Not for children
In times like these, the idiots come out to play. And we have to sit and watch them.
Here’s something we’ve much forgotten in the course of our human plume: if you don’t know something, then shut the fuck up. And if you do know something, and nobody asked you, then still shut the fuck up. And since you don’t know anything, but only think you know something, then generally keep your fucking mouth shut. The venom spurting out the front of your head is a bludgeoning harm to you and those around you. Silence is golden. Shut your face.
And to the smug and sniveling among you who might retort, “Well, if you’re so smart, Mr. Yousef Alqamoussi, then why are you doing all the talking,” I reply: Thou art correct, Sensei. By the powers of your flawless logic, one may rightly conclude that I am a hypocrite. I contradict myself. Fine then, smartass, I contradict myself. Some of you people are assholes.
If we’ve learned nothing else from the madness of these days, let’s at least agree on this: Facts matter. Expertise matters. Experience matters. Education matters. Intelligence matters. Truth matters. Government matters. The good folks in public service show out to save our kids, and the corporate swine dissemble in terror without a buck or a barf to save you from your doom, while the advertising vermin count our cash and cackle at our chaos and fear. Honor the nurses! Honor the doctors! Honor the cashiers! Honor the postmen! Idiots to the right of them! Idiots to the left of them! Death in front of them! Still they go on. And fuck the media! Fuck insurance! Fuck the corporate swine! Fuck the advertising vermin! Fuck fear and trembling fear and loathing fuck algorithm and machine! We’re taking back our souls!
Once the dust settles and the clouds part and the sun comes out again—and if I live through this to make things right again—we will call upon the expertise of our legal authorities to figure out exactly how to sue and penalize these media motherfuckers. How is this recklessness not a crime? How are they not crying fire in a movie theatre? How is this not the literal Merriam-Webster definition of terrorism: “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” Misinformation is criminal. Advertisement bullying and harassment is criminal. Selling and trading our personal info is criminal. Data-driven, science-backed, corporate-funded behavior modification is criminal! Get off my phone! Stop calling me! Move away from my screen! Get out of my music! Don’t call it “news”! Let me finish my game! FUCK you motherfuckers!
The blood of hysteria is on your hands. The blood of truth is on your hands. The blood of democracy is on your hands. The blood of the sick and hungry is on your hands. The blood of anxiety-ridden value-famished drug-addicted children is on your hands. The blood of face masks and toilet paper and sanitizer is on your hands. You’ve cried wolf at our expense for the last time. And when we come out of this alive, we’re coming for you bastards.
NOTES
I contradict myself “Song of Myself, 51” by Walt Whitman. Honor the nurses…go on “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. falsely crying…theatre Schenck v. United States, 1919.
Yousef Alqamoussi 