Intercepted Mission Communique - Declassified
The following decoded and declassified communique from Crowbar to a Resistance Force Independent Affiliate was released to HQ Staff at 00:07 hrs, on 1 May, 2005.
Dear Ernesto,
Thanks for your latest shipment of Glocks and AK47's. They arrived in good order although we did get into some skirmishes with some of your delivery personnel. Where are you finding the people you get to deliver this stuff? The Hell's Angels?
And those AK's! Ernesto, you know I'd never complain but those things look about a hundred years old and smell like they were stored in a septic tank. Beggars can't be choosers and all that, but just once I'd like to fight with some weapons that *didn't* smell like the inside of someone's ass.
Ok, now that my obligatory grousing is out of the way, I've got lots of news to bring you up to speed on.
As you may know, members of the Resistance Force and a pile of their affiliates met this past week on the coast to outline a plan going forward. It was all very respectable (we met above ground, for a change), we were booked into lovely hotels, and the cookies they served on breaks were clearly catered (though nothing compared to The Cookiemaker's). That said, I'm not sure how I feel about what went down around the table. 100 delegates from around the country, each purporting to speak for the "grassroots" of the Force, called motions, tabled resolutions, and voted like good little puppets. I'm sorry, but it kinda freaks me out when the Resistance begins to look so much like the Dark Side (TM) that we can't tell whose meeting we're in.
The idea behind this little tete-a-tete was to hammer out some national positions on issues like prostitution, Restorative Justice, criminalization of women and poverty. Laudable goals, all. That said, it can't be avoided that some Resistance Force members obviously wanted a mandate to go forward in their own battles, and tried to sneak in several trickily-worded resolutions to facilitate this. Caucusing and amended motions abounded. What ever happened to just jumping up on the table, shouting out a call to arms, and charging forward to mow down the enemy? We've become just a little too diplomatic for that, I guess.
Sigh. Diplomacy isn't a bad thing, I suppose, but at some point all these Resistance Force contingents are going to have to recognize that, no matter how many times they go to the table, the Dark Side is just gonna spin 'em around, bend 'em over, and do what they want anyway. And Ernesto, I hate to say it, but this week confirmed my belief that more than one of our battalions has fallen victim to the Dark Side's most insidious and dangerous weapon, the dreaded CO-OPTER. The really sneaky thing about this nasty little small arms ploy is you can't see when you've been wounded by it. At least if someone sticks you with a switchblade you know you're bleeding. When you've been attacked and overcome by the 'CO-OPTATION' tactic you still think you're unharmed and fighting on the right side. It's just that all your allies start to sound like hotheads to you and you start thinking of ways you can marginalize the 'extreme' voices. Like I said, it's insidious, and ultimately a Weapon of Mass Destruction for a Resistance Force. Sadly, the only time those who have been felled by it tend to come up for air and realize they were under its sway is when they look up and notice they have actually completely lost the war. Although my "I-told-you-so" side sometimes craves to be there when this happens, I'm clear it would mean that the Resistance Force has met its end and the Dark Side will once again be all-powerful.
So did I, Crowbar the Bludgeoner, become one of those 'extreme' voices, you ask? Oh Ernesto, you know better. Even in the moments when my foot began to kick aside my papers and voting card in order to hop up on the delegate table, Cake and Cult took over and hauled me back down. I hate it when they do that shit, but sometimes I have to acknowledge that they know better in the moment. Cake generally held her own and came out of the summit sounding reasonable and cooperative (how the hell did she get so good at that?). Cult similarly had a few victorious moments where she was able to reshape the room using her so-hypnotic ways, but even she fell flat on her face at least twice when she attempted to introduce a little *too* much logic, and a little *too* much truth. Typical of those who have been wounded by THE CO-OPTER, the once-allies agreed with her completely that she was entirely right and then proceeded to act as though she'd never spoken. Our Cult rallied bravely several times, but finally she too had to walk away in disgust, leaving Cake in charge of mollification and strategic voting.
So what does all this mean to us, and our business Ernesto? Not much that we didn't already know. You and I both know we are a rogue arm of the Resistance Force, we know that our focus on logic, truth and weaponry is generally unpopular. This means that your job of smuggling the tools of the revolution to us here at Crowbar HQ will be that much harder, and our recruiting work at HQ will need to be far more strenuous. We've already begun looking to our non-traditional allies for support and will be organizing, in the coming weeks, a meeting of like-minded Resistance Force members who we can be sure have avoided THE CO-OPTER when aimed at them. This means we may have to bring our own alliances - those we had a hand in forming so many years ago - low. It's not what I'd prefer, strategically, but it's what I come closer and closer to accepting.
The translation? Look for a shake-up in Resistance Force power over the coming months. Don't believe anyone who tells you we want to halt the transfer of weapons. And Ernesto, do try and find some guns that smell like metal, or shoeleather, or even sawdust. We might have them close to our faces sooner than you think.
CB Out.
Dear Ernesto,
Thanks for your latest shipment of Glocks and AK47's. They arrived in good order although we did get into some skirmishes with some of your delivery personnel. Where are you finding the people you get to deliver this stuff? The Hell's Angels?
And those AK's! Ernesto, you know I'd never complain but those things look about a hundred years old and smell like they were stored in a septic tank. Beggars can't be choosers and all that, but just once I'd like to fight with some weapons that *didn't* smell like the inside of someone's ass.
Ok, now that my obligatory grousing is out of the way, I've got lots of news to bring you up to speed on.
As you may know, members of the Resistance Force and a pile of their affiliates met this past week on the coast to outline a plan going forward. It was all very respectable (we met above ground, for a change), we were booked into lovely hotels, and the cookies they served on breaks were clearly catered (though nothing compared to The Cookiemaker's). That said, I'm not sure how I feel about what went down around the table. 100 delegates from around the country, each purporting to speak for the "grassroots" of the Force, called motions, tabled resolutions, and voted like good little puppets. I'm sorry, but it kinda freaks me out when the Resistance begins to look so much like the Dark Side (TM) that we can't tell whose meeting we're in.
The idea behind this little tete-a-tete was to hammer out some national positions on issues like prostitution, Restorative Justice, criminalization of women and poverty. Laudable goals, all. That said, it can't be avoided that some Resistance Force members obviously wanted a mandate to go forward in their own battles, and tried to sneak in several trickily-worded resolutions to facilitate this. Caucusing and amended motions abounded. What ever happened to just jumping up on the table, shouting out a call to arms, and charging forward to mow down the enemy? We've become just a little too diplomatic for that, I guess.
Sigh. Diplomacy isn't a bad thing, I suppose, but at some point all these Resistance Force contingents are going to have to recognize that, no matter how many times they go to the table, the Dark Side is just gonna spin 'em around, bend 'em over, and do what they want anyway. And Ernesto, I hate to say it, but this week confirmed my belief that more than one of our battalions has fallen victim to the Dark Side's most insidious and dangerous weapon, the dreaded CO-OPTER. The really sneaky thing about this nasty little small arms ploy is you can't see when you've been wounded by it. At least if someone sticks you with a switchblade you know you're bleeding. When you've been attacked and overcome by the 'CO-OPTATION' tactic you still think you're unharmed and fighting on the right side. It's just that all your allies start to sound like hotheads to you and you start thinking of ways you can marginalize the 'extreme' voices. Like I said, it's insidious, and ultimately a Weapon of Mass Destruction for a Resistance Force. Sadly, the only time those who have been felled by it tend to come up for air and realize they were under its sway is when they look up and notice they have actually completely lost the war. Although my "I-told-you-so" side sometimes craves to be there when this happens, I'm clear it would mean that the Resistance Force has met its end and the Dark Side will once again be all-powerful.
So did I, Crowbar the Bludgeoner, become one of those 'extreme' voices, you ask? Oh Ernesto, you know better. Even in the moments when my foot began to kick aside my papers and voting card in order to hop up on the delegate table, Cake and Cult took over and hauled me back down. I hate it when they do that shit, but sometimes I have to acknowledge that they know better in the moment. Cake generally held her own and came out of the summit sounding reasonable and cooperative (how the hell did she get so good at that?). Cult similarly had a few victorious moments where she was able to reshape the room using her so-hypnotic ways, but even she fell flat on her face at least twice when she attempted to introduce a little *too* much logic, and a little *too* much truth. Typical of those who have been wounded by THE CO-OPTER, the once-allies agreed with her completely that she was entirely right and then proceeded to act as though she'd never spoken. Our Cult rallied bravely several times, but finally she too had to walk away in disgust, leaving Cake in charge of mollification and strategic voting.
So what does all this mean to us, and our business Ernesto? Not much that we didn't already know. You and I both know we are a rogue arm of the Resistance Force, we know that our focus on logic, truth and weaponry is generally unpopular. This means that your job of smuggling the tools of the revolution to us here at Crowbar HQ will be that much harder, and our recruiting work at HQ will need to be far more strenuous. We've already begun looking to our non-traditional allies for support and will be organizing, in the coming weeks, a meeting of like-minded Resistance Force members who we can be sure have avoided THE CO-OPTER when aimed at them. This means we may have to bring our own alliances - those we had a hand in forming so many years ago - low. It's not what I'd prefer, strategically, but it's what I come closer and closer to accepting.
The translation? Look for a shake-up in Resistance Force power over the coming months. Don't believe anyone who tells you we want to halt the transfer of weapons. And Ernesto, do try and find some guns that smell like metal, or shoeleather, or even sawdust. We might have them close to our faces sooner than you think.
CB Out.
posted by Crowbar at 10:24 p.m.
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