His name was Job. He thought he was a pious man. No, not that one. I'm taking about Job Merle. His parents were decent folk, hard working, salt of the earth farmers from a semi-rural state. They believed in freedom and equality and all the things that made America a great place. They never achieved great wealth, but they were comfortable, partly thanks to farm subsidies that kept their farm profitable and their overhead down.
Now, there are some people who are born to be geniuses, they excel at everything they attempt and can intuitively grasp concepts like economics and empathy. You can have children born of decent, upstanding, hard working people who grow up to be excellent human beings that love their neighbors and support others and do unto others and all that great Christian stuff. But Job wasn't one of those people. Job wasn't a psychopath, exactly. No, Job believed that the color of his skin, the fact that he had a penis, the fact that he was attracted to women, and the fact that he believed some fairy tales about a man nailed to a stick made him special. Those things meant that he should be given preference above other people that didn't fit all those criteria. Job also had no grasp of history or basic economic theory. In his mind, that kind of Ivory Tower mumbo jumbo was just the government's way of manipulating the people and oppressing them. Of course, Job was a libertarian tea partier. Job's idea of "patriotism" was to encourage people to hate the government, which most people would define as "sedition," but Job didn't know that word. That's because Job, well, he wasn't the best reader. In fact, he wasn't really that smart at all. This didn't stop him from writing a newsletter called "Hearth And Home" that he somehow got local businesses to fund.
Job used his freedom of speech to do some truly heinous things. He disparaged minorities, belittled women, and encouraged people to take up arms against their duly elected government. Not directly, of course, but he implied as much in many articles. Job loved to rant and rave about President Obama, and how he was the worst president in the history of the United States. But more than anything, Job complained about those damn welfare queens. He hated people that got money from the government more than just about anything, except radical Muslims. It just made him so gosh darn angry that his tax money was being used to help other people! How dare the government provide people with food, clothing and shelter using his taxes when he worked so hard to make that money, all by himself with absolutely no assistance whatsoever! That's not what Job paid taxes for (or didn't). He wanted his tax dollars to go toward bombing people in Middle Eastern countries because they had the audacity to not believe in the same deity as him!
If only there were something Job could do about this. He wrote his editorial, week after week, and despite the fact that Job could feel his readership growing (there's really no way to know if people were reading his claptrap or just using it to line their bird cages. After all, it's a complimentary newspaper, and Job really hated free things), nobody was out there stopping the Obama phones and HUD subsidized housing and keeping people from using food stamps to buy fancy things like coffee. It was just so unfair, that Job and his parents worked so hard for everything he had, yet these people were mooching off him! Why can't he get something from the system? Why isn't the government paying for his phone, or his house, or his food? He works hard tending his farm, putting his crops on trucks that go down the road to markets, trying to figure out this newfangled interweb thing to grow his business. If it weren't for those checks from the Department of Agriculture, why, he might have to actually sell his farm. And these lazy, no good, worthless welfare queens are drinking Caramel Macchiatos and playing the lottery! The nerve! Why can't they pull themselves up by their bootstraps like he did and earn their place in society?
Then, one day, Job hit it big. Job's phone rang and the voice said those magical words he'd been waiting lo so many years to hear: "Is this Job Berle? I represent the Will O'Hurley Element. Will has been reading your papers, he'd like to meet with you." Job was over the moon! Finally, he would be recognized! People will hear him and the revolution will begin in earnest! He didn't even hear the rest of the discussion, just a date when they wanted him in New York. He hung up the phone, kissed his wife Debbie, and they and their children went out to the Steak and Shake to celebrate. Job even had two desserts, he was that excited!
The next day, Job received an email from the O'Hurley people confirming his meeting. He purchased two plane tickets for him and Debbie and a hotel room in New York City. It was more expensive than he expected, but soon the money wouldn't matter. "Gosh," Job thought, "I've finally pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I've really earned everything. We should go see a Broadway show while we're there! It would be a great treat for Debbie. Nothing too filthy though, those homosexuals have completely ruined American entertainment. Let's see... Book of Mormon, that sounds like a good Christian play!" So Job also bought two tickets to that.
Soon, the appointed day arrived, and Job and Debbie flew to New York. At the hotel, Job put on his best Sunday suit, Debbie wore the dress she bought for their son's wedding last year. When they arrived at the Faux News building, they were escorted to a conference room that was all glass and chrome, overlooking Radio City Music Hall. Job and Debbie had never seen anything like it. At the table sat not only Will O'Hurley, but three more men who had influenced his every belief: Mush Limburgh, Len Bock, and Job's idol, Shmalex Shmones. Job couldn't believe he was meeting the four people he admired most in the world, in one day!
He stood there, staring, jaw agape, when one of the other men in the room addressed him: "You must be Bob. Hello, you spoke with my secretary on the phone. I'm Chaim Goldfarbsteinberg, and I'll get right to the point: I represent these four men." He handed Job a letter, it was on really nice paper, but Job couldn't understand what it said. There were lots of big words. About this time, Job realized that there were a dozen other people in the room. "This is a cease and desist letter," said Goldfarbsteinberg. "My clients are outraged that you've stolen their intellectual property and appropriated it as your own." (so many big words, Job thought, what do they mean?) "If you do not stop publishing 'Hearth And Home,' we will be forced to bring a lawsuit against you, and, let me tell you, you will lose."
What? Job thought, This can't be! These men are my idols, I've patterned my life on them! "What kind of Jew crap is this?" Job spouted. "Are you really telling me that I can't say whatever I want? I'll have you know this is America, and I have a right to Freedom of Speech protected by the Constitution! I can say whatever I want!" Job was getting furious. Didn't this Jew know that he was a white Christian heteronormative man and he had rights?
"Regardless of any of that," Goldfarbsteinberg said, "I assure you that we have everything we need. Either cease your publication or we will take everything you have. Thanks to the Republican Congress, restrictions on lawsuits have been loosened, and we can pretty much sue you for whatever we want. That's what happens when you de-regulate and strip government of all it's power." At that, he motioned to the guards outside and Job and Debbie were escorted out of the building.
Well, Job wasn't going to take this lying down! No sir! He knew his rights, and he knew he had a right to a lawyer. So he and Debbie skipped Book of Mormon and headed straight back home, where Job enlisted the finest legal minds in his county. They told him exactly the same thing that Chaim Goldfarbsteinberg did: he was screwed. Government regulators had stripped protections against frivolous lawsuits so far back that there was literally nothing that people could not bring a civil suit about. Fair use in copyright was a thing of the past, and besides, Job's newsletter didn't fall under those meager protections anyway. And the First Amendment didn't apply here because it wasn't the government, the people that Job had been so paranoid about all along, that was trying to shut him down. It was a private enterprise.
Job was distraught. He did not know what to do now. It seemed like a perfect subject for one of his trademark editorials, but he didn't dare risk publishing. Maybe he'd join that Facespace all the kids were talking about. Surely they can't shut him down for that. And he can reach a much larger audience, a world wide audience. People will have to listen, and the white, middle class, heteronormative Christian male will finally have a place to voice his opinions and have his struggle heard!
Wow! What an amazing story! And it's totally not about a real person or anyone we know! I'm so inspired by it, to go and pull myself up by the bootstraps and make my fortune all by myself with no help from the government or the rest of society, at all, whatsoever! There has to be a moral in here somewhere, but who knows what it is? No, seriously, this is so rambling and incoherent, I'm not really sure there was even a plot. That's what happens when you mimic Bob's creative insights.
Honestly, the best part of Bob's whole rant this month is the end, where after spending a good 1000 words attacking "liberals" and stereotyping them as lazy, entitled, and pretentious, he talks about not judging people until you've walked a mile in their shoes. No, really, he did that. He literally says those words, then, in the same paragraph, writes "ninety-nine percenters are nothing more than a bunch of bottom feeding, lazy ass, no good loafers who want to stick their hands in the pockets of hard working people and take from them all that they worked hard for, because ninety-nine percenters never worked hard at anything their entire lives and think that just because they breathe air the world owes them an existence." I guess Bob doesn't think he's part of the 99%, or that he should take his own advice. The cognitive dissonance here is so great, I need to go lie down now.
Now, there are some people who are born to be geniuses, they excel at everything they attempt and can intuitively grasp concepts like economics and empathy. You can have children born of decent, upstanding, hard working people who grow up to be excellent human beings that love their neighbors and support others and do unto others and all that great Christian stuff. But Job wasn't one of those people. Job wasn't a psychopath, exactly. No, Job believed that the color of his skin, the fact that he had a penis, the fact that he was attracted to women, and the fact that he believed some fairy tales about a man nailed to a stick made him special. Those things meant that he should be given preference above other people that didn't fit all those criteria. Job also had no grasp of history or basic economic theory. In his mind, that kind of Ivory Tower mumbo jumbo was just the government's way of manipulating the people and oppressing them. Of course, Job was a libertarian tea partier. Job's idea of "patriotism" was to encourage people to hate the government, which most people would define as "sedition," but Job didn't know that word. That's because Job, well, he wasn't the best reader. In fact, he wasn't really that smart at all. This didn't stop him from writing a newsletter called "Hearth And Home" that he somehow got local businesses to fund.
Job used his freedom of speech to do some truly heinous things. He disparaged minorities, belittled women, and encouraged people to take up arms against their duly elected government. Not directly, of course, but he implied as much in many articles. Job loved to rant and rave about President Obama, and how he was the worst president in the history of the United States. But more than anything, Job complained about those damn welfare queens. He hated people that got money from the government more than just about anything, except radical Muslims. It just made him so gosh darn angry that his tax money was being used to help other people! How dare the government provide people with food, clothing and shelter using his taxes when he worked so hard to make that money, all by himself with absolutely no assistance whatsoever! That's not what Job paid taxes for (or didn't). He wanted his tax dollars to go toward bombing people in Middle Eastern countries because they had the audacity to not believe in the same deity as him!
If only there were something Job could do about this. He wrote his editorial, week after week, and despite the fact that Job could feel his readership growing (there's really no way to know if people were reading his claptrap or just using it to line their bird cages. After all, it's a complimentary newspaper, and Job really hated free things), nobody was out there stopping the Obama phones and HUD subsidized housing and keeping people from using food stamps to buy fancy things like coffee. It was just so unfair, that Job and his parents worked so hard for everything he had, yet these people were mooching off him! Why can't he get something from the system? Why isn't the government paying for his phone, or his house, or his food? He works hard tending his farm, putting his crops on trucks that go down the road to markets, trying to figure out this newfangled interweb thing to grow his business. If it weren't for those checks from the Department of Agriculture, why, he might have to actually sell his farm. And these lazy, no good, worthless welfare queens are drinking Caramel Macchiatos and playing the lottery! The nerve! Why can't they pull themselves up by their bootstraps like he did and earn their place in society?
Then, one day, Job hit it big. Job's phone rang and the voice said those magical words he'd been waiting lo so many years to hear: "Is this Job Berle? I represent the Will O'Hurley Element. Will has been reading your papers, he'd like to meet with you." Job was over the moon! Finally, he would be recognized! People will hear him and the revolution will begin in earnest! He didn't even hear the rest of the discussion, just a date when they wanted him in New York. He hung up the phone, kissed his wife Debbie, and they and their children went out to the Steak and Shake to celebrate. Job even had two desserts, he was that excited!
The next day, Job received an email from the O'Hurley people confirming his meeting. He purchased two plane tickets for him and Debbie and a hotel room in New York City. It was more expensive than he expected, but soon the money wouldn't matter. "Gosh," Job thought, "I've finally pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I've really earned everything. We should go see a Broadway show while we're there! It would be a great treat for Debbie. Nothing too filthy though, those homosexuals have completely ruined American entertainment. Let's see... Book of Mormon, that sounds like a good Christian play!" So Job also bought two tickets to that.
Soon, the appointed day arrived, and Job and Debbie flew to New York. At the hotel, Job put on his best Sunday suit, Debbie wore the dress she bought for their son's wedding last year. When they arrived at the Faux News building, they were escorted to a conference room that was all glass and chrome, overlooking Radio City Music Hall. Job and Debbie had never seen anything like it. At the table sat not only Will O'Hurley, but three more men who had influenced his every belief: Mush Limburgh, Len Bock, and Job's idol, Shmalex Shmones. Job couldn't believe he was meeting the four people he admired most in the world, in one day!
He stood there, staring, jaw agape, when one of the other men in the room addressed him: "You must be Bob. Hello, you spoke with my secretary on the phone. I'm Chaim Goldfarbsteinberg, and I'll get right to the point: I represent these four men." He handed Job a letter, it was on really nice paper, but Job couldn't understand what it said. There were lots of big words. About this time, Job realized that there were a dozen other people in the room. "This is a cease and desist letter," said Goldfarbsteinberg. "My clients are outraged that you've stolen their intellectual property and appropriated it as your own." (so many big words, Job thought, what do they mean?) "If you do not stop publishing 'Hearth And Home,' we will be forced to bring a lawsuit against you, and, let me tell you, you will lose."
What? Job thought, This can't be! These men are my idols, I've patterned my life on them! "What kind of Jew crap is this?" Job spouted. "Are you really telling me that I can't say whatever I want? I'll have you know this is America, and I have a right to Freedom of Speech protected by the Constitution! I can say whatever I want!" Job was getting furious. Didn't this Jew know that he was a white Christian heteronormative man and he had rights?
"Regardless of any of that," Goldfarbsteinberg said, "I assure you that we have everything we need. Either cease your publication or we will take everything you have. Thanks to the Republican Congress, restrictions on lawsuits have been loosened, and we can pretty much sue you for whatever we want. That's what happens when you de-regulate and strip government of all it's power." At that, he motioned to the guards outside and Job and Debbie were escorted out of the building.
Well, Job wasn't going to take this lying down! No sir! He knew his rights, and he knew he had a right to a lawyer. So he and Debbie skipped Book of Mormon and headed straight back home, where Job enlisted the finest legal minds in his county. They told him exactly the same thing that Chaim Goldfarbsteinberg did: he was screwed. Government regulators had stripped protections against frivolous lawsuits so far back that there was literally nothing that people could not bring a civil suit about. Fair use in copyright was a thing of the past, and besides, Job's newsletter didn't fall under those meager protections anyway. And the First Amendment didn't apply here because it wasn't the government, the people that Job had been so paranoid about all along, that was trying to shut him down. It was a private enterprise.
Job was distraught. He did not know what to do now. It seemed like a perfect subject for one of his trademark editorials, but he didn't dare risk publishing. Maybe he'd join that Facespace all the kids were talking about. Surely they can't shut him down for that. And he can reach a much larger audience, a world wide audience. People will have to listen, and the white, middle class, heteronormative Christian male will finally have a place to voice his opinions and have his struggle heard!
Wow! What an amazing story! And it's totally not about a real person or anyone we know! I'm so inspired by it, to go and pull myself up by the bootstraps and make my fortune all by myself with no help from the government or the rest of society, at all, whatsoever! There has to be a moral in here somewhere, but who knows what it is? No, seriously, this is so rambling and incoherent, I'm not really sure there was even a plot. That's what happens when you mimic Bob's creative insights.
Honestly, the best part of Bob's whole rant this month is the end, where after spending a good 1000 words attacking "liberals" and stereotyping them as lazy, entitled, and pretentious, he talks about not judging people until you've walked a mile in their shoes. No, really, he did that. He literally says those words, then, in the same paragraph, writes "ninety-nine percenters are nothing more than a bunch of bottom feeding, lazy ass, no good loafers who want to stick their hands in the pockets of hard working people and take from them all that they worked hard for, because ninety-nine percenters never worked hard at anything their entire lives and think that just because they breathe air the world owes them an existence." I guess Bob doesn't think he's part of the 99%, or that he should take his own advice. The cognitive dissonance here is so great, I need to go lie down now.
No comments:
Post a Comment