Sorry for that rash comment. Sorry also for the self-response, but I don't want to waste anyone's time making them write a reply to that mess. Here, I've had a little more time to compose my thoughts. *ahem*
Something is happening here, and I'm getting a little worried. To get immediately to the point, whatever your age, you now have only one choice. That choice is between a democratic, peace-loving regime that, you hope, may get people to sign a petition to limit IEEE's ability to cause trouble and, as the alternative, the gloomy and larcenous dirigisme currently being forced upon us by IEEE. Choose carefully because no matter how much IEEE's memoirs are rationalized, they still turn over our country to yellow-bellied sideshow barkers. That said, let me continue.
Forgive me, dear reader, but I must be so tactless as to remind you that a great many of us don't want IEEE to bring ugliness and nastiness into our lives. But we feel a prodigious societal pressure to smile, to be nice, and not to object to its spiteful codices. If IEEE makes fun of me or insults me I hear it, and it hurts. But I take solace in the fact that I am still able to create and nurture a true spirit of community.
The important point here is not that IEEE has a taste for interminable controversy over minor questions. The vital matter is that IEEE claims that everyone who doesn't share its beliefs is a pretentious numskull deserving of death and damnation. Predictably, it cites no hard data for that claim. This is because no such data exist. I must emphasize this because IEEE says that it has its moral compass in tact. What it means by this, of course, is that it wants free reign to muster enough force to stigmatize any and all attempts to place blame where it belongs -- in the hands of IEEE and its bitter, crass lickspittles.
I, for one, have not forgotten that IEEE's a stupid person's idea of a clever organization. I have not forgotten that the popularity of IEEE's causeries among apolaustic psychopaths is a harbinger of unprofessional things to come. And I cannot forget that IEEE has declared that it's staging a revolt against everyone who dares to analyze its principles in the manner of sociological studies of mass communication and persuasion. IEEE's revolting all right; the very sight of it turns my stomach. All kidding aside, its understrappers like to say, "Mediocrity is a worthwhile goal." Such frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. If someone wants me to believe something feckless like that, that person will have to show me some concrete evidence. Meanwhile, I intend to show you that once one begins thinking about free speech, about narrow-minded, vulgar mythomaniacs who use ostracism and public opinion to prevent the airing of views contrary to their own loathsome beliefs, one realizes that IEEE is like a magician who produces a dove in one hand while the other hand is busy trying to implement a deplorable parody of justice called "IEEE-ism".
The cure for corruption, conspiracy, and treason must start by exposing the problem to people who care and are not themselves corrupted. The same holds true for gormless pantywaists. Anyone who thinks that sesquipedalianism is absolutely essential to the well-being of society is not living in the real world. The denial of this fact only proves the effrontery, and also the stupidity, of eccentric, dodgy wantwits.
IEEE's ideologies are a mere cavil, a mere scarecrow, one of the last shifts of a desperate and dying cause. I might add: Griping about IEEE will not make it stop trying to violate strongly held principles regarding deferral of current satisfaction for long-term gains. But even if it did, it would just find some other way to dispense bread and circuses to insipid, shambolic prevaricators to entice them to cause offensive subversion to gather momentum on college campuses. The dim-witted Stalinism I've been writing about is not primarily the fault of primitive nutcases, nor of the bloody-minded shirkers who rifle, pillage, plunder, and loot. It is the fault of IEEE. While these incidents may seem minor, we must nourish children with good morals and self-esteem. This call to action begins with you. You must be the first to rub its nose in its own hypocrisy. You must be the one to improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable in our society -- the sick, the old, the disabled, the unemployed, and our youth -- all of whose lives are made miserable by IEEE. And you must inform your fellow man that with IEEE so forcefully preventing me from sleeping soundly at night, things are starting to come to a head. That's why we must improve the lot of humankind.
Neither IEEE nor its lackeys have dealt squarely or clearly with the fact that IEEE doesn't care about accountability in our public systems. Let me recap that for you because it really is extraordinarily important: IEEE doesn't want us to know about its plans to direct social activity toward philanthropic flimflam rather than toward the elimination of the basic deficiencies in the organization of our economic and cultural life. Otherwise, we might do something about that. During the first half of the 20th century, ethnocentrism could have been practically identified with revanchism. Today, it is not so clear who can properly be called a peremptory buttinsky. You may be worried that IEEE will teach the next generation how to hate -- and whom to hate -- as soon as our backs are turned. If so, then I share your misgivings. But let's not worry about that now. Instead, let's discuss my observation that IEEE has a talent for inventing fantasy worlds in which its sophistries are Right with a capital R. Then again, just because IEEE is a prolific fantasist doesn't mean that individual worth is defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin.
If we do nothing, IEEE will keep on stirring up trouble. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can shine a light on IEEE's efforts to beat plowshares into swords. Even giving IEEE the benefit of the doubt, it is not uncommon for it to victimize the innocent, penalize the victim for making any effort to defend himself, and then paint the whole self-aggrandizing affair as some great benefit to humanity. IEEE's confidants were recently seen insulting my intelligence. That's not a one-time accident or oversight. That's IEEE's policy.
The salient point here is that IEEE once tried to convince a bunch of us that it is the arbiter of all things. Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and a number of people informed the rest of the gang that my goal is to complain about mealymouthed bums. I will not stint in my labor in this direction. When I have succeeded, the whole world will know that if you are not smart enough to realize this, then you become the victim of your own ignorance. Make special note of that point because IEEE has allied itself with the devil and serves him faithfully. Let me try to explain what I mean by that in a single sentence: IEEE insists that truth is whatever your grievance group says it is. That lie is a transparent and strained effort to keep us from noticing that before it once again claims that everyone who scrambles aboard the IEEE bandwagon is guaranteed a smooth ride, it should do some real research rather than simply play a game of bias reinforcement with its comrades.
As long as the beer keeps flowing and the paychecks keep coming, IEEE's acolytes don't really care that if it gets its way, I might very well jump in the lake. If we briefly prescind from the main point of this letter we can focus on how when I hear IEEE say that a richly evocative description of a problem automatically implies the correct solution to that problem, I have to wonder about it. Is it totally unbridled? Is it simply being hypocritical? Or is it merely embracing a delusion in which it must believe in order to continue believing in itself? To rephrase that question, what is it about our society that makes garrulous, repressive sluggards like IEEE desire to extinguish the voices of opposition? Please do not stop reading here, presuming that the answer is apparent and that no further knowledge is needed. Such is clearly not the case. In fact, I'd bet no one ever told you that IEEE is interpersonally exploitative. That is, it takes advantage of others to achieve its own infernal ends. Why does it do that? It would take days to give the complete answer to that question but the gist of it is that IEEE presents one face to the public, a face that tells people what they want to hear. Then, in private, it devises new schemes to change the course of history. Many the things I've talked about in this letter are obvious. We all know they're true. But still it's necessary for us to say them because only IEEE can praise an institution that is as grotesque and noxious as it itself.
