Aquarian Weekly 4/23/08
REALITY CHECK

CONFESSION OF AN ELITIST

Hi, my name is James Campion, and I'm an elitist.

I'm fairly certain most of the people who have read even a sentence of this column over the past decade-plus have come to this conclusion already. But for those who have been laughing too hard or throwing up too violently to realize this personality trait, it is true.

Now, this does not mean I think I am necessarily better than anyone. Oh, heaven's no. It is quite the opposite. You all have it over me. You've managed to fool yourself in thinking you matter. This is an enviable talent I do not possess. I have often admitted in print that I should be eradicated. Erased like a horrible mishap of biology. I am a completely useless organism that shamelessly gorges on the very systems I berate. I am a phony and a hypocrite. I need to die, right away, without so much as a hint of remorse. But, alas, I am too lazy and mainly interested in seeing what will happen next to do it myself.

However, I do think I see things clearer than most, in fact, way clearer. I am repeatedly, and in many ways, revoltingly astounded how utterly stupid most people are, and by most people, I mean anyone but me. In fact, I have pretty much figured that the entire human experiment is not only an abject failure, but if there is a God and he or she or it is responsible for this miserable shit, he is the ultimate fucking idiot.

Whew, that felt good.

Okay, so this brings me to the subject of today's dissertation.

There was a lot of talk this past week out of Pennsylvania (the world's think-tank) that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is also an elitist, just because he rightly pointed out that most hard-hat, Johnny Lunch pail, beer-gut, fast-food trough fuckers will never vote for "the black guy" because they are bitter, bigoted, gun-toting Neanderthals, who bludgeon the rest of us clear-thinking folk with their Jesus rants and demand those running for high office perform their goofy slack-jawed activities like bowl, fish, hunt, or back-spit at the corner watering hole while blaming all the ills of the world on women, "niggers", and "those illegals" just to get a sniff of the dullard vote.

Shit, that's not elitism. Not even close.

When you are done reading this missive, the hope against hope is your speed-addled, television-mangled dumb ass will be able to differentiate its author from Barack Obama, who is merely one of those intellectuals with a Faulty Edit-Meter.

For those of you with your face in a Blackberry, a Blue-Tooth in your ear and a thumb up your shoot, Faulty Edit-Meters are a dime a dozen in places like Harvard. Many of these overly nurtured and appallingly sheltered brain mutants are not allowed to roam through society, so they sequester themselves in academia in some form or other. Unlike us elitists, who get an endless kick out studying the damaged human animal, they fear every aspect of civilization. This is why many of them never leave higher education at all, safely walling themselves in with the other shuddering eggheads, who find a measure of pride in loathing the rest of us for jacking off to pro football and Project Runway reruns.

Obama is an intellectual that managed to escape the pod, that's all.

But people fear intellectuals like the plague. Many among us think the very concept of reading, debating, general discovery, the sciences, literature, high art, and subtle and not-so subtle forms of cultural rebellion is the plague, and these mindless thugs have been trying to halt it ever since they sent Galileo packing 375 long years ago. But he was the lucky one. Intellectuals have been summarily stoned, crucified, beheaded, tarred-and-feathered, burned at the stake, and other sordid pleasantries for centuries.

This is why faux historians and bored high school teachers still try to sell Adolf Hitler, a barely-educated hack painter bereft of an original thought in his badly styled head, as some kind of mad super-genius. He wasn't a genius. He was a fraud. This is different than intellectual or elitist. Other frauds include religious conman Pat Robertson, social parasite Al Sharpton, baseball commissioner Bud Selig, and whatever steaming sack of vermin feces is the CEO of Guitar Center, to name just a few.

Elitist is merely a term the threatened hordes of mediocrity use to make the freethinking and open-minded feel like they're diseased. True elitists call this Enlightenment. We adore this affliction. We worship it like you worship money, strip clubs, and invisible godheads. Enlightenment keeps us from playing along with your knuckle dragging, drool-slobbered lifestyles and superstitions. In other words, most of what you cherish and enjoy about breathing for seventy or eighty odd years we honestly believe is not only petty and banal, but a dangerous self-mutilation of the precious gift of reason.

I've said it before in various ways, so what's one more: There is no point to you. You are sucking up vital minerals and resources this planet needs to keep nobler beasts and essential plant life going. It is you who are the virus. Humanity is nothing more than evolution's fart in the wind. We suck, so we distract ourselves in a constant stream of meaningless activity and pointless belief systems to avoid the truth. But that's fine, nothing, not even an amoeba wants to suck. But the good news is we'll be gone someday and everything will return to normal.

Also, if I may, portraying someone as bitter because they were drawn into a fixed system like moths to a flame with fairytales of the American Dream - work hard, study hard and you will be king of the world - and end up being cold-cocked by the realities of life is not the least bit elitist. It is judgmental. Hell, some may say, and I may be one of them, fairly observant, actually. But everyone judges. This is part of the virus of humanity. Those trees and animals you're killing through your futile existence don't judge. The real Jesus guy alluded to something like that, not the crazy Euro-Christ mannequin you cling to, the guy whose basic tenets you ignore in order to better populate your fancy social clubs dressed up as churches.

Oh, and saying someone "clings" to something like the fight over gun rights or the pro-life issue is not an insult. I cling to the idea that if one more asinine politician tries to perpetuate a civil rights abuse on us again, like denying gay marriage, I'm not only going to not vote for them, I am going to spend many of my waking hours making sure they are exposed as the stone-cold fascists they really are.

So call Barack Obama a liberal or an amateur, say he is in over his head and a big-government tax fiend, but he is not "out of touch". He's "in touch". He might be too "in touch" to be president. Those types tend to be badly articulated car salesmen with a buddy complex.

Now, if you want a true elitist to run things, look no further.

I'm your man.

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