A Rhetorical Questionnaire
A Recycled PostToday's post I did not write. At least not the me that is in this part of time and space. The Internet is an amazing thing. About 20 years ago, when my brother first got a 300 baud modem at work and showed me how you could log onto computers and exchange messages, I caught the bug. Over the course of decades I have posted thousands of messages containing random shit that would wander into my head. Most of that is lost. Not just from my own memory but also the bit stream of the interent that didn't' really exist at the time.
Prior to the Internet, or at least before it became mainstream, we had pay services like Compuserve and Genie. Well, a bunch of the messages that flowed on those services did end up in Internet archives and live on today.
I searched Google this evening on my name. I do that from time to time to see where the links have travelled. I ran across the following message. Apparently, late one night after many beers, I posted the following message on Compuserve. Somebody else liked it enough that it got cross-posted elsewhere and now it shows up on a number of websites on the Internet.
This message is something like 8 or so years old. I don't remember writing it. I don't give a shit about the topic that I wrote about. I could care less. The me that wrote this message is dead. He has died and is only a record in the akashic memory of the Universe. Nevertheless, Google retains its own copy.....
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Rhetorical Questionnaire, 10 questions that could change your life.
Just what is a rhetorical questionnaire? Wait, don't answer that. Recently I have commented on the subject of alien autopsy hoaxing grooviness. Not too long ago I ranted with a great deal of spittle, spouting the fine distinction between a UFO cult, a Jehovah cult, and a can of spam. Since I've never done any actual UFO research and my public presence in the UFO field has been strictly limited to shooting my mouth off, an oozing orifice of sarcasm, most might wonder what, if anything, I have to say.
It is probably for this very reason that this questionnaire is so rhetorical. What's the purpose in answering a bunch of nonsense written by an admitted lunatic? Not really worth the effort at all is it?
For what reason am I posting this message? You don't have to answer this question, I plan to tell you. I am bemused by the recent developments surrounding Joseph Smith (woops, pardon me!!) I mean Joseph Firmage, and his sudden decision to give up the good life of working himself to death CEOing a major megabucks super-corporation to become a bit player in UFO mythology, right around the time when that great odometer in the sky ticks over all those way cool zeroes.
It seems some glowing alien dude shows up in his bedroom at night, waxing poetically on all that is cosmic, and meanwhile an anonymous postal employee hands him a pile of dissinformational documents, and he gets all spiritual and stuff, feeling compelled to spend way too much money setting up a web site that seems to have the express purpose of hiding all of the actual material the casual surfer might actually want to read.
And where does that weirdo cultist John Ratcliff fit into this equation? What's his kick? Oh..oh..wait, I know the answer to that one. What tickles John's fancy ain't those silly aliens, it ain't those super sekrit gummint intelligence agents, what intrigues John is why folks like Firmage, Mack, Hopkins, Smith, Moses, Saul, and others change their lives in such dramatic fashion based on a singular psycho-spiritual experience?
Here's the questionnaire. Since it is, in fact, rhetorical all of the correct answers are listed at the bottom of the page:
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(1) Who is in charge of the UFO cover-up?
(a) The US gummint.
(b) Whoever is flying the dang UFO's.
(c) There ain't no such thing as UFO's, therefore there ain't no cover-up.
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(2) An alien shows up in your bedroom, all glowing with light, and says there is a great galactic federation, that humanity is going to join up real soon, and that you, personally, should quit your job and inform the world of these momentous events, that you should affect world change and shape world opinion. What do you do?
(a) Quit your job, set up a website, and devote your life to spreading this personal revelation to the world.
(b) Hug your kids.
(c) See a therapist.
(d) Realize that it's not _your_ job to inform the world about the galactic federation, you aren't even on payroll, and that _they_ are in a far better position to perform this task than you are.
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(3) UFO's, if real, are....
(a) The single more important event in human history.
(b) Not necessarily proof of extraterrestrial biological entities.
(c) Manifestations of Satan, demons pure and simple, straight from the fourth dimension.
(d) Not nearly as important as how happy your children are today.
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(4) A source who is deeply involved in the black government discloses tantalizing hints about the extraterrestrial presence. This means...
(a) The final proof required to solve the mystery, the enigma, the riddle, that is UFO.
(b) Without evidentiary value.
(c) An interesting twist in the evolution of modern mythology.
(d) An obvious dissinformation effort by the powers which suppress the truth about the alien presence.
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(5) An archeological discovery is made, from the dawn of early human civilization, which provides a tale that sounds uncannily like nuclear weapons being launched from spaceships piloted by humanlike gods. This is proof positive..
(a) That mankind is the product of a genetic engineering program administered by ancient gods who combined alien DNA with that of early ape men to produce modern Homo Sapiens as a slave race.
(b) That early man was a primitive savage, full of superstitions and was capable of creating rich mythologies based on an ignorant understanding about the world.
(c) The dangers of speculating beyond a hopelessly limited data set.
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(6) While gardening, a UFO lands in your back yard and an alien steps out. You...
(a) Run screaming for the hills.
(b) Seek psychiatric help.
(c) Contact the USAF.
(d) Offer him a buckwheat pancake to see if he gets the joke.
(e) Rub your eyes and hope it goes away.
(f) Refuse to answer the question because such a thing could never happen.
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(7) An alien being approaches you, all glowing and full of light, and wishes to enlist you in his/her/it's program to usher mankind into a new golden age. You...
(a) Fall down in awe and prostrate yourself before this powerful spiritual being.
(b) Call the alien being to task for his secretive nature and insist that he do his own dirty work, pointing out that you, being Homo sapiens and all, refuse to be party to such a subversive agenda.
(c) Shrug the whole thing off as a bit of bad wiring in your temporal lobe.
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(8) You see a UFO, an actual flying saucer, at close range. You see it, and experience it in full vivid all senses Technicolor. This is...
(a) Proof that you are going insane.
(b) Proof that you are having spontaneous hallucinations.
(c) Proof enough for yourself that UFOs are as real as rain.
(d) Proof of nothing since you cannot recreate it on demand under laboratory conditions.
(e) It's a bogus question since it's impossible for something like that to ever happen.
(f) Probably just a hoax.
(g) Secret gummint aircraft.
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(9) Your best friend claims to have been abducted by aliens and experiences symptoms of shock, despair, confusion and a soul shattering change in his personal cosmology. This is...
(a) Proof that experiential reality is relative. You feel concern for your fellow man, while at the same time remaining confused and ambivalent about what it all means to yourself.
(b) Proof that your friend is nuts and should be put in an institution.
(c) Proof positive of evil space aliens intent on raping humanity.
(d) Proof that your 'so called' friend is a hoaxer, liar, and jerk.
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(10) Relativism is the most rational approach to experiential reality when communicating among members of your own species.
(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) Maybe.
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This ends the rhetorical questionnaire. Thanks for playing our game. No answers or replies of any kind are necessary. You can check your score in the privacy of your own home.
John W. Ratcliff
Still not contacted by the Spirit World, 38 years and counting.
1 (b)
2 (d)
3 (d)
4 (c)
5 (c)
6 (d)
7 (c)
8 (c)
9 (a)
10 (c)
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This marks the end of the original post from 8 years ago. It got me thinking. Where in the hell is Joseph Firmage today? The fact that a multi-millionaire quit his job and went bat-shit crazy for a bunch of UFO nonsense really got my goat back then. You see, back then, I was working my ass off and not spending hardly any time with my own family. I would have loved to make it rich; make a bunch of money and spend more time with my wife and family.
Of course, I still wish that yet today. Some things, it seems, don't really change.
But this guy Firmage. He really hacked me off. Here he had made it, made it big. Then a glowing dude shows up in his bedroom, gives him a vision, and he went off the deep end creating a stupid and bizarre website that was pointless and diversionary. It was as if he was in collusion with the fuck-tard space aliens. Hey, folks, the space aliens *are not our friends* even if they are just nothing more than manifestations of the collective unconscious, seriously, they are a bad dream.
Where did he get off? And, where is he today? I typed his name into Google and all I found was a ton of stuff from 1998, the same time I posted this original article.
So, I tried typing 'Joseph Firmage 2006' into Google to see if there was anything current and, you know what, I found a few hits. (I think this is 'his' site.)
Here is a link to an article discussing his current project. I guess he blew his previous bank-roll since the world didn't come to an end in 2000, and the aliens never did a damned thing (as I predicted by the way).
Since then, personally, I never got truly wealthy. My kids are almost all grown up, and now I'm a zany Freemason who's highest aspiration is to drive a little yellow car in the Shiners parade. My how things change.
In closing, I would ask that Joseph Firmage email me so that we can have a pleasant chat by telephone. Since my article about him has been published on numerous websites for almost a decade I figure he kind-of knows who I am by now. Give me a call Joe. I would love to chat. I want to know what the space-aliens have had to say to you in the past 8 years. What is on your mind? This, my friends, is a conversation I would love to have.
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