The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad (14 page)

Chet Stirling is reporting: “Local police are reported to have had in their clutches the terrorist ringleader, the veritable Osama bin Laden of knitting needles. But the sly and dangerous terrorist slipped through their grasp, and remains at large. It was the man in this photo, which was taken by a security camera as he fled the scene of an attempt to illegally obtain weapons. We urge viewers to remain hiding in their homes, shaking in terror and consumed with paranoia, as long as this evil serial killer remains at large. Of course he turned out to be a man, a man with an analytical mind. Clever and devious, he had impersonated a group of women in an attempt to throw us off the scent, but we always knew that women couldn't possibly plan such an elaborate and multilayered scheme.”

Nick looks at Brigitte, who is appalled by what she is now understanding. He says, smugly, “He called me ‘clever.' Did you hear that? Clever.”

Not just the police and MAWAR are opposed to the knitting circles. In fact many groups, large and small, from all across the political spectrum (running, as it nearly always does in this culture, from ludicrous on one end to absurd on the other), oppose them.

They are opposed, for example, by a significant portion of male anarchists. Anarchists claim they're against all forms of oppression, and many truly are, so you might think all anarchists
would be in favor of people actively stopping rape. Sadly, such is not the case. Members of this particular subgroup of anarchists who oppose the knitting circles mean something different by “ending oppression” than do members of various knitting circles themselves. One of the major anarchist groups opposed to the knitting circles (if we measure “major” not by their numbers, which are minuscule, but rather by how vocal they are and by the pungency of their personal body odor, which is greater by far than the stinkiest of stinky cheeses; indeed, each year this particular brand of anarchists holds their own version of the Miss America contest, called the Crust Punk contest, wherein the dreadlocked and bearded male with the strongest smell and the thickest layer of crusted body excretions is crowned Un-King of the Anarchists by someone—anyone, please—who can stomach getting close enough to do so). These roving gangs of black-clad males, noted as much for their militantly casual approach to personal hygiene as for their contempt for any and all efforts to constrain what they call their Feral Edge Freedoms, roam the streets (by car when they can “borrow” their parents' gas cards, and by foot when they can't) looking for females (and failing that, inanimate objects) into whom they can inject their Revolutionary Ardor.

One night, several members of the AFACASISF emerge from their respective parents' basements to gather in the basement of one of their fellow “insurrectionist's” parents to “do some writing.” When these anarchists tell the parents they'll be writing, the parents say first to the anarchists, “You can write?” and then say to themselves, “Thank god they won't be playing music tonight.” The “musical style” of the anarchists' band (called Seppuku Suicide Hara-kiri, mainly because that's what it makes listeners want to do) is called deathvomitnoise. Because
of the importance of their message (and also as a statement of their artistic integrity and because, as they say, “You can't improve on perfection, dude,” but mainly because of laziness on the part of band members, and finally because no one would notice the difference anyway), all songs by Seppuku Suicide Hara-kiri have the same lyrics, which are screamed unintelligibly over the sounds of guitars being tortured: “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, FUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK. Fuckfuckfuck. Aaaaaahhhh. Fuck. Fuck you if you listen to this and fuck you ifyou don't. Fuck you. Fuck anyone who plays anywhere other than a basement. Fuck you if you have an audience, you oppressor. Fuck you. The shoe will drop and so will you, you fucking liberal sellout. Fuck. When the shoe drops the vomit of industry will spew. Shoe. Shoe. Drop the other shoe, motherfucker.” The sounds of music coming from the basement normally make the parents look at each other wistfully, nostalgically longing for the early days of their marriage before their child was born. Nights the songs have driven them to too much to drink, the recriminations start with the mother saying, “I begged to be allowed to go down to Baby-B-Gone. It would have been, what, a few minutes of discomfort, then maybe or maybe not a few days of sadness, and a lifetime of freedom from the grinding horror of his music, and frankly from his personality (if you can call it that).” This leads to bitter words on the father's part, and then to a discussion about the only one of their son's band's songs they actually like, “My Mother Should Have Had an Abortion.” The argument normally ends with the father saying those words so rare, so precious, coming from the man in the household: “You were right, and I was wrong.”

But this night there is no deathvomitnoise, so the parents only ask themselves, “What
is
that smell?”

Tonight, the AFACASISF has a job to do. At the end of
the evening they post on the internet their defining “rant,” to use their preferred word (these self-proclaimed Anarchist Pricks disavow the word
communiqué
as “too tainted by its association with bourgois [sic] liberal communist counter insurrectionary forces that attempt to inhibit our Feral Edge Freedoms.” In this rant, entitled “The Politics of Impotence,” these Anarchists “rale [sic] against” all those women who are oppressing them by attempting to impose some form of what these Anarchist Pricks derisively call “community norms.” “How dare these women,” the rant rhetorically asks, “play the gender card by attempting to force us to behave according to their entirely arbitary [sic] standards? Why do women get all this power? How dare they tell us what we can and cannot do with our own bodies? We will not take this insult—this authoritarianistic policing, this fascistic Nazi assault on our freedoms—laying [sic] down on our backs! These so-called knitting circle women are a ribbed condom on the throbbing cock of freedom, holding back the spontaneous expression and explosion of true and orgasmic insurrection!”

Fortunately, their website only gets thirty-five hits, thirty-three of which are by their own members, with the other two being by pasty-faced perverts who've done internet searches for the words “cock, throbbing, Nazi, and impotence.” Nonetheless, they consider the rant a raving success.

Even more fortunately, the militantly casual approach to personal hygiene on the part of members of these Anarchist Prick Patrols not only alerts intended recipients of their feral ardor to their presence, allowing these most definitely unwilling recipients to escape, but also helps members of various knitting circles to find these rapists and turn the tables, or more accurately knitting needles, on them.

Unsurprisingly, the animal rights group PATE, People Against Treating Nonhuman Animals Execrably (who fully recognize the acronym should be PATNAE, but in a brilliant marketing move keep it as PATE so they can get free advertising anytime anyone mentions pâté), also comes out against the knitting circles.

The head of PATE, who has a bald one, issues a press release declaring, “This is a disaster for our animal companions and friends. If men aren't allowed to rape women, we know what this means for the pigs, cows, sheep, bunnies, and chickens of the world. We cannot stand by and allow this horrible outrage to be perpetrated on these helpless creatures.”

PATE's means of stopping this outrage is to take photographs of naked supermodels and slap on the caption, “Wouldn't you rather pork me than a pig?”

This follows the pattern of PATE's previous naked supermodel campaigns, like “Spill in me, not in the Gulf,” “Don't eat a pig, be one,” and, most famously, their anti-hunting poster, “Use your gun on me, big boy.”

When interviewed about the knitting circles, one animal rights activist sputters, “I personally know one sheep who was assaulted because no women were available. These damn women. I curse them forever for traumatizing my beautiful sheep friend.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also issues a press release. Interestingly enough, when the Chamber of Commerce uses the phrase
press release
it means precisely the same thing AFACASISF does when it uses
rant.
The CoC also eschews the use of the word
communiqué
for essentially the same reason as AFACASISF, in this case because “it is too tainted by its association with liberal communist forces that attempt to inhibit [in this case]
Commercial Freedoms.”

The press release states, “The United States Chamber of Commerce is unalterably opposed to the so-called Knitting Circles as they are a barrier to exploitation, and therefore a barrier to commerce. Of course the United States Chamber of Commerce vigorously opposes rape, but even more the USCoC opposes the dangerous mythology that rape is occurring, has ever occurred, could ever occur, or that if it did occur it would be caused by humans. It is the USCoC's unequivocal position that there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of rape. Furthermore, even if rape were to occur, the USCoC holds that it would be good for humans, and far more important, good for the economy.

“The question too few people seem to be asking is this: If these so-called knitting circle groups (which we feel are actually under the influence of professional liberal communist ‘outside agitators') are able to stop rape (not that rape exists) then what is to stop these same so-called knitting circle groups and their communist puppet-masters from moving on to stop other forms of so-called exploitation of women, and from there to stopping other forms of so-called exploitation of others? And what if they succeed in stopping all forms of exploitation? What will happen to the economy? It will, of course, collapse. Everyone knows that capitalism is based on and requires systematic exploitation which then magically benefits one and all.

“And finally, the USCoC position is that stopping rape (not that rape occurs) will harm the economy by destroying jobs. We aren't exactly sure how it will do this, but ‘saving jobs' is a boilerplate argument we trot out every chance we get, and it's always worked before, so we're trying it again.”

Big unions find the jobs argument compelling, for reasons that make no more sense than other times big unions join with big corporations in an attempt to make sure exploitation continues. Especially vocal are various chapters of the United Rapists Union.

Franz Maihem “takes to the street” and interviews URU member Rusty Pike, who says, “I'm proud to be a union rapist, local number 7413. My daddy was a rapist, and his daddy was a rapist, and his daddy before him. We've got rape in our blood. It's an American tradition. Hell, this country was founded on it. The Indians, the land, the women, the workers. Where would this country be without rape? And these women are trying to destroy this proud tradition. They're trying to destroy our lives.”

Proclaiming they're tired of not receiving the respect they deserve for doing patriarchy's heavy lifting over the last several thousand years, the United Rapists Union calls a strike, chanting at their rallies, “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Matriarchy's Got To Go”; and “Rapists, United, Will Always Be Excited.” Rusty Pike comments on the strike, “No respect? Well, then, no rape. We'll see how they like that now.”

Women like it just fine.

But as with any strike, solidarity becomes an issue. Scabs appear, some on their own, some brought in by various industries with a vested interest in keeping women subservient. This leads to pitched battles between the union rapists and the scab rapists over who exactly has the right to do this necessary work.

In this case, members of various knitting circles do not take sides. Nor, happily, do they take prisoners.

Next to come out against the knitting circles are the United States Departments of Agriculture and Interior, issuing a
joint statement that “study after study has shown that it is only through the wise use and management of MVRs (Mobile Vagina Resources) that we can assure that this resource is available to us now and forever. It is noted that the underutilization of MVRs can cause these MVRs to become ‘decadent,' or to be wasted. Further, if MVRs were to be severely enough underutilized or were to be managed improperly (as in left on their own) then it is possible this could severely affect future access to the MVRs necessary to keep this nation functioning smoothly. In addition, all use of MVRs (including FUMVRs, or Forcible Use of Mobile Vagina Resources) requires extensive EISs (Environmental Impact Statements) and exhaustive scientific studies, which inevitably show that even FUMVRs have no significant impact on the environment or on human communities. The only exceptions to the requirement of an EIS occurs when the Congress passes categorical exemptions to allow FUMVRs in cases of national emergency or to insure national security by limiting dependence on foreign MVRs, and also to limit the effects of pending Peak MVR. It is further noted, however, that if MVRs do dry up entirely, there do exist suitable if not as desirable substitutes, including NMVRs (Nonhuman Mobile Vagina Resources) and if necessary SIVR(D)s and PIVR(D)s (Silicon and Plastic Immobile Vagina Resources (Detachable) respectively).”

The United States Congress also passes categorical exemptions for both MVRs and FUMVRs as deemed necessary by the Department of Defense, stating that an army fights on and for its MVRs, and that the (probably illegal and certainly immoral) withholding of these MVRs saps a nation's will to fight and constitutes high treason. This exemption is challenged in court, with the United States Supreme Court upholding the
exemption by a vote of 11 to 0 (with Clarence Thomas voting three times), citing, then overturning the previous case of
Lysistrata v. Athens.

Members of knitting circles ignore the USDA, DOI, DOD, the Congress, and the Supremes.

They know what's good for them.

Glenn Beck speaks out against the knitting circles. “I want you to listen carefully, because I'm going to expose some dangerous misconceptions,” he says. “Rapes,” here he pauses, stares into space. “Rapes do not happen, and when they do happen it is only because women want them to. It's so simple it's complicated, and to help make the complicated simple I'll draw a picture.”