Rage vs Hope

It was heartening to see RATM get to number one for Christmas. What is great is to see the power of the internet as a medium for, well, anarchy. I've always thought "Killing in the Name" was perhaps the ultimate libertarian anthem (the "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" bit at the end is exhilarating), although of course, as is pointed out elsewhere, they are actually signed up to the same label as the X Factor guy - Sony.

The irony then is obvious, and corporate interests haven't been hurt a bit. I can envision conspiracy theories that this battle was actually set up by sources in Big Music.

Still, it confirms the optimism I have for the future. It's the internet vs global fascism, that's what the next decade's going to be about.

I wanted to say something about Hope, which is the theme of Joe McElderry's song and pretty much all blatherings around Christmas time. Faith, hope and love are the three great virtues, according to some bible passage that I remember from way back. Well, love has many different meanings. Faith and belief are terrible concepts - responsible for more deaths than you may care to quantify. And hope is just as bad - as Gerald Celente says, it's the most negative word in the dictionary. It takes power out of the hands of people and into the hands of fate, or some other guy. Just as, bizarrely, democracy actually takes power out of the people and into the elites.

Even Roissy has a take on hope, from a different angle, but the point is still the same:

Hope is the great alpha killer, the destroyer of masculinity, the betrayer of dignity. It serves one purpose only — to trick you away from the path of righteous self interest. Weak people cling to hope. But hope is a faint siren song; as soon as you taste some success you will forget all about hope and wallow in the delights of reality.

"Hope" is another word that has been handed down since the emergence of agriculture; another cultural tool of mind enslavement sanctioned by religion. Actually it comes from Middle English hopen, which means to "expect, think, guess, without implication of desire." Well, without desire or urge, we don't amount to much, so that's the problem right there.

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here! Indeed. And have instead only desire, and righteous self-interest. And it will be Good.