"Sweet is Bitter, Bitter is Sweet..."

Starting off with a bit of lovely lovely Ludwig van...

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten feuertrunken,

Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!

Deine Zauber binden wieder

Was die Mode streng geteilt;

Alle Menschen werden Brüder

Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Note: Though most will object to the following essay and what I hold to be "self-evident truths," I am only following the philosophic train of reasoning as propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre, who posited that an Existentialist should operate from his or her authentic "true self." Otherwise, was guilty of acting in "bad faith." He came upon this revelation, according to his small lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism," while watching a completely dedicated French waiter working so hard to be a waiter, it occurred to Sartre that he had completely forgotten to be himself. Thus, the waiter was acting in "bad faith.' Why to an atheist this would matter (is it a sin to act in "bad faith"?), puzzles me a little, but, there it is.

Again, to clarify, I do not take any sides. I do not have any loyalty to any particular cause or group. I'm not an advocate for anybody. I don't vote. I actually think it's immoral to do so, but at the very least, it would contravene my personal philosophy and be akin to degrading myself for those who would gladly and unthinkingly kill me if circumstances were ordered a bit differently. I don't care about your race, white, black, or otherwise, because I do not care about race. Whatever you are is all the same to me. The acquisition of money, as much as I can attain it, interests me because it allows me to do OTHER things I might personally find interesting. As Stirner observed, the capitalist system is manifestly unjust and unscrupulous and a LIE because the "capital" is always held in the hands of those who own the laborer, who must toil ceaselessly at his or her own expense, lest they find themselves destitute (the capitalist system is predicated and preserved by the threat of the abyss of poverty yawning below the worker, who must sacrifice their own interest and ego to prop up and preserve the unjust system, and ensure the luxuriant lifestyle of whatever pig they find themselves toiling for).

I accept that everything I've ever been told is a lie, a joke, or a self-exculpating load of malarkey, foisted upon me by those who have exploited and used me for their own purposes. I am not exaggerating when I say I hate society. It had no use for me, and I have no use for it, except insomuch as it owns all the cops and jails and I have to survive or perish. If I could, I'd go to an island somewhere with beautiful brown girls, coconuts, roast pig, and the ocean in front of me. It is my vast misfortune that I was born in the American Midwest, a step or two away from mind-deadening, soul-crushing, living HELL. It is of no concern to me if the State survives or thrives beyond my own need for it, as a preservative mechanism of my own existence. Stirner said, "The State may flourish while I starve in the background." Worse than that, the State wants conscripts to fight its endless succession of unnecessary wars overseas, all the better to bolster the immense profits.

The truly Great Men of history, the radical philosophers and thinkers--Sade, Stirner, Nietzsche, Ragnar Redbeard, Renzo Novatore, Aleister Crowley, and others I could mention--laid bare the hypocrisy of a world ruled by the whip-hand and the cudgel, one in which exploitation is indulged in by EVERYONE to some degree. Everyone is a killer at heart, I assure you, the State being the biggest killer of them all, holding the power within its grasp to KILL EVERYTHING at the press of a button. One could well damn the human race for being so stupid; for being, as it were, the dumbest upwardly-evolved primate in the entire forest, one that has developed the capacity to annihilate HIMSELF (non-generative usage, of course). No Rhesus monkey would be so stupid.

Human beings and this entire "world" we accept as "real" is a passing mirage, a few decades of sentient consciousness experienced within the skull of the dreamer--who, at any rate, can be ripped from his self-assured daydream of existence in the blink of an eye, and thrust into the Void. It is for each man and woman to determine how much of this they will accept as "real," "true," or valuable in any sense. Ultimately, everything dies, all things pass away, and all "Great Nations" crumble of their own bloated obsolescence, passing into the dustbin of history. The Oppressed grovel and toil until, one day, realizing their potential, they grasp the whip hand, wrest the whip from their Oppressor, defeat and overthrow the Master, and take control of their own fortune and destiny. Then, after a period of revolutionary change, they settle into becoming the New Oppressors for their former, defeated foes. This is the Eternal Cycle of Revolutionary Change; it happened in France, Russia, Peking, Port Au Prince, Cuba, and most certainly, in America as well.

In closing, let me just add this quote that has ALWAYS stayed with me, ever since I first heard it on an old exploitation home video put out by a religious group (on the subject of rock music, witchcraft, and Satanism, no less):

"Good is evil, and evil is good. The truth is a lie and the lie is the truth. Sweet is bitter and bitter is sweet, and everything is twisted."

That seems to me a fair summation of the philosophic truth Sade was trying to impart in Justine when he observed it is the vile that prosper, and the "innocent" made to bear the burden and suffer. This is true; but, as to who the "vile" are, and who the "innocent," I don't make any judgments, either from an Eighteenth Century perspective or a Twentieth Century one.

I could say more, but I've said enough. Have a nice day.