new democratic era. Yet this can only occur if we are willing to assume the hard work of regime change and stay the course.
I know many have suffered, and yes, many young Americans have paid dearly in this noble struggle. Even now thousands of our troops remain stationed in the inhospitable Arctic Circle, suffering guerilla elf attacks, suicide sleighers, and one of the harshest environments on the globe in the effort to democratize Christmas. The fight has even been taken all the way to the heart of Christmas, the North Pole – or as I prefer to call it, the Axis of Global Revolution. The enemy, I am happy to say, has paid dearly thanks to the sacrifice of our troops: the blood of thousands of the Red Giant’s elf zealots now stains the great fields of arctic ice.
Some vocal critics of the War on Christmas denounce it as a shameless attempt to appropriate the vast wealth of arctic oil sitting beneath Santa’s blubbery backside and thus satiate the greedy appetites of American mega-corporations. I assure you that no such base economic motives exist for our going to war with Christmas. Indeed, the Northern Tyrant’s own close ties to the less savory elements of the fossil fuel industry provide yet another cause for outrage and a global outcry demanding justice. It is well documented that he has long worked alongside the coal giants in meting out his punishments, providing them a steady black market for coal lump fuel. Needless to say, such lumps of coal could, theoretically, be used in the construction of “stocking stuffer” weapons of mass finger-wagging – very dirty bombs indeed.
Even though Christmas comes but once a year, we will continue to wage this war for as long as necessary. To give in now would be to leave the future in despotic darkness. To set a timetable for withdrawal from the arctic would only allow our enemies the information they need to begin plotting further acts of holiday atrocity. Though the end may be far off, rest assured that we are working tirelessly to support our troops and keep morale high. Last month we distributed, as holiday gifts, packs of specially made playing cards featuring the faces of all eight reindeer generals, allowing troops to relax while memorizing the cruel countenances of Rudolph the Red Nosed, Herr Blitz(krieg)en, and their cohorts.
The path to freedom is long, but we must stay the course. Christmas will be democratized. And the hard work won’t stop there, folks; other holidays threaten liberty even now. Easter, for example. Now there’s a holiday in desperate need of regime change, what with that damn anarchic bunny running around hiding everyone’s eggs…
O'Smiley v. Gravity (originally published May 2006)
Since it first emerged as a proclaimed environmental threat in 1989, global warming has become one of the most contentious and hotly debated scientific theories of the modern age. Yet for all its headline-grabbing controversy, climate change is hardly the first or even the most insidious hoax of its kind. If anything, it has been kept alive in the public sphere to perpetuate taxpayer ignorance of a far more overwhelming, trumped-up, ravenous-baby-eating-liberal pseudo-science scare.
Policymakers and economists have repeatedly denounced the Kyoto Protocol, the first international global warming emissions reductions treaty, as too costly; indeed, the U.S. refused to sign on, citing the unwarranted devastation it would wreak on our economy. But no one batted an eyelid when, in the late 1990s, the National Science Foundation quietly went about the construction of two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories, under the project name LIGO. The New York Times reported last year that each of these observatories – allegedly designed to detect gravitational “ripples” generated by cosmic events that “shake the fabric of the universe” – cost almost $300 million to build and a whopping $30 million a year to run.
To repeat: hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to investigate invisible forces allegedly sending a breeze through the cosmic curtain. “Ripples?” “Fabric of the universe?” It’s like spending taxpayer dollars to investigate how exactly Yoda levitates inanimate objects. Such exorbitant expenditures represent the outcome of a tragic politicization of science, merely marking the latest episode in the history of one of the most enduring scientific scare-mongering theories ever perpetrated.
Forget about global warming. The theory of gravity is far more insidious, resting on egregiously flawed, politicized science, insufficient evidence, and a fraudulent consensus.
No one disputes that things tend to fall to the ground – much like, in the global warming debate, everyone agrees that a natural greenhouse effect exists. What may come as a surprise is that scientists do not in fact unanimously agree that things fall due to gravity, a conveniently invisible, unquantifiable, and altogether mysterious force. Correlation does not imply causation, and many have a difficult time attributing the so-called Fall-Down Effect to an undetectable force. The simple truth is, the evidence behind the “gravity consensus” is neither robust nor sufficient; even its staunchest advocates admit that uncertainty will always linger and “gravity” can never be proved. More research is needed before discussion can be concluded or radical LIGO-esque policy implemented.
Yet proponents of gravity are not prepared to let that discussion advance. Despite the fact that there exist plenty of other sound hypotheses attempting to explain why things fall down, competing theories get swept under the rug and excluded by the conspiratorial peer-review process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Gravity Conspiracy (IPGC). The sinister history of the IPGC goes back to 1672, the same year Sir Isaac Newton – the renowned British scientist widely acknowledged as the father of gravity theory – was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in England not primarily for his scientific contributions, but for donating a telescope, in one of the most transparent and shamelessly corrupt examples of politicized science history has to offer.
Unfortunately, it is a most suitable beginning for a theory that has gone on to become one of the longest-running social scares of all time. Since its inception, the IPGC – composed of thousands of scientists from around the globe who allegedly represent the unbiased “consensus” on gravity – has used the theory of gravity to keep people the world over in a state of constant fear of falling to the ground. Even where people have learned to take courage and go about their daily lives without cowering in the shadow of the gravity scare, flawed research has been used to inflate fears that gravitational attraction might cause an asteroid or other celestial object to collide with the Earth (some have proposed that such an event wiped out the dinosaurs, an obviously ridiculous claim given the fact that dinosaur bones, even if they weren’t placed in the earth by Satan in order to fool people into believing the earth is older than its roughly six thousand years, are clearly the remains of creatures drowned in the Old Testament flood). Through manipulating this fear and working with policymakers to exploit the public, scientists have appropriated countless millions to purportedly investigate this non-existent problem and forward their insidious agenda of social control. LIGO merely represents the latest product of this corrupt system.
In such an environment, it is hardly surprising that the politicized, pseudo-scientific consensus behind the wave theory of gravity has struggled to keep the public largely unaware of competing theories explaining fall-down. But such theories do, in fact, exist, even if they have been shunted out of sight (not least due to media coverage that never questions the underlying assumptions behind this flawed theory or devotes equal time to its critics). Methodist preacher Alexander Wilford Hall proposed an intriguing alternative to gravity called “substantialism.” The theory argues that “gravity” and all other forces are actually substances, composed of particles smaller than the atoms comprising normal objects. Other theorists have speculated that objects, both organic and inorganic, are all made up of the same set of conscious, sub-atomic cells, and that universal laws of attraction can be explained by these cells desperately seeking out their personal twin cell-mate in every other object.
Before we can properly direct our attention to the pseudo-science behind the baseless scare of climate change, we should first address the far vaster and more profound liberal scientific conspiracy at work in discussions of gravity. The debate is far from over, but we must move quickly to address this issue before LIGO and similar initiatives needlessly drain our resources to the point that society itself falls down.
Policymakers and economists have repeatedly denounced the Kyoto Protocol, the first international global warming emissions reductions treaty, as too costly; indeed, the U.S. refused to sign on, citing the unwarranted devastation it would wreak on our economy. But no one batted an eyelid when, in the late 1990s, the National Science Foundation quietly went about the construction of two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories, under the project name LIGO. The New York Times reported last year that each of these observatories – allegedly designed to detect gravitational “ripples” generated by cosmic events that “shake the fabric of the universe” – cost almost $300 million to build and a whopping $30 million a year to run.
To repeat: hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to investigate invisible forces allegedly sending a breeze through the cosmic curtain. “Ripples?” “Fabric of the universe?” It’s like spending taxpayer dollars to investigate how exactly Yoda levitates inanimate objects. Such exorbitant expenditures represent the outcome of a tragic politicization of science, merely marking the latest episode in the history of one of the most enduring scientific scare-mongering theories ever perpetrated.
Forget about global warming. The theory of gravity is far more insidious, resting on egregiously flawed, politicized science, insufficient evidence, and a fraudulent consensus.
No one disputes that things tend to fall to the ground – much like, in the global warming debate, everyone agrees that a natural greenhouse effect exists. What may come as a surprise is that scientists do not in fact unanimously agree that things fall due to gravity, a conveniently invisible, unquantifiable, and altogether mysterious force. Correlation does not imply causation, and many have a difficult time attributing the so-called Fall-Down Effect to an undetectable force. The simple truth is, the evidence behind the “gravity consensus” is neither robust nor sufficient; even its staunchest advocates admit that uncertainty will always linger and “gravity” can never be proved. More research is needed before discussion can be concluded or radical LIGO-esque policy implemented.
Yet proponents of gravity are not prepared to let that discussion advance. Despite the fact that there exist plenty of other sound hypotheses attempting to explain why things fall down, competing theories get swept under the rug and excluded by the conspiratorial peer-review process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Gravity Conspiracy (IPGC). The sinister history of the IPGC goes back to 1672, the same year Sir Isaac Newton – the renowned British scientist widely acknowledged as the father of gravity theory – was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in England not primarily for his scientific contributions, but for donating a telescope, in one of the most transparent and shamelessly corrupt examples of politicized science history has to offer.
Unfortunately, it is a most suitable beginning for a theory that has gone on to become one of the longest-running social scares of all time. Since its inception, the IPGC – composed of thousands of scientists from around the globe who allegedly represent the unbiased “consensus” on gravity – has used the theory of gravity to keep people the world over in a state of constant fear of falling to the ground. Even where people have learned to take courage and go about their daily lives without cowering in the shadow of the gravity scare, flawed research has been used to inflate fears that gravitational attraction might cause an asteroid or other celestial object to collide with the Earth (some have proposed that such an event wiped out the dinosaurs, an obviously ridiculous claim given the fact that dinosaur bones, even if they weren’t placed in the earth by Satan in order to fool people into believing the earth is older than its roughly six thousand years, are clearly the remains of creatures drowned in the Old Testament flood). Through manipulating this fear and working with policymakers to exploit the public, scientists have appropriated countless millions to purportedly investigate this non-existent problem and forward their insidious agenda of social control. LIGO merely represents the latest product of this corrupt system.
In such an environment, it is hardly surprising that the politicized, pseudo-scientific consensus behind the wave theory of gravity has struggled to keep the public largely unaware of competing theories explaining fall-down. But such theories do, in fact, exist, even if they have been shunted out of sight (not least due to media coverage that never questions the underlying assumptions behind this flawed theory or devotes equal time to its critics). Methodist preacher Alexander Wilford Hall proposed an intriguing alternative to gravity called “substantialism.” The theory argues that “gravity” and all other forces are actually substances, composed of particles smaller than the atoms comprising normal objects. Other theorists have speculated that objects, both organic and inorganic, are all made up of the same set of conscious, sub-atomic cells, and that universal laws of attraction can be explained by these cells desperately seeking out their personal twin cell-mate in every other object.
Before we can properly direct our attention to the pseudo-science behind the baseless scare of climate change, we should first address the far vaster and more profound liberal scientific conspiracy at work in discussions of gravity. The debate is far from over, but we must move quickly to address this issue before LIGO and similar initiatives needlessly drain our resources to the point that society itself falls down.
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