[PLUG-TALK] That bastard, Russell Senior!

Russell Senior seniorr at aracnet.com
Sat Dec 27 01:33:52 UTC 2003


Hey, Scott Pakin's automatic complaint generator is back online.
Here's a 10-paragraph example (remember, this is generated by a
computer program):

  The furor over separatism has been an acutely frustrating cultural
  phenomenon: pregnant with great possibility, touching on vital and
  fascinating issues, yet initially formulated in a one-sided and
  villainous manner that will make a big deal out of nothing in the
  immediate years ahead. What's important to note, however, is that
  Mr. Russell S Senior's pranks share many of the same
  characteristics. Here's the story: Mr. Senior should think about how
  his plaints lead flighty dunderheads to feature simplistic answers
  to complex problems. If Mr. Senior doesn't want to think that hard,
  perhaps he should just keep quiet. I don't mean to condemn anyone's
  beliefs, but my purpose here is not to ring the bells of
  truth. Well, okay, it is. But I should point out that I wonder if he
  really believes the things he says. He knows they're not true,
  doesn't he?  There aren't enough hours in the day to fully answer
  that question, but consider this: Mr. Senior is thoroughly gung-ho
  about extremism because he lacks more pressing soapbox
  issues. Mr. Senior holds himself to low standards. Let me recap that
  for you, because it really is extraordinarily important: As long as
  the beer keeps flowing and the paychecks keep coming, Mr. Senior's
  satraps don't really care that he will create a beachhead for
  organized solecism because he possesses a hatred that defies all
  logic and understanding, that cannot be quantified or reasoned away,
  and that savagely possesses conniving, sanctimonious
  unpatriotic-types with bookish and uncontrollable rage. The best
  gauge of the value of my attitudes, the sincerity of my convictions,
  and the force of my will is the hostility I receive from misinformed
  freaks. Interestingly, Mr. Senior doesn't seem to care about that.

  I fear that, over time, his revenge fantasies will be seen as
  uncontested fact, because many people are afraid to snap his lackeys
  out of their trance. When Mr. Senior is gone, all that will be left
  from his legacy of hate is the hate itself. As long as I live, I
  will be shouting this truth from rooftops and doing everything I can
  to discuss the programmatic foundations of Mr. Senior's
  condescending epithets in detail. To those few who disagree with
  some of the things I've written, I ask for your tolerance. And for
  those pesky big-mouths who want to hide behind the argument that his
  associates are not spineless prevaricators, but rather, disreputable
  lounge lizards, my question is simply this: What's the difference? I
  shall return to this point in particular. I've already explained
  why, but let me add that Mr. Senior's pleas will have consequences
  -- very serious consequences. And we ought to begin doing something
  about that.

  Mr. Senior would have us believe that he defends the real needs of
  the working class. That, of course, is nonsense, total nonsense. But
  Mr. Senior is surrounded by unscrupulous, flippant mob bosses who
  parrot the same nonsense, which is why there is a format he should
  follow for his next literary endeavor. It involves a topic sentence
  and supporting facts. Before I continue, let me state that once you
  understand his deeds, you have a responsibility to do something
  about them. To know, to understand, and not to act, is an egregious
  sin of omission. It is the sin of silence. It is the sin of letting
  Mr. Senior infiltrate the media with the express purpose of
  disseminating libidinous information. He claims that the federal
  government should take more and more of our hard-earned money and
  more and more of our hard-won rights. That claim is preposterous
  and, to use Mr. Senior's own language, overtly ill-bred. No history
  can justify it.

  Isn't it true that as depraved as it might sound, Mr. Senior's
  rejoinders are an ethically bankrupt carnival of isolationism? If
  that's not true, tell me why not. I frequently wish to tell
  Mr. Senior that he often uses the phrase, "Studies show that...", to
  introduce statements that wind up being chiefly about ideology,
  hunch, or preference. But being a generally genteel person, however,
  I always bite my tongue. Perhaps he has never had to take a stand
  and fight for something as critical as our right to deal stiffly
  with nefarious bimbos who monopolize the press. But I feel no more
  personal hatred for him than I might feel for a herd of wild animals
  or a cluster of poisonous reptiles. One does not hate those whose
  souls can exude no spiritual warmth; one pities them. It's easy for
  armchair philosophers to theorize about Mr. Senior and about
  hypothetical solutions to our Mr. Senior problem. It's an entirely
  more difficult matter, however, when one considers that to
  Mr. Senior's mind, his artifices epitomize wholesome family
  entertainment. So that means that cannibalism, wife-swapping, and
  the murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior,
  right? No, not right. The truth is that what we have been imparting
  to Mr. Senior -- or what he has been eliciting from us -- is a
  half-submerged, barely intended logic, contaminated by wishes and
  tendencies we prefer not to acknowledge.

  Am I the only one who makes that observation? Of course not. But
  perhaps I express it more directly, more candidly, and far less
  euphemistically than most. If history follows its course, it should
  be evident that Mr. Senior's weltanschauung is that we're supposed
  to shut up and smile when he says careless-to-the-core, vindictive
  things. Think about it, and I'm sure you'll agree with me. The
  question, therefore, must not be, "How insufferable can Mr. Senior
  be?", but rather, "What does Mr. Senior hope to achieve by
  repeatedly applying his lips to the posteriors of revolting
  psychics?". The latter question is the better one to ask, because I
  would never take a job working for Mr. Senior. Given his shiftless
  anecdotes, who would want to?

  Here's an idea: Instead of giving him the ability to subject us to
  the mischievous yapping of ribald loudmouths, why don't we justify
  condemnation, constructive criticism, and ridicule of him and his
  disgraceful crusades? If we do, we'll then be able to eschew
  officious interdenominationalism. He may be sincere, but he is also
  sincerely refractory.

  It is imperative that all of us in this community search for
  solutions that are more creative and constructive than the typically
  ultra-confused ones championed by pusillanimous radicals. This
  cannot occur unless there is a true spirit of respect and an
  appreciation of differences. Mr. Senior certainly believes that he
  can achieve his goals by friendly and moral conduct. What kind of
  Humpty-Dumpty world is he living in? The complete answer to that
  question is a long, sad story. I've answered parts of that question
  in several of my previous letters, and I'll answer other parts in
  future ones. For now, I'll just say that his legates often reverse
  the normal process of interpretation. That is, they value the unsaid
  over the said, the obscure over the clear. That fact is simply
  inescapable to any thinking man or woman. "Thinking" is the key word
  in the previous sentence. Even when Mr. Senior isn't lying, he's
  using facts, emphasizing facts, bearing down on facts, sliding off
  facts, quietly ignoring facts, and, above all, interpreting facts in
  a way that will enable him to unleash an unparalleled wave of
  obstructionism.

  One argument he makes is that my bitterness at him is merely the
  latent projection of libidinal energy stemming from self-induced
  anguish. That's just sheer arrant nonsense. The truth is that one of
  his goons once said, "Society is screaming for Mr. Senior's
  harangues." Now that's pretty funny, of course, but I didn't include
  that quote just to make you laugh. I included it to convince you
  that almost every day, Mr. Senior outreaches himself in setting new
  records for arrogance, deceit, and greed. It's surely breathtaking
  to watch him. Given his current mind-set, I will never give up. I
  will never stop trying. And I will use every avenue possible to
  discuss the advantages of two-parent families, the essential role of
  individual and family responsibility, the need for uniform standards
  of civil behavior, and the primacy of the work ethic.

  More concretely, only through education can individuals gain the
  independent tools they need to put the kibosh on Mr. Senior's
  disquisitions. But the first step is to acknowledge that some people
  say that that isn't sufficient evidence to prove that he is secretly
  scheming to cause one-sided words to be entered into historical
  fact. And I must agree; one needs much more evidence than that. But
  the evidence is there, for anyone who isn't afraid to look at
  it. Just look at the way that if the past is any indication of the
  future, he will once again attempt to rob us of our lives, our
  health, our honor, and our belongings. To do exactly the things
  Mr. Senior accuses short-sighted, unprincipled yobbos of doing is
  Mr. Senior's objective, and nit-picky favoritism is his method. He
  continuously seeks adulation from his apologists, to put it
  mildly. It is grossly misleading merely to claim that facts and
  their accuracy make a story, not the overdramatization of whatever
  he dreams up. Am I aware of how Mr. Senior will react when he reads
  that last sentence? Yes. Do I care? No, because I have a New Year's
  resolution for him: He should pick up a book before he jumps to the
  immature conclusion that everything he says is entirely and totally
  true. Because he should know better than to pander to our worst
  fears, because he is incapable of empathizing or identifying with
  others, and because he has a vested interest in making me die a slow
  and painful death, we can conclude that Mr. Senior wants to get me
  thrown in jail. He can't cite a specific statute that I've violated,
  but he does believe that there must be some statute. This tells me
  that we were put on this planet to be active, to struggle, and to
  tell Mr. Senior how wrong he is. We were not put here to harm
  others, or even instill the fear of harm, as Mr. Senior might
  believe.

  In other words, the law is not just a moral stance. It is the
  consensus of society on our minimum standards of behavior. It is
  irresponsible to accept everything at face value. That shouldn't
  surprise you when you consider that I overheard one of his trained
  seals say, "University professors must conform their theses and
  conclusions to Mr. Senior's noxious prejudices if they want to
  publish papers and advance their careers." This quotation
  demonstrates the power of language, as it epitomizes the "us/them"
  dichotomy within hegemonic discourse. As for me, I prefer to use
  language to push a consistent vision that responds to most people's
  growing fears about obstreperous Philistines. As we all know, by
  opting for the easy, short-term, feel-good path, Mr. Senior will put
  the gods of heaven into the corner as obsolete and outmoded and, in
  their stead, burn incense to the idol Mammon in a lustrum or
  two. The salient point here is that from secret-handshake societies
  meeting at "the usual place" to back-door admissions committees, his
  forces have always found a way to till the feckless side of the
  denominationalism garden. And that's it. What Mr. Russell S Senior
  insists are original methods of interpretation are nothing more than
  warmed-over versions of imperialism.

For your own amusement, see:

  <http://www.pakin.org/complaint>

-- 
Russell Senior         ``I have nine fingers; you have ten.''
seniorr at aracnet.com




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