I hate being right all the time.

And I thought I was the only one crazy enough to use the metaphor of the media priesthood:

The cultic aspects of corporate consumerism have been evident as far back as the Ford
Sociological Department, but recently there has been an shameless and enthusiastic commercial promotion of cultic psychology because “the smartest marketers have realized that it is possible for communities to be formed around brands” as Atkin argues in his 2004 marketing manifesto The Culting of Brands where he tells our future business leaders “You are a priest, not a brand manager.”

(Our culture MAY BE in trouble when we’ve lost the ability to create community out of relationships with other people, and instead respond primarily to commercial priests who gather us around their mass-produced sacred objects – in safely gated communities no doubt. (can anyone say “pass the Kool-Aid?”see “don’t drink the punch”)

(source) Elsewhere, the author says:

Though The Church of the SubGenius is rarely explicitly political nor aligned with a discernible single politics, it is in synch with a creative power that is alive and well in the global anti-capitalist movement, according to we are everywhere edited by Notes from Nowhere where a return to the invitingly joyful subversions possible in
embodiment and “Carnival” are replacing the dull outdated revolutionary paradigms of grim, sober service to a duplicate disciplinary cause – “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

If only I shared his optimism. The Church of the SubGenius put a banner on the top of their website in March 2003 saying "BOB" SUPPORTS THE COALITION TROOPS. I don't blame Stang for doing that - doing anything else would have alienated many dues-paying SubGenius Troo Warriors For Freedom, who - all joking aside - recognized the need to stop goofing around and support brave President Bush and his mission to kill thousands of Iraqis as an act of primitive primate dominance. But it shows exactly the limits of the One True Church - as those Discordian readers of this blog keep telling me, Discordianism isn't supposed to be a revolutionary party, and neither is SubG. SubG is supposed to be a means for Stang to make a living so he can promote mutant networking fulltime, and it's very good in that respect.

As for "grim sober service" - that's all that works. Churchill and Roosevelt didn't defeat Hitler and Tojo because they were the good guys, but because they could mobilise brute force better over the medium term. If you don't mobilise your forces, you lose. If you don't become symmetrical to an enemy, you can't defeat them. You can't win in this world except on the terms of the Prince Of This World. Gandhi and MLK were brutally assassinated, while Joe Stalin lived to a ripe old age. If you don't take on the Black Iron Prison in its own terms, it will tolerate you living in your little clubhouse and playing at being cowboys, anarchists and witches... as long as you are no real threat. I am increasingly convinced that being miserable is the only sign that you're actually making a change in the real world. It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering, but you can choose your own suffering.