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A
message from
Fun for America Chairman
Michael B. Heaney
My dearest friends and allies,
This has been a hard Christmas for those of us in the Fun for America Liberation Army since we took up the task of liberating our great nation from the forces of Alabama.I'm not even kidding. Turns out there were more gun nuts nestled in the rural areas of that state than could have been imagined, and what they lack in strategy, training or intellect they make up for in violent zealotry and shameless inbreeding.
Many of the Fun Party staff were forced to visit our boys in the field over the holidays in hopes of boosting troop morale, not to mention our daring liberation of our propaganda chief, caught behind enemy lines when the war broke out. Still, it's ultimately a seige, so unless aid for Alabama arrives unexpectedly from Utah or something, it's only a matter of time before we claim victory and rid ourselves of our collective lowest common denominator.
Friends, in recent posts, I've spent too much time focusing on the negative aspects of "them." Let's face it, we all are quite aware that "they" aren't fun. They aren't into love, they aren't into drugs, they aren't into art, they aren't even really into life. But that all gets old after a time. No matter how true or relevant, it all just becomes bitching, sooner or later, when what I should be doing is providing the sort of ethical leadership one expects from a declared spokesman for a social, political and moral community like the Fun Party. "All this punditry can be interesting," you say as you scan over the blogs, "but when are they going to really get down to the having fun part."
Let me get to work rectifying this.
Friends, have you ever thought to yourself how "their" values and attitudes have so long been in place that we tend to cling to them in spirit long after we've abandoned them in name? Look at this whole notion of "supporting our troops." We shout the patriotic line in a blind stupor born largely of the desire to avoid exposing ourselves too openly to the hatred or rejection of our society, but when do we stop to wonder why we support our troops? The boring and meaningless old rhetorical one liner of defending freedom hasn't really been relevant since 1945. Most of these kids in Iraq never signed on to defend the U.S. or its ideals, and even those which did aren't being put to that purpose now. Frankly, most troops down in Iraq signed up for a job that isn't fun and mostly involves bullying, imprisoning and killing people you don't know or have any reason to hate at the say so of awful liars and tyrants for their own petty ends.
Friends, I don't support that, I don't support people who do that and I don't consider that fun. I'm not saying spit on the next boatload of our boys that gets shipped home, but when we scream that we support our troops, think about it. Is it out of blind patriotism, sympathy towards an unfortunate, or even fear of the backlash for saying anything else?
But this is merely an example I intend to use to lend to a point, and that point is this: if we take a moment to pay attention to "their" rules and "their" applications of said rules, we find that simply by justly ignoring such rules, we can increase our own ability to have fun tremendously.
I went to see the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou recently.
The movie was scheduled to play at 10:40. My friend and I paid $12 per ticket. At 11:20, it finally began, or more accurately, the ads began.
Not the previews, mind you, those wouldn't start for another ten or so minutes. The ads. The ads to make these people more and more money, after $12 a ticket, $5 for popcorn, $4 for a drink. While we were sitting there, Clint was describing an aspect of the world of film by which it is understood that you do not ever try and actually make money from royalties. Most major studios have perfected the art of using contract wording, multiple and dummy corporations and good old legal bullying to ensure that there is no "profit" made by which royalties could be generated. This is simply understood within the industry.
Friends, these are the moral and ethical rules which "they" play by. They screw you every way they can. This explanation ended at about the time the last ad was beginning, an ad explaining to you what a moral sin and ethical travesty movie piracy is. Friends, in some platonic utopia of ethical perfection, piracy might be wrong. The simple truth, however, is that our major media empires screw everyone they can for everything they can without thought or cause to the ethical implications. They have sacrificed the social contract at the feet of their golden cow, and not only is it ethically sound to pirate from them, it is a social obligation. Revenge? Pah.
Our aspirations are far more noble.
Let me pitch two worlds to you. Whenever you propose an ethical shift, you must base it upon your notions of natural rights, or goals.
"They," the right wing, would have you believe that the scenario described above, where those with money screw you by applying ridiculous laws written largely by the very same segment of society, which are passed and upheld by a bought and sold legal system while you are shamed and attacked for taking back so much as an iota of personal joy from it without paying out your ass, is an "ethical" one.
For some reason, they suppose they have the right to this. They call it the right to property, but cannot explain where this right comes from or why we should want to protect it. Their world, then, is one where ownership and profit are the only end goals. Take what you can in any way that doesn't get you prosecuted by the moment's bullshit law, and hold it. That's the end of their world.
Now, imagine a world where sharing and application of information is considered paramount. Where creation and exploration of art, science, our universe, each other is entirely consensual, entirely open and entirely exploitable by everyone who choses to. Imagine what we, both as individuals, a society and a species might accomplish in such a world! Imagine how much fun we might all have! Can I say that some mysterious god has given my notion a higher grade of approval than theirs? I cannot. But I ask you, which sounds more FUN? Which world seems the better one for everyone, Mindless, often violent or dishonest grubbing for short term wealth which is largely illusion to begin with, or cooperative sharing and application of the entire collective of human knowledge and creative ability?
In the end, I feel that most major media corporations like microsoft and sony should be punished. They've broken laws, ruined people and generally worked very hard to strip their fellow man merely for the sake of money. A hell of a lot of money, admittedly, but money nonetheless. For that, they should be punished. But that is not the ultimate reason we at the Fun Party suggest that you pirate from them.
We promote the act of information piracy because it is FUN, and if we can just free all information for the use of everyone, odds are it will to lead to much more fun in the future!
So look at "their" world and "their" rules, my friends. In the end its a lot of bullshit moralizing based on nothing but lies and greed, leading only to a world in which fun is demonized. Compassion, cooperation, enjoyment, these things are not their interests, not their goals, and by that very token, letting go of these barbaric throwbacks will, as often as not, lead to more fun for you. And if you think I'm painting a ridiculously bleak and exagerated picture, I point you, by way of example, to our right wing friends at the Ayn Rand Institute, god bless their black, shriveled hearts. (The answer to their question, "What Right," by the way, can be found by reading the Declaration of Independence, the very beginning of which states that "life" and "happiness" are considered rights held by all humans. We at the fun party happen to agree, but those unamerican fucktard objectivists are ever our most bitter rivals.)
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