Hello from Wireworld
By The Cockroach, aka Alaric Hunt
Just give me the shovel

Welcome to the NYPD
(Photo Credit: Gordon Parks/Corbis/Library of Congress)
Riddle me this: What is oppression?
Oppression is taking.
Oppression is standing nearby, ready to take
more.
Oppression is frightening people so that they
will watch you and try to guess what you will do
next.
Oppression is negative expectations.
Oppression occurs in the imagination.
Oppression takes away choices.1
Once the choices are gone, humans think
constantly about what they don’t have.2 The lack
of choice defines everything. This is the first step
Volume I, Number 8
in achieving control. This is the process of
terrorization.
A joke:
Two Germans took a Pole, two Jews, and a
shovel3 into the forest. As darkness crowded
around them, the Germans handed the shovel to
the Pole.
“Bury the Jews,” they said.
The Pole was a good Catholic; he refused.
One German shrugged, and the other took the
shovel back from the Pole.
The German handed the shovel to one of the
Jews. “Bury the Pole,” he said.
One Jew sobbed while he dug with the
shovel; the other used his hands. Once they had
buried the Pole up to his neck, the Germans
stopped them.
“Dig him up,” they said.
The Jews dug up the Pole with relieved cries.
Then the Germans handed the shovel back to
the Pole. The darkness was so complete that not
even God could see in the forest.
“Bury the Jews,” they said.
The Pole buried the Jews, and the Germans
never told him to stop.4
A prisoner in a cage looks out of the cage.
Like the Pole, the prisoner learns quickly that
morals have no place in decision-making.
Yesterday and tomorrow will be sacrificed for
today. The prisoner is a ready tool in the hand of
an oppressor; oppression makes the unthinkable
suddenly thinkable.5
This is the greatest oppression:
Harness the victims as the tools of oppression.
Use the victims to oppress each other.
 1
Objects and possessions symbolize choices by the possible actions they represent. This is why humans become attached to objects. Men,
for example, keep tools that they never use—because they might one day use them. The object in such a case represents the potential of
action, and thus choice.
2
First step. Take a child’s Halloween candy, then watch the mental somersaults the child performs. The one thing the child cannot do is
to stop thinking about the candy. They have no choice.
3
More Jews were murdered with shovels between 1939 and 1945 than with any other weapon. (I exaggerate.) The Germans came to use
shovels because of combat experiences (trench warfare) in the Great War. Excellent close-combat weapon.
4
Sorry, but this is a true story, even if it is not usually told this way.
5
Second step. Give the Halloween candy taken from one child to another child. Then turn your back and walk away. How far will you
walk before you hear the first cries? Third step. Say nothing. The next morning, when the stronger child is eating the candy, simply smile.
Or take sides.
What do you think will happen next time? Welcome to wireworld.