WHAT IF one day you got this weird pamphlet that you started reading for lack of anything better to do and suddenly you couldn't stop because it was insane yet... absorbing...about a religion that let you believe whatever the hell you wanted to believe, and the next thing you knew it had you all wrapped up in it like IT, the pamphlet, was some kind of 'power object' that could somehow implant a kind of hypnotic command in you that would lure you into this little secret fringe society, an "underground world," an unspoken "rebel alliance" of people who were really decent citizens but at the same time were in a vague, unsaid agreement as to just how MUCH shit The Conspiracy could foist over on us before we'd... well...
...people who were relatively, oh, "normal" on the surface but still had this anti-establishment "thing" of theirs, on stand-by, just in CASE... just in CASE our continent got to be one of those places where you couldn't SPEAK and ACT the way you FELT just because some unseen "presence," or some force of sheeplike behavior patterning, was making you TOW THE LINE and ACT STRAIGHT and WEAR THAT SMILE and MAKE THAT SALE and WATCH THAT SHOW and eventually THINK THAT THOUGHT and so on... just in CASE there were people in charge who really didn't care what might be left of the planet after they got through with it. Not that things have GOTTEN like that or anything, you understand, but just in CASE... and this pamphlet you were reading, it didn't exactly tell you where to go for secret meetings, because these mysterious characters were too slacked out and/or harried by the Conspiracy to be even that organized; it simply let you know that there WERE WEIRDOS LIKE YOU that you could maybe even TRUST. Because if the AWFUL CRAP DOES COME DOWN, the ASSHOLES will gang up to ferret out the 'abnormals,' who tend to want to just fend for themselves. We still have major 'witch hunts' in this country every 20 years or so...
But WHAT IF this little secret society, that was secret because it didn't want to become a society, was REAL-- even if, most of the time, it only existed as an endless spew of propaganda and odd public behavior that always popped up in the strangest places? WOULDN'T IT HAVE TO DISGUISE ITSELF AS A JOKE?? Because it isn't that you want to JOIN something, the last thing you need is another damn political fringe group, and besides, it isn't politics but thinking styles, a whole new mind set... Wouldn't it have to be pretty ambiguous, and never quite let you get a grip on whether they were, like, a sick joke, or if they were serious, or WHAT? (The very fact that THEY raised the question first could itself be interpreted as "part of the act" or as an indication of their sincerity!)
YOU WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TELL -- SO NEITHER WOULD THE CONSPIRACY.
You'd get to thinking, "Could this thing be for real? Is there REALLY something like this going on that I just didn't know about? Or maybe I've heard about this "Bob" crap somewhere but it sounded like just a "take off" on cults and totalitarian societies and Sales Gurus with mysterious powers of LUCK, that had something to do with this SLACK shit? With getting enough SLACK? The Slack I FORGOT ABOUT because of the CONSPIRACY? The Conspiracy that didn't even KNOW it was a Conspiracy, because it was mainly composed of people who thought they were doing the right thing, the Conspiracy that's a self-perpetuating ROBOT with an ENGINE fueled by HUMAN DOCILITY, and there's plenty enough of THAT to go around; the Conspiracy that just KEEPS GOING, KEEPS POUNDING ALONG, FLATTENING EVERYTHING IN ITS PATH, because it IS NORMAL, because it's composed of NORMALITY ITSELF, a Conspiracy that couldn't possibly know what it was about to DO TO ITSELF...
... but that could somehow be HALTED, or SCREWED UP, KNOCKED WOBBLY by some "bug " in it, some little unruly ball of abnormality that could gum up the motor just before the damn thing rolled over the edge of the cliff -- SAVED by a monkey wrench in the works!
Now...
"Bob" is dead. That's right -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs was shot and killed by The Conspiracy on January 21, 1984. That little bug isn't in that Conspiracy machine anymore... and it'll roll over YOU unless YOU TAKE UP WHERE "BOB" LEFT OFF.
Ahh, whew, They're gone... for a minute, anyway. (Hell, for all we know that could have been one of US in disguise!) But it won't be long before the next one comes along.
You may have to look normal... even act normal. But don't be normal! Don't backslide! "Bob" Dobbs could be back at any moment! On that day of reckoning, you don't want to find out you drifted over to the wrong side of the battle line without even knowing it!!!