Dogs
Under Glass
By Adam Engel
02 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Don’t
be too surprised to meet a violent death within the next few decades.
Just because the concentration camps in America aren’t “active”
yet doesn’t mean ‘we’ aren’t Nazis. Take Iraq,
for instance. If we forget about the dubious ideas of “Nations”
and “Clashing Idea Sets” we might see the Iraqis as…uh…HUMAN
BEINGS. In which case Iraq has been one giant concentration camp since
1991. Think of it as a “test run” for Homeland Security.
After all, THEY know when you are sleeping, THEY know when you’re
awake…
For instance, some folks
say the NSA has a SUPER-MAGIC MOJO VACUUM that can suck all the data
outta all the software of the world, suck the rhythm from our loins,
suck the oldest, dampest long-forgottenest, memories of Mommy from our
numb cerebrums.
All together now, in unison:
PISS OFF, NSA!
What are we supposed to do?
Beg, plead, humiliate ourselves yet further?
“Kiss the flag, kiss
it, tastes good that REDWHITEandBLUE, don’t it?”
“Yessir, Sir/Ma’am/Sir,
sir. Oh, yessir!”
“Well, it better. If
you know what’s good for ya. It damn well better…”
Are WE really as whipped
and cowardly as they think we are, or as they think we think we are?
Are THEY as super almighty powerful (and benevolent, as long a we behaves
ourselves) as they tell us they are? When is enough finally enough?
Check this out:
Tried to start a discussion
group with a couple of like-minded radical trouble-makers: i.e. fellow
pissed off, outraged, citizens, K. and P. (names compacted to initials
to protect the guilty). I ‘bcc’d’ a whole lotta folks,
just about everyone on my mailing list.
Wrote something like, “Yo,
we’re starting a living debate on the web we’re just gonna
talk about stuff talk till we’re blue in the face or red in the
face or white in the face about how sick and fucking tired we are about
being REDWHITEandBLUE in the face and no more bullshit about the Democratic
Party come down from Heaven and save our souls. No moderator, no group
identity, name or philosophy other than, ‘Say yer thing but be
prepared to back it up.’ Welcome Greens, Reds, Pinks, libertarians
fascists anarchists leftists rightists and everything in-between-ists
(even Democrats and Republicans, or their lobbyists, a pox upon their
proxy Houses!) for debate. I mean, say whatever you want, who’s
gonna stop you?”
We thought maybe the thing
might grow, you know, like the commercial says, “And they told
two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on.” A
networking phenomenon. A “free roving argument” that would
metastasize and engulf the planet in ideas. A “virus” if
you will, albeit a benevolent one (or maybe not so benevolent).
Of course, my prematurely
(and immaturely) imagined Borgesian labyrinth of networks and inquiry
fell flat on its face and ended up being just me and a couple of other
guys talking about a paper one of us wrote about anarchism and jawing
about French neo-Marxist post modern philosophers like Virilio and Massumi
and Foucault - you know, the kind of stuff that makes Bush and Cheney
sweat. With each new insight by Derrida, Dubya is quaking in his boots.
Only two people of the four
dozen I bcc’d wrote back. The first person asked to be removed
from the list immediately. And I thought, “Rightfully so.”
I mean, people are bothered and harassed enough by evil Mainstream Media
rays, why do they want to hear a bunch of radical yahoos yammering about
god knows what. I realized I was perhaps overzealous and intrusive by
bcc’ing everyone in my address book, so I wrote to my two compatriots,
bcc’ing the rest, a sort of apology:
“In my growing conviction
that the State is forcing us to either submit, or resort to extreme
measures, I jumped the gun and tried to “jump start” this
“living debate,” “language virus” or whatever
it is by drafting dozens of people into it, rather than explaining the
nature of what we’re doing - that is, nothing much, yet, just
talking - and waiting for them to voluntarily jump on the bandwagon
was precipitous, naive and somewhat arrogant.
“By bcc’ing everyone
whose email I had in my address book, I may have slipped from anarchism
to totalitarianism in one great leap of the ‘Send’ command.
People are already overloaded with information, and in general don’t
like to be bothered. I think the three of us have some interesting things
to say from varying points of view. That’s a start. Maybe if we
keep up the dialogue among ourselves, gradually inviting friends - flesh
and blood or “virtual” - into the discussion and encourage
them to invite others etc. this “spontaneous network” will
actually be spontaneous and grow organically. So, “talk”
to you guys tomorrow. As for the rest of you kind folks out there -
colleagues, friends, virtual and otherwise, fellow travelers on the
information super turnpike to the stars or whatever it’s supposed
to be - I apologize for drafting you into this ‘open’ dialogue
or intruding on your privacy in any way. If you would like to be part
of this discussion of course, feel free to respond to this final or
any of the previous ‘bcc’s.’”
But it occurred to me that
the guy who asked to be taken off the list was one of those “work-with-the-system-and-Media-
that-we-have-to-prevent-it-f rom-doing-even-m ore-damage” types.
I have no interest in the Mainstream Media and their hokum; surely there
must be other alternatives for genuine discourse and action.
Now I respect this guy very
much for his gradualist approach (if we dig the pit slow enough, maybe
they’ll reconsider shooting us today, cause they’ll never
get our mass grave covered up before sundown, not at this rate) , but
the problem with working within the Mainstream media is that the Mainstream
Media has been working WITHIN ME for over 30 years, and man did it do
a job on my poor little noggin!
I hate the Media, the Corporations
that own it and the pushers who peddle it. They tried to kill me; they
drove me insane!!
They turned me into a goddamn
consumer goods buyin,’ slogan-spoutin,’ prescription-pill
popping zombie! Fuck them, man. They’re the one’s that drove
me to try to debate real stuff outside of their prepared script in the
first place. I mean, I was a good boy once. I was ready, willing and
able to devote myself to working in the service of society. But it turned
out that there was no society to serve. It was all a hoax, a mirage,
a fig of my imagination - that tiny oasis where one can actually eat
the coconuts and drink the milk. I’m tryin’ to get away
from them “Mainstream” freaks. I’m trying to LEARN
me some stuff!
But then I got another, more
instructive email, warning me, with good reason, that the NSA/NSC has
been monitoring phone calls and faxes for years; hence, how easy it
must be for them to use their SUPER MONSTER MOJO DATA VACUUM to suck
up everything on every network - the backbone of which was DARPA’s
invention in the first place - and run a search and find everything
they might ever want or need, whenever the hell they might need or want
it.
Well, as the paranoid pot-smoker
in Naked Lunch said, “I GOT THE FEAR!”
Here I thought I was doing
something positive and constructive and enjoyable - reading books and
articles and discussing them - and now I’d intimidated the entire
U.S. Government Military Intelligence Complex. Damn!
Surely they were out to get
me and my compeers. Maybe that’s why nobody emailed us back. It
wasn’t that they didn’t give a fuck about our stupid debate,
like I at first erroneously believed; in fact, they yearned to get online
and chew the fat about Proudhon and Bakunin and what not, it’s
just that…they were afraid! And rightfully so. It made me think.
What did they know that I didn’t (besides what the hell Derrida
might possibly be talking about)? Could it be that even K. and P., the
only people who were actually willing to join my little debating club
were…SPOOKS?
I never felt so… POWERFUL
in my irrelevant, sorry-assed, pimple of a life!
Imagine that! The NSA/NSC
would take the trouble to monitor and perhaps, who knows, the sky’s
the limit (literally), prosecute an erstwhile insignificant toe-nail
clipping of a man like ME. I mean, nobody but friends and family has
ever paid any attention to ME before, and here the entire NSA (or some
pathetic cubicle jockey on a PC - I can’t picture the Feds using
Macs for some reason; I don’t know why) is going through all the
trouble to open up Windows Office XXX or whatever and create a file
and take up space on one of their giga-mega-terra-bit-byte drives just
to keep track of ME for - what did I do again? - oh yeah, for sending
out an email to various extreme-right-extreme-left-extreme-burger whacko
hot-mailin’ yahoo-searchin’ cable modem-usin’ netizens,
calling for - gasp! - some kind of debate and maybe plan something radical,
like stealing the patina panties off the Statue Of Liberty or unleashing
THE DIALECTIC at a crowded intersection! Goddamn Me I’m bad-ass!
Wonder what mischief I’ll be up to next?
Then I thought of all the
kind, innocent folks that the likes of ME were, well, corrupting.
Surely, now the word’s
out, all America’s gonna be creating free and open discussion
groups and maybe linking them like small communities, and the NSA’s
gonna have to shut down the whole operation, all these cells, “discussion
groups”, so called, inspired by ME.
Well, I feel bad about all
that, but really, the ALL POWERFUL GOVERNMENT will take care of ME soon
enough, so no more editors or writers or anyone else will have to worry.
That is, except YOU. Why
are you reading this? Why are your eyes here, where they surely don’t
belong - why, in fact, do you have this site bookmarked? Shouldn’t
you be clicking your mouse elsewhere, like the USA Today site maybe,
or Christmas shopping on ? You think the NSA doesn’t know you’re
reading this sentence right now, this very moment? Who do you think’s
writing this? Do you really think we’d let such a dangerous, infamous,
radical jokester like Adam Engel exist for longer than a nano-second
after pulling such a stunt? Please. Give us more credit. That’s
why they call us “Intelligence,” fool! Cause we’re
intelligent.
Ha. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha — watch yourself! Carefully. We are, and we don’t like
what we see. Or rather, don’t see. Why aren’t you smiling?
Why the HELL aren’t you smiling?
Adam Engel,
aka Adam Engel, occasionally writes under the pseudonym of Adam Engel.
Maybe you can reach him at [email protected].
And maybe not. Careful. Remember the Turing Test: you never know who’s
really at the other end of that line
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