The Word Wars, Part I

My unemployed angel from the Third Galaxy claims that this piece was authored by Elmer Eggplant, which I assume is true because of its convoluted logic and loquaciousness. In any case, because of its length, it will be posted in two parts.

By the way, I don’t quite grasp the relevance of this piece to anything going on in our world, but I post it anyway because Man-u-El-Ishman will have a hissy fit if I don’t!

The terrible things which happened in the Arrogant States and in War Zones established here and there throughout their world in order to Protect and Maintain the First World Peace could never have happened if it had not been for the Word Wars which eroded the meaning of normative words and concepts such as “Love”, “Peace”, “Freedom”, “Liberty” and, yes, even “God”.

Because of this erosion, ordinary people found themselves saying one thing and meaning something else entirely. Their listeners, on the other hand, had perhaps a third or even a fourth misunderstanding of what was being spoken. Words, which once contained honest, real and even dignified meanings, devolved during the course of the Word Wars into epithets with extreme, in fact, often quite profane connotations.

Consider the Supreme Hole himself. Among many other things, it seems certain that he was not able to distinguish between “terrorist” and “terraist”.

From the context of the things he both said and did, it appears that, in his own mind, they were all part of a “consie” (that is to say, conservationist) conspiracy to deny the Arrogant State its God-given rights. The “rights” were mainly the right to exploit and deplete the resources of their poor planet with wanton criminal negligence. This was done for the sake of securing maximum short-term profits for arrogant corporate oligarchs and robber barons of the Arrogant State and her ten closest allies.

This is obvious if one but skims the text of his address to the nation when he declared a State of Emergency because of a Close and Present Danger to the security of the Arrogant State.

It is well known that he often, in fact constantly, referred to the “Word of the Holy Idaho”. In fact, he often said that he actually talked with and received guidance from the Great Potato. He also held the widely accepted claim that certain passages in the Book of the Holy Idaho contained prophecies of what was known as the “End Times”. More than once, as his megalomania became more obvious and extravagant, he said that these prophecies were being fulfilled even as he spoke to the nation on television.

For those not familiar with the history of that unfortunate world, “End Times” referred “years of tribulation” which had to come before the Return of the Great Potato. After the Return, His Son, the Holy Idaho would then ascend the Great White Colander. From this vantage point, He would then separate the “Spuds” from the “Peelings”.

The Spuds were to live in eternal bliss in the Great Vegetable Patch. The evil Peelings, however, would french fry forever in the giant vats of boiling oil which had been prepared for them from before the beginning of time.

Not only Ronald Rexona, but many of the holes who supported him and enabled his rise to power in the Arrogant State thought that by fulfilling these “prophecies” they were hastening the Return.

In a sense, they did indeed fulfill many of these prophecies. Unfortunately, they were neither the prophecies they wished to fulfill, nor did they fulfill them in the roles for which they had imagined for themselves worthy.

The Supreme Hole, of course, was not alone in his megalomania, as quite imaginative conjectures upon this or that Holy Writ was a favorite past-time of religious flimflam artists of almost every creed, including, of course, the self-proclaimed “Spuds of the Great Potato” and their antithesis, the “Peelings of the Masher”.

The “Masher”, a rather late-comer to the God-Biz, had many followers outside the Arrogant States, particularly in lands rich in oil deposits. As understood by their fanatics, the main theme of the Masher’s teaching was that it was the “Peels” and not the “Spuds” who would be saved and enjoy Eternal Bliss in the Bosom of the Great Potato. According to the Masher, it was the heathen “Spuds” who were doomed to be eternally “mashed” – from this, of course, came the term “Mashers”.

Notorious Masher terrorists like Ahsawyah Been-Lately and Boo-Boo Wankerman were known to cite long passages from the Masher’s Readings, concluding their tirades with a snarling, “Death to Arrogance and Mash their Spuds!”

[to be continued]