There's tea baggers, birthers, truthers, and any number of other ers. Back when I was a kid they were still called isms. Heck, up until eight years ago it was still isms and isms were represented by ists. The only time we hear of isms and ists anymore is with terror. Terror. Oh no, the ists! They'll bring us isms. Of course we are supposed to be afraid of the ists least they infect us with their ism. They want to destroy us and everything we stand for. I guess that's the difference. Er's don't want to destroy us, they're just kooky. They're not right in the head. If they would just get with the program they would realize that the ists are going to destroy us all with their mighty ism.
It sure feels as if I'm back in high school with my coach yelling and screaming that we need to hate dem SOB's from the next town over. Of course they hate us and everything we stand for and so we should hate them right back. The idea that two sets of American kids, raised a mighty seven miles apart would have anything in common was just ridiculous, or so we were told. I along with all but two of my teammates were mostly confused that the opposing team would hate us so. The two who weren't confused tried valiantly to explain it to us, but the explanation was mostly, "Because they're from that school. One of them even used the closer, "Because coach said so. None of the rest of us ever did get it, but we left the conversation behind because we didn't want any more explanations.
Despite the multitude of television specials, movies, and general pop references, my teammates were not knuckle draggers. I myself was more of a nerd with some athletic talent, but that was perspective more than anything else. They were mostly bright guys who when we played would do their best to win, but being angry with the other people who they had never met didn't make them play any better. Sports was an inclination, not the overriding way of life. When I see pro-athletes being interviewed they remind me a lot of those guys. They try to win. They practice hard to make sure that their ability to play the game is the best it can be, but in the end they accept that any number of factors can mean that the other team does sometimes win. Whichever team wins as a rule wouldn't have problem going out with the opposing team. As long as the other team played by the rules - and we are not speaking just of the rules of the game - those are merely an extension of the real rules.
The real rules are out there. We, I mean men, know what those rules are. We all live by them, and whatever someone does for a job, drives for transportation, utilizes for entertainment only matters to the lesser rules. Women don't know the rules because they are women. Women have their own rules, which are as a whole unfathomable to men. The only rule that women have that men understand is doing everything and absolutely anything to protect their children. We get that because we have a similar rule. Ours isn't the same because it includes protecting women. The female rule says save the children even at the cost of the man. Men's rules state protect the children and the woman even at the cost of self. Different emphasis, but we understand it. Not here to highlight the known differences between men and women, but it needed to be mentioned because we are talking about the rules.
What do the rules have to do with isms, ists, and ers? Everything. One of the first rules for men is you don't start a fight, but you damn well finish it. Walk away if you can. If you're walking and not slinking, you can hold your head high that you did the right thing, but when the butthead that you tried to not have a fight with punches you in the head for trying to do right you are supposed to rain down a world of hurt. That's the way it is, and I'm fairly sure that's the way it is the world over.
So when we men saw that many of our fellow men, and horribly a large number of women, and horror of horrors children, out for a trip with their parents were sucker-punched to death we were upset at this. One of the big reasons is not the inhumanity, or even the loss of life, it's the breaking of the rules. If the tragic events of September Eleventh, 2001, were more like the attack on the Pentagon, men would still hit back, but the rules dictate no kicking. Attacking a military target, and the Pentagon is the world's biggest military target, is within the rules. This is also why we hear so much about the Twin Towers and not the Pentagon. The Pentagon was and remains today, a prime military target. The guys there have effectively stated, "Come on hit me. You can have the first punch. Hit me right here on the jaw. That kind of invitation doesn't allow you to complain that someone hit you on the jaw. You get to hit them back, but you don't get to complain about the fight that brought onto yourself.
All of this has to do with ists, isms, and ers, because the ers have woken up to the fact that coach keeps yelling that the other team hates us and the ers have started to catch on that maybe the only reason they "hate us is because their coach said the same thing. There's talk amongst the ers, that not only is it not that the other team not hating us, but that Spicoli wrecked the car. 1
All of this is a lack of trust. Men trust that in the worst of times we set aside all the differences. That everything coaches, politicians, talking news heads, and women have told us about how bad the other guy is doesn't matter a lot when you've seen first-hand whether or not the other guy follows the real rules. If you pull up to the scene of an accident. Women and children are trapped inside. You're a corporate drone with an A-B car and stopping at the same time is a suit driving a brand new status mobile. He calls for help, while you try to get the car open. It won't budge, and the suit tells you that helps on the way. You both know that the people in the car won't make it till help arrives. You get some chain from your trunk, that you have no idea why it's in there except that it must've belonged to the guy you bought the car from. The suit ties one end to his soon to be abused undercarriage while you tie the other to the door. He guns it, and then you both get everyone out. When the blue collar husband arrives and offers to take you both out for a drink you accept, along with the suit. You don't drink, the suit's a wine guy, and when blue collar orders everyone a beer, you all drink beer. Why? Because of the rules. Blue collar's supposed to show a minimal level of gratitude and would probably do more, but right now he's supposed buy a drink for the men who did the right thing. You and the suit show that you accept his thanks by drinking to his family. Do you all go your own way? Probably, and you probably never see each other again, but you know that if you see the suit again, he's not just a suit, but a real man, who follows the real rules, and you would rightfully expect that he would feel the same about you. You would trust each other.
Those real rules have been manipulated. Some who are not real men are playing with the rules. Ers know that manipulation is going on. Ers may not know who is the ultimate source of the manipulation, nor what the goal of the manipulators is, but they know it's there. They know that manipulation is rampant. They know that things like the unemployment rate are a lie. None of the ers trust the government, its promoters, its figures, or its stories. The ers also don't trust other "venerable institutions like the news, the U.N., or organizations like AMA. Ers know the score. They do remember those things that supposedly went down the memory hole. They remember WMD. They remember what a heckuva a job was done on the Gulf Coast. They know that a major American city was allowed to sink into the muck, and not only that, but years have gone by and still no rebuilding. Why no rebuilding? Is it because poor black people think that they have first right to live in their city? Ers want to know.
They know that Genocide is still happening in Darfur and East Timor. Where's the UN? Stopping Genocide is supposed to be their prime reason for existing, not a place to b*tch because someone called someone else a bad name.
They know that the AMA and the CDC are pushing the new vaccine hard. Assuring everyone that it is safe. Is it? Is it as safe as cigarettes, AMA? Did you get plenty of Big Pharma kick backs on it? Was your written assurance that it is safe signed with a pen provided by the vaccine maker? CDC; should we should just ignore what happened in 1976? Or maybe Tuskegee?
Newspeople; ers are supposed to trust that you have done your jobs and vetted everything that is going on? That you are holding the feet of the rich and powerful to the fire of public opinion? You yell Watergate, Watergate, but what have you done lately? Have you reported on the dangers of live avian flu in the "safe vaccines or did you leave that to the bloggers? Did you report important news about what's going on in the White House or did you sit on it for a year because it might make it a war president look bad before a stage-managed election? Why, if he left office too soon it could cause the arms' side of your corporation to not make as much money. Did you ever report on voting irregularities, or Hell let's call it fraud, as people went to prison for it, in 2004? Geez, even that shadow of itself, that mouthpiece of the British government, the BBC reported on it. Do you think everyone in America has been completely lobotomized?
People across the world are taking notice. They are not forgetting. Men know that the rules are being broken and abused. That they are being lied to. That they are being manipulated. Women know that their babies, or someone else's, are being killed just so that the manipulators can make a few more pennies. Over it all the ers in America, and like minded people across the globe, know that they've been lied to for a long time. That there's been a lot of pissing on our boots and telling us it's rainin'. Whatever ers are called in their home countries, they no longer believe the isms that are offered to them for consumption or or fear. They don't believe the other ists are out to get them. The ers have started to notice that pretty much everything about the school is an illusion. In the end the ers think that coach has been lying to them.
1 In the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Spicoli wrecks the star player's car and covers it in graffiti implicating the opposing team. This successfully shifts the blame from him to them.
