I think something’s wrong with my Hate Machine.
I’ve got it turned up to 10, but I’m still not feeling it.
The hate. The murderous, self-righteous hate. The mindlessly fanatical hate.
I set the dial to “Palestinians.” Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. So, I set it to “Israelis.” Again, nothing. I just can’t seem to get my hate up. It’s embarrassing. Maybe there are some pills that would help.
Seriously, this is interfering with both my social and professional life. I need to get my hate up somehow. I’ve tried everything I could possibly think of.
I tried reading nothing but news about Israel’s ongoing liquidation of Gaza. I stared at pictures of dead and horribly mutilated Palestinian children. Thousands of them. Killed. Torn to pieces. Residential neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Whole families crushed under tons of concrete.
I told myself, over and over, that they were “terrorists.” Or the children of “terrorists.” Or that they had “voted for terrorists.” Or they were “anti-Semites.” “Human animals.” “The Children of Darkness.”
It didn’t work.
I tried reading nothing but news about the Hamas attack on October 7. The murder of families. The wanton slaughter. I stared at the pictures of the blood-smeared bedrooms. The footage of the executions. I read the messages that people sent to their loved ones before they were shot to death.
I told myself, over and over, that they were “fascists,” “occupiers,” “colonizers,” “Zionazis.” I told myself that they deserved what they got.
Nothing. No arousal whatsoever.
I checked the connections on my Hate Machine. They all seemed fine. So, I tried rebooting it. Twice. Nope. That didn’t work either.
So, finally, I called the Hate Corporation, but I couldn’t get through to a Hate representative, because of “an unusually high volume of callers.”
So, apparently, I’m not the only one with this dysfunction.
That was kind of reassuring. Because, frankly, I’ve been feeling so left out. All the really cool people are grooving on hate. Seriously, check the Internet. It’s like a 24-hour Roman orgy of hate, in which I’m unable to participate, apparently.
I’m sorry for whining. It’s unseemly, I know. And I am fairly sure my inability to achieve and maintain a satisfactory tumescence or protuberance of hate is not my Hate Machine’s fault. I have the latest model, with all the new features.
And other people’s Hate Machines are working just fine.
How is yours doing?
Are you feeling the hate? Are those you hate the embodiment of Evil? They are liars, aren’t they? Liars and murderers. Genociders. Nazis. Subhuman scum. Everything they say is a lie. Everything they do, and are, is wicked. They cannot help it. They were born that way. They need to be wiped off the face of the Earth. They need to be eradicated, don’t they? They are never going to change their ways. Making peace with them is not an option. It’s us or them. They, the others, and all their issue, need to be defeated, vanquished, erased, exterminated.
This is no time for compassion or pity. They, the others, have no morals or ethics, or simple human empathy, so we can’t afford to have any either. None of them are innocent. None of them are civilians. All of them, men, women, and children, are soldiers in the Army of Evil! They’re murderers, so we have to be murderers! They are liars, so we need to become liars! Truth is for children! This is war! We need to kill and kill and kill, and celebrate killing, and swim in their blood, and defile their corpses … the others … our enemies!
Well, what do you know? It appears my Hate Machine is functioning properly after all! Yes, wow, that feels so much better! I guess I just needed to relax, let go, stop thinking so much about what’s right and wrong, and let my hate do what it wants.
Seriously, I’m not kidding, folks … I haven’t had a hate-on like this for years!
I’m ready to join that Roman Orgy of Hatred!
All I need to do now is pick a side.
CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc.