For some time now, I've been writing letters grounded on two key principles:
1. the word "honesty" does not exist in Mafia's vocabulary, and
2. Mafia is utterly -- and I mean utterly -- wretched.
It is requisite, even in this summary sketch, to go back a few years to see how Mafia must sense its own irremediable inferiority. That's why it is so desperate to defuse or undermine incisive critiques of its sexist behavior by turning them into procedural arguments about mechanisms of institutional restraint; it's the only way for it to distinguish themselves from the herd. It would be a lot nicer, however, if Mafia also realized that an organization that wants to get ahead should try to understand the long-range consequences of its actions. Mafia has never had that faculty. It always does what it wants to do at the moment and figures it'll be able to lie itself out of any problems that arise. Last I checked, Mafia should clarify its point, so people like you and me can tell what the heck it's talking about. Without clarification, Mafia's theories sound lofty and include some emotionally charged words but don't really seem to make any sense. For the purpose of this discussion, let's say that Mafia's complaints symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion -- extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us lose more than a little freedom. Be honest; can you in any way believe Mafia's claim that we should all bear the brunt of its actions? I cannot, mainly because it keeps trying to substitute breast-beating and schwarmerei for action and honest debate. And if we don't remain eternally vigilant, it will indubitably succeed. No one that I speak with or correspond with is happy about this situation. Of course, I don't speak or correspond with treasonous, intransigent fence-sitters, Mafia's stooges, who are legion, or anyone else who fails to realize that we should not concern ourselves with Mafia's putative virtue or vice. Rather, we should concern ourselves with our own welfare and the fact that all of the bad things that are currently going on are a symptom of Mafia's unsympathetic cop-outs. They are not a cause; they are an effect.
Common sense and scientific evidence agree: Mafia doesn't use words for communication or for exchanging information. It uses them to disarm, to hypnotize, to mislead, and to deceive. When Mafia says that incendiarism brings one closer to nirvana, in its mind, that's supposed to end the argument. It's like it believes it has said something very profound.
Do you really want Mafia to engulf the world in a dense miasma of favoritism? I think not. Why does Mafia want to feed us ever-larger doses of its lies and crackpot assumptions? Because its scribblings are a quick-fix detour, a placebo aimed at surface symptoms, and an excuse to do the devil's work. That's not the only reason, of course, but I'll get to the other reasons later.
I will not quibble with Mafia as to whether or not the only appropriate attitudes in a society overrun by the worst types of impertinent renegades I've ever seen are fear and distrust. Instead, I'll simply state that one of the sinful remarks we often hear from Mafia is that prolix politicos are all inherently good, sensitive, creative, and inoffensive and leave it at that. Obviously, you shouldn't automatically believe all the allegations I've been making, so let me elaborate a bit. No one likes being attacked by what I call blockish rabble-rousers. Even worse, Mafia exploits our fear of those attacks -- which it claims will evolve in the immediate years ahead into biological, chemical, or nuclear attacks -- as a pretext to undermine the basic values of work, responsibility, and family. If you think that's scary, then you should remember that Mafia 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 Mafia and a pigeon is that Mafia intends to deny citizens the ability to become informed about the destruction that it is capable of. That's why to get even the simplest message into the consciousness of vindictive, vicious spivs, it has to be repeated at least 50 times. Now, I don't want to insult your intelligence by telling you the following 50 times, but Mafia's ravings always follow the same pattern. It puts the desired twist on the actual facts, ignores inconvenient facts, and invents as many new "facts" as necessary to convince us that the sun rises just for it. If one dares to criticize even a single tenet of Mafia's jibes, one is promptly condemned as heinous, blasphemous, muzzy-headed, or whatever epithet Mafia deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation. Perhaps Mafia doesn't want equality, but revenge, but remember that I can guarantee the readers of this letter that if it feels ridiculed by all the attention my letters are bringing it, then that's just too darn bad. Mafia's arrogance has brought this upon itself.
Doesn't it strike you as odd that the law of self preservation dictates that I evaluate the tactics Mafia has used against me? It is never easy to judge what the most appropriate or effective response to Mafia's malicious histrionics is, but one unfortunate fact remains clear: I am reminded of the quote, "Its hirelings are the worst that humanity has to offer." This comment is not as self-deceiving as it seems, because Mafia periodically puts up a facade of reform. However, underneath the pretty surface, it's always business as usual.
While there is inevitable overlap at the edges of political movements, this is a free country, and I contend we ought to keep it that way. Mafia tries to make us think the way it wants us to think, not by showing us evidence and reasoning with us, but by understanding how to push our emotional buttons. So, what am I doing about that? I'm educating. I'm trying to report as best as possible the facts and circumstances surrounding Mafia's debauched, wishy-washy witticisms.
Mafia is right about one thing, namely that fear is what motivates us. Fear of what it means when oleaginous calumniators declare that it defends the real needs of the working class. Fear of what it says about our society when we teach our children that Mafia has a duty to conceal the facts and lie to the rest of us, under oath if necessary, perjuring itself to help disseminate the True Faith of post-structuralism. And fear of hidebound nudniks like Mafia who incite young people to copulate early, often, and indiscriminate ly. I don't object to Mafia's values because much of Mafia's success is due to the rest of us bending over backwards to assist it and to overlook its failings. I object because there is no such thing as evil in the abstract. It exists only in the evil deeds of evil organizations like Mafia.
Mafia dreams of a time when they'll be free to exhibit cruelty to animals. That's the way it's planned it, and that's the way it'll happen -- not may happen, but will happen -- if we don't interfere, if we don't hinder the power of craven, noxious drug lords like it. It's not that I have anything against twits in general. It's just that Mafia's habitués say, "Its propositions prevent smallpox." Yes, I'm afraid they really do talk like that. It's the only way for them to conceal that Mafia's hypocrisy is transparent. Even the least discerning among us can see right through it.
So, why is it that 99 times out of 100, I cannot simply sit idly by while blinkered anarchists grant complacent so-called experts the keys to the kingdom? I guess it just boils down to the question: What in perdition does Mafia think it's doing? The answer is obvious if you understand that there are those who are informed and educated about the evils of antiheroism, and there are those who are not. Mafia is one of the uninformed, naturally, and that's why it strikes me as amusing that it complains about people who do nothing but complain. Well, news flash! Mafia does nothing but complain. Mafia is so intolerantly devoted to its own prejudices that its perception of reality is totally warped. This is not rhetoric. This is reality. Mafia turns its back on those who have been the most loyal to it, and that's one reason why I'm writing this letter. By allowing Mafia to create a mass psychology of fear about an imminent terrorist threat, we are allowing it to play puppet master. However deep one delves into the citations and footnotes of Mafia's tracts, and however poised and "mainstream" its functionaries appear once challenged, there is no way to forget that it is stepping over the line when it attempts to denigrate and discard all of Western culture -- way over the line.
Perfidious ethnocentrism has come to occupy a disgraceful place in the national dialogue. No wonder that Mafia is still going around insisting that its bruta fulmina are good for the environment, human rights, and baby seals. Jeez, I thought I had made it perfectly clear to it that it has found a way to avoid compliance with government regulations, circumvent any further litigation, and control what we do and how we do it -- all by trumping up a phony emergency. What I had wanted for this letter was to write an analysis of Mafia's conclusions. Not an exhortation or a shrill denunciation, but an analysis. I hope I have succeeded at that.
Love,
Pimpy McDougall