Following in Churchill’s footsteps: reratting
[HINT: please note the date!]
If you’re a regular reader here, you probably already know that Winston Churchill is my idol—well, one of my idols, anyway, along with all the contestants on “American Idol,” Billy Idol, and idle chatter.
One of Churchill’s many famous quotes is “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to rerat.” Now, for those of you who don’t speak the variant of English known as British, the term “rat” refers to a change of political affiliation. Churchill started out as a Conservative, became a Liberal a few years later, and about twenty years afterwards returned to the Conservative Party.
Well, even though Churchill is someone I look up to, I really can’t follow in his footsteps. For one thing, I’m sure his feet were a lot bigger than mine. For another, I’ve never smoked a cigar. And it’s too late to follow his political trajectory, because I didn’t start out as a Conservative (although I most certainly would have if I’d known that he had; that’s how much I admire the man).
But there’s one way I’m already like him: I’ve ratted. Big time. And today I’m announcing another way I intend to be like Churchill: I’m going to rerat.
Yes, it’s official: neo-neocon is returning to her roots and becoming a liberal Democrat once more. I’m not sure what to rename the blog: perhaps “neo-exneocon?”
But I’m not going to worry about nomenclature at this point. In fact, I’m not going to worry about anything. I’m going to stick my head in the sand and put my fingers in my ears (although that might be difficult to do simultaneously) and I’ll Whistle a Happy Tune, as long as I don’t get sand in my mouth while doing so.
Because I am tired. Bone tired. And I can see it now: the prodigal daughter will return, and I’ll be welcomed with open arms. They’ll kill a fatted calf, and we’ll have a barbecue and some brewskis. I’ll lay down my weary load. And I can finally take that silly apple away from my face before the computer company or the Beatles or Magritte’s estate ends up suing me.
[NOTE: In the interests of clarity, and to any readers out there who may not be aware of this fact, I am hereby stating that today, April 1st (otherwise known as April Fool’s Day) is a day on which hoaxes and practical jokes are traditional in the English-speaking world, as well as in France.
So, there’s been no reratting; all of this was merely an attempt (and probably a feeble one, at that) at a joke. Neo-neocon will remain neo-neocon for the foreseeable future.
And the reason I’m publishing this with the huge “HINT” on top and this spilling-the-beans explanation on the bottom is that this is a modification of a longer essay I published last year, and so many readers took me seriously that time that I felt constrained to add disclaimers to it and even published this rumination on the subject of hoaxes that are believed.
So no, this neocon rat has not reratted, and has no plans to do so in the future.]
D@#$, was hoping you would go over to the dark side. LOL
Why’d you have to give it away, Neo.
Ymar, you should have seen what happened last year when I didn’t give it away. People were having fits. I had to keep explaining for ages that it was just a joke. So I wimped out this year, I admit it.
I think I actually remember that 😉 And of course my question was more a cry of disappointment more than a literal question, since after all I “know” why you gave it away.
I can’t remember exactly my response to your original April 1 post about re-ratting. It started off with your usual style, you know, so I didn’t really suspect anything. And certainly Churchill was something you have wrote about before, so no alarm bells went off. The conclusion, that you were being “fatigued” was also a theme I had heard before, and it is psychologically feasible and very probable. So there was no human “motivation” conflicts there, as I saw it. I was slightly disappointed of course, but I was more interested in why you seemed depressed and tired. As I always am, Neo, I am curious. Course soon enough, you posted that little notice thingie.
In point of fact, I might have actually read your post after you posted the warning at the top. If that was true for me at the time I read your post last year… then that would have meant that I had found your post convincing even with the warning. And it still is, Neo, convincing that is.
You’re just armed with too much understanding in human nature not to do a good job at manipulating people if you actually tried. It was after all, one of my original reasons for reading your blog religiously. I had to learn from one of the Masters after all, and later on, your Master friends (Shrink, Sanity, Siggy).
Can’t do psychological warfare without the psychology, now can we.
People were having fits.
People should learn not to believe everything that they fear, is true. If they can’t do that, then they are rather susceptible to deception operations conducted on them by the enemy.
I understand why you would want to lower the level of discord, of course. But I have always prefered a challenge 😉 I don’t like losing, but I don’t like the opposition holding back either. So bring it on, is my position.
Ah, the roller coaster ride. First, the sickening plummet in the stomach at the admission of ‘ratting’ retroversion. Then the swift ascent to thankful tranquility at the admission of it all being merely an April Fool’s joke.
There’s a third option in the path of political conversions for neocons, one Churchill did not have: neolibertarianism. They’re the ones laughing loudest on Fool’s Day.
LIAR! QUISLING! YOU…..oh, never mind.
And I was just writing to the shrink brigade to have them contact you and get you into re-hab.
ROFL!
Rats…
I have shared your admiration for Churchill, but was quite shaken by a Military Channel special called Warlords, about Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Both Westerners allowed themselves to be deceived by Stalin, consistently and massively. It was sobering to see how even these great men missed recognizing one of the great tyrants of human history, literally right in front of their eyes.
Given the far lower caliber of Western leaders today, and the continuing power of sociopathic ideologues, one’s heart sinks.
Hardly they were really deceived. They simply posed as being convicted for political ends; true nature of communist regime both western liders have seen quite well. But they were in disadvantaged position and could not break Alliance before they have any leverage to challenge Soviet Union and try to stop its further expansion. It took only three years – from Japan capitulation to beginning of Cold War.
Churchill wasn’t deceived by Stalin. Don’t know what program would lead people to that conclusion. For Roosevelt, it was true.
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