We are at war. I do not mean the usual bickering over real estate in the Middle East or the by-now predictable battle over oil and the Strait of Hormuz. That war is easy enough to spot. No, this war is insidious and malignant, and it touches on every one of us. It is quite simply, us versus them. If we want to unite the disparate forces of humanity, to end the gender wars, to have Christians, Jews, and Muslims put down their arms, and to have the Hindus and Pakistanis join in tearful embrace, we must first acknowledge the gravity of the war against humanity.
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Oh, they say we are their “customers.” Yet, they know, and we know, that we are not in business with these lowlifes. We are engaged in mortal combat with them. Who they are exactly is still to be determined, but to the outside observer, they appear to be a loose confederation of inventors, consultants, efficiency experts, software designers, and greedy, fat corporate executives who have steadily been engaging the global consumer in involuntary servitude. Since the late 20th century, these devils have engaged in a conspiracy to act as our overlords, to steal our labor, money, and resources, and to make our lives miserable. We don’t know who all these people are. All we know is that they mock and dishonor us and we hate them. Whoever you are, know that this is now a clarion call to track every last one of you down and bring you to justice.
I propose the immediate creation of the International Tribunal for Commercial War Crimes. The War Crimes Commission should convene directly in the self-checkout line at the CVS in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. It goes without saying that that lane should be closed to facilitate the tribunal. I volunteer my services—based upon my prior years as a prosecutor of financial crimes—to be Chief Prosecutor. But, rest assured that I will build an extraordinary team. I will select the fiercest and most terrifying attorneys from around the globe, because the Tribunal will commence prosecution in all languages, in all countries, in every corner of the earth where these crimes have been committed. The painful transfer of their work onto the slave population of the earth will occur no longer. No more will we see the words “For Your Convenience” at a self-checkout counter. No more shall we hear how important our call is to us on a recorded line. The people who have pushed these atrocities onto us will be found, prosecuted, and jailed.
Article I of the Commercial War Crimes Act shall state: “No person or corporation may describe “for your convenience” any innovation whose principal effect is making the customer perform a task formerly performed by an employee of that person or corporation. Such an offense will involve mandatory prosecution and incarceration in a Wal-Mart created for the sole purpose of creating a self-service queue that never ends, where codes do not properly scan, where recycled bags continually rip, and where no one comes to unlock the register. Those people shall be condemned to stand in that line for a period of not less than 25 years.
COUNT I: The Self-Checkout Atrocity
Count I alleges that global corporations have engaged in forcing the commercial public to check out their own merchandise when civilization once possessed a perfectly satisfactory arrangement known as a “check-out line” and “cashier.” You placed groceries on a counter where another human being took them, calculated the cost per item into the register, and a cheerful employee bagged the groceries and often helped you carry the items out to the car. Today, there is no one to take the items out of the cart, and the customer must engage in this task himself and is then asked if “they require a bag,” as if it is expected that the customer will carry the items between their knees. If the customer says yes, he is charged an extra fee for a bag that is “recycled” because these charlatans are “saving the earth.” The “bag” immediately tears in five places the moment so much as an apple is placed inside the bag.
To add further insult, we are told by these criminals that paper bags are saving the earth and that sturdy paper or plastic bags are bad for the environment. Yet, even a trip one-third of the way down any aisle in the store reveals that virtually every item is encased in every known type of plastic and, moreover, anything that you actually place in the paper bag is plastic. I submit that these people do not care about the earth. They care about making you—or, namely, us, the chumps—ring up our own items, bag our own groceries, and pay for a shitty bag while trying to convince us that we are saving the planet in doing so.
The punishment for these culprits is to stand in the aforementioned queue for eternity in which a sign flashes, “Please Wait For Assistance.” The assistance, of course, never comes. But while these monsters wait for eternity, the song “Year of the Cat” is piped through the sound system while two elderly Ukrainian women argue over who was first in line.
Count Two: The Self-Service Gasoline Conspiracy
This count alleges that the self-service gasoline conspiracy can be traced back to—where else—Los Angeles in the 1940s. Once technological developments—no doubt developed by the Nazis—allowed attendants inside a station to activate pumps remotely, we were off to the races. This was all done for the convenience of the customer and to save the customer money. Now for the mere cost of $6.29 a gallon—a price that supports the California governor’s stock of Brylcreem and an NGO that funnels money back into some unknown bank account—we can get out of the car in the rain, handle a filthy hose, and suffer interrogation by the gasoline pump. Would you like to give us all of your details so that we can sell them to someone else? Would you like to join our rewards program, which will reduce the price from $6.29 to $6.27 every other Tuesday after 10 pm? If for some reason you are in a hurry and require a receipt, the machine senses this and tells you to “See Cashier.” When you do see the cashier, Bruno is in the back making sure that the soft drink machines dispense soda that tastes like it was filtered through a septic tank. Should you want to reach for an alternative from a plastic bottle in the cooler, it will only cost $5 plus another $2 for a cup of ice. If you, god forbid, have a low tire, you can wait in line to pay $4 for two minutes while utilizing a cord that does not extend to the back tires. There is literally no one within 20 miles of a gas station that knows how to change a tire, put oil in the car, or can tell you where anything is in the town. Finally, should you need to use the restroom, you will be given a key on a mangled coat hanger and led to a darkened 4-by-6 space that smells like a cattle weigh station.
For these and other offenses, I submit that the perpetrators must stand in the Nebraska snow in January and pump gas for everyone in the state in perpetuity, their only nourishment being stale Hostess cupcakes and the soda that they make the rest of us drink. Should they need to relieve themselves, they can enjoy the lovely and comfortable accommodations that they have provided to the commercial public.
Count III: The Automated Telephone Torture System
No money or effort should be spared in hunting down and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the telephone torture system. The system usually begins with the selection of a language. This is done to create the illusion that you will soon communicate with another human being. But no one has communicated directly with a human being without going through at least 15 phone banks since the Carter Administration. When you hear the options and realize that none apply to your circumstance, then in disbelief you press the button that restates the same options. This can continue for weeks. Information regarding the direct lines of anyone who actually works there is guarded with greater secrecy than the nuclear codes. If you are successful in breaking through to a line where you are placed on hold, the insulting statement that “Your call is very important to us” can be heard with muffled laughter in the background. If you are incredibly lucky, your call will be routed to a country that has been a Republic for less than five years and where no one speaks English.
The only way to bypass this system is if you ask for the billing department. But even here, you will be put to the front of the line if you wish to pay a bill. If you wish to contest a bill, you will be pushed back into the original queue with an additional time penalty of not less than one hour.
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I submit that both the criminals who devised the system and those who perpetuate this immoral practice should be placed into a darkened customer service purgatory where, no matter which button they push, it will be the wrong language and they will be placed on hold forever while a bad recording of the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, complete with cannons, only interrupted by “your call is very important to us.” Every three days a click will lead to a friendly human who takes the information before the line is disconnected. Estimated hold time will never be less than eleven months.
Count IV: The Airport Food Terminal Criminals
Those who have devised the hell of airport food should be hunted down like animals, chained, imprisoned, and forced to eat the food they serve the rest of us. More importantly, they should be forced to pay for it. They should be forced to watch in horror as a bottle of water rises in price from $8 to $32, they should be forced to eat airport sushi and pizza, and then have to wait in line forever to use the bathroom stall that smells like a large buffalo has defecated in the stall. If they refuse to eat, they should be force-fed stale donuts until they burst. All coffee shall be tepid and taste like dishwater and cost $12 for a small cup. Then, while they are waiting in line, they should be forced to dodge out of the way of fast-moving vehicles with emergency lights that go for their legs or other limbs while the driver and his passengers laugh hysterically. But that is not enough. They should be forced to stand in a line with no information about their canceled flight, while an airline employee with a megaphone shouts, “The Line is long and it moves slowly.”
Count V: The Mandatory App Creator
The globalist conspirators have not stopped at having us pay $12 for 90 minutes to park behind a landscaper on Ventura Boulevard. No, we cannot just insert money in the meter. And even a credit card was not enough. No, the evil geniuses in Silicon Valley devised a way to impose maximum inconvenience. First, the absence of a sign or pay station was devised to make the poor schmuck believe that there might still be something free in the universe. But, no, a sign 15 parking places down in microscopic print makes it clear that you need to download a phone app that does not work, because they wanted to get across the sentiment that they just don’t care about you.
But once inside the restaurant, they have another special treat for you. You will not be handed a menu. No, you will need to utilize the QR code that only works 30% of the time to actually find what is on the menu. This is to ensure that the items and, more importantly, the prices are in such small print that you cannot question the fact that you are paying $35 for an à la carte cheeseburger. Ketchup is extra.
These people—if they are still alive—must be found and brought before the Tribunal to face the rage of the public that they have so brazenly insulted. As part of their punishment, they should be forced to download an app and create a password that must be at least 47 characters long and require a capital letter, a hieroglyph, Coptic script, the blood type of your maternal grandmother, and the name of the dog of the neighbor who lives across the street.
Conclusion: Arrest, Interrogation and Evidentiary Hearing
I would only reluctantly agree to an evidentiary hearing before sentence is imposed. I ordinarily support Miranda rights, habeas corpus, and the other protections afforded criminal defendants, but these people have abused civilization long enough. They will nevertheless receive a trial, if only to demonstrate that we are better than they are.
Unfortunately, the opening session of the International Tribunal for Commercial War Crimes has been temporarily postponed.
Apparently, the CVS in Dupont Circle no longer permits us to reserve the self-checkout area without first creating an online account. I attempted to do so, but the password requires twelve characters, one capital letter, one number, one symbol, and the maiden name of a woman I have never met. After finally creating the account, I was informed that I needed to download the CVS app. The app would not download.
I therefore called Customer Service. After selecting English, I was asked to select from nine options, none of which concerned the problem I was calling about. I pressed zero. The system informed me that zero was not a valid selection. I shouted “representative.” The machine said it was sorry that it could not understand me.
Eventually, I was placed on hold. A recorded voice continues to assure me that my call is very important to them. That was three hours ago.
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The prosecution rests.
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This content originally appeared on the Abstract Truth Substack.
