Given sufficient passage of time, any cultural compost will, it seems, eventually take on a patina of fond remembrance; but Joey Steel, in his April 2012 Blood Video write-up “Bio-Terror and the VHS Freedom Fighters: How VHS Tapes Stop Disease, Fight Terrorists, and Show What Real Terror on Tape Looks Like”, may be going a bit too far. Steel’s tone is, of course, largely sarcastic; but the idea of a hipster collector subculture sprouting up around boring Bush-era propaganda videos is almost too much to bear. Here is what Steel has to say for himself:
When terrorists attack, how will America defend itself? What cutting edge technologies will the US and its legion of limitless resource turn to [in order to] rid the world of the freedom hating masses? As per all things, the only real answer to these questions can be given by the dedicated, and often lonely, VHS hunters.
Look, we all know that terrorists are technophiles. They have become obsessed with fickle fads [such] as the internet and computer systems, or such foolish ventures like high speed encrypted communication and genetically engineered bio-weapons. The USA does not follow flash in the pan fads. It holds steadfast to the classics. It knows not to give up a good thing when it has one. Like ignorant racial prejudice and religious intolerance the US is not gonna move forward without a fight.
In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, the US state was in a panic to unify and prepare its forces for battle against the world wide jihad conspiracy. In its infinite wisdom that the internet was not secure, and worked far too slow to update its people with blitzkrieg speed, the US government issued VHS tapes on how to deal with BIOTERRORISM!
I picked up these two tapes a few months ago, CDC RESPONDS: BIOTERRORISM AND THE HEALTHCARE EPIDEMIOLOGY / INFECTION CONTROL TEAM made November 16th, 2001 and CDC RESPONDS: RISK COMMUNICATION AND BIOTERRORISM made December 6th, 2001. They are both from the US Department of Health and Human Services / CDC / Public Health Service. They are totally legit, and throughout the tapes drop little post 9/11 reminders of how soon these were made following that attack.
These two tapes are more than just collectables. They are shrines to America. They are gems of the battle for justice and freedom … well not justice really, or freedom, but fuck the terrorists. These are gems from the battle to fuck terrorists. Hell yeah, America.
It is a well known fact that over 99% of all terrorists are strict DVD users. It is well known that when you want to battle fast moving diseases released by smoothly operating terror cells communication is the key. And the key to that key is VHS.
Sure, they are insanely boring, hugely and horribly painful to watch, but I watched them as part of my civic duty. We watch bad movies all the time. Watching bad shit is part of our job. If it was easy to watch this crap, everyone would do this. This is not your everyday crap, no. These tapes are so much more. They are monuments to the impending doom of this great dinosaur we call the USA.
Let’s drop the laughable pretext here, people. No more funny stuff. These tapes are a painful reminder at [i.e., of] the dusty and outdated system we have. Sure the tapes are stylish, and hilarious. But beyond the sweet sleek style of the tape, and the silly glowing blue background of the banal […] set design. These tapes were actually produced with money, and were long as hell. THEN they were sent around with 1-800 numbers and talked about how people can prepare to better communicate about bioterrorism. I can’t make this shit up!
What a shocking and horrific joke that the ass-heads who run this gluttonous pig would actually make these videos in the year 2001. That tapes that are touting the most efficient and streamlined ways to communicate are educating their teams that small mailed VHS tapes and 1-800 numbers would be effective ways to contain bioterrorists.
These terror tapes are more than just obscure collectables of hard to find tapes; they are dark foreshadows of America’s ugly death at the hand of some luddite terrorist who was still more tech savvy than those pure bred retards who put this defense strategy together. Cash in your chips, and lock up your tapes, when the wall comes tumbling down VHS is going to be worth more than gold, and you are not going to want the bio-weapons messing up your ribbons.
We can all rest easy tonight knowing that on the front line of defeating these haters of freedom is the US State Department and their VHS recorders. Sleep tight, terror fiends. And remember the real horrors will always be on VHS.
Regular readers of this blog know that I watch a lot of horrible movies, but even I could probably never muster the fortitude and attention span exceptionalism to sit through boredom-threat-level-red crap like this!
icareviews 