John Montgomery  Presents This Week's Creep Logo by Lynn Kauczka

The 911 Terrorists Tribes Versus Tribes

Under normal circumstances, I use humor in an attempt to lighten up the dark side of our existence. Sometimes it's the only way to get through a catastrophe without going stark, raving mad.

Under normal circumstances, I try to avoid statements that I know will be viewed as distasteful or offensive by mass quantities of people. That's done mostly for self preservation. After all, my goal is to keep people reading my stuff.

Under normal circumstances, I use profanity very sparingly. I have enough command of the English language that I can usually find some other words to use. And I'd hate to have one of those kiddie filters prevent some wisdom-seeking, knowledge-thirsting youth from feasting here.

Under normal circumstances.

But right now, circumstances are pretty fucking far from normal.

Out in the jungle, where it's survival of the fittest, animals kill other animals. They kill each other over food, over territory and over breeding rights. That about covers the gamut of reasons. Animals don't kill other animals because they hate each other. No, hatred is a distinctly human reason to kill. It takes intelligence to kill because of hate. Only creatures who have evolved to the higher plane of rational thought kill for hatred. We've been doing it since the day some ape-man from the good tribe picked up a bone and realized he could use it as a weapon to bash in the skull of another ape-man from that bad tribe that had been scaring the good tribe away from the watering hole.

It's been tribes versus tribes ever since, and we tribe members haven't progressed one bit. Only the weapons have evolved.

The 911 terrorists who hijacked four planes, destroyed the World Trade Center, crashed into the Pentagon, killed thousands of people and put the fear of God into every civilized person on earth this week were full of hatred. Blinding, bile-producing, ulcer-creating, acid-indigestion-inducing hatred. Those kinds of people are always dangerous, but these particular ones were especially so because they were intelligent and fearless, too. No gang of idiots pulled off that escapade. This was not a pack of rednecked, drunken assholes tying up some poor sucker and dragging him to death behind their pickup truck just because they hated his black ass. These terrorists didn't allow their hatred to get in the way of precise, disciplined planning and expert piloting. They surely died with smiles on their faces and glorious visions of a welcoming Allah in their heads.

How do you fight an intelligent, hate-filled enemy who doesn't care if he lives or dies? I don't know. But I do know the "bomb those greasy towel-heads till their countries look like goddamn parking lots" approach won't work. You can cut off Osama bin Laden's head, put it on the end of a stick and parade it down New York's Fifth Avenue at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, but the next day you'll have 25 more lunatics just like him plotting the next attack. If you're going to start killing greasy towel-heads, you better kill every last one of them, women and children included. How'd you like watching that endless replay of the women and children in East Jerusalem dancing and partying at the news? Remember, every one of those kids has a free scholarship to flight school in their not-too-distant future.

No, the parking lot idea is knee-jerk and stupid. Intelligence will beat stupid every time. Stupid is based on hatred. Hate breeds more hate. Those evil bastards in Afghanistan are already plotting their retaliation against our retaliation that hasn't even occurred yet. I expect to hear that mindless swill from the idiots at the water cooler. They're always parroting something stupid they just heard on AM radio. But I expect more from our leaders. Hopefully, we'll get it. At this point, I'm inclined to let Bush and Company do their thing without any static from me. That's what we're paying them for.

But the other tribe doesn't have any monopoly on hatred. There's plenty being thrown around on this side of the watering hole, too. And if we want to do something positive about this, let's work on the hate.

Every day, our TV and radio airwaves are filled (and fouled) by obsessive hatred. Within minutes of the attack, all the familiar hate mongers were out in force, using the dead bodies as an excuse to point their fingers and push their agendas. The CIA did it! The liberals are responsible! See? We need my missile defense system! And, of course, the inevitable and incessant It's all Clinton's fault! And Hillary too! We hate them! Hate Hate Hate Hate!

Call your local cable company and tell them you're canceling your subscription because they broadcast too much hatred. Call the local radio station and tell them your car's radio button no longer goes there. Organize a boycott of the sponsors of these shows. Tell them you won't be buying any more of their products because they're supporting hatred. And then don't.

One hate monger who wasn't commenting was Barbara Olson, a TV commentator and a twisted, awful woman who was totally consumed with rancid, venomous hatred. She made a living at it. Barbara was a passenger on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. I wouldn't wish that kind of death on anyone, but the world is a better place without her. Good riddance. Her husband, US Solicitor General Theodore Olson, is also an obscenely obsessive hater. Now his bed is even colder than it already was.

And wait until you hear what God has to say about this. His two chief spokesmen, Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, got together to suck each other's fanatical, Christian little dicks and blame the attack on civil liberties groups, feminists, gays and abortion rights supporters. Jerry said our "secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect." Can we finally stop taking these pompous shitheads seriously? Call Jerry and Pat. (Jerry Falwell 804-237-0770, Pat Robertson 757-226-7000). Tell them they're an affront to good Christians everywhere and slimeballs of the highest magnitude. If any politician who represents you sucks up to these two cheap, flatulent gas bags, vote 'em out of office and tell 'em why.

Jerry and Pat need to be eliminated. When we catch Osama, let's give him a few sticks of dynamite and keep him alive long enough to have a long talk with these two sanctimonious cocksuckers.

If the guy who runs your church talks like that, get rid of him. Religion and hatred do not mix. Nobody should have the right to hide behind religion while he's spewing out vitriolic horseshit in the name of God. Tie these heathen crackpots to an anchor and drop them in the river. If you're listening to that manure every week and paying the dung dredger who's piling it on you, you're just as bad. If he's too entrenched in power at the church to get him out of there, get out of there yourself and find another place to worship. There are plenty of churches where love is the answer.

I don't want to put limits on anyone's freedom of speech or religion. I only want to put limits on one's ability to be a hate monger without some suffering the consequences. Like having a foot shoved firmly up one's ass.

Had enough hatred? Well, how about some greed? Greed is hatred's close cousin and it was also on display in abundance in the wake of 911. On eBay, you could buy pieces of the blown up World Trade Center for only a few hundred dollars. Bogus fund raising schemes began almost immediately. That crap, at least, you could ignore, but what if you needed gas for your car and found out the price had suddenly been raised to $5 a gallon? That's what you would have found had you gone to The R and L Texaco in Oklahoma City. Over at the Super Pumper Amoco station in Devils Lake, North Dakota, the price of a gallon went from $1.89 to $3.29 in two hours.

If you live near one of these places, or any other place where greed reigned, walk in and start screaming that you'll never under any conditions ever do business there again and neither will any of your friends or family. Drive them into bankruptcy. Put them on the unemployment line. Make it impossible for them to earn a living. Maybe they'll starve.

I guess that's enough. Normally, writing this web site every week calms me down, but today it's getting me more pissed off by the minute. I've been pounding the desk with my fist for hours and now there's blood all over the keyboard.

Chalk up one more victim of tribes versus tribes.