Look, I’ve been as patient as the next guy when it comes to enduring the continual vile spew of this useless back-and-forth “debate” over who started what and who’s at fault and all the other bullshit associated with an illegal and immoral invasion. The facts are clear, and anyone who doesn’t know the history really needs to shut the fuck up and inform themselves before subjecting the rest of us to their thinly-veiled, slavish boosterism, no matter who they side with—the fascist oppressors and the maniacally dangerous rebels have both committed heinous sins. This is not a time to fall back on ignorance and favoritism, and clinging to well-worn shibboleths will only get your ass rocket-bombed in the end, dude. Fuck that. I won’t waste my love on a nation, and I suggest you pay attention, lest you continue to foolishly do so.
And yes, I am indeed referring to the perennial tribulations of a densely-populated coastal enclave, whose Mediterranean climate is nevertheless blighted by overcrowding, poor sanitation, feudal landowners, ruthless violence, substance-fueled orgies, moral depravity, and other shameful hallmarks of absolute degradation. Like most abused third-world scapegoats, it has been ever thus. It’s no secret that most of the awful situation’s current problems have their roots in a violent conflict from about forty years ago, during which a repressed populace, driven to mindless self-indulgence by their wretched condition, rose up and physically defied a tyrannical ruler by destroying a hated local financial outpost of his military-industrial empire. His incompetent but brutal viceroy then unleashed the porcine rage of local law enforcement, causing further destruction and death. The upheaval was crushed, however, and a pattern thus emerged that would repeat itself across the ensuing decades.
Over the next twenty years, outbursts of violence and repression ebbed and flowed to varying degrees, until about a decade ago when the level of sheer dangerous lunacy reached such a fever pitch that the State felt compelled to step in once again and clamp down on the oppressed locals’ rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was a stark echo of previous pogroms, and it centered on a massive deployment of overwhelming force that descended like an avenging army over the crazed, babbling populace as they celebrated a traditional holiday in all appropriate debauched glory. When the boom of discipline lowered, however, there was zero tolerance for bullshit of any kind. Hysterical fear gripped the establishment, so the local population was kept cowed and watched at all times. Identification cards were issued to all permanent residents, and foreigners were not permitted to enter the effectively walled-in seaside ghetto.
I should point out at this juncture that I myself was a longtime resident of said coastal enclave—for nine long years—and I crossed and re-crossed the checkpoint-strewn border between that dirty sinkhole and the adjacent brightly-lit, shining beacon of opportunity that had been founded when a previous viceroy sought to give his hated foes a painful thumb in their eyes. It had been accomplished with a callous land-grab of an ancient military installation, but the surrounding community’s shocked silence was taken as approval. I knew the story well, for I had been indoctrinated in its fictionalized genesis. You see, I worked there. Yes, I earned a paycheck from several arms of the very establishment that held my homeland in a velvet-gloved, iron-fisted grip of oppression, and though my friends and family said they’d supported me, I knew in my heart that they cried bitter tears each and every night that I was shackled with the bonds of gainful employment. I was a sellout, a traitor to my kind, and they knew it.
But I led a double life. Indeed, all throughout my intellectual and commercial exploitation, I fought back in spirit by joining first one—and then another—tiny bands of freedom fighters. We slowly built up our following via blatant disregard for the hated laws of oppression, sometimes winning favorable press in small places, and—though ignored (first passively, and then actively) by others of similar bent who may have sympathized before their co-option—we soon began to get the attention of the world beyond the snarled barbed wire and soulless psychological concrete stacked against us. It wasn’t much, though, and before long our pitiful rebellion was wiped out with the potent weapons of universal apathy and organizational incompetence. We fought amongst ourselves, expelled compromised and counter-revolutionary elements, and slowly faded into the mists of time, erased from existence by the ongoing revisionism of state-controlled history.
The struggle endures, however—because the oppression shows no sign of abating, and the downtrodden will not long brook continued physical, moral, financial, and social harassment imposed by the surrounding nation–states and their client mercenaries. Their hateful propaganda continues, of course—spear-headed by a news daily owned by sociopaths that is deep in the pocket of established interests. It’s hard to look at it from where I am now, though—removed from the epicenter of conflict but still nearby enough to feel its ugly effects—because of how much I myself have succumbed to self-imposed co-option. I could almost—almost—feel sympathy for the Orwellian policies of the Ruling Elite, but that was before I was snapped back to reality when my lovely wife and I returned to tour the scenes of our rebellious youth. To make a long story short, the authorities stomped on our souls for no other reason than they could, and as long as that inhuman treatment continues, there will be no hope, none whatsoever, for a peaceful resolution to this horrible conflict.
