I'm Happy, You're Happy
by Minna vander Pfaltz
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 1, 2006



 

Why do people need to kill each other to be happy? Everybody in the world is trying to kill everybody else. Especially in America. America must be filled with happy people, right? They are doing so much killing around the world they must be delirious. Add to this that they are also killing their own. It is quite possible with this track record that America may succumb to extreme happiness. Yet when one wins his/her way past the happiness guardians, one discovers that Americans must not be trying hard enough: there are a whole lot of unhappy people there.

This unhappiness is, of course, difficult to explain; but perhaps the problem is that there are too many people. As killing will help solve this problem it stands to reason that more killing will hasten happiness. If there are too many people, then what better place to up the ante than on the home front? Surely ingenious ways can be found, for sense-gratification cannot be postponed too long or people become unhappy. Unhappier. Or, worse, the idea of happiness palls and we give it up. How awful! Killing now is working for the happiness of the future generation, their children -- and your children. Those who die in this endeavor become heroes, martyrs for the cause. What selfless people! What soullessness! Truly, killers are an example for us all. So remember the exhortations of the famous A. Guthrie: "Kill. Kill! Kill!" And be happy. Don't worry. For what is better than working for the happiness of all, yes? After all, it is God's way: he killed -- or had killed, it's the same thing -- his son for the happiness of all, not to mention the great slaughters he brought down on others. So pray that you might kill or be killed in selfless self-sacrifice to the well being of your neighbors.

Perhaps, though, the reason for the unhappiness in America is that so many people go out of their way to stay stupid and misguided. They do this in the name of comfort and security; that is, in their own homes. If high technology in the form of computers for playing games or watching banned movies is not present in the home, more than likely there is a television set. Televisions have become as necessary as indoor plumbing to early 20th century urban dwellers. Unlike disposing of the outhouse, TV has brought the shit inside. Mindless passive entertainment that, like killing, Americans seem to be ever in more want of. Thirteen channels were not enough, so they paid for 10 more. That was not enough and it became 50 -- at added expense. For yet more money, 300 channels of shit can be piped into the home. Mind numbing it is, the variations of stupidity that will be bought by the great multitude of TV viewers. And it is true that they view: no thought is required. Hell -- no thought wanted! Dumb and dumber. So enthused about the shit on the tube have grown-ups become that they've had it put into the classrooms of the nation's schools so that their children can be educated to the benefits of mind numbing shit. Popular demand has forced stores, buses, transportation terminals, offices -- you name it -- to have TVs installed so their customers can be entertained by costumed stupidity and guided misinformation. It is hoped, we suppose, that by barraging the populace with so much -- nay, an overwhelming amount of stupid shit that Americans will not know they are unhappy. And if they are not unhappy, they must be happy.

But this only accounts for a certain percentage of the populace. The poor working class and the victims of poverty and the homeless and the marginalized, because they are aimless or puritanically focused on their Moebius strip lives, are unhappy. This is where the killing comes in. First by gangs; then planned abject neglect. This is called, we believe, killing yourself to save yourself. Truly an earth-shattering concept.

Yet I think that if America is unhappy, how much worse must be those places people emigrate from? They are, of course, immigrating to America, the Land of Opportunity, and creating more unhappiness. You know how people carry their old baggage with them. Realizing this, the government has accordingly limited immigration and is working hard to dispel other already landed yet unhappy immigrants from within their happy hunting ground. This sell job is done by way of keeping the stock pure. Pure happiness is hard to come by. Tarnishment is a no-no.

Yet I wonder . . . what will we do when we're all happy? Consider: since all the unhappy world needs to start the killing is one person realizing his unhappiness and that only by killing the unhappiness around him can he create happiness, how can we ever achieve our goal of happiness? What's left when you've killed off everybody? Perhaps we should make sure people stay unhappy. Then there'd be no reason to kill. Isn't that self-defeatist?

Who wants to give up happiness? You know?

So, you see? Anti-war people are happiness killers. Paradoxically, they are happiness enablers as they are happy about what it is they are doing. They are aiding and abetting misery and poverty. How perverse. Such perversity must cease. They must all be killed in order that we may continue with the business at hand: creating happiness. AKA killing. This shouldn't be too difficult for the killers, who are unhappy about these anti-war harlots. This creates a paradox I really do not wish to plumb -- though there is something about entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and chance-and-necessity about it. I mean, if they are bringing happiness by way of killing, how can they be unhappy killing anti-war freaks when anti-war freaks -- unhappiness givers? -- are killing them with happiness? It is difficult to see where happiness and unhappiness end.

This brings us to the present situation: development and deployment of Happiness Machines. As powerful an agent for happiness as nuclear weapons are, they take too long -- after the initial outburst of glee. The Neutrino Happiness Machine, however, is another matter. It is a 3-year-old's delight. Instant gratification. All sorts of killing. No more unhappy people. Inestimable happiness. Nirvana. What could be better!?

Minna vander Pfaltz is a world traveling freelancer. She has no home, but can be reached at: mvanderpfaltz@yahoo.com.

Other Articles by Minna vander Pfaltz

* How Far Have We Come?
* A Shriek in the Wilderness
* How to Unpickle a Nation

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