We got a demon shoved in our heads on September 11. I remember, I was sitting there watching the television in a state of shock, and the guards in my brain that keep the Out ideas Out and the In ideas In just stood there, dumbfounded, and a whole mess of demons got in. "This looks like a movie" barely got a shrug as it wandered in the door, then made friends with "Everything looks fake if you look at it long enough" and "I'm so media savvy." "President Bush is an idiot" waved in "Look at him sitting there with a fucking picture book while New York is collapsing." But those guys probably would have gotten in anyway. There were a couple that got shoved in, intentionally, and I'm not the only victim.
"Islamic terrorists want to kill you" was not a demon I would have let in on a normal day. Once the alarms sounded a few days later corrective actions were taken, but you know how it is with demons: once they get in, you can never get them all the way out. "Not all Muslims are terrorists" and "Seriously, what are you an idiot?" have to help out the immune system from time to time.
The bad one, though, was "Why did the government let this happen?" If you think back, there was a point near the middle of the day where the media started spouting that demon, trying to infect you with it. It was a nasty trick, too, because it infected the Democrats first. "President Bush is an idiot" held the door for it. "Why did the government let this happen?" has fucked up more shit than any other demon I've known in my life. It's the one that paved the way for "nothing to hide, nothing to fear," for PRISM, for Guantanamo, for drone strikes and body scanners.
"Why did they let this happen?" turns into giving them more power to prevent bad things from happening. It removes the responsibility for bad things from the people who do them and turns it over to the state that should have somehow stopped them. Please make this not be happening, you say, no matter what it costs. And anyone who fights back against the cost is implicitly allowing bad things to happen again, is part of The Problem.
Nice post. I especially like that you've implicitly acknowledged that demons are memes (as are most "spiritual" constructs).
This is an excellent post.
And like you said, the trouble is that once they've gotten in, getting them back out again is massively difficult. These demons are powerful, and in so many areas they decide what can even be discussed. 'Why did the government let this happen?' In particular. This is why rolling back what has already been done is so difficult. How do you frame it? What demon says 'we don't need to do that any more?'
Guantanamo Bay is a great example. People have been trying to get it closed for years, they've pointed out the abuses, the fact that so many of the people there shouldn't have been there... but what is a President supposed to do? If they let them out, no doubt most of the people there now definitely hold a grudge, and for most, whatever life they might have had before being caged is gone completely... you can already hear the murmuring demon 'How could the government let that happen?'
And if they don't, the abuses continue, and there's another demon no doubt whispering among the islamic population 'That could be me.'
It's also worth mentioning that "Why did the government let this happen?" is the seed for Truther-ism.
This is good. Food for thought.
Not sure if deliberate riffing, but relevant: http://23ae.com/2012/02/demons-are-everywhere-now/
Quote from: Brother Nihil on October 25, 2013, 11:26:04 PM
This is perceptive. The release of a demon on 9-11 was by design, because it was, after all, a Global Luciferian MegaRitual. It's all explained in The Most Dangerous Book in the World:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JtU522vVL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/The-Most-Dangerous-Book-World/dp/1937584178/ref=sr_1_1)
:mullet:
That's probably what I'd call my book if I wanted to appeal to children seeking "forbidden knowledge" they could comfortably explore while knowing, deep down, that it's totally safe. Lets them get all of their rebelling done without actually effecting any change.
Quote from: Pæs on October 25, 2013, 11:18:07 AM
Not sure if deliberate riffing, but relevant: http://23ae.com/2012/02/demons-are-everywhere-now/
Intentional. When I brought up the idea to the husband I had him read that first to make sure we were on the same page about the term "demon."
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on October 25, 2013, 11:29:12 PM
Quote from: Pæs on October 25, 2013, 11:18:07 AM
Not sure if deliberate riffing, but relevant: http://23ae.com/2012/02/demons-are-everywhere-now/
Intentional. When I brought up the idea to the husband I had him read that first to make sure we were on the same page about the term "demon."
Cool, I'm glad you're taking that and running. GOOD POST.
:mittens: I dig it!
Usually, our demons are a tight little cabal who only let in "one of their own"
on days like 9/11, when the system gets shocked, the gates open
They say people only ask themselves the hard questions in hard times.
I say the hard questions are fighting to get in, and we only open the gates when we're ready.
The scary thing (to me) is - if all it takes is a moment of real openness and vulnerability to let a demon like "Why did they let this happen?" into your garden, then perhaps we are actually quite lucky that people are so closed minded.
Reminds me of this:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,18809.msg625590.html#msg625590
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on November 12, 2013, 06:13:35 PM
Reminds me of this:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,18809.msg625590.html#msg625590
That feels familiar, I might have read it when I was digging through old posts when I showed up. As always, you put my stuff to shame :)
Those last few demons actually cancel out the badness of one of the first. If we all had the requisite mixture of composure, numbness, and stupefaction to keep reading our picture books while New York collapsed things like the Patriot Act wouldn't happen. Wu-Wei Forever!
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on November 18, 2013, 06:23:31 PM
Those last few demons actually cancel out the badness of one of the first. If we all had the requisite mixture of composure, numbness, and stupefaction to keep reading our picture books while New York collapsed things like the Patriot Act wouldn't happen.
If we all did that, the PATRIOT Act would have happened in 1983. Dumbfuck.
Yeah I have no idea what that guy meant.
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on November 18, 2013, 08:17:34 PM
Yeah I have no idea what that guy meant.
Complacency kills tyranny!
Whoa. Memebomb.
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on November 18, 2013, 08:17:34 PM
Yeah I have no idea what that guy meant.
What I meant was that the Patriot Act was worse than if nothing was done about the 9/11 attacks at all.
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on November 19, 2013, 03:36:35 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on November 18, 2013, 08:17:34 PM
Yeah I have no idea what that guy meant.
What I meant was that the Patriot Act was worse than if nothing was done about the 9/11 attacks at all.
And if my aunt had testicles, she'd be my uncle.
The PATRIOT Act was tried before, you know. They were only waiting for an excuse.
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on November 19, 2013, 03:36:35 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on November 18, 2013, 08:17:34 PM
Yeah I have no idea what that guy meant.
What I meant was that the Patriot Act was worse than if nothing was done about the 9/11 attacks at all.
NOPE.
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on November 18, 2013, 08:17:34 PM
Yeah I have no idea what that guy meant.
it may be 1:11 and maybe not 2